Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

January 28, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Cricklers

I learned about Cricklers from The English Blog. They’re a unique kind of word game. It’s hard to describe, so I’m just going to refer you to the English Blog post describing it.

They’re great English-language learning opportunities, though seem fairly difficult. I’d say high Intermediate or Advanced English Language Learners might enjoy them.

I’ve placed the link on my website under the Word and Video Games section.

January 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
5 Comments

The Best Places To Learn About Education Grants

I had a little extra time today and thought I’d come-up with a short-and-sweet “The Best…” list sharing places that provide information on education-related grants.

All of these are very similar in that they list different available grants, deadlines to apply, and links for getting additional information, so I won’t describe them individually. And, except for one, they’re all free!

My picks for The Best Places To Learn About Education Grants are (in no particular order):

* Grant Wrangler

* Grants Alert

* Education Funding Watch

* Edutopia Grant Information

* e School News Grants & Funding Alert (costs $35 per year)

* eSchool Funding News

* Digital Wish

* Scholastic has a Grants and Funding section, which also includes helpful grantwriting tips. What Do Winning Proposals Have In Common? is a particularly useful article on their site.

* And, last but not least, there’s Donors Choose.

* Fundraising and Grant Resources for Tech Integration is a useful article from Edutopia.

* Edutopia also has a recorded Webinar: “The Fundamentals of Funding: How to Identify, Write, and Submit Grants for School and Program Initiatives”

7 Places to Get Free Supplies or Money for Your Classroom is an excellent post by Richard Byrne.

If you found this list helpful, you might want to see the other over one-hundred-seventy ones, too.

January 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Edublogs TV Working Again!

Edublogs TV, which I highlighted in both The Best Ways To Access Educational YouTube Videos At School and The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2008, is now letting you upload YouTube videos easily so they can be seen in schools again.  They had a temporary glitch in that system which is fixed now.

I’ve posted about the commercial run by Burger King that is pretty insulting to Hmong culture, and now I’m able to show it at school via computer as well as by VHS tape.

At least for me, the site seems to work a little faster in Internet Explorer than Firefox, but I’m sure that’s just a very temporary difference that might just be my computer.  If it has something to do with the site I’m sure it will be rectified quickly.

January 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Videos For “Dummies”

The publishers of the well-known “Dummies” series of books have a website that includes both short written “how-to” reports and a few hundred videos, too.

The materials are probably not accessible to English Language Learners, so I wouldn’t place it on The Best Online Instructional Video Sites list.

A number of the videos might be useful to teachers trying to figure-out tech stuff, but I’d still say there are more complete collections on The Best Places To Learn Computer Basics & How To Fix Tech Problems list.

Nevertheless, it’s worth a look, and I assume it will only get better.

January 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Essay Visualizations

aMaps let you create a visualization of a basic essay form — state your position and provide reasons, along with examples. After completing a scaffolded outline, you’re provided with a pretty neat looking visual picture of what you’ve developed, along with the embed code. You can also email the link to a friend or teacher for posting on a blog or website, and then people can respond to what you wrote.

It’s easy, free, and accessible to English Language Learners. It could be used as a introduction to writing essays.

Thanks to Mashable for the tip.

January 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

January’s “Websites Of The Month”

Each month I highlight a few posts that I think have been particularly useful. You can go to Websites Of The Month to see my choices from previous months.  I also use these posts to create a free email monthly newsletter I send out to people who don’t want to receive daily blog posts.

This list is different from The Most Popular Blog Posts, which lists the ones readers have most “clicked-on.”

In addition to my most recent “The Best…” lists, here are my choices for this month’s “best” posts (not in order of preference):

* Dictionary Added To Best Reference Site

* Screentoaster Is Now Open To The Public

* Mel Zoo Is An Excellent Search Engine

* Simple Technology Guides

* Pixcetra

* Pete’s PowerPoint Station

* FinAid For College Help

* Capitol Words

* Miniature Earth

January 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Newspaper Databases

I’ve posted before about Crimemapper, a database from The Sacramento Bee that lets users easily identify what crimes have occurred when and where in their neighborhoods. It’s a great tool that’s accessible to English Language Learners. My students use it, and other web applications on my website under Student Neighborhood Maps, to do a major project comparing neighborhoods each year.

The Bee has now expanded the kind demographic information that they make available and accessible. You can find them at Bee Databases.

I’d be interested in hearing about how, and if, newspapers in your communities provide similar tools.

January 25, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Two More Online Video Games

I’ve added two more online video games, and their walkthroughs (instructions on how to “win”),  to my website under Word and Video Games. They both have text involved in the game-play, and having students use the walkthroughs in groups just magnifies their language-learning opportunities.

The games are:

The Ballad Of Ketinetto and its Walkthrough.

Stone Age Sam and its Walkthrough.

January 25, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

The Best Sections On My Website

I have nearly 9,000 categorized links — all except for a few accessible to English Language Learners — on my website.

It’s designed for self-access by students. Many classes at our school use it, including our daily after-school ESL computer lab. My understanding is that classes throughout the world use it, too.

You can read a more extensive description of each page here.

I’d also encourage you to read articles I’ve written that describe how, in my opinion, computers can be most effectively used with English Language Learners and other students.

I have approximately twenty separate pages on my website.  Links become obsolete pretty quickly on the Internet, so I verify links on my site about twice each year.  My “system” is to verify links on one page each week and, then, when I’ve gone through all of them, start again.

I thought it might be useful  to create a “The Best…” list highlighting what I think are the most useful sections of my site. After all, nine-thousand links can be an intimidating number to both students and teachers alike.

Here are my choices of The Best Sections On My Website (not in order of preference):

I have less than one hundred links under Favorite Sites. These are the ones that I think — out of the 9,000 — are the best for English Language Learners. You can’t go wrong with any of them. Most are best for Beginning and Early Intermediate ELL’s, though many are also suitable for Intermediates.

I also like the substantial Citizenship section. You can find many accessible links related to government and civics that are very helpful to students at any language level preparing to take the U.S. Citizenship test.

You can find links to literally thousands of “talking stories” for Beginning English Language Learners under Stories.

Writing is another good section for Beginning ELL’s.

The links under Health are appropriate for any level of ELL, though a small number might not be suitable for very young students.

Word and Video Games is filled with English-learning games for all levels. You might want to read about how I use the online video games that are listed there as a language learning activity.

You can find a ton of tools and examples of how students can easily create their own online projects at Examples of Student Work.

Students enjoy a lot of online Geography games.

There are also a lot useful links on the Teacher Page.

I began to create a The Best Websites page adapting all of my “The Best…” lists.  However, I found that it was just as easy for my students to access them directly from my blog, especially since I had them all organized in one place.  After putting versions of twenty of the lists on my website, I just couldn’t bring myself to do 170 more.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

January 24, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Poptropica Again

Quite awhile a ago I wrote a post about Poptropica, a free online game from Pearson that is very well-designed. However, in my post I shared my disappointment that a education publisher, one with so many good products for schools, teachers and students, would incorporate so few learning opportunities in it.

Jeffrey Hill offers some ideas and a link to an article about why Pearson might have developed the game.

It’s worth checking-out both Jeffrey’s blog post and the article.