Using Whizzy Things
The Magnet whizzy thing can be used to good effect in helping students get back to the text and look at it closely.
Possibilities:
1. Paste your text into Magnet and ask students to help you assemble it in the right order. Probably best to do this a line or two at a time!
2. Use Find and Replace in Word to create Magnet word tiles with blanks on the back. Then you can flip them over to create a hidden text. Just a double click flips the tile to show the word. This takes some preparation.
Let’s take a verse from a ballad:
As she walked past the jailhouse door,
She spied a man with head hung low,
And all because of bolts and bars,
His homeland he would never know.
Use Find and Replace thus:
Type a space in the ‘Find what:’ area.
In the ‘Replace with:’ area, type a vertical line (usually on or near the / or \ keys) followed by a good number of spaces, say ten.
Click ‘Replace All’
Your verse should look like this:
As| she| walked| past| the| jailhouse| door,
She| spied| a| man| with| head| hung| low,
And| all| because| of| bolts| and| bars,
His| homeland| he| would| never| know.
Now we have to deal with punctuation marks.
Use Find and replace again, but this time type a comma in the ‘Find What:’ area and leave the upright line and spaces as they were in the ‘Replace with:’ area.
As| she| walked| past| the| jailhouse| door|
She| spied| a| man| with| head| hung| low|
And| all| because| of| bolts| and| bars|
His| homeland| he| would| never| know.
Do the same with the full stop (or any other punctuation).
If the line ends without punctuation, you’ll need to do a final sweep by typing ^p in the ‘Find what:’ area.
Save your text somewhere safe.
Now you can copy and paste it into Magnet at any time. Select ‘Small’ and ‘Tile’ and click on Create Tiles
You’ll see I forgot to Replace the full stop, so that ‘know’ doesn’t have a shadow. That meas it isn’t flippable. I’ll remember next time. Double click on each tile to hide the word:
Finally, you’re ready to show your students! Double click on any tile to flip it.
And, of course, they still work as magnets.
© Teachit 2008