Visuwords

Visuwords is a free, online, graphical dictionary and thesaurus that caters to visual learners (and I would argue kinesthetic learners to an extent).  Users input a word into the search box and Visuwords finds the meaning, synonyms, and related words.  According to their website, Visuwords “uses Princeton University’s WordNet, an opensource database built by University students and language researchers.”

Once started, it looks like a huge word web.   Each circle is called a node, which are color-coded according to part of speech.  Each node is connected with a color-coded connection, indicating the kind of relationship the words have.  Some examples of relationships illustrated are: “is similar to,” “opposes,” “is a part of,” and “is a member of.”  

This web is interactive as the user can zoom in and out and move things around.  Users can hover over nodes and get definitions and ways to use the word in a sentence.  If you double-click on a node, the web can expand even further.   

Coming Soon: Ways to use Visuwords in the classroom