February 6, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve posted earlier about a good lesson for English Language Learners related to the landing of the US Airways plane into the Hudson River.
Today, The Wall Street Journal published an excellent video about it that’s perfect for ELL’s. It has good footage of the plane, along with an animation. But, most importantly, it includes the audio of the communication between the pilot and the air traffic controller along with the transcript showing-up on the screen (very clearly) as the words are spoken.
February 6, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
I’m taking one hundred students to San Francisco next week on one of our annual insane field trips. We’ll be visiting the Museum of The African Diaspora, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Chinatown, and a variety of other places (I’ll be posting photos on my website).
In preparation for the trip, I thought I’d put together a collection of links for them to review on Tuesday.
You can also find more links on my Geography page.
You might also be interested in The Best Websites To Learn About California.
Here are my choices for The Best Sites To Learn About San Francisco (and are accessible to English Language Learners) They are not in order of preference:
Learn about the Golden Gate Bridge with this lesson from the California Distance Learning Project. It’s designed for ELL’s, and includes follow-up activities.
A “talking story” for ELL’s will tell you more about the famous bridge.
Learn more about San Francisco through this listening exercise which includes an audio slideshow.
The great site Soundguideweb has a good video on San Francisco with online activities for English Language Learners. It doesn’t appear to be viewable with Internet Explorer, though, so be sure to use the Firefox browser.
EL Civics offers a San Francisco Photo Tour for English Language Learners.
Lingual Net has a good online video tour of San Francisco, including comprehension activities, that is also designed for ELL’s. There’s a Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
Walk This Way is a virtual journey into San Francisco’s Chinatown.
The San Francisco Chronicle has a page of photos and videos documenting Chinatown’s celebration of the Chinese New Year.
The same page has a series of Chinatown images.
A group of young people have put together A Kids Eye View of Chinatown.
Here’s a slideshow of San Francisco images.
Here’s another animation about the bridge’s construction.
You can’t talk about San Francisco without learning about the 1906 earthquake.
Here’s an interactive feature about preparing for an earthquakei n San Francisco.
Here’s a travel video giving an overview of San Francisco.
Open Road TV has a number of excellent San Francisco videos, including ones on Fisherman’s Wharf, a San Francisco Walking Tour, and Market Street.
You can talk a 3D Tour of San Francisco with Everyscape.
Here’s a simple slideshow of the city.
See panoramic images of San Francisco at 360 Cities.
Here are some more online videos of San Francisco – this time from GeoBeats.
A Weekend In San Francisco’s Mission District is a slideshow from The New York Times.
Lost Landscapes of San Francisco is a series of restored film clips of San Francisco — some from more than 100 years ago.
The Transamerica Pyramid Building is the iconic skyscraper in San Francisco. The Sacramento Bee has published a slideshow and chart on it.
The Sacramento Bee has a San Francisco Walking Tour slideshow.
The Associated Press has a nice interactive on the 1906 Earthquake.
The San Francisco Chronicle has published newly discovered color photos documenting the destruction of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. These are not manually tinted ones — they are one of the earliest actual color photographs. You can see s slideshow of the photos here, and read an article about them here.
When the Golden Gate Bridge Opened, 74 Years Ago is a video and slideshow from The Atlantic.
San Francisco’s Coit Tower murals is a photo gallery from The Los Angeles Times.
Twenty-five free attractions in San Francisco is from the BBC
Old S.F. shows old photos from San Francisco.
Time Shutter does the same for San Francisco.
Feel free to offer feedback and additional suggestions.
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.
February 6, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The excellent This Week In Education blog just got a hold of the cuts in the stimulus package that a group of “moderate” Senators have agreed to.
You can access a list of all the cuts on that blog. I had some difficulty, though, opening-up the document, so took the liberty of copying just the portion related to education. I eventually was able to access it, so you might want to go there if this image isn’t very clear.
It looks like 50% cuts. Of course, just because it’s on this list doesn’t meant it’s going to happen, but I wouldn’t bet against it.
