March 29, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Wordle and Tagcrowd are two free applications that create graphic representations of the frequency of different word us in a document or website. Tom Barrett has developed a good online presentation called Sixteen Interesting Ways To Use Wordle In The Classroom.
Thanks to Langwitches for the tip.
March 28, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’m placing MetaKiller (not the best name) on The Best Visually Engaging News Sites — tentatively. It appears to be brand new, and it’s not quite clear to me if it works or how it works.
It has a very engaging and accessible design of multi-colored blocks that show a headline, a summary of the story, and a link to the whole piece. I especially like their summaries — most of the other similar sites only show the first couple of lines and not an actual summary.
The site says by clicking on the “X” in the corners of the stories if you don’t want to read them, that it “learns” what stories you’re interested in and can recommend better ones. If it indeed does that, it will only work on the same computer since there is no way to register or sign-in.
One potential nice option is that readers can add other storiess, and summaries they write, to the mix of articles that are shown on the site. It’s unclear, though, how it’s determined which reader submissions are included.
All-in-all, I think the sites really has some potential for being useful to English Language Learners and others. I just hope they refine it further.
March 28, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here’s a “round-up” of recent additions I’ve made to some “The Best…” lists:
I’ve added Darfur And The Fight For Water is a multimedia project from The Christian Science Monitor to The Best Web Resources On Darfur.
BizKids’ Dollar-A-Glass lemonade stand game has been added to The Best Sites For Learning Economics & Practical Money Skills.
Remarkable Rescues In Flooded Fargo is a video from The Wall Street Journal that I’ve added to The Best Sites To Learn About North Dakota Flooding.
Flood Fight Front Lines is a CBS News slideshow also about what’s happening in North Dakota. I’m adding it to the same list.
March 28, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve found two interactive graphics that illustrate the impact of our warming climate on ice. Both are accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.
One is from the New York Times, and is called Sea Ice in Retreat. It focuses on what is going on in the Arctic.
The other is from the Sacramento Bee — Tracking Sierra Climate Changes. It also shows some good photos from eighty years ago and compares them to ones from today to demonstrate the more quickly melting ice in the California Sierras.
I’ve placed both links on my website under Challenges In Today’s World.
March 28, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve just made an addition to The Best Resources For Learning How To Write Response To Literature Essays:
We usually have students pick one of the many Cinderella stories from various cultures and write a response to literature essay. As a “warm-up” to it (so to speak), there’s an ArtsEdge lesson that has students read three different “Cinderella” stories:
The Native American “Cinderella”
Students then complete an online interactive Venn Diagram comparing the three stories.
I’m looking forward to having students try it out.
March 28, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I regularly highlight my picks for the nine or ten most useful posts for each month — not including “The Best…” lists. I also use these in a more extensive monthly newsletter I send-out. You can see back issues of those newsletters here and my previous “Top Ten” picks at Websites Of The Month.
These posts are different from the ones I list under the monthly “Most Popular Blog Posts.” Those are the posts the largest numbers of readers “clicked-on” to read.
Here are the posts I personally think are the best, and most helpful, ones I’ve written during this past month (not in any order of preference):
Updated Multilingual Glossary Of Academic English Vocabulary
Excellent Immigration Graphic
MapBuzz Is An Easy Tool To Use
Accessible Multiple Intelligence Test
Two Hundred “The Best…” Lists!
March 28, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
One more reason that people should subscribe to Mary Ann Zehr’s Learning The Language blog is because she points out items like the fact that the April issue of Educational Leadership is about Supporting English Language Learners.
Mary Ann highlights a couple of articles, including one called Best Practices For Adolescent ELL’s. After reading it, I’m happy to say that our school implements all the ones that are mentioned.
And, speaking of our school, since there’s free access to all Education Week articles this week, you might want to read the article they ran last year about our school’s work with ELL’s.
March 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Yesterday, I shared some resources about the flooding in North Dakota and western Minnesota. I decided to include them and more in a new “The Best…” list.
