February 22, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services just announced they are giving free Civics and Citizenship Toolkits to schools and organizations that work with immigrants.
I haven’t actually seen it, but the website give a good overview of the written and multi-media resources it offers. There certainly appears to be some useful materials in it.
Signing-up for it takes less than a minute, and it’s “first come, first serve.”
February 22, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Learning The Language, the not-to-be-missed EdWeek blog on English Language Learners, just ran an interview with our school’s exceptional principal, Ted Appel.
In addition to correcting my error that we got out of Year Four Program Improvement, not Year Five as I had originally posted, Ted talks about how he thinks having a large number of English Language Learners at our school helped our school improve overall.
It’s a short but insightful piece worth reading.
February 22, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve just added a short animated film about Mahatma Gandhi to my World History page under The World In The Twentieth Century.
It’s a little strange because its shown in the outline of a mobile phone, but it’s accessible via the Web. It’s probably most appropriate for high Intermediate and Advanced English Language Learners.
February 21, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
Breathing Earth is an intriguing visual representation of the effect each country has on climate change. You move the cursor to a nation on a world map, and then see the number of CO2 emissions that country makes each minute. It also shows total population, and the birth and death rate of each country.
With guidance, English Language Learners could certainly use this website to make some comparisons between countries and draw conclusions from the data.
I’ve placed the link both on my World History page and my Geography and United States page. It’s with a group of other links related to global warming near the bottom of each page.
February 20, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
5 Comments
I began this blog about a year ago. From what I’ve seen in the education blogosphere, it appears to be customary to mark this occasion with a bunch of numbers — one thousand posts, five hundred comments, nine hundred subscribers, thirty-thousand visitors from 146 countries, 260 blog “reactions” (according to Technorati), and several hundred visitors each day.
My most popular posts have been The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education and The Best Online Learning Games.
The most important measurement of this blog for me, though, can be seen in the fact that I’m a better teacher because of what I’ve learned by writing it and from learning from others who read it. Thanks.
February 20, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
5 Comments
(Note: In my original post I mispoke — I had written that we had gotten out of Year Five Program Improvement. Actually, It was Year Four).
Our school, Luther Burbank High School, learned today that we became one of the first, if not the first, high school in California to make it out of Year Four Program Improvement Status. In other words, at least according to the state, we climbed our way out of what they consider rock-bottom.
I’ve got lots of issues with how schools are judged, standardized testing, and NCLB. It is nice, however, to be able to say that our school, the largest inner-city high school in Sacramento; one with (very roughly) a student population of about 1/3 Hmong, 1/3 African-American, and 1/3 Latino; and a school that has the largest number of English Language Learners in the region (over half of our students), was able to do this through making a priority of helping students….
…become life-long learners and not by focusing on teaching to the test.
… develop and participate in a strong relational culture by using Small Learning Communities so students and teachers could deepen relationships over a four year period.
…identify and strengthen student and parent leadership abilities.
All this was coordinated through a strong sense of shared vision among teachers, staff, students and administration. We’ve been lucky to have an exceptional principal, Ted Appel, over the past four years to lead this effort.
During my community organizing career prior to becoming a teacher, our broad-based community organizations were generally very successful at helping our members get access to affordable housing, jobs that paid a living wage with benefits, and other neighborhood improvements. In fact, we were typically more successful than most other groups whose sole focus was creating homes or providing job training.
That was because we were in the business of developing leaders, relationships, and life-long learners. We led with those goals, and the rest naturally followed.
I’d suggest the same philosophy can work with schools.
February 20, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Time Pirates is an extraordinarily ambitious interactive game-site designed to help students learn about the history of London from 2,000 years ago to now.
It’s accessible to high Intermediate and Advanced English Language Learners.
There’s a lot there that’s worth exploring.
I’ve placed it on my World History page under Sites That Cover Many Periods of World History.
February 19, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The excellent blog Dangerously Irrelevant recently had a contest for readers to come up with a six-word motto for their nation’s schools. I learned about it from Alice Mercer after the contest had finished.