You might find my previous posts on education and stimulus package useful, including the listing of specific amounts school districts were projected to receive in the original plan. It looks like you might have to cut some of those totals in half.
February 6, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The next EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival will be posted on April 1st, with submissions due the day before. Nik Peachey will be hosting it at his Quick Shout blog.
You can contribute posts from your blog using this easy submission form.
Consider contributing anything that you think might be helpful to the teaching, or learning, of English (examples of student work are welcome!).
Let me know if you’d like to host a future edition of the Carnival. You can see all prior editions here.
David Deubelbeiss did a great job hosting the most recent carnival here.
February 6, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
The History Channel has a very nicely-designed Citizenship Quiz that lets people try their hand at answering the 96 questions that the Immigration Service draws from for the U.S. Citizenship exam.
Actually, I should say that these are the questions they used draw from, since a new test was recently instituted and only includes some of these old questions.
However, for my purposes the test is still good. I’m using the History channel test site as a small part of the pre-and-post assessments in my two U.S. History classes this year. This is the project I’ve mentioned before where I’m teaching one class primarily using technology and the other the way I would ordinarily teach it (though I would say that was was very engaging). I’m using a variety of assessments to compare results from the two, including projects demonstrating higher-order thinking skills, self-assessments, and recall of facts.
I’ve placed a link to the test on my website under Citizenship.
Here’s another online civics quiz that’s considerably harder designed by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
February 6, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments
I’ve been less-than-impressed with a lot of lesson plans I see out there on the web. I decided to make a short “The Best…” list of sources for consistently good lesson ideas.
The lessons at these sites are not necessarily focused on English Language Learners. Good teachers, of course, can modify decent lesson ideas.
For resources on lessons plans specifically for English Language Learners, you might want to visit these two previous lists:
The Best Books For Teaching & Learning ESL/EFL
The Best Resource Sites For ESL/EFL Teachers
In addition to offering very good lesson plans free-of-charge (though some might offer a paid “premium” service, too), in order to make it on this list the sites also had to offer ones that promote higher-order thinking. Another criteria is that they did not necessarily only have plans that required technology use or showing a particular video or DVD. The final criteria is that I have actually used a lesson plan or idea in my own class that I’ve found on the site.
I decided not to give a description of each site because they all are pretty similar in how they are set-up.
Here are my picks for The Best Places To Find Free (And Good) Lesson Plans On The Internet:
The New York Times Learning Network
Again, feel free to offer feedback and additional suggestions.
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.
February 5, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Reader Linda Denker suggested a good free “talking story” from Mighty Book called Punny Valentine, and I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About Valentine’s Day.
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.
February 5, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve posted in the past about Project Read On, which provides closed-captioning for online videos.
Since my original posts, they’ve added a ton of new online videos, including many relevant to issues in the news today.
In addition to providing the closed-captioning, which makes the videos much more accessible to English Language Learners, the media just might be able to get through some school district content filters. It’s worth a try. I didn’t immediately see any content inappropriate for classroom use, but I might have missed something.
February 5, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Portraits of Abraham Lincoln is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.
I’m adding it to The Best Resources About President’s Day.
February 5, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
4 Comments
I had tried out an application called Simply Box awhile ago, but once I realized that I would have to install a toolbar to use it, I didn’t explore it any further. Any kind of installation makes it problematic for school use.
Today, though, I saw it bookmarked on Langwitches’ links, and decided to take another look. I’m glad I did.
I need to experiment with it a bit more, but Simply Box might be one of the very applications out there that I think is useful to download for at least my personal use. It seems to me that it will be a great tool for research on the web.
It’s basically a bookmarking program. The key difference, however, between Simply Box and everything else out there is that you can very, very easily just draw a line around anything you see on the web and save it in a virtual “box.”
Here’s a link to a very good video explaining how to use it. It’s actually understandable, which is more than I can say about a lot of screencasts that sites have about how to use their applications.
