Visuwords Revisited

Each year I get dozens of referrals to educational websites from co-workers, colleagues, magazines and newsletters. Time constraints and site usefulness often result in a visit or two, and then the site is forgotten. However, one site that I seem to return to time and time again is Visuwords.

I often use the site as both dictionary and thesaurus and believe it would a great site to use with a SMARTBoard. Visuwords is also very easy to use:

• Enter words into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree.
• Click and drag the background to pan around and use the mouse wheel to zoom.
• Hover over nodes to see the definition and click and drag individual nodes to move them around to help clarify connections.

Developed by university students, Visuwords uses Princeton’s WordNet open source database and is free for everyone.

-Jason Brazier, Literacy Minnesota Technology Administrator

For a demonstration of Visuwords, check out this screen-cast video!