After New Orleans (and now, perhaps, after Fargo), Sacramento is considered the largest major U.S. city most likely to experience a disastrous flood. I thought it might be useful for our students to see what we might be “in for” someday.
I’ll probably be adding to this list as events develop over the next couple of days.
Here are my picks for The Best Sites To Learn About North Dakota Flooding (and are accessible to English Language Learners):
The New York Times has two slideshows — Midwest Braces For More Flooding and Midwest Endures Floods.
Red River Flood Forces Tough Decisions is a video from the NY Times.
Red River Flooding is a series of photos from the Boston Globe’s Big Picture.
The Midwest Battles Flooding is a TIME Magazine slideshow.
Midwest Flooding is a series of photos from the Sacramento Bee.
Optimism Fades As Fargo Floods Worsen is a slideshow from the Wall Street Journal.
Crack In Levee Forces Evacuations In Fargo, N.D. is a slideshow from the Associated Press.
Here’s a TV station’s Arial Flood Footage view.
MSNBC has a video and a slideshow on fighting the flood.
USA Today has an article that is not particularly accessible to ELL’s, but the same page has links to excellent videos and graphics.
Remarkable Rescues In Flooded Fargo is a video from The Wall Street Journal.
Flood Fight Front Lines is a CBS News slideshow about what’s happening in North Dakota.
Residents Prepare For Red River’s Crest is another slideshow from The New York Times.
Red River Recedes But Danger Continues is another slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.
Fargo Flooding From Air is a series of photos from The Denver Post.
Red River Begins A Slow Retreat is from The Boston Globe’s Big Picture.
Readers might also be interest in The Best Websites For Learning About Natural Disasters.
Snow Could Worsen Situation In Fargo is another slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.
As always, feedback is welcome.
March 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Revizr lets you upload a document, which then can be “marked-up” by others (each person’s comments appear in a different color). It’s a pretty easy-to-use application, so I’m adding it to The Best Online Tools For Collaboration — NOT In Real Time.
You can’t upload webpages easily now, though they plan on adding that feature in the future. That ability would be particularly helpful with students. When they do indeed upgrade the site to include annotating webpages, I’ll look forward to adding the site to The Best Applications For Annotating Websites .
March 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Sue Waters at The Edublogger has just announced The Edublogger’s Student Competition!.
In order to participate, students need to write a blog post on any of the following topics (I’m including an excerpt from Sue’s post, but you should go to her blog and read her entire piece to get the details):
The deadline is April 30th.
March 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The first part of this post is my usual introduction to this series. If you’re familiar with it already, just skip down to the listing of new sites…
Here’s the latest installment in my series on The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly. As you may remember, in order to make it on this list, the web tool has to:
* be easily accessible to English Language Learners and/or non-tech savvy computer users.
* allow people to create engaging content within minutes.
* host the user’s creation on the site itself indefinitely, and allow a direct link to be able to be posted on a student or teacher’s website/blog to it (or let it be embedded). If it just provides the url address of the student creation, you can either just post the address or use Embedit.in , a free web tool that makes pretty much any url address embeddable.
* provide some language-learning opportunity.
* not require any registration.
You can find previous installments of this series with the rest of my “The Best…” lists at Websites Of The Year. Several hundred sites have been highlighted in these past lists. You might also want to take a look at the first list I posted in this series — The Best Ways For Students (And Anyone Else!) To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly, and Painlessly.
Here are my latest picks:
WRITE A “LOVE NOTE” FOR TWO WEIRD CREATURES: Made For Each Other is yet another weird example of viral marketing that can be used as a fun and useful language-learning tool (you can read about how I use these applications here). I guess it’s connected to advertising to Frito-Lay in some way (though it’s hard to tell how). It’s too strange to explain, other than to say you connect two creatures to one another and then write a love note for one of them to give to the other. You are then given the link to that note that can be posted on a student or teacher website. If you have a few minutes left to kill in the computer lab, and you want to give your ELL students a short and engaging writing task, this would certainly be an option.