I’d be interested in hearing from other people if they think this tool can be as helpful as I think it can be, or if I’m overlooking something.
By the way, you might also be interested in The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students.
February 5, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Just a reminder that I’ve posted two “The Best…” lists that readers might find particularly useful in the next week or so:
February 5, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
President Obama offers weekly video addresses that are closed-captioned.
I haven’t tried it at school, but since they’re hosted on the White House site, one would think they would not be blocked by content filters.
Obviously, the closed-captions make them a lot more accessible to English Language Learners.
February 5, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Woman’s Day Magazine has a great online infographic on The Evolution of the Household.
It traces the changes in the “typical” American household through every decade since the 1950′s. It’s really quite engaging.
I’ve placed the link on my United States History page.
February 5, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
All State Insurance and the U.S. Olympic Committee have a site where you can design your own playground. It’s simple, fast, and easy. Unfortunately, you can only save your creation to a gallery instead of having a unique url address for it.
Nevertheless, Beginning English Language Learners could still design it and then write about their creation.
Here’s another playground design site I’ve posted about previously.
February 4, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
The Edublogger, the absolutely indispensable blog (written by Sue Waters) for anyone in education writing a blog, is celebrating its first birthday by having a great contest.
You should go to the blog to get all the details, but, basically, it’s a competition to see who can write the best posts on any of the following topics by March 5th:
Everybody wins in this contest, since these are subjects I suspect we’re all interested in.
Edublogs is giving away twelve Edublogs supporter 12 month subscriptions to the winners in each category, which can be used on your own blog or given away to a reader.
Again, go to Sue’s post for details.
February 4, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’m adding Salary Zone to The Best Websites For Students Exploring Jobs and Careers.
By using its “Salary Wizard,” you can find the salaries for many different occupations in different regions of the country. It’s an excellent way for students to research the pay for various jobs.
It’s pretty accessible, though it might take a minute or two of teacher explanation to Intermediate English Language Learners.
Thanks to Kim Komando for the tip.
February 4, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
4 Comments
Technology Is Not The Panacea For Education is the title of a column that appeared today in The San Francisco Chronicle. It’s by Todd Oppenheimer, the author of a book that I really like called The Flickering Mind: Saving Education From The False Promise of Technology. The column is critical of President Obama’s plan to spend monies to expand technology in schools.
As readers of this blog know, I, too, don’t believe that technology really has the power to transform education, and have written a lot about my concern in my In Practice posts.
I believe that technology does have its place (especially with English Language Learners), but also has to be kept in its place (to paraphrase an economist who was talking about the role of the “free market).
Unfortunately, though, I think Oppenheimer’s column goes a bit “over-the-top” in throwing out “the baby with the bathwater.” His blanket condemnations seem to carry the same lack of openness to other viewpoints that I hear in the words of some edtech “true believers.”
Of the $142 billion earmarked for education in the proposed stimulus package, just one billion is for the expansion of technology in schools. Half of that amount is specifically for Title 1 schools (the other half will used competitive grants), and 25% of monies received from school districts would have to be used for professional development. (You can learn more specifics here).
I think one billion out of $142 billion is quite a reasonable balance.
I don’t believe I have the numbers wrong, but let me know if I do.
February 4, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Notaland, which is on The Best Ways For Students Or Teachers To Create A Website list, has been in “closed beta,” which meant an invitation was required to use it.
However, as of yesterday, it became open to the public. You might want to try it out.
February 4, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
We teach a unit on Jamaica in our mainstream English class, which also included advanced English Language Learners. Bob Marley is obviously a large part of it, and I just put a link to slideshow on him under the Jamaica section of my website. It’s from the Biography Channel.
The slideshow is accessible to English Language Learners, and some, but not all, of the other materials under Jamaica would be, too.
February 4, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Photl.com has 160,000 copyright-free images available, and I just learned about it from the excellent Free Technology For Teachers blog.
I’m adding it to The Best Online Sources For Images list.
