April | 2009 | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

April 22, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

More On California Exit Exam Study

Inside School Research, an excellent new blog at Education Week, has a more thorough analysis of the study on the California Exit Exam I posted about earlier today.

Here’s a quote from the blog, though I’d strongly recommend you read the entire post:

“The report posted online today by Stanford University’s Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice confirms some of the critics’ worst fears. It shows that the exit exam led to an overall decline in graduation rates of 3.6 to 4.5 percentage points in the years after the policy took effect, yet without producing a strong effect on student achievement on other state tests.

Among females in the bottom achievement quartile, graduation rates fell by 19 percentage points after the high-stakes exam policy was put in place. That compares with a drop of 12 percentage points over the same period for male students with similar academic profiles.

Likewise, the poorest-performing black, Hispanic, and Asian-American students saw their graduation rates decline by 15 to 19 percentage points following the enactment of the exit-exam policy. The comparable graduation-rate decrease found among white students, in comparison, was a mere 1 percentage point.”

Share|

April 22, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

“Exit Exam Doesn’t Meet Expectations”

From the beginning of an article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle (it’s definitely worth reading):

“For a decade, supporters of the California High School Exit Exam have said the high-stakes test would boost student performance while opponents countered that it would worsen the dropout rate.

Turns out they both were wrong.

A new study out of Stanford University found that the exit exam hasn’t lived up to expectations – good or bad.

While graduation rates dropped significantly because of the exam, students didn’t drop out of school in despair as predicted. Nor did the high-stakes test motivate the schools and students to do better academically than before.

Instead, the exit exam produced an unexpected consequence: The Stanford study found that girls and students of color – who perform just as well as boys and whites, respectively, on other statewide tests – disproportionately fail the exam.”

Share|

April 22, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Change In “What Do You Do…” Series

Because of an excellent suggestion from Beth Still, I’m changing the next post in my “What Do You Do…” series to:

What Do You Do To Keep Students (& You!) Focused Near The End Of The School Year?

Originally, I was only going to write about how to keep students focused. However, I know that I sometimes have the same problem.

Please offer your suggestions by May 7th.

Share|

April 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

“What’s Wrong With Merit Pay”

Diane Ravitch has written an excellent post titled What’s Wrong With Merit Pay.

It’s over at the Bridging Differences blog that’s sponsored by Ed Week, and is definitely worth a look.

Share|

April 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

More Visual Search Engines

As readers know, I’m regularly looking for search engines that might be particularly accessible to English Language Learners. In the past two years, in fact, I’ve posted:

The Best search engines for ESL/EFL Learners 2007
The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2008

Here’s a useful post called Top Visual Search Engines that I learned about through Interesting Pile, a blog I like a lot. Many of the search engines on my “The Best…” lists are visual search engines — ones that display results in more than just text.

I’ve already written about most of the search engines reviewed in that post, though there was a new one to me that looked interesting — Nexplore. Their results page might be a little too “busy-looking” for ELL’s, but it’s worth a look.

I’d encourage people to check-out the whole post — it does a good job of giving an overview of a number of search engines.

Share|

April 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Beginning “What Do You Do…” Series

A few days I wrote a post titled What Do You Do When You’re Having A Bad Day At School?

Writing it helped my thinking and my teaching and, based on the response it has received, others found it useful, as well.

After thinking a little more about it, I’ve decided to begin (as an experiment) a series of monthly “What Do You Do…?” posts. Each one will focus on questions or challenges that I face in my teaching and ones that I think others might share, too. I’ll let readers know about that month’s topic a couple of weeks in advance, and invite people to offer suggestions that come out of their own experience.

The next question will be What Do You Do To Keep Students (& You!) Focused Near The End Of The School Year?

At least in the United States, many school districts have about two months left before summer vacation, and that always brings its challenges.

I hope readers will share their suggestions in the comments section. May 7th will be the deadline for contributions.

Future topics might include:

What Do You Do On The First Day Of School?

What Do You Do When You’re Feeling Burnt-Out?

What Do You Do When You’ve Finished You’re Lesson, But Have Five or Ten Minutes Of Classtime Left?

What Do You Do To Help Students Develop Intrinsic Motivation?

Suggestions for further topics are welcome.

Please share them, as well as responses to the question What Do You Do To Keep Students Focused (& You!) Near The End Of The School Year?, in the comments.

Share|

April 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Labuat

Labuat is a Spanish site, but speakers of any language can figure out how to use it. You listen to music and then, with your mouse, paint a psychedelic picture. Your process is recorded, and you can email the link to your picture to a teacher or friend for posting on a website or blog.

ELL’s can then describe their artistic creation.

There’s no language-development opportunity in the actual use of the site, but there could be in writing and talking about it.

Share|

April 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

California Teacher Guy Blog Is Back (Sort Of)

I was a regular reader of the “California Teacher Guy” blog. In fact, I highlighted one of his posts a couple of years ago as the most useful one I had read all year. Due to some unfortunate circumstances, he then had to make his blog password-protected.

However, he’s back with a new public blog called Magical Mystical Teacher. I’ve certainly put it in my RSS Reader!

