Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

I’m “borrowing” a great idea from Alice Mercer and Tom Turner (both have blogs definitely worth reading regularly).  Periodically they highlight posts from blogs they’ve read in recent days.  I, too, am going to give this a try…..

I’d like to point out two blogs/posts this week.

The Teacher In Development blog has a great post about brain-based research and how it relates to teaching ESL.  This is a topic that I’ve recently become interested in, and have been surprised at how little I’ve been able to find written about it.    I happen to be in the midst of reading three books about brain-based research and learning in general — How People Learn, Brain-Based Learning, and Making Connections.  I’ve also been impressed by the work of Janet Zadina.

Charles Nelson has a very thoughtful blog on writing and learning.   I’ve particularly appreciated his posts on error feedback – if, when, and how to correct students’ writing.

I’ll be teaching two World History classes to English Language Learners next year, so I’m keeping my eyes open for online sites that I can use.  One thing I’ve done is make a World History page.

I’ve also found two sites that allow students to create their own stories and make versions of the famous Bayeux Tapestry, which tells the story of the Battle of Hastings in Great Britain.  Both links allow students to tell their stories in text and pictures, which can then be accessed online.

One is the Historic Tale Reconstruction Kit and the other is the Bayeux Tapestry Interactive.  You can find both on my Examples of Student Work page under Student Historic Tales.

Both of these activities can also be used effectively by English Language Learners even if you’re not teaching World History.   The Historic Tale Reconstruction Kit in particular would be easy to use by English Language Learners to tell any kind of story they want.

Who Am I? is a fun game from Kids Planet where the sound of an animal plays and you have to guess (from a drop-down menu) the name of the animal making the sound.

I’ve placed it on my English Themes For Beginners/Early Intermediate page near the bottom of the Animals section.

CastleXplorer is a site that shows a map of the United Kingdom with a ton of icons you can click to see existing castles and get short descriptions.   Some are not much to look at — just a few ruins — but others are completely restored castles.

The text is for Intermediate English Language Learners, but just  looking at the pictures would help anyone get a better sense of the Middle Ages.  Using the site would be a great opportunity for students to complete a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting some of the castles, too.

I’ve placed the link, which I’ve entitled “Find a Castle,” at the bottom of the Middle Ages section of the World History page.

As regular readers of this blog know, our school has a special program where immigrant families are provided a computer and home DSL service to help them learn English.  You can read more about this in the Techlearning article Family Literacy, Computers and ESL.

A small number of our families, though, live in areas where DSL service is not available.  In those cases we provide software for the families to use.  I thought it might be helpful for me to share which software we provide.  We purchase it through Alta ESL, a great source of ESL materials, so the links will take you to software pages in their online catalogue.  Each page gives more information about the specific software program.  By the way, you can also find the link to Alta on my Teacher’s Page under ESL Books and Materials.

We use:

Live Action English

Oxford Picture Dictionary Interactive

Side By Side Interactive

Mega Series

We involved the families in the decision-making process leading to the purchases.  As far as costs go, we figured-out how much we would ordinarily spend on a one-year DSL subscription, and then spent that amount for software.

I have links to literally thousands of E-Cards on my Examples of Student Work page under Student E-Cards.  English Language Learners can send these E-Cards to their teacher, who can then post them on a class website, or students can post them on their online journals or blogs.

Of course, E-Cards are not particularly difficult to find on the Web.   However, many of them “expire” a  short time after they have been viewed.  I’ve tried to only place links to sites that will host the E-Cards either indefinitely or, at least, for a very long time. 

There are E-Cards for about every occassion and every theme one would teach in an ESL class, along with history and science classes.

Some have audio, all have pictures, some allow you to send virtual flowers.  You can draw one, or send one with music.  Send one with a picture from just about every American historical era.  The choices, while not exactly limitless, are pretty darn big.

I’ve put a new link at the bottom of the Favorite Sites section of my English Themes For Beginners and Early Intermediate page.  It’s Online Talking Stories from Woodlands Junior School (who, by the way, have lots of other interactive educational activities on their site).

I already have all the stories shown on their site listed individually and scattered throughout the Stories section on the English For Beginners page.  However, since they have so many of them displayed attractively on their page, I thought it would be worth posting separately.

Several travel-planning websites have cropped up recently, where you can look at itineraries other people have developed and also easily develop your own from scratch.   I’ve found them helpful to me on my personal travels. They are also great learning opportunities for English Language Learners to develop knowledge about reading, writing, and geography.  Student can use these sites to develop their own travel itineraries (real or imagined) and allow others to see their plans on the web.

TripWiser and TripTie are two easily navigable sites to make these types of travel plans.  Yahoo! Travel is another one.

I’ve put links to these sites on my Examples of Student Work page under Student Trips.

Edublogs, the host for this blog, was down for a good portion of the weekend.  My blog was not accessible for a good portion of Saturday and Sunday.

But it’s back up now.  Despite this snafu, I would strongly recommend Edublogs to anyone who is considering starting their own blog.   It’s easy, free,  and you can’t beat the personal customer service

Secret Phonics is a new game I’ve placed on my English For Beginners page under Phonics.  It’s from Little Fingers Software, and you can play the game online.

