May 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
The final two parts of the four part series on parent engagement/involvement have been published by Public School Insights. Here are links to all four of them:
Part One: How Much Parent Involvement Do Educators Really Want? by Renee Moore
Part Two: Parent Involvement or Parent Engagement? by Larry Ferlazzo (me)
Part Three: Building Community Trust in Urban Schools is Hard Work by me.
Part Four: Education is Becoming More Consumer-Driven by Renee Moore
May 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
8 Comments
There are tons of online educational games out there, and many, many collections of them, too. However, I’ve found that most of these collections also include quite a few non-learning games — arcade type or shoot-em-ups that have no redeeming value (at least, that I can see).
That’s not a problem for me most of the time — usually, when I have students play online games I’m pretty specific about which ones I want them to play.
However, there are infrequent times (very , very infrequently) — students are done early with a state standardized test; it’s late on a Friday after a hard week and both they and I are pretty burned-out; or when our school’s schedule is all crazy because everybody in one grade is taking the H.S. Exit exam and everybody else is in different classes — when I just want to give students the opportunity to play some learning games and not be concerned they’ll go to useless ones.
I thought that readers of this blog might sometimes be in similar situations, and thought I’d share a short “The Best…” list of sites that work well in those cases.
Except in a couple of cases, I”m just going to list the site and not give any explanation — they’re all pretty similar — they have a variety of learning games in a variety of subjects and offer very, very few, if any, useless ones.
Here are my choices for The Best Collections of Online Educational Games:
National Geographic Channel Games (Note that this is the channel, not the main National Geographic site. The main site has a lot of good games, but also many that have no educational value.)
Primary Games Arena has an impressive group of learning games.
Play Kids Games (one of the added advantages of this site is that it lets teachers add their own content to some of the games. Because of that, I’ve also added it to The Best Sites For Making Crossword Puzzles & Hangman Games. (A teacher reports that an inappropriate ad popped-up on the PLay Kids Games site. Please let me know if others have a similar experience)
Michigan State University has a great collection of “serious games,” though not all are web-based. This list is more suitable for teachers to review and pick and choose which ones would be best for their students. Games for Change is a similar site.
Zondle is a pretty darn impressive for online learning games. It has tons of content in different subjects, and, if you can’t find what you need, it’s easy to just add your own. The ingenious part is that once you pick the topic you study, you have the option of studying the info in forty different games! Plus, teachers can create their own virtual classroom and track student progress. And, it’s free.
I’m very impressed with the British Council’s Learn English For Kids site. It has lots of great games for English Language Learners.
EFL Classroom 2.0 has a great game collection.
Canadian secondary Social Studies teacher Mike Farley has gone far beyond my sharing of games. He writes a blog where he lists the links to fifteen excellent Social Studies-related games. That’s nice, but you can find those links in my “The Best…” lists. But what Mike also shares in his blog are student hand-outs for all those games. I don’t think you’ll find these kinds of resources anywhere else on the Web, and they’re a gold mine! Even if you don’t want to use some of them, they are excellent models that can be easily modified.
I also need to include collections of games that can be found in several previous “The Best…” lists:
The Best online Learning Games– 2007
The Best Online Video Games For Learning Language & Content Knowledge
The Best “Fun” Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too
The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games
The Best Online Learning Games — 2008
The Best Sites For Making Crossword Puzzles & Hangman Games
The Best Fun Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2008
The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms”
The Best “Cause-Related” Online Learning Games
The Best “I Spy” (Hidden Object) Games For Vocabulary Development
The Best Places To Read & Write “Choose Your Own Adventure” Stories
Finally, I should mention my website, that has 9,000 categorized links accessible to English Language Learners, including many games (particularly, though not exclusively, in the Word and Video Games section). However, even though I’m mentioning it here, I don’t think I can say that my website deserves a “full” endorsement. There are just so many links that it’s fairly easy for students to find their way to mindless activities if left to their own devices.
BBC Skillwise Games Collection
You might want to read The Best Sections On My Website for more information.
Suggestions and feedback, as always, 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.
May 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
National Geographic has quite a collection of history videos, especially about the ancient world. They don’t have closed-captioning, and the narrator speaks fairly fast, but they would be good supplements for eras that have been already been discussed in class.