Check it out….

Share|

April 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

New Version of PhotoFace

I included PhotoFace in Part Thirty-Four Of The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly and described it like this:

CREATE A TALKING FACE: I’ve posted about PhotoFace before, but they’ve just added the ability to record audio. You can upload your own photo or choose from a variety on PhotoFace. Then, you can “age” it, make the person heavier or lighter, make a number of other edits,and then make it talk. Once you’re done you can email the link to a friend or teacher for inclusion in an online journal or blog.

A day after I posted about it, they created a new version called PhotoFace Demo V2.

It’s added:

facial art,
taking on a celebrity appearance in one click
race and gender sliders
hair options
online face search and webcam
and more

Great for English Language Learners!

Share|

April 20, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

The Best Sites For Discussing The Morality Of Torture

I was originally going to publish this “The Best…” list in June and time it with the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on June 26th — sponsored by the United Nations.

However, the furor accompanying last week’s release by the Obama administration detailing the “brutal interrogation techniques” (a description that many news organizations have used, including The New York Times) used by the United States on terrorist suspects has prompted me to create this list sooner.

This list is a little different from most of my other ones, since many of these materials will need to be modified by teachers to be made accessible to English Language Learners (however, several are usable without modification). It was difficult to find good resources that would be accessible to ELL’s. I decided to make this list, though, because I think this public attention offers a great learning opportunity for all students, including my own. Plus, I figured I could use some of these resources in the International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge class that I’ll be teaching next school year.

Some of the videos show graphic content that would not be appropriate for younger students.

Here are my picks for The Best Sites For Learning & Discussing The Morality of Torture (not in order of preference):

The New York Times has a short and surprising accessible article reporting on President Obama’s speech at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters today explaining why he released the memos describing the interrogation techniques and why the United States will not use torture. The Times also has a lengthy, and less accessible, video of the speech.

The NY Times also has a graphic explaining the interrogation techniques, but it’s probably only accessible to advanced English Language Learners.

MSNBC has a slideshow of images from the Abu Graib prison in Iraq. Some of them are pretty graphic, so you probably want to review it before showing it to students.

This is an online video clip that’s fairly well-know from Current TV. The reporter allows himself to get waterboarded.

This infographic also shows how waterboarding is done.

What Is Torture? comes from Slate Magazine. It’s not accessible to ELL’s, but it does have a simple image for each example it describes that might be useful.

I’m very impressed by this book, in pdf form, from Amnesty International. It was published in 1985, but the lessons and materials look terrific. It’s called Torture by governments: a seven part educational guide for high schools.

PBS has a lesson plan related to Abu Graib and an online video called The Torture Question.

Breaking News English has a lesson on torture that provides audio support for the text.

The same lesson has a follow-up online exercise.

English Club has a good introduction to a lesson on torture that can be used in the classroom.

Live Science has an interesting article titled Torture Has A Long History…Of Not Working.

The New York Times Learning Network (which is on The Best Places To Find Free (And Good) Lesson Plans On The Internet list) just published a good classroom lesson plan on torture, which can be modified for ELL’s. It’s called The Torture Question. The article Torture Versus War goes along with it.

A Timeline Of Torture is a slideshow from Newsweek Magazine.

CNN has an interactive illustrating several interrogation methods that are considered torture by many.

I’ve added a CNN slideshow of images from Abu Graib to this list.

Do It Yourself Waterboarding is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article titled Six Songs Used to Torture and Intimidate lists some music that has been used to…torture and intimidate. Playing some of those songs and discussing why they might have been used that way could make for an engaging lesson.

Torture Injuries is a CNN video.

Ten Things To Know About Torture is an infographic.

The New York Times has a video interview with a former U.S. interrogator that is very interesting, though challenging for ELLs.

Study: Torture often produces false information, more intense post-traumatic stress disorders

June the 26th is International Day in Support of Torture Victims is a lesson plan specifically for English Language Learners.

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.

Share|

April 20, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Pretty Amazing Saturn Images

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture has some pretty amazing photos of Saturn and its moon from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.

I’ll be placing the link on my website under Planets and Space.

You might also be interested in The Best Sites For Learning About Planets & Space.

Share|

April 20, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Speedtile For Social Bookmarks

Speedtile is a super-easy social bookmarking site that shows thumbnail shots of the websites you want to bookmark, allows you to have a public page to share them, and to tag them into categories.

This last capability is particularly important for the way I use these these kinds of applications with ELL’s to promote higher-order categorization skills with images. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t appear that you can write specific descriptions under each url added to your personal page — only a tag for all the sites you are adding to that broader “tag.”

Nevertheless, I’m adding the site to The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students.

Thanks to Go To Web 2.0 for the tip.

Share|

April 20, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Spell-a-thon

Spell-a-thon is a fun game for Intermediate English Language Learners where players have to first identify the words that are spelled (though the game uses the British “spelt”) correctly. Then they have to identify words that are spelled incorrectly and spell them the right way.

I’ve placed the link on my website under Spelling.

Share|

April 20, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments