Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Monthly Archives: January 2009

January 10, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments

The Best Sites For News & History Videos That Won’t Get Blocked By Content Filters (At Least, Not By Ours!)

Now that’s a mouthful for a blog post headline, isn’t it?

Originally, I was going to call it “The Best Non-Textbook Companion Sites For News & History Videos That Won’t Get Blocked By Content Filters (At Least, Not By Ours!),” but I just couldn’t bring myself to type that long of a title.

I really have no idea how web content filters work, and they often appear to me to have no rhyme or reason to them.  Happily, our school district’s technology department goes the extra mile to cooperate with different online projects I’m involved with.  Even with that, though, I’m careful not to go “to the well” too many times. Often, instead of pursuing the unblocking of specific sites, I just find similar ones that – for one reason or another — get through the content filter.

A lot of online video is blocked because it’s “streaming media”  (like CNN, for example).  I’ve been able to find a lot of good sites, though, that have all the online video my classes need, and that are accessible through our school computers.  I don’t know if that has something to do with how the video is formatted or hosted, or is just due to the idiosyncrasies of our content filter.

I’m assuming that not all content filters work the same, so don’t know if this list will be helpful to many people. It will, however, be helpful to me (and to other teachers at our school and in our district) to have all these links in one place.

Often, though, I prefer slideshows for my English Language Learner students. People speak at a very fast speed (for ELL’s) on online video and few have closed-captions. I’ll be publishing another “The Best…” list (if not more than one) related to the best sites for slideshows. In the meantime, though, you can find links to many slideshows on current events on my website under Multimedia Resources From News Outlets.

The sites on this list particularly provide short videos in somewhat accessible English.

I’m also not including online video that is available from textbook companion sites. These get through our content filters fine.  You can find many of them listed in these two lists:

The Best social studies websites 2007

The Best Social Studies Websites — 2008

In this list, you’ll find that I provide more than one link to some of the same videos.  The reason for this is because I’ve found that some of these same videos are blocked on other sites, and thought that readers might experience the same problem and want multiple sources to try.  These links are also not shared in order of preference.

Here are my picks for The Best Sites For News & History Videos That Don’t Get Blocked By Content Filters (At Least, Not By Ours!):

NEWS & CURRENT EVENTS:

MSNBC (which offers subtitles on ALL it’s videos)

Video From The New York Times

Wall Street Journal Video Center

The Guardian Video (United Kingdom)

Videos From The Boston Globe

San Francisco Chronicle Videos

Reuters News Videos (Reuters videos, and videos from other sources, are also available from News.com and the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia)

Associated Press Videos from the Atlanta Journal Constitution and from The Los Angeles Times.

Voice of America Video.

CNN

The PBS News Hour has redesigned their show, and website. As a result, their online videos are both better and more accessible.

HISTORY:

National Geographic News Videos

Videos From The History Channel

Videos From How Stuff Works

The Biography Channel

National Geographic Channel

Smithsonian Channel

iCue

Critical Past is a new site that has 57,000 “historic” videos from 1893 to the 1990′s — many of them appear to be old newsreels. It seems to be designed to sell them for download, but anyone can view them online for free. It has a very nice search feature.

Awesome Stories is a great resource for accessible text, animations and videos, and is featured on several of my “The Best…” lists. It seems like they’ve really beefed-up their impressive video collection.

There’s one site that doesn’t quite fit into either of these two categories.   The United States State Department has an exceptional site that hosts many videos about the United States that are accessible (and closed-captioned) to English Language Learners.  It’s called Telling America’s Story Videos.

Earth-Touch is an organization in South Africa that films some amazing nature-related video, and shares them freely on their website. They’re pretty neat. Thought it doesn’t quite fit into this list, I’m still adding it here.

Snag Learning has many high-quality online documentaries.

Editors Room is a new site from AOL. It brings together a zillion embeddable videos from different sources, including numerous news services. Many of these news services are already on this list, but it could be very convenient to have all of them in one place. I probably wouldn’t send students to the site itself, since there are so many non-educational videos that would be attractive, but a teacher could use Editors Room as a source for videos he/she might want to embed or use to create a video playlist. You can read more about the service at TechCrunch.

As always, feedback is welcome.

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.

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January 9, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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A Few More Middle East Resources

Here are a few more additions to The “Best” Resources For Learning About The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:

Updates From Gaza are photos from The Denver Post.

Gaza’s Old Wounds is a slideshow from Newsweek recounting the history of the Gaza strip (going back hundreds of years).  I think this is a particularly good resource.

The Wall Street Journal has an interactive on the fighting that is updated daily.

The Washington Post has an interactive about Israel’s plan to build a fence on the West Bank.

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January 9, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Great Site On The Presidential Inauguration

I’ve had several good sites on The Best Sites For Learning About The Presidential Inauguration list, but I really like the one I’ve just added to it.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper website has an interactive feature that provides images and a very accessible (and short) description of each presidential inauguration since Washington’s time.

Plus, they have a nice map of the parade route with images.

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January 9, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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“Make Me Talk”

Make Me Talk is a very, very simple tool that lets you upload a picture, choose some lips to put on it, and then lets you record something for one minute while the lips move.

It doesn’t have many of the advantages of a similar tool called Blabberize, but it is simpler to use and easy to create something quickly.

I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English.

Thanks to TechCrunch for the tip.

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January 9, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Why Do Kids Join Gangs?

I’m adapting a lesson from The Write Institute (also see The Best Websites For K-12 Writing Instruction/Reinforcement) unit on persuasive writing for the unit I’m teaching now.

One of the lessons — related to gangs — has students list the different groups they “belong to” family, school, etc.) In addition, I’m having them write out the different benefits they receive from belonging to each group (love, support, learing, etc.)

Next, students are researching why kids join gangs, and will then compare those reasons for joining that group with their benefits for being part of their groups. Many, though not all, of the reasons will probably be similar, and then we will explore why students think gang members might not receive those same benefits from elsewhere like our class members do.

Here are some more relatively accessible websites that I’m adding to The Best Sites To Learn About Street Gangs that students will be using to research this issue:

Why Kids Join Gangs

Why Do Young People Join Gangs?

Why Do Young People Join Gangs? (same title, different resource)

Gang Life Quiz

Gangs And Violence

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January 9, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Additions to “The Best…” List On Gangs

Here are some additions to The Best Sites To Learn About Street Gangs:

Gangs In San Diego is another multimedia presentation.

Here is a slideshow about gangs in Salinas, California.

You can watch a very short “trailer” to a documentary about Latino gangs. It’s called Nuestra Familia, Our Family.

Here’s a video on Home Boy Industries, a group that provides jobs and other support to ex-gang members.

A Massachusetts newspaper has a variety of online videos, infographics, and articles on gangs.

The Press Enterprise newspaper in southern California has impressive feature on gangs called Bloodshed and Bravado. It includes an accessible slideshow and several online videos.

The Columbus Dispatch has an audio slideshow titled Gospel Versus Gangs about a church’s effort to get youth to leave gangs.

Young Guns: A New Brand of Gangster is a slideshow from a Seattle newspaper.

Thug Life is an audio slideshow from an Indiana paper.

A Better Way is yet an other audio slideshow from the Ventura County Star about a gang member who left that way of life.

The History Channel has an impressive site called Gangland.

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January 8, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Simple Technology Guides

Thanks to Kelly Tenkely and her iLearn Technology blog, I’ve just learned about Custom Guides.

These are simple, double-sided “cheat sheets” that can be printed out for many software applications. I really liked the ones I checked-out, though Kelly thought the ones on Macs were a bit outdated. I can’t comment, though, since I’m a PC-guy.

I’m adding Custom Guides to The Best Places To Learn Computer Basics & How To Fix Tech Problems list.

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January 8, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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More On English Language Learners Study

Mary Ann Zehr, author of the Learning The Language blog (which is on The Best Ways To Keep-Up With Current ELL/ESL/EFL News & Research list) just helped lead an online conversation about Education Week’s new report on English Language Learners.

You can read read the transcript of that conversation here.

In the conversation, Mary Ann highlighted a section of the report that I found particularly interested. It’s called Research Hones Focus on ELL’s and offers a brief summary of recent research on what works best with ELL’s.

There’s information on how to participate in additional online chats on the report here.

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January 8, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
9 Comments

The Best Sites To Learn About Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is approaching, so I thought another “The Best…” list might be in order.

So here are my choices for The Best Sites To Learn About Valentine’s Day (that are accessible to English Language Learners, of course). They’re not in any order of preference, though:

Ello has a nice listening game about Valentine’s Day Gift Hints.

Heads Up English has a good listening and reading activity about the holiday.

MES Games has a nice activity to develop Valentine’s Day vocabulary.

Valentine’s Day Around The World is the title of several listening exercises from ELLO.

Make A Valentine with Starfall.

Check-out the History Channel’s Valentine’s Day site.

Many Things has a series of vocabulary activities for Valentine’s Day words. Go to the menu and choose any of several interactive ways students can learn the words.

Here’s a cloze (gap-fill) on the history of Valentine’s Day from Isabel Perez.

Here’s another cloze from Learn English Feel Good.

Here are two crossword puzzles for English Language Learners about the holiday.

Here’s an interactive graphic about Valentine’s Day from the Orange County Register.

EL Civics has a good Valentine’s Day Lesson for ESL Students.

Take a Valentine’s Day quiz.

Lanternfish has a number Valentine’s Day handouts.

Students can send several different types of Valentine’s Day eCards (all three of these sites will provide a url to the card that can be linked to a student or teacher website):

* A virtual Valentine’s Day cake.

* An eCard from the Virtual Museum of Canada.

* A card from Blue Mountain.

The National Wildlife Federation has quite a collection of free Valentine’s Day E-Cards you can send. Students can send them and get the url address of what they’ve composed. The card appears to be hosted on the Federation’s server indefinitely, so the url can be posted on a student or teacher website or blog.

MSNBC has an intriguing article about the worst gifts to give on Valentine’s Day. The language will be difficult for English Language Learners, but teachers could simplify it. It also includes a poll in simple English where students could vote (of course, you could also just take one in your class).

MSNBC also has an article on “business” of Valentine’s Day. Again, the language would be challenging, but the topic could be engaging. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer has a much more accessible graphic on the same subject.

Reader Linda Denker suggested a good free “talking story” from Mighty Book called Punny Valentine. As Linda points out, it’s particularly cute because of its use of old Valentines Day cards.  The only caveat, however, is that all the puns in the story might make it quite difficult for English Language Learners.

Watch this video about Valentine’s Day gifts you can buy for your dog.

Love Ever After is a slideshow from TIME Magazine where couples who have been married fifty years share their secrets for making love last.

Green Love By Numbers is a British-oriented interactive from the Guardian newspaper. It has excellent information about the effect of Valentine’s Day activities on the environment. However, all the figures are in UK money and metric units, which might not make sense to ELL’s in the United States.

Love Around The World is a great slideshow from MSNBC showing examples of…love around the world.

The Wall Street Journal has a video news report about a lonely penguin in the London Zoo — the only one without a partner — and all the Valentine’s Day cards she is receiving.

MSNBC has an online video on Hindu protests in India against Valentine’s Day.

Here’s a Valentine’s Day slideshow from ABC News.

ABC News also has an article about how most candies given in the U.S. for Valentine’s Day are made in Mexico. It’s probably not very accessible to ELL’s, but a teacher could modify it or an excerpt.

Here’s a video on the history of Hershey’s chocolate kisses.

CBBC Newsround has a very accessible description and history of Valentine’s Day.

St. Valentine’s Day is a series of interactive exercises for English Language Learners.

My Valentine’s Day Minibook is a nice downloadable resource from Frenchfrog’s Little English Pond.

Saint Valentine’s Day is a truly exceptional interactive book for English Language Learners. It’s another wonderful resource created by Frenchfrog’s Little English Pond.

Breaking News English has several St. Valentine’s Day activities.

ESL Holiday Lessons also has tons of info and exercises.

When Love Is In The Year is a neat little interactive from the Tampa Bay newspaper.

Love and Romance Through The Ages is from the Virtual Museum of Canada.

How Valentine’s Day Helps the Economy shares some interesting information.

Valentine’s Day: send a miniature card via the World’s Smallest Postal Service is a neat slideshow from The Telegraph.

Valentine’s Day Across the Curriculum is from The New York Times Learning Network and has a lot of good lesson ideas.

Are You A Green Valentine? is a very good interactive from Planet Green.

Here’s a slideshow from TIME called Valentine’s Day Comes To First Grade.

Hearts in nature: naturally occurring and man-made heart shapes photographed from the air is the title of a slideshow from The Telegraph.

Here’s an infographic titled Flower Power: A Look At February’s Booming Floral Economy.

Watch a video about a Minnesota farmer who made a half-mile wide heart for his wife – he used manure to create it.

Infographic: The Valentine’s Day Gift Economy

The Magpie Moments blog has a very nice downloadable activity for English Language Learners. In addition, Anna describes the process she used to produce it, which she adapted from Jason Renshaw.

Do Valentine’s day the green way – interactive is from the Guardian.

Valentine’s Day Spending is another infographic.

Jason Renshaw has created some nice downloadable resources. Here’s another Valentine’s Day hand-out Jason has made.

ESOL Courses has a fantastic set of activities.

Valentine’s Day in Asia is a Wall Street Journal slideshow.

Valentine’s Day around the world in pictures is a slideshow from The Telegraph.

Top Ten Memorable Kisses is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.

Valentine’s Day Across the Curriculum comes from the NY Times Learning Network.

The Facts of Love is an interesting infographic.

The Cost of Love is another infographic.

The LA Times has tons of Valentine’s Day photos.

Valentine’s Day Around The World is a series of photos from The Sacramento Bee.

The Atlantic has a great series of pictures.

A Scandalous, Victorian Valentine’s Day comes from NPR.

Additional suggestions are welcome.

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

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January 7, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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English Language Learners Report

Both Learning The Language and Joanne Jacobs shared some highlights from the report released today by Education Week on English Language Learners called Quality Counts 2009.

If you don’t want to take the time to read the whole report, those two blog posts are definitely worth a look.  They also provide information on some upcoming interactive presentations about the study.

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January 7, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments

Cha Map

Cha Map is a tool for collaboration in real-time that has several features that make it unique among other tools on The Best Online Tools For Real-Time Collaboration . 

Cha Map lets you create a private virtual chat room almost immediately where you can chat while you’re looking at a map.   You can supposedly chat with speakers of other languages by using its automatic translation system.  Plus, there appears to be some way to use images, too.

Between not having time to fully explore it this morning and the rather rough English instructions on the site itself, I just can’t explain it fully right now.  I’ll check it out more later today, but would be very interested in hearing from other people who try it out, too.

Because of its intriguing elements, I’m tentatively placing Cha Map on the ‘The Best…” list I mentioned earlier even though I haven’t had time to figure out all the details on how it works.  I might remove it, though, once I do.

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January 7, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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“New Approach Needed To Aid Poor Students”

A column in the Sacramento Bee today highlights a couple of recent studies questioning how education funds are spent in California to support many “”economically disadvantaged” students.”