I’ve placed a link to the site on my World History page.
May 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The deadline for submissions to the next edition of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival is in less than ten days — May 31st — and it will be hosted by Alice Mercer, my Sacramento colleague. You can contribute a post by using this easy submission form. Any posts related to the teaching or learning of English, including examples of student work, are welcome.
Nik Peachey hosted the latest edition of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival, and it’s filled with great posts from around the world and insightful commentary by Nik.
You can see all the previous editions of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival here.
May 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
In my post My “Verdict” On Twitter, I talked about how I thought that Facebook really was the place to go to connect with a much greater number of educators who will never blog or use Twitter. I think for those of us who are serious about making change in education, we need to go to where “the people are.”
In that same post, I also made it clear that I didn’t have a clue on how to set-up a Facebook page or how to use it.
Now, at on Sunday, May 31st, at 5:00 PM (Pacific Time — USA), anyone who wants to will have the opportunity to learn how to more effectively use Facebook for education.
As part of Edublogs Live Events, Sue Waters, the godmother, guru, wise woman of edublogging, has organized Pimp My Facebook.
This is a free online event, and it’s described like this:
Regardless of your personal feelings towards Facebook it is the preferred method of social networking for many people. But are you using Facebook to your advantage?
Join Frances McLean while she pimps Larry Ferlazzo’s Facebook account to demonstrate the different ways educators and bloggers can use the power of Facebook.
And believe me, my Facebook account needs “pimping”!
I hope you’ll join us….
May 20, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Yesterday I posted about an article I wrote titled “Parent Involvement Or Parent Engagement?” that was just published by the well-respected Public School Insights. Unfortunately, their site was down most of today.
It’s back online now, though, if you want to take a look and comment
May 20, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Teacher Magazine has just published an article I wrote titled The Last Day Of Class.
In order to view the whole article, you have to register for the Education Week site. It’s free, though, and only takes less than a minute. You’ll see where it says “Free Registration” just below the beginning portion of the article that you can see.
In the article, I share a few of the ideas shared by readers of this blog in my previous post “What Do You Do On The Last Day of Class?”. I also share some of my own and frame them in a bit of a community organizing context.
The Teacher Magazine article is part of a series written by members of the Teachers Leaders Network.
I’ll also be compiling all of the suggestions made by this blog’s readers into a post sometime in the future as part of my monthly What Do You Do? series.
It would be great if people could leave comments over at the magazine.
And, speaking of recent articles I’ve written, yesterday I posted about another one titled Parent Involvement Or Parent Engagement?, that was just published by Public School Insights. Unfortunately, their site is having problems today and is off-line. I assume it should be fixed quickly, and I’ll post when its available again. You might also want to check it tomorrow.
That article is a good introduction to the book I’ve written (with Lorie Hammond) that will be published by Linworth Publishing this summer. It’s called Building Parent Engagement In Schools.
May 20, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve quoted Marvin Marshall quite a few times in this blog. I really like a lot of what he has to say about having a positive approach to classroom management.
He recently wrote a post describing the basis of his philosophy.
Here are a couple of the points he made that made particular sense to me:
* Obedience does not create desire.
* Cognition and emotions cannot be separated. One affects the other. Anything imposed—especially if it is related to punishment—puts the receiver in a victimhood mode and prompts ill feelings toward the enforcer. Good relationships are essential to prompt positive change. People do good when they feel good. One does not ordinarily do good when feeling bad. This is a prime reason that traditional, coercive approaches are not successful and the recidivism rate is so high.
Check-out his blog for more great info.
May 20, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve made several recent additions to The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An “Authentic Audience” list. They include:
Travel DK, which lets you easily create your own online travel guides including writing reviews of attractions (Thanks to Diana Dell for the tip).
Discover America, which is a similar travel site that lets you write reviews (obviously, just places in the U.S.).
I’ve posted about Culture Crossing before. It’s a wonderful social studies resource, but I neglected to include that it would be a great opportunity for authentic writing, too. It’s a unique resource for information about different countries. It provides some basic demographics, but it also shares details about communication style, dress, gestures, etc. It’s unlike any other source of information about countries that’s on the web, and accepts user contributions. Certainly, English Language Learners are well-positioned to write about their native countries.
