Blog

Updated Login System

8/16/2017

We just upgraded Whizzimo's login system. This will enable faster logins, but it will also require you to reset your password.

To reset your password, please go to Whizzimo's login page and follow these steps:

If you do not see the new login screen when going to Whizzimo's login screen, you may need to reset your browser's cache. Here's an article showing how to reset the cache.

4-6 Whizzimo Updates

4/6/2017

We've made a lot of changes to Whizzimo over the last few weeks. Enjoy!

The Changes

The Workbook Tiles feature where words are automatically built is now out of testing and is ready for use.
Activities now use arrows to move the previous/next content instead of swiping.
We've redesigned the layout of the PDF activity so that the menu icons do not get in the way of the PDFs.
1,000 more real and nonsense words are in the database.
A bug where a few buttons don't work in the iPad app has been fixed.
Users can now add sentences and files to a workbook without having to save the workbook first.

2-1-2017 Whizzimo Updates

2/1/2017

The Changes...

You can now quickly switch between Lesson Plans and Lesson Plan Steps when using our Lesson Plan functionality.
We've added lots of new prefix, suffix, and roots tiles to the Tile Drawer. Check them out and let us know if there are any other tiles that you'd like for us to add.
The Blackboard now has an additional 10 columns and 5 rows to accommodate users who are using lots of affix tiles.

Here's a video update of the changes.

Discount to Learning Ally's Spotlight on Dyslexia Conference on December 2nd for Whizzimo Members!

11/22/2016

Whizzimo users can receive 50% off the registration cost of Learning Ally's Spotlight on Dyslexia conference on December 2nd. Whizzimo has exhibited at this virtual conference for several years, and we've always had a great experience. Here's some information about the conference:

Discover practical educational strategies to support students with learning disabilities and connect with educators nationwide from the convenience of your home or school. Plus, access more than 20 speaker sessions, resources and presentations on demand for 60 days (with a full year option)! You’re welcome to attend Live as well on December 2. Hear from keynote speaker Dean Bragonier on why he's excited for you to join us! Listen to our Educational Keynote – Louisa Moats – on why spelling is still important in the 21st Century. REGISTER NOW.

To learn about school group pricing options and purchase orders, contact SpotlightDyslexia@LearningAlly.org or call 609.243.5855.

And don't forget to use the code SPOD16Friend for 50% off.

11/14 Whizzimo Updates

11/14/2016

We're excited to announce our most recent updates...

The Larger Changes

We've updated the Workbook Tiles activity! Now the words in the workbook are built for you automatically. Also, you can add and remove tiles within the activity. These features are still in testing mode, but we decided to release them to get feedback from you.
We've added a new category, roots, to the tile drawer. We've also added a few additional tiles to other, pre-existing, categories.

The Rest...

When you search for specific words, the words now appear in the order in which you searched.
The number of syllables that you can search for has been raised to 9.

9/5 Whizzimo Updates

9/5/2016

We're excited to announce our most recent updates. Here's a video update of the most important changes.

The Changes

Automated password resets. No more having to email us for a new password!
Google Chrome is now our only officially supported browser.
Prefixes, suffixes, blank tiles, and symbols can now be added to individual workbooks.
Letter tiles in the Flashcards Activity can now be moved horizontally.
Move between words in the Flashcard activity using the arrows on each side of the screen.
Long words now fit on one row in the flashcards activity.

6/7 Whizzimo Updates

6/7/2016

We're excited to announce our most recent updates. The larger changes are listed below, followed by the smaller updates. And here's a video update of the most important changes.

The Larger Changes

Moved the Lesson Plans tab to under the Course Workbooks header.
Moved the Course tab to the sidebar where courses are switched.
Moved the Whizzimo Collection (our set of default workbooks) to the tab called 'Add a Workbook'.
Added a new popup window that allows users to easily add specific words.

The Rest...

Workbooks and Courses over the limit are now deactivated.
Workbook switching is enabled in the Blackboard activity.
Lesson Plans are now linked to courses.
Added some new letter tiles like 'olk', 'olt', and a bunch of prefixes.
New workbooks without names are now called 'Untitled'.
Hitting the trashcan in the Wordcards activity resets the wordcards.
Lowered the font on the Workbook titles.
Added a warning message when a workbook that is about to be deleted is a part of a lesson plan.
Squashed a bug where the letter tiles sometimes don't appear in the Spelling activity.
Squashed a bug where users' names sometimes had strange capitalization.
Squashed a bug with the transparency screen on the Flashcards activity.