There were a number entries, including some that were really quite funny (and insightful). However, it was disconcerting to see that, with just a few exceptions, most were pretty negative.
Listen, I know our schools have a lot of problems, and have a very long way to go. And I think there are a lot of valid constructive criticisms that can be, and should be, made. However, in general, I think that many schools, along with a number of labor unions and religious congregations, are one of the few institutions that are doing a pretty decent job at helping people develop skills needed to actively participate effectively in public life.
Maybe I’m living in a bubble, and most schools really are in terrible shape, but it hasn’t been my experience.
I know it’s more fun to ridicule, and I definitely do my share of it. But reading some of the contest entries brought up the same feelings that I shared at In Practice about my impatience at bloggers who complain about teachers who don’t embrace technology. I just think we might want to strike more of a balance.
Happily, Alice shared with me a little more positive example of bloggers sharing — a Valentine’s Day Passion Quilt.
February 19, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
I wanted to point out two more additional fine compilations of blog-writing:
The Carnival of Education — 159th Edition
Day/Week In A Sentence (though this week it was “Day In A Haiku”). I’d really encourage people to participate in this great reflective activity.
February 19, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The ReadWriteWeb blog today posted about a web application called Tangler. It allows you to instantly create a forum (that you can make private — just allowing people to participate if they get an invitation — or public) and embed it on a website or blog (or just link to it via a url address). I was able to easily embed it on a Jottit page, which is my favorite application for webpage development.
It seems to me that it’s basically a chatroom that you can easily host on your own site.
It’s another interesting twist on a real-time collaboration tool. I’ve posted about quite a few others before. Using something like Chatmaker seems a bit easier to me, but maybe I’m missing something?
I’ve placed the link on my Teachers Page under Collaboration Sites- Real Time.
February 19, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
4 Comments
I’ve placed two links about plagiarism on my English Themes For Intermediate/Advanced page.
The first one, called Plagiarism, is from Acadia University, and should be accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners. It’s an animated slideshow reviewing the problem.
The second one, called Academic Integrity, is from Ryerson University. It’s very well put together, and is basically a series of animated stories with text and audio support. The language, though, might only be accessible to advanced English Language Learners.
February 18, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Virtual Smithsonian gives a pretty neat overview of highlights at the Smithsonian Museums.
There’s audio, text, videos, images, and more covering space, history, and ancient civilizations (plus much, much more).
There’s audio support for a lot of the text, so it’s accessible to English Language Learners.
I’ve placed it on my Geography and United States History page under Sites That Cover Many Periods. The link is titled “The Smithsonian Museum.” This is not new to my site, but it’s one that can easily get lost among the 7,000 other links.
February 17, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I know I said I was going to stop at part three of my series on The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly and Painlessly , but found I had a few more good ones I had forgotten to include earlier.
The same criteria apply, including no registration is required, the sites are accessible to English Language Learners, content can be created in a few minutes, the completed product is hosted on the site’s server for an indefinite period of time, and there’s an email feature within the site so you can send your creation to a teacher or a friend.
Several of these sites are used as commercial advertisements. Because of that, in addition to using them for language-development activities, I use them as opportunities for lessons with students about the market culture of our society and commercial manipulation. If we are going to use these commercial sites to enhance reading, writing, listening and speaking objectives, I think we also have to assist our students to critically engage the world using higher-order thinking skills.
Here are ten more sites:
DIRECT A WILDLIFE FILM: This is a great one! You can create a film using video clips, sounds, captions, and music at the National Geographic Filmmaker, and then email the link.
MAKE ANOTHER MOVIE: I’ve shared in the previous sections about animated movie-making sites, but JuniorNet is another one. Thanks to David Deubel and EFL Classroom 2.0 for sharing this site.
SING ANOTHER SONG: As in the above movie example, I’ve already shared sites that let you sing your own song. This viral marketing example, called Collisions, lets you choose a genre of music,including disco and mariachi, sing the lyrics of your choosing, and then email your recording. This site requires a microphone, but it also allows you to call-in your song by phone. Trust me, you don’t want see (or more specifically, hear) my example.
