Cool Tools for Teaching Vocabulary


A very nice multi-lingual visual dictionary that creates a word web and defines words based on parts of speech. Use the toolbar bookmarklet for convenience.


An amazing tool that turns all the words in any website or digital text into a clickable dictionary and translates text into 12 different languages.


A visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images, and more.


Snappy Words
An online interactive English dictionary and thesaurus that helps you find the meanings of words and draw connections to associated words. 




The Visual Dictionary
This tool uses photographs of words in the real world to visually explore them.

A very popular site for vocabulary games.


Copy and paste text into the box and this tool generates a word cloud to identify the key vocabulary. Sort words by content area.

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Place text into a box and then press sift to create a word cloud in which most frequently used words appear larger in size.


A tool that uses video to make personal connections for users. The school account keeps it safe for students and allows students to create their own video definitions and schools to build their own  dictionaries.


Use this word cloud generator to identify key vocabulary in digital text. Try copying and pasting more than one related article into Wordle to get the big picture.




info_onweb.jpgTag Galaxy
This tool creates a 3D orbiting galaxy of words and their associations  Click on any word to move it to the center of the galaxy, then click again and watch the globe populate with images from Flicker. This is a must see.

2 thoughts on “Cool Tools for Teaching Vocabulary

  1. Anonymous

    absolutely brilliant. the best summary of motivating vocabulary websites I have ever come across. Most of these were new to me. THANK YOU. You are an inspiration.

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