In this game you’re shown several objects.  You have to write the first letter of each object which, combined, create a “secret” word.

Mid-to-high beginner English Language Learners should enjoy playing this game.

I wrote a post earlier this month — Jump Knowledge – about an online application that allows you to “write” on webpages, and then share what you have written with others.  I spoke about having my students use that to identify their favorite links on my website.

I’ve recently learned about another similar application called Fleck.

There doesn’t appear to be much difference between the two, but Fleck might be a tiny bit easier to use.

You can find both of these applications, as well as other more typical Bookmark programs, on my Examples of Student Work page under Student Bookmarks.

Flipbooks are cool little books that English Language Learners (and others, of course!) can make and post on the Internet.  One of the twists on it is that the pages “flip” and don’t just “turn” (you’ll see what I mean).

Another excellent benefit is that Flip has a lot of media and tools on their site that students can use.  So students can make a book even without having photos to upload.

I’ve place the link on my Examples of Student Work page under (what else?) Student Flipbooks.

My English Language Learner students are doing projects on the role of women in various reform movements in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries.   To help them out a little bit I’ve placed several new links on my website  containing accessible biographies of famous women.

You can find them near the bottom of the section entitled The United States Becomes A Modern Nation on my Geography and United States History page.

An Australian company has developed a very good science activity called Frog Pond Habitat. It’s probably appropriate only for high Intermediate or Advanced English Language Learners.  It’s a scaffolded activity that teaches students the methods of scientific investigation and how to write up their results.

I’ve placed it on the Science page of my website, right above the “Planets and Space” section.

Pimpampun creates many activities that can be used with Flickr photos.  I have several of them on my site because they’re great for English Language Learners.

Today, I’d like to highlight Phrasr.  In this application, students write a sentence, and Phraser will come up with pictures connected to each of the words in the sentence.  Students can change the pictures if they want.

Then, their picture sentences can be emailed to a teacher who can post the url on a website.  Or the student can paste the url on their blog or online journal.

I’ve placed Phrasr on the Examples of Student Work page under Student Picture Sentences.

I was a community organizer for nineteen years prior to becoming a classroom teacher and use the skills I learned as an organizer in my classroom.  I think I’m also able to help my English Language Learner students respond to neighborhood problems that affect their families.

I was pleasantly surprised (if not shocked) to find an online resource that shares a lot of community organizing insights in a way that’s accessible to English Language Learners.  The Community Organizing Toolkit, which was developed in part by the Center For Third World Organizing, is an online comic book with text and audio support.

Unfortunately, it focuses on “door-knocking,” which is the tactic of going door-to-door to talk to residents about community problems.  I believe this is about the least effective way to do organizing that there is — but this blog is not about organizing strategies.

Even with this major flaw, the site will help English Language Learners understand more about participating in our society as an active citizen, especially if it’s offered as part of a larger study on citizenship.

I’ve placed the link on my English Themes For Beginners Early Intermediate near the bottom of the substantial Citizenship section.

Each month I send out an email newsletter highlighting what I think are the “Top Ten” websites for each month.

The ten I’ve decided on for this month are (not in any order):

Make a Slideshow Online

Making Faces

Create Video Quizzes

Temporary Student Email Addresses

Make a Virtual “You” (three websites are highlighted in this post)

Profile America

Free E-Mail Newsletters on Education

FOSSweb Online Science

I recently put links to two pretty neat online games that would definitely function as English language development  opportunities.  In both of these games, the player is a detective who has to solve a crime.  The player has to determine each move of the detective, and all the dialogue is both text and audio.

They are both made by Pinhead Games.  One is called A Case of the Crabs and the other The Goat in the Grey Fedora (strange names but fun games).

The links are at the bottom of the Word Games section of my English For Intermediate/Advanced page.

Just after I wrote about Pinhead Games’ two online detective games (see the above post) I discovered that they have another similar one called Brain Hotel.

In this one, a deliveryman solves strange goings-on at a hotel convention.  Again, as in the other two detective games, it sounds weird but does offer the same kind of English language learning opportunities.

I’ve posted it with the other two under Word Games on my English For Intermediate and Advanced.

(I’m publishing this post again because I included an incorrect link to Mixercast in the original version.  Sorry) 

There are a ton of free online applications you can use to make slideshows.  You can find links to many of them on my Examples of Student Work page under…….Student Slideshows.

In order for such an application to work easily for my English Language Learner students and for me, I think that such a slideshow-maker has to meet three criteria:

1) The interface is relatively simple to understand.

2) It’s easy to use pictures from other Internet sources so we don’t have to deal with uploading photos from school computers.

3) Students have a place to write about the slideshow itself in the presentation.

Unless I’m missing something, which may very well be the case, I have only been able to find one slideshow maker that meets all three criteria –MixerCast  I’d encourage you to check it out.  Registration is quick and free.  It’s one of the links in the Student Slideshow section.

While you’re at it, though, it’s also worth checking-out the other Student Slideshow links I have in that section.  They’re all good, not just as accessible to English Languages as Mixercast.