Building Vocabulary with Technology at Home

There is a lot more to learning new vocabulary words than just memorizing definitions. Using vocabulary in context is the single most effective way to identify if one truly understands the meaning of the word. Here is a list of some ways you can get your learners to use technology in creative and meaningful ways that will help develop and enhance their lexicon.

Adobe Spark Video – Use the free app, Adobe Spark Video, or web tool Adobe Spark (login required) to create mini movies of vocabulary words used in context and their definitions. Learners can add as many words/slides as they would like to make a video.

Texting Story App – Use the Texting Story iPad app to create a texting conversation using vocabulary words and emojis. Give your learner specific words that they must use in their conversation. It is not as easy as it sounds!

Gone Google Story Builder – Gone Google Story Builder is similar to Texting Story; however, learners use this website to create an interaction on a Google Doc.

Create a Music Video – Create a music video using the Ditty app (iTunes and Android). Learners can use still images or take video footage of their vocabulary word in action. They type a single sentence, choose a song, upload a picture, video, gif, record a video or select a plain background and the app turns everything into a musical creation. It is so much fun!

Make Comic Strips – Learners will have fun creating a comic strip while weaving in vocabulary words. The Book Creator iPad app (which is coming to the web soon!) makes this very easy to do with the comic layouts. For those families with Chromebooks who can only use free web tools that do not require a login, check out Make Believe Comics (also an iPad app). It might work well to give your learner a little bit of time upfront to explore all of the different backgrounds and characters before diving into the comic creation.

Vocabulary Posters – The FREE web tool Addtext.com also comes as a FREE app for both Apple and Android. Learners should find a copyright free image using Photos for Class or Pixabay that would match a sentence they write using their vocabulary term. This will create a nice digital poster that they could print or upload to a Padlet wall.

Use Google Drive or PicCollage to Make Vocabulary Come ALIVE – Have learners decorate their vocabulary words in Google drawing and upload to a Google slides presentation to add sentences. iPad users could use the free app PicCollage to make their vocabulary words come alive using the new drawing tool in the main menu.

Try incorporating these into your learner’s academic activities and you will see how easy and fun they can be!