One of the studies cited, from the State Legislative Analyst’s Office, has what I think is a surprisingly accurate critique of the present system (though, of course, it’s one that has been made for years by many educators and writers like Richard Rothstein):

“…the focus largely revolves around targeting more resources to ED students rather than addressing underlying issues likely to be affecting academic performance. For instance, students from ED families may lack health care, be in single–parent homes living on public assistance, have absent parents or parents with little formal education, have parents in jail or addicted to drugs, be parents themselves, live in unsafe neighborhoods, lack nurturing relationships with adults, speak a primary language other than English, be influenced by gang pressures, and/or need to work long hours outside of school. By focusing so much attention and resources on a student’s economic status, the state is missing opportunities to address the root causes of achievement problems.”

Guess what the study’s first recommendation for actionsis?

Allot $500,000 for another study on what to do about this problem.

Perhaps they could just read a few articles and books by Rothstein and others who have been researching and proposing how to respond to attack these root causes for years….

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January 7, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Pixcetra

Pixcetra has a huge amount of photos and slideshows about current news and other topics. It appears to be connected to AOL, but, to tell you the truth, I’m just not sure who’s started it. But their images are great and the captions are accessible to English Language Learners.

For lack of a better place, I’ve put the link on my website under Multimedia Resources From News Outlets.

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January 6, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Mid-Year Results Of My “Experiment”

As I’ve shared earlier, I’m doing my own experiment this school year on the role of technology in student achievement.  I’m teaching one U.S. History class for Intermediate English Language Learners entirely in the computer lab, and teaching another U.S. History class, also for Intermediate ELL’s, in a regular classroom using what  is (in my eyes, at least) my engaging usual non-technology based instructional materials and instructional strategies.  The second class only goes to the computer lab once or twice each month.

I wanted to explore what, if any, “value-added” benefit technology might offer towards increased student achievement.

This is a year-long effort, and I’ll be writing more extensively about it in the summer.  But the first semester results are in and I thought I’d provide a very brief summary.

Both classes are taught by Holly Coyle, my student teacher, and me.The computer-based class uses, to a large extent (though not exclusively) our United States History blog as a key vehicle in which to cover California standards.  It supplements the textbook that is also used by both classes.

Both classes were given the same two assessments — one computer-based and the other paper-based (omitting a few non-history questions found on the paper assessment) — during the first week of school and right before Christmas.  In addition, both classes were given a reflection/evalution to complete before Christmas, too.

In the two basic knowledge assessments that have been given twice, the computer-based class scored somewhat higher in the computer-based assessment, and the non-technology-based class scored substantially higher in the paper test.

There were many similarities in the anonymous responses provided in the reflection/evaluation students completed right before Christmas.  There were, in addition, a few items that stood out:

* A substantially higher proportion of students in the computer-based class said, in response to the question, “Did you like this class?” said it was either “great” or “good.”

* A higher proportion of students in the computer class, in response to the question ” Did you learn a lot about U.S. History in this class?” said either “Yes, a whole lot” or “Yes, a good amount” than the non-tech class.

* Not that many students in the non-tech class gave “lower” responses to the questions, but some did.  Hardly anyone in the computer-based class marked the two lowest-ranked responses to any of the questions.

I’m not prepared to interpret the results right now,  and I’ll be continuing with similar assessments.  I’d certainly be interested, however, in hearing any reactions to what I’ve shared so far…

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January 6, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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A Great Learning Opportunity

One of my favorite bloggers, Bill Ferriter, is organizing a VoiceThread conversation with Kelly Gallagher, an exceptional author (and critic) of the all-too- typical kind of reading instruction that takes place in many of our schools. The title of his new book is Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading.

I’ve found Gallagher’s books over the years very helpful, especially in my mainstream ninth-grade English classes.

I’m looking forward to learning from Bill and Kelly’s innovative discussion format, and would encourage you to check it out, too.

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