Technology for Vocabulary Comprehension

Aside from content, literacy is extremely important to succeeding in social studies. All of the components of literacy are present in the social studies classroom, but I would argue that vocabulary comprehension is the most important to fulling understand the concepts, themes, and events in history. A poor vocabulary can dictate a students achievement, as well as their reading comprehension and fluency. While vocabulary comes naturally to some students, others struggle. Once they fall behind with their vocabulary it can be hard to succeed in the classroom. Fortunately, there are many resources that can help students with their vocabulary.

One online technology that can supplement students vocabulary comprehension is quizlet. Quizlet is an online flashcard resource that is available for free. Students and teachers can create sets of flashcards with vocabulary words. Once a deck is created, it can be shared and expanded so that everyone in the class can access it. The deck can be accessed from the internet and from the quizlet app, which is available for most devices. Working with the words on the go can increase the amount of exposure students have with them.

Another technology that can help students vocabulary is wallwisher. Wallwisher is an online word wall that can be created, edited, and added to by students and teachers. It can be embedded onto a webpage or blog, which makes it interactive across different medias. The wall used sticky notes to add text, and then can be added to the digital wall. I really like the idea of word walls in the classroom because it exposes the students to the words while learning, but once students go home, they don't have the same sort of access to it. With wallwisher, students can have access to the word wall at home.

The last piece of technology that I'm going to write about, Free Rice, is a little different than the previous two technologies. Free Rice is basically a vocabulary quiz resource that quizzes students on English vocabulary. For every correct answer, Free Rice will donate a small amount of rice to developing countries. While quizlet and wallwisher can be customized for specific lessons and topics, Free Rice does not have that option. There are a handful of subjects that can be chosen, but not all of them are vocabulary. For example, the geography section has flag identification, landmarks, capitals, and countries on a map. While this does not include history specific words, I think this would be a fun, philanthropic way to engage students with a variety of vocabulary words.