May 20, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in the United States. Here’s a short explanation of its background from Infoplease:
“In May 1990 …President George H. W. Bush designated May to be Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants.”
I’m not very pleased with this post — I know there’s a lot more out there, but I just haven’t had the time to research it as well as I would like to have done. I wanted to get this out before the end of May. By the time next May comes around this will be a much better list.
You might also be interested in The Best Websites To Learn About The Hmong.
I’ve divided the list into “Student” and “Teacher” resources.
Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (not in order of preference, and that are, of course, accessible to English Language Learners):
FOR STUDENTS:
Scholastic has quite a good collection of accessible resources related to Asian Pacific American Heritage.
This is a movie about Chinese immigrants.
Minnesota Public Radio has a report on the history of Hmong migration (it was done in 1999, so doesn’t include the most recent influx, but it’s still good). Audio support is provided for the text.
These are the sites where I have my United States History class learn about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II:
Watch this video and do the three activities under “Explore.”
Watch this slideshow about what happened to Japanese-Americans.
Look at these pictures from one of the camps.
You can find additional resources at The Best Resources For Chinese New Year.
We have a good number of students from the Marshall Islands at our school. Here are a few related resources:
How Stuff Works has a brief overview of the islands.
Check-out panoramic images of the islands.
Here’s a slideshow of the islands.
CBS News has a “Fast Facts” sheet on the islands.
The Marshall Islands Journal is a local newspaper website.
Here’s a video report on weapons testing in the islands.
The BBC has a Marshall Islands country profile
Marshall Islands Facts comes from National Geographic.
Marshall Islands Stamps Part 2
Marshall Islands Stamps Part 3
Marshall Islands Picture Gallery
Marshall Islands Picture Gallery 1
Marshall Islands Picture Gallery 2
Marshall Islands Historical Images
Marshall Islands Historical Postcards
Here are also some other Asian New Year celebrations:
There’s an annual huge Hmong New Year celebration here in Sacramento. You can access a large collection of images from previous years here.
And here is an interactive on the Vietnamese Tet New Year.
Despite its tacky name, The South Pacific’s Fantasy Islands is a slideshow from LIFE has some nice photos.
Never Lost is an impressive interactive from The Exploratorium on Pacific Islander boats.
FOR TEACHERS:
Colorin Colorado has resources on the month specifically for ELL’s.
Infoplease has a lot of resources, though most are not necessarily accessible to ELL’s and would have to be modified by a teacher. But it’s a great site, nevertheless.
The Smithsonian Institution has Asian Pacific American Heritage teaching resources.
Read Write Think has lesson plans, too.
And so does Thinkfinity.
Most of these lessons (apart from the resources at Colorin Colorado), though, would have to be modified for ELL’s.
U.S. official cites misconduct in Japanese American internment cases is a fascinating article in The Los Angeles Times discussing how the present United States Solicitor General is apologizing for the misconduct of one of his predecessors for his role in defending Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. During the war, he chose not to reveal a government study concluding that Japanese-Americans were not a risk to U.S. security.
World War II: Internment of Japanese Americans is a photo gallery from The Atlantic.
Suggestions and feedback, as always, 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.
May 19, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve made an addition and a clarification to yesterday’s The Best Resources For Beginning To Learn What Twitter Is All About list:
First, Sue Waters pointed out that Australian blogger Tomaz Lasic is the creator of the Twitter Handbook For Teachers, so I changed the link so it goes directly to the version on his blog and the credit is clear. Thanks, Sue!
Also, I added an excellent post titled What Is This Twitter Thing, And Why Should I Care? by Tony Cervo.
May 19, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
My article, Parent Involvement Or Parent Engagement?, was published today by Public School Insights.
As I mentioned in yesterday, it’s the second in a four-part series that Renee Moore and I are writing. The next part has her reacting to my piece, and then the final part is my reacting to her post from yesterday.
Feel free to stop by there and leave comments on any of the four pieces!
