Wordnik

I believe wordnik.com can be used in an educational context, enabling users to discover the meaning of words and phrases of their choice. Additionally a list of blogs will be provided so users can put the word of their choice into context. I did an example of this as I searched tree.

Wordnik supplied a variety of definitions together with a list of blog posts relating to tree. Below the definitions the website provided Etymologies which indicates the origin of the selected word. The lists of blogs have been taken from major news articles in America such as Wall street journal and USA today. These provide reliable and useful examples and are ranked in usefulness to the reader. Overall I believe that this web 2 applications can be used in an educational context as it provides more useful information than a thesaurus or dictionary.You can use the related blog list to help research in relation to a particular word that has been searched. Additionally, along the top of the right hand side every word search provides a list like this:

If the user clicks on relate, an endless list of synonyms to hyponyms, rhyming words etc. can be provided. I believe that this aspect helps in an educational context as synonyms and hyponyms can expand the users vocabulary range and support a more advanced progression in education.

Overall the website was easy to navigate and use. By clicking on ‘About Wordnik’ at the bottom of the page the user can understand the use of synonyms, hyponyms and further information provided in order to ensure the context of the word is used correctly.