Ping-O-Matic

I just read one of the better written posts that I have in awhile, it reminds me why I like blogging. I got permission to quote it in its entirety below, it's about the Ping-O-Matic.

What a name! Since I first heard the word, almost five years ago, I’ve been a little in love with it.  

Ping-O-Matic

The Ping-O-Matic service.  Or it a Ping-O-Matic website? Or is it just the Ping-O-Matic? The name reeks of Jetson-like futuristic automation.  And check out their logo, not so amazing but still pretty cool! 

Despite my adulation of their name, I do have some questions about their service.  Does it do anything?  Specifically, lets say that I had set up a blog on Blogger or WordPress.  In fact, I have. This one for instance.  There is a setting somewhere (which I can’t seem to find today) as to whether I want the site to be listed in the search engines. I think the question use to be:

“Automatically update search engines with no posts?  Yes / No”

Does the Ping-O-Matic do anything more than the automated notifying of search engines than the big blog platforms do?  I’m open to answers in the comments.

And I have a second question, does the Ping-O-Matic do anything useful for forum posts or even for websites?  And, in hopes of getting an actual answer from the Ping-O-Matic people (or androids or bots or whatever species would build and manage a Ping-O-Matic), I’ll link to one of their posts here hoping that the magic of link backs will get their attention.

Sports Idioms

Sports Expressions or Idioms

I just got interested in doing more with this blog as a way of reviving my interest in the language.  So I joined a forum and started to respond to a post.  There was a question by someone about the word "playbook."

I googled around and found on vocabularyspellingcity a list of words for sports idioms.

Other terms on that list:  curveball, homerun, grand slam, first base, at bat, and last inning.  I tried to post a link to the list onto the forum but ran into a forum rule that doesn't let new members post links. I guess that makes sense but it does annoy me that I was trying to be helpful, chased down a list with sports expressions used in sentences and then couldn't actually provide it to them in a useful fashion.  I did find several other resources on figurative language which I've not played with for awhile:

Language arts lesson on figurative language. SpellingCity.com
Idioms or Slang Games. Vocabulary.co.il
Idioms Kids Games. LearningGamesforKids.com
Sports Idioms Site.
Jean Henry's blog on sports idioms including a post on Breasts and Curveballs!

BTW - I just found out that forum banned me for including references to just two of these resources on sports idioms.  So much for community....

Single Sign On

Is "single sign on" becoming an English vocabulary term? What does it mean?  I think of a single sign on "SSO" to be a system where a single username and password can be used across a range of different facilities. For instance, Google and Wordpress and Twitter are use the OpenID credentials so that with the same identity, you can login to any site that accepts those credentials.

The seamless feature of single sign-on in this integration is an enormous step in making technology and programs like VocabularySpellingCity more accessible and practical in students' everyday learning.

Studying Words Lists with Technology

Teachers use word lists in many ways. They're used to:

•  to introduce a content area and evoke prior knowledge
•  review content,
• to teach phonics rule with a list organized around a phonics rules such sight, bright, and light.
• to highlight some spelling rules to pay attention to (ie multiple ways of writing the same sound):  bright, bite, fight, height etc
• to teach suffixes, prefixes, and word roots. For example: telephone, homophone, microphone

In almost every subject, word lists are an effective tool.  Does your classroom or school have a standard technology or method of dealing with word lists? Should you?

VocabularySpellingCity allows teachers and parents to set up a free homepage to store as many word lists as they want for their students.  There are 10 free learning games to use with any list (ie a spelling test, HangMan,  word unscramble, wordsearch, hangman,  alphabetical order practice,).  Premium Members ($2 per student per year or less) have  another 16 different learning games and objects to use covering writing activities (write a sentence showing you understand the use of each word), word definitions, the use of words in context, plus all your favorite games (using your own lists)  such as crossword puzzle, Letterfall, and Speedy Speller.

There are also teaching resources with lessons and activities, all correlated to educational standards, on topics such as:

Language Arts Lessons

• Analogies
• Antonyms
• Capitonyms
• Compound Words
• Contractions
• Figurative Language
• Homophones & Homonyms
• Parts of Speech
• Plural Nouns
• Possessive Nouns
• Syllables
• Synonyms
• Verb Tenses

HSMP!

OMG, HSMP or KMN!

Translation: Oh my gawd, homeschool me please or just kill me now!
Better translation.  This class is really really boring, there has to be a better way to learn!

The question that I want to ask is about the evolution of the English language.  In the last decade or do, emoticons,  text acronyms, and Spanglish have infiltrated the English language.

Do you think these are an exciting step forward in the evolution of the English language?
Do you not believe in evolution and that the English language was created and should never be changed:?
Do you think these are just fads that will be gone in a few years?

Word Roots and Morphology

To understand English, you need to understand how it was put together. I don't know much about it. Here's what I know. It originated as an Anglo-Saxon language with simple words like pig, cow, house, and farm.  Then the French conquered England in 1066 and they brought in noble fancy words for the same thing. So the meat of pig is porc. The meat of a cow is beef (from the French boeuf).  A house is mansion (if it's nice). And a fancy farm is a plantation.

Cool Free Online Flash Cards

I've been looking for a free online flashcard maker for vocabulary and spelling words and I've found it! Eureka.  A great tool that can be used for either online or printable flashcards.  It's on VocabularySpellingCity.com.

I like that it comes with a vocabulary of over 50K words and can be used online, has audio, and can be printed.

And I quote:

Click on each flashcard or tap the spacebar to view the reverse side of the card. To customize your flashcards, click on the Customize link at the bottom of the card.


 Choose which information (word, definition, sentence, part of speech, synonyms, or antonyms) you wish to display on the front side of the flashcards, and which information you wish to display on the flip side. Flashcards can be shown in alphabetical order, the order in which you entered the words, or in random order. 


You can also print the flashcards in a variety of sizes by clicking on the print link at the bottom of the flashcards.