The article today is a good introduction to the book I’ve written (with Lorie Hammond) that will be published by Linworth Publishing this summer. It’s called Building Parent Engagement In Schools.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ll also soon be officially launching another blog related to that book — it’s called Engaging Parents In School. I’ll be posting there about once a week, and you can start subscribing now if you’d like.
May 19, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
MapTrot is the newest addition to The Best Map-Making Sites On The Web.
No registration is required and it’s super-easy to use. You can write descriptions of the points you place on the map, and you can link to a Google search of images for that place, but you can’t choose a specific photo.
I learned about MapTrot through a Webware post sharing a number of map-making applications. It’s a useful list, but I think they missed several of the best ones — or at least the most accessible ones for English Language Learners.
May 19, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are two final additions to The Best Sites To Learn About The Hubble Telescope:
Hubble’s Final Services Mission comes from The Boston Globe’s Big Picture.
The Final Human Touch To Hubble is a series of photos from The Sacramento Bee.
May 19, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Five art museums, called the Museum Network, have developed several engaging online activities related to their collections. Most will be accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.
I’ll be putting direct links to each of the interactives on my website under Music and Art. The link in this post, though, will take you to a page where they’re all described.
May 19, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
Musopen is the latest addition to The Best Places To Get Royalty-Free Music & Sound Effects.
It describes itself this way:
“Musopen is an online music library of copyright free (public domain) music… Put simply, our mission is to set music free.”
May 18, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
18 Comments
As regular readers know, I recently joined Twitter and have had a good experience with it, though I’m skeptical that it will attract a following among teachers beyond those particularly interested in educational technology (see My Verdict On Twitter).
In that previous post, I shared some sites that I found particularly helpful to me as I began to “tweet.” I thought others new to Twitter might find it useful for me to slightly enlarge that list, and so another “The Best…” list is born.
The title of each resource is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m just going to list them.
Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Beginning To Learn What Twitter Is All About (Except for the first one, they’re not listed in any particular order of preference):
Start off with What Is Twitter? by Sue Waters
Twitter Handbook For Teachers (thanks to Richard Byrne for the tip)
The Top 7 Mistakes New Twitter Users Make
Seven Ways To Find Teachers On Twitter
A Quick Introduction To Twitter
How Not To Build Your Twitter Community
The 10 Users You’ll Meet On Twitter
The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You In Return On Twitter
What Is This Twitter Thing, And Why Should I Care?
Nick Peachey writes about Building Your Twitter Network, with a focus on ELT/ESL teachers.
100 Tips To Be A Smarter, Better Twitterer (thanks to Diana Dell for the tip)
All You Need To Know To Twitter from the NY Times.
The Top 7 Twitter Tutorials On YouTube
TIME Magazine has published an article titled How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it is an interesting article.
Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I Learned in J School is a useful post from Mashable.
Top … ELT People To Follow On Twitter
Mashable has just written an excellent post titled Twitter for Beginners: 5 Steps for Better Tweeting.
Twitter for teachers – why you should start tweeting!
Shelly Terrell has created three great lists of educators to follow on Twitter. One is of people who help others with questions, another shares ESL/EFL teachers, and the third focuses on people who tweet about edtech resources.
Not only did she make these lists, but she created them using nifty web tools that let you easily & quickly “follow” them!
Getting the Most Out of Twitter is the title of a new article in the New York Times today. It’s short and helpful to all Twitter users–both new and old.
“The Path To 10 Billion Tweets” is a nice-looking infographic giving you a ton of information about Twitter.
Caution: Mind-Blowing Twitter Infographics shows some….informative infographics about Twitter.
Twitter Starts Teaching You How To Tweet With Videos is the title of a TechCrunch post that shares several new short videos Twitter itself has made to help people understand how to use the service.
Seven top tips for building your professional learning network with Twitter is a short post by Helen Whitehead. It offers some great suggestions.
Sue Waters has done it again by writing a great instructional post. This time, it’s A Twitteraholic’s Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter.
Listorious seems like a great way to find people to follow on Twitter. Type in, or click on, your topic of interest and you can then see who has made lists of people for that topic.
What is Twitter and how I use it? is a great post with many screenshots by Lorna Costantini. It’s perfect for people new to Twitter.
“Twitter 2010: Year In Review” is a pretty interesting series of infographics from Twitter.
