Dictionary.com App Review

The Dictionary.com app, is a free app for smartphones.  Some of the features include: a search button that lets you type or say the word you are searching for, the definition of the word, examples of sentences, and a connection to the thesaurus for each word.  Anyone can use this app to look up words, search their meanings, see synonyms, and find examples.  For students, this is a key app for them to have when studying words, reading, writing, etc...  This app seems to be used in many schools and classrooms.  We all use a dictionary, so to have this app at your fingertips, and without the need to carry around a bulky book, this is a great app for classrooms. 

One feature that would be nice in a school setting, is to have it set on grade appropriate levels, and have the 'daily word' be a word that that grade can research and review.  This could be a great tool to use during writing and reading time.  They could pair up and search words to rewrite stories, make their own stories up, or find other meanings to that weeks vocabulary.

How I would use this is future classes, is after students have read a story, have them look up 'hard to understand' words.  I would then have them add those words to a word page that they could keep in a personal folder.  Maybe even for an 'exit ticket', I would have them look up a synonym for vocabulary word that day.