4/18 Whizzimo Updates

4/19/2016

We've been hard at work incorporating user feedback. Here are the latest updates that we released on 4/18:

Pdfs, sentences, sentence parts, and passages can now be shared between users when workbooks are shared.
Users can now search their own libraries for specific workbooks based on the workbooks' titles.

4/4 Whizzimo Updates

4/4/2016

We quietly released these features today, and we'll announce them in our next batch up updates.

The maximum number of words in an activity has been raised to 50.
In the flashcard view, one syllable words do not show the syllable view and multisyllabic words no longer show the onset/rime view.
Users can now search the Whizzimo Collection for specific concepts based on the workbooks' titles.

3/20 Whizzimo Updates

3/21/2016

To help you save even more time, we've added the following functionality to Whizzimo:

Courses, Lesson Plans, and Lesson Plan steps can now be copied and reordered. This includes the ability to save Lesson Plans for reuse as templates.
Lesson Plan steps can be renamed.
For Demo users
- The time limit has been removed from the Blackboard.
- The upgrade screen for all other available activities has been raised to 5 minutes.

Happy Teaching!

Sarah's First Grade Snippets + Whizzimo

2/16/2016

We are proud to announce that we are now official partners with Sarah's First Grade Snippets. Sarah Paul is a reading teacher who loves creating and finding engaging activities to get students excited about learning. We highly recommend subscribing to her blog, Sarah's First Grade Snippets, where she shares helpful tips and materials.

Happy Teaching!

The Literacy Nest and Whizzimo Partnership!

2/1/2016

We're very excited to announce that we have become official partners of The Literacy Nest!

One of our goals in 2016 is to start partnering with, and recommending, other folks who are doing work that we admire. We have been doing this informally for years, but now we're just formalizing the process.

The thing we like the most about The Literacy Nest is that Emily Gibbons (the site's founder) has put in lots of hours creating useful materials, including controlled passages, which we know can take hours and days to create.

Please visit Emily's TeachersPayTeachers site and her blog to find useful materials.

Happy Teaching!

January 2016 Whizzimo Updates – Part 2

1/13/2016

Here’s another video update with more details about our recent updates. This video covers smaller tweaks to the program like the new typing tool and the ability to use prefixes and suffixes in the spelling activity.

Happy Teaching!

January 2016 Whizzimo Updates – Part 1

1/11/2016

We just released some exciting new functionality for you, including:

Nonsense Words – We’ve added over 70,000 nonsense words to the Whizzimo Database.
Sentence, Passage, and .Pdf activities – 3 new activities designed to save you even more time.
Workbook Tiles – You now have a separate, automatically generated workbook for every single workbook in your library.

We recorded a quick overview of the updates.

Happy Teaching!

New Search Options for Controlled Wordlists

12/29/2015

Great news!

The best wordlist builder just got better with the addition of the following 5 new types of searches:

Grapheme Searches
Morphology Searches
Phoneme Searches
Syllabication Searches
“Quick” Searches

Grapheme Searches – Search for specific graphemes based on their location in the words. There are four filters of this type:

First Grapheme
Last Grapheme
Any Grapheme
Does Not Contain Grapheme

Morphology Searches – Search for specific prefixes and suffixes in words: There are two filters of this type:

Prefixes
Suffixes

Phoneme Searches – Identify the number of sounds that you’d like to have in each word. This is useful because some words have more letters than sounds. For example, the word ‘time’ has 4 letters from only 3 sounds. There is one filter of this type:

Number of Sounds

Syllabication Searches – Find words based on specific syllable division rules. This search is especially powerful because finding controlled wordlists based on syllabication can be very time consuming. There is one filter of this type:

Syllable Division

Quick Searches – Include or Exclude Words based on specific broad categories. For example, you can decide that a wordlist needs to include or exclude words with digraphs. There are two filters of this type:

Quick Exclude
Quick Include

Happy Teaching!