Russell Stannard has done it again and created several excellent screencasts to introduce Twitter to new users.
“Mom, This Is How Twitter Works — Not Just For Moms” is a great visual and text explanation of how Twitter works.
If these resources aren’t enough for you, then you can visit “25 Important Twitter Guides and Apps For Teachers.” It’s a nice list by the EDUemic blog.
In another example of my many ed tech blindspots, I didn’t even know that Twitter had an Advanced Search Option until I read a post by Richard Byrne. You can go to his post to see a video about how to use it, as well as see other links he has about maximizing Twitter use.
There are two regularly scheduled Twitter “chats” for ESL/EFL teachers, and they’re both great professional development opportunities to connect with colleagues from afar.
One is #ELLCHAT, which has a Facebook page. Those take place on Mondays.
The other is #ELTCHAT, which takes place on Wednesdays. It has a webpage.
Here are two resources offering simple details on how best to participate in these kinds of Twitter Chats:
How to Participate in a Twitter Chat
How to Participate in a Twitter Chat Session
An Educators Guide To Twitter, compiled by Steven Anderson.
A list of educational chats on Twitter, compiled by Cybraryman.
A slideshow on the difference between Facebook and Twitter.
INFOGRAPHIC: Amazing Twitter Facts And Figures is pretty interesting.
Twitter’s Secret Handshake is a very interesting article in The New York Times about hashtags.
What Do Teachers Do On Twitter? is a nice slideshow presentation.
Use Twitter? Always Remember These Three Things is an article from The New York Times.
All About Twitter Hashtags is a useful post.
Cybrary Man has a great page of information about how to participate in a chat on Twitter.
Twijector displays tweets using a particular hashtag on an attractive screen that can be displayed at conferences. It can also be used by people who just want to view tweets using a hashtag, like in one of the many educational chats.
How To Twitter Effectively is a helpful infographic.
Teachers Teaching Teachers, on Twitter: Q. and A. on ‘Edchats’ is from The New York Times Learning Network.
“What’s Up” is a fascinating tool that lets you easily explore the most popular subjects on Twitter for any day or for any hour of that day. The Information Aesthetics blog has more information about the site.
If you want to know how to participate in a Chat on Twitter, Read Write Web just posted How to Get Started With Twitter Chats.
10 New Twitter Tools That Will Get You Tweeting is a useful post worth checking-out.
Facebook and Twitter Guides For Educators comes from Smartboard Goodies.
10 Tips on Using Twitter Wisely is from Read Write Web.
I’m also adding The A-Z Dictionary of Educational Twitter Hashtags
Twitter Just Made It Really Easy To Find Out If Another User Is Following You is a post sharing some useful information for those of us on Twitter (it just makes it easier to determine if you can someone a Direct Message or not).
I recently discovered that Tweetdeck now has a Web version. It seems very comparable to the deskstop app. However, there is one important difference. When you retweet in the desktop app, you retweet in the “old” way — it shows your name as part of the tweet. The Web version retweets are in the “new” Twitter style.
A Beginner’s Guide to Twitter is from Read Write Web.
Nine Things You Didn’t Know About Twitter is from The New York Times.
Suggestions and feedback, as always, 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.
May 18, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
How Much Parent Involvement Do Educators Really Want? by Renee Moore is the first of a four part series on parents and schools that will be published in “Public School Insights.”
Renee teaches in rural Mississipi and is a former Mississippi state Teacher of the Year and winner of the Milken Educator Award.
Renee has written two parts and I have written the other two pieces. I’ll post when each one appears.
I’d encourage you to check-out both Renee’s article on parents as well as her blog. We are both members of the Teacher Leaders Network, which is the connection that made this parent series happen.
May 18, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Brainpop, which I have written about positively a number of times, is developing a special ESL program.
They are looking for ESL teachers to preview it and help shape it. You can read more on how to participate here.
If you apply, and are selected, you will get a free subscription to the service once it launches.
May 18, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Photos 8 is the newest addition to The Best Online Sources For Images. It has thousands of high quality public domain pictures and is easy to search.
Thanks to a great blog post on Making Teachers Nerdy and another one on Free Tech For Teachers for the tip.
