Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

This “The Best…” list requires a bit of an explanation.

I’ve already posted The Best Websites For K-12 Writing Instruction/Reinforcement.  That list primarily contains links to sites that provide direct writing instruction.  And I’ve also posted several lists of Web 2.0 tools where writing is a key feature to using them, including The Best Ways To Create Online Slideshows, The Best Ways For Students To Create Online Animations, and The Best Ways To Make Comic Strips Online.

I thought, though, that it would be useful to create another list of the best places where the primary purpose is just to write, and which make it interesting and easy for English Language Learners and other students to do so.  I don’t think that’s an artificial distinction and, if it is, so be it!

Here are my choices for the Best Places Where Students Can Write Online:

BLOGS:

Obviously, Edublogs has to be on this list. I know many teachers have successfully had their students write their own individual blogs. However, I’ve found it easier to have class blogs and have students write comments. In addition, the ability to have Edublogs Forums (basically a chatboard) is another real benefit. In our International Sister Classes Project, my U.S. History students have been able to write back and forth to a EFL class in Spain (using the Edublogs Forum) asking them about how Columbus and the Conquistadors are taught in that country.  And Edublogs is often the only blogging tool that’s not blocked by school content filters.  You might also find Sue Waters’ post on Tips On Blogging With Students helpful.

Posterous is another great blogging application.  Users can just email what they want posted on their blog and it is automatically posted with the subject line as the title and the body of the email as its content. I was able to copy images off the web and paste them in my email, along with a written description, and it all immediately appeared in my “Posterous.” You can email attachments and some embeddable applications.  You can also post directly to your blog without emailing.  I have students use Posterous together with our United States U.S. History Class blog through Edublogs. Posterous has also just added a group blog feature.

The newest blogging tool that looks pretty darn easy is called On Sugar. It has a lot of intriguing features built-into it, including the ability to create a quiz or poll.

MiCRO-BLOGS:

Micro-blogs are designed for users to write short posts, and to easily add multimedia to them.

Tumblr is the most popular, and was ranked first on The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2007.   Soup is another one that’s easy to use, and is similar to Tumblr.  Posterous is another one.

Diary is a new micro-blogging application that is simple to use. However, you are limited to posts containing 255 characters or less.

I’m adding a new site to this list and it’s called “You Are.” You can only type in 140 characters per entry, but “You Are” stands-out because it lets you easily send the url of an image as well. Having that ability enhances its use with English Language Learners, who can use the tool to also describe photos.

Kontain is a micro-blogging application that’s been around for several months, and it’s quite simple to use. I haven’t blogged about it before because, up until now, it hasn’t had the ability to let you grab images off the Web. They’ve just added that feature.

WRITING ONLINE BOOKS:

There are two stand-out sites that allow users to very, very easily and quickly create their own online books.

Tikatok is a new site that is a real find for English Language Learners (and lots of other students). Users can create online books that they write and illustrate (they can also use lots of images available on the site).

It has a number of features that really make it stand-out. You can make a book from scratch, or you can use one of their many story frames that contain “prompts” to help the story-writer along. In addition, you can invite others to collaborate online with you to develop the book.

Once the book is done you can email the link to a friend, teacher, or yourself for posting on a blog, website, or online journal. You can create the online version for free, but have to pay if you want them to print a hard-copy version.

The other exceptional site is called Tar Heel Reader. It has two great features: 1) It has 1,000 simple books with audio support for the text immediately accessible to Beginning English Language Learners and 2) It makes it as simple as you can get for students to create their own “talking” books using images from Flickr.

Anybody can read the books on the site.  However, in order to have your students create talking books using their “easy as pie” (and free) process, you need to register and have to have a code.  They’re rightfully concerned about publishing the code because of spammers.  Gary Bishop from the site, though, is happy to provide it to teachers.  Just write him at gb@cs.unc.edu and he’ll send it to you.

Storybird is a neat new site where users can choose artwork from a specific artist and then add text to create a storybook. Susan Stephenson from the excellent Book Chook blog has written a post about it, and I’d encourage you to go over and read her description.

E-CARDS:

There are three E-Card sites that I think are a notch above the rest for providing students excellent images and good opportunities for writing.  No registration is required for any of these three sites, and the link to the students creation can be posted on a teacher or student blog or website.

One is Picture History, which offers an enormous number of American History images. All of them can be sent as E-Cards.

Smithsonian Images provides access to that incredible collection, and also allows you to use any of them as E-Cards.

Nations Illustrated has 8,000 images from around the world, and also provides an E-Card feature.

ONE FINAL SITE:

Even though this last site is already on my “The Best…” list for slideshows, I feel I have to include here because it’s so easy to use, and my students have often used it effectively for writing.

Bookr is another great tool for anybody, including Beginning English Language Learners. You just type in a “tag” to search Flickr for images, drag them into a book and write about them. Here are samples made by my students.  No registration is required.

Five Card Flickr Story lets you pick five photos from a group of pre-selected images from Flickr and then write a story about them. It saves your selection and story, and provides you with a link to it. No registration is required.

This Moment is a new blogging/presentation platform that is easy to use. After registering, you can click on a number of emotions and then either upload images or search for them on the web to add. You can also write more if you wish.

The Art of Storytelling is from the Delaware Art Museum. At this site, you can actually use art from the museum’s collection to create your own storytelling experience. It’s pretty neat, and very accessible.

Additional suggestions are welcome.

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