SEND A CONSERVATION E-CARD: Conservation International has a wide selection of environmentally-related E-Cards. Once you pick an image, you can write a message and email it to yourself, a friend, or a teacher. The E-Card itself will appear within the email, but if you click “View a Printable Version Of This E-Card” it will take you to the card’s url address, which can then be posted.
WRITE A Six-WORD MEMOIR: Smith Magazine invites people to write their own Six-Word Memoirs and post them on their site. It doesn’t quite fit my criteria for web tools to make it on this list since it requires registration, but it’s so minimal that I’m adding it here anyway. Of course, this good idea can easily be used in the classroom on a piece of paper, too. It reminds me of another site and activity I’ve posted about called The Three Panel Book Review. Thanks to the English Blog for the tip.
CREATE AN INVITATION: Anyvite is a super-simple way to create and send invitations to an event. Since no registration is required, and you can easily grab images off the web to include in your invite, it’s a good exercise for Beginning English Language Learners. They can create an invitation to an imaginary event and post it on their site or a teacher’s page.
DIRECT A MUSIC VIDEO: Purina lets you create a Beggin’ Time music video using an old M.C. Hammer song. You can add your own photo, or select any one’s image off the Internet and then post it on your site. Students can then describe it. It’s a pretty weak language-development activity, though, and I’m only including it because the video itself is closed-captioned.
CREATE AN EMOTIONAL TALKING AVATAR: Oddcast has updated its site where you can create your own talking avatar and send it to a friend for posting on a blog or website. Now, you can add facial expressions illustrating emotions. You can upload your own picture, or use one of theirs, and add your own audio.
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.
March 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
You’re Going To College is from Thinkfinity (which is on The Best Places To Find Free (And Good) Lesson Plans On The Internet list).
To quote from their description: “Students make their way through this three-stage game by demonstrating their knowledge of: funding costs and benefits, the cost of college, and potential lifetime earnings.”
I’ve added it to The Best Sites For Encouraging ELL’s To Attend College.
March 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Denver Post Media Center has many slideshows accessible to English Language Learners, along with interactive graphics.
I’ve placed the link on my website, along with many other similar sites, under Multimedia Resources From News Outlets.
March 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’m adding these new links to my website under the Natural Disasters section:
Optimism Fades As Fargo Floods Worsen is from the Wall Street Journal, and Midwest Flooding from the Sacramento Bee, both cover the ongoing flooding in North Dakota and Minnesota. The New York Times has one called Midwest Endures Floods and a video about the tragedy, too.
Drought In Kenya is another slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.
Readers might also be interest in The Best Websites For Learning About Natural Disasters.
March 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Story Top is the newest addition to The Best Ways To Make Comic Strips Online.
It has a very simple “drag-and-drop” menu (including text boxes) for a multi-frame strip, and you can post the url on your website or blog (or use Embedit.in , a free web tool that makes pretty much any url address embeddable).
You have to register for the site, but it takes seconds and doesn’t require an email address.
March 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Looky Book, which was on The Best Places To Get Blog, Website, , Book, Movie, & Music Recommendations list, has just closed down.
You can read about the reasons why at The School Library Journal.
March 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Earth Knowledge lets you click on headlines related to environmental news, and then leads you to a summary of the story and a Google Map pinpointing its location on the globe.
I’m adding it to The Best Visually Engaging News Sites.
Thanks to Google Maps Mania for the tip.
March 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Ellen Pham just alerted me to a neat site called American History In Video.
It has thousands of high-quality history videos, and provides transcripts to them. One great element of how they lay-out the transcripts is that they are on the side of the video and you can scroll them down. this design makes it actually usable to English Language Learners (closed-captioning is best of course, but I guess you can’t have everything). Some other sites, unfortunately, have the transcript below the video, which isn’t helpful for ELL’s because they can’t have the video and the transcript on the screen at the same time.
