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.

Reflective Process

Why am i here?

I am currently undertaking my first year of university at University of Wales Trinity Saint David. The course i am studying is BA(Hons) Education Studies and i am based in Swansea at the Townhill campus. The question that daunts everyone when studying their first year of university is;

After passing all my GCSEs and completing two years at college and passing all my A levels, i wanted to pursue a career in nursing. By the time i completed my second year in college i realised that i no longer wanted to go ahead with nursing and therefore decided to complete a third year at college and to re apply to university to guide me to become a primary school teacher.

After completing my third and final year of college with the grades i needed to go to university, my initial university decision was Cardiff Metropolitan University to study Education Studies and Early Childhood Studies. After moving to Cardiff and studying in a new setting this soon became unsettling for me. I did not enjoy living away from home as much as i thought i would and this had detrimental affects on my studying. I then transferred to Swansea Metropolitan University and enrolled on the BA (Hons) Education Studies course to carry on with my studies to become a primary school teacher.
This leads me to present day, Meeting with my course leader i have now enrolled onto BA(Hons) Education Studies and am heading in the right direction to follow my career path in Primary School teaching. The course is flexible as the degree opens up many opportunities after university that is not just becoming a teacher.