SOUND LIKE A CHIPMUNK: In this viral marketing scheme for the new Alvin and The Chipmunks movie, you can design your own chipmunk and then either record yourself or use the text-to-speech feature to write a message. Your chipmunk will then speak your message (it will speak with a chipmunk “accent”). Not ideal, however, for teaching good pronunciation.
SEND A BOUQUET OF VIRTUAL FLOWERS: Create a bouquet of virtual flowers, write a message, and send it to a teacher or friend. You can also send a different version at the Bouquet Maker. A less expensive way to go for Valentine’s Day…
CREATE A PIRATE MESSAGE: Design a pirate, write a message, and have him deliver it in pirate talk.
MAKE A PAPER CRITTER: It’s hard to explain. Go to Paper Critters and check it out. I’m still not quite sure I understand what it is, but it looks cool.
CREATE A LINE-RIDER: Actually, you can create a Free-Rider, the sequel to the famous Line-Rider game. You can save the game you create, but you’re only given the link so you have to copy and paste it in your own email or blog. It’s only a little complicated to save your game — go to my original post to learn how.
WRITE A MESSAGE FOR A FREE-RUNNER: I posted about this one yesterday. Write a message and have an acrobatic free runner “run” over and through the letters of your message.
You can also find these links, along with 8,000 more, on my website. You can also find all my “The Best…” lists here. I’m in the process of putting the lists on a webpage that’s suitable for student self-access.
If you’ve found this post useful, you might consider subscribing to this blog for free.
February 17, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Walter McKenzie from Surfaquarium is now accepting nominations for the fifth annual Top Online Educators awards. You can fill-out a nomination form by March 15th, 2008.
Some well-known education bloggers have been awardees in the past, including Jennifer Wagner and Will Richardson.
I was honored to be one of the awardees in 2006.
I hope you’ll consider nominating one of your colleagues this year.
February 17, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Genghis Khan is an intriguing new online video game where players simulate being…. Genghis Khan. They have to decide which countries to invade, what kind of warriors are needed for the battle, and then attack.
It’s fairly complicated, but I have always been amazed by how quickly even beginning English Language Learners can figure out how to play online video games. Generally, they can do it quicker than I can.
It’s not the greatest “learning” tool in the world, and misses many opportunities to provide more content, but students can gain vocabulary, geography, and historical knowledge through playing it.
I’ve placed it on my World History page under The Middle Ages.
February 16, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Vicki Davis has highlighted some excellent video clips she uses in her classroom. They are definitely worth checking-out.
February 16, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I forgot to include one other site in my three-part series “The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly, & Painlessly.”
This last one is a viral marketing ad from an athletic shoe manufacturer. You write a message, and a founder of the “free-running” sport runs over the letters of your message. You can then email the link to a teacher or friend.
You can find it at K Swiss Free Running. It was a little buggy when I tried it, so you probably want to be patient until it completely loads.
I’ll be placing the link somewhere on my Examples of Student Work page.
February 16, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are links to some good recent Blog Carnivals. These are collections of contributed blog posts focusing on a general topic (and don’t forget about the upcoming ESL/EFL Carnival):
February 16, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
(Editor’s Note: Oops, they seemed to have just removed the games from their site — Perfect Timing!)
I learned about the Fit Brains website awhile ago from the Future Making Serious Games blog.
This new site is designed to give our brains a “work-out.” It’s got some nice games that would be accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners. Each of the games has different levels, and the higher levels might be too difficult. But students should be able to have fun and learn some vocabulary, too.
I’ve placed direct links to the games on my Intermediate English page under Word and Video Games.
February 15, 2008
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
My website has 8,000 categorized links, and it’s primarily designed for student self-access. In addition, today I wanted to highlight my Teacher’s Page (even though I teach English, I’m still not quite sure about where that apostrophe goes), which has links to several hundred resources that I’ve found helpful.
These links, too, are categorized, and, like the rest of the links on my site, are verified several times a year to make sure they are current. And, of course, I post here about new additions to that page.
You might want to check it out if you haven’t already.