There are a lot of other excellent features on the site. It appears that they are developing a semantic search capability, and I think (but can’t be sure) that they plan that once you find what you’re searching for, you can only show that actual clip from the video. Everything is free until April 30th, and that’s when the not-so-excellent feature of needing to have a paid subscription kicks-in. You’ll also be able to get a free 30 day trial.
One thing that does seem a little strange to me, though, is that I couldn’t find-out how much they would be charging for a subscription — it only said to email them if you wanted one. Perhaps it’s there, though, and I was just looking in the wrong place.
If it was going to be free (or even if they were just going to charge a nominal feed), I’d add the site to The Best Sites For News & History Videos That Won’t Be Blocked By Content Filter (At Least, Not By Ours!). But since they are going to charge, and I don’t have any idea what the cost will be, I won’t be including it there. But it’s still worth checking-out.
March 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments
Our annual insane one-day field trip of taking 100 students to Yosemite National Park is coming-up (every year I say I won’t do it again!).
In preparation for it, I’ve decided to put together a “The Best…” list of useful sites for students to view.
The first section relates specifically to Yosemite, while the second part includes resources about other U.S. National Parks, too.
You can also find this links, and many more, on my website under Yosemite And Nature.
Here are my picks for The Best Places To Learn About Yosemite And Other U.S. National Parks (and are accessible to English Language Learners):
YOSEMITE:
Yahoo has a good slideshow about the Park.
The New York Times has an interactive feature on Ansel Adams’ famous photographs. Click the spot on the Yosemite map that’s shown, and you’ll see the picture that Adams snapped of that area.
The L.A. Times has a slideshow of projects built at Yosemite by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
The Autry National Centers has examples of works created at Yosemite by artists over the last 150 years.
The New York Public Library has a collection of the earliest photographs taken at Yosemite.
Here’s a good interactive timeline on Yosemite’s history.
Here’s an exercise designed for English Language Learners focusing on reducing cars at Yosemite.
Yosemite Crowding is the title of another online activity designed for ELL’s.
The Voice of America Special English has a short report on Yosemite that provides audio support for the text.
EL Civics has a short PowerPoint presentation of Yosemite images.
Here’s a reading comprehension exercise about Yosemite.
Look at some panoramic photographs of Yosemite here.
Read a book about a Yosemite legend that provides audio support for the text. It’s called Two Bear Cubs. You can get vocabulary help here and background information here.
Learn more about the Miwoks, who may have been the first people to live at Yosemite.
The Wall Street Journal has a slideshow of newly-found Ansel Adams photos, mostly of Yosemite.
Yosemite National Park: 120 Years in Pictures is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.
Four Seasons In Yosemite is an incredible slideshow from the Los Angeles Times.
Here’s a timelapse video of Yosemite:
Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.
Check out this neat timelapse video of Yosemite:
OTHER U.S. NATIONAL PARKS:
EL Civics has a National Parks Lesson specifically designed for English Language Learners.
The Los Angeles Times has an audio slideshow featuring several National Parks.
Here are 3D images from various National Parks.
National Parks Crumbling? is an activity for English Language Learners.
Here are several great accessible links about Yellowstone National Park:
Ten Undiscovered National Parks is a short and simple slideshow.
U.S. National Parks: A Camping Tour is a slideshow from The New York Times.
Karen Bosch has created a great set of lessons related to National Parks.
12 Rugged Adventures Through Exquisite National Parks has some beautiful pictures and short text.
National Parks: America’s Best Idea is the Ken Burns’ film on PBS. Its website is filled with great resources, including video clips.
You can access an interactive video photo hunt related to the Burns’ film here.
Nature Valley Trail View offers neat panoramic tours of the Grand Canyon, Great Smokies and Yellowstone.
If you found this post useful, you might want to look at all the previous over 200 “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.
March 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Inside California’s Tent Cities is the newest addition to The Best Sites To Learn About The Recession.
It’s a New York Times slideshow on the growing number of homeless encampments around the United States, particularly here in Sacramento (which was recently featured on Oprah Winfrey’s show) and in Fresno.
