July 13, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Arty Astronaut is a pretty engaging and site that students can use to “explore” the solar system. It’s accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.
Unfortunately, they also have a fair number of useless arcade-style games that could prove tempting to students. Nevertheless, it will still be worth a visit.
The site also says they’ll be creating other similar websites on dinosaurs and firefighters.
I’ve placed the link on my website under Planets and Space.
July 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Supalogo is an extremely easy way for students to create really neat-looking logs super-quickly.
I’m sometimes feel frustrated when students are creating web content, and spend a lot of time on making it “look good” in ways that don’t promote learning of any kind. Supalogo is one tool they can use to create those “cool” looking graphics within seconds.
July 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
As regular readers know, I constantly have my students interact with text in many ways both in the classroom and in the computer lab. In the classroom, Post Its are my favorite tool of choice if students are reading something they can’t actually write on.
For use with the computer, I have one of my favorite “The Best…” lists — The Best Applications For Annotating Websites. You can read more how I use these tools at that link
I’ve recently added some to that list, so I’m not quite sure which one I’ll have students use next year. And now, there’s one more I like.
It’s called Rooh It!.
Since the Make Use of blog has written a good post describing it, I’m going to encourage you to read their explanation.
I’d like to highlight a couple of great features, though. One, you don’t have to register for it. And, two, all you have to do is put “roohit.com/” before any web URL address and you can start highlighting and leaving notes about it.
The only negative I see is that it looks a little “busy” — English Language Learners could be a bit confused by all the initial options and text. But a short teacher explanation should take care of that.
July 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Thanks to Phyllis’ Favorites, I’ve learned about some new online activities at a few zoos.
One is the Animal Guide at the Columbus Zoo. It’s attractive designed, and provides a fair amount of text that’s accessible to English Language Learners about each animal. You can also see short videos, though the audio narration is very fast — even for native English speakers!
The Brookfield Zoo in Chicago has a very accessible game about dolphins. It’s requires registration, but that’s quick and easy. They also host their well-known Ways of Knowing Trail activity about the South American Rain Forest.
I’ve placed the links under various sections of my website, including Animals.
July 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Newsy is a site that — in short videos — compares how major news events are covered by media throughout the world.
I’m adding it to The Best Tools To Help Develop Global Media Literacy list. In some ways, it’s similar to Link TV, which is also on the list. Newsy, though, isn’t quite as interactive, though you can leave comments if you’re registered. For that reason, I’m also adding it to The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An “Authentic Audience”.
The speaking is pretty fast and relatively high-level, so it’s probably only accessible to advanced English Language Learners. It does provide a transcript to the audio, but it’s not actually closed-captioned. That doesn’t make it particularly useful to ELL’s.
It’s a well done site. I’m probably going to be using it more with my International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge class than with my English Language Learners.
July 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’m adding a very accessible infographic that shows the change in unemployment in major US cities over the past year to The Best Sites To Learn About The Recession.
Questacon, a hands-on museum in Australia, has a ton of suggestions about easy science experiments. I’m adding it to The Best Sources Of Ideas For Simple Classroom Science Experiments.
The K-5 Computer Lab Activities Wiki has a lot of good categorized links. I’m adding it to The Best Collections Of Educational Links. Thanks to Keisa Williams for the tip.
The British newspaper the Guardian has a nice interactive on the lunar landing. I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About The Apollo 11 Moon Landing.
July 11, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Associated Press has an Economic Stress Index which shows, in an interactive graphic form, what is happening to every county in the United States economically. It measures bankruptcies, home foreclosures, and unemployment, and then interprets it into what they call a “stress index.”
I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About The Recession.
July 11, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
I’m adding Bluewalks to The Best Places Where Students Can Create Online Learning/Teaching Objects For An “Authentic Audience”.
You can easily create a “walking tour” with text you write and images you can grab off the web.
Thanks to Google Maps Mania for the tip.
July 11, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
CNN has an interactive timeline of American military involvement in Afghanistan. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The Afghanistan War.
Slatebox is a new and easy mindmapping/visualization application. I’m adding it to Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Mindmapping, Flow Chart Tools, & Graphic Organizers.
I’ve added Jabbster to Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Social Network Sites. You can read about it at Richard Byrne’s excellent blog.
July 11, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
This is going to be a very short “The Best…” list of online maps that show the geographical locations of what language is spoken where.
These accessible maps can be used as an engaging way to also promote learning about geography. I’m sure there are other ways to utilize them in the classroom. Please share your ideas in the comments section of this post.
There are really only two “language maps” that I’m including in this list (I’ve since added several more to bottom of this post). I’m also adding two other supportive resources.
The Modern Language Association Language Map: A Map of Languages in the United States is an incredible site. That link will lead you to the map itself, while this link will take you to an explanation of everything that can be done with it.
The Cyberjournalist site wrote a good and short description of the the MLA site, and I’m just going to quote it here:
“Want to know how many people speak Yiddish or Creole in your neighborhood? The Modern Language Association’s new Language Map displays the locations and numbers of speakers of the 30 languages most commonly spoken in the United States. You can search by language and state and the tool produces a map of how many people speak that language by county or zip code.”
The second site on this short list is an excellent world map of languages created by the language-learning site Bab.la.
As I mentioned, I’m also including two other language map “related” resources here.
One is a Voice of America report (that includes audio support for the text) on the MLA language map of the United States.
The other is a simple chart representation showing the actual number of people who speak specific languages worldwide.
Here are some new additions:
The UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger very quickly and easily shows you the numerous language in danger of disappearing, along with details about each one.
This world map shows which countries have English as their official language.
The Lexicalist is a “demographic dictionary.” It shows you who is using which words, including slang. It’s pretty intriguing. Thanks to Katherine Schulten for the tip.
The Linguistic Diversity Index is an interactive map showing the diversity of languages in each country.
The Language Olympics is a neat infographic showing the languages spoken on each of the continents. Once you go to the link, you have to scroll down to get to it. You’ll pass another infographic related to world languages that I personally find rather incomprehensible, but it might just be me.
“Language Families:Their Popularity, Spread and Longevity” is the title of an interesting infographic.
Planet English is an infographic from Voxy.
Here’s a map of North American English Dialects, Based on Pronunciation Patterns
Disappearing Languages is an interactive map from National Geographic showing endangered languages around the world.
Here’s a map that shows the Number of Endangered Languages by Country.
The World Atlas of Language Structures looks pretty intriguing.
Languages of Europe is an interesting color-coded map.
The Speech Accent Archive is pretty amazing — just check it out.
The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English In North America looks intriguing.
World Languages Mapped by Twitter comes from The Atlantic.
The world of Wikipedia’s languages mapped comes from The Guardian.
Feel free to share 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.
July 11, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
July 20th is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 space mission when the first humans walked on the moon. I still remember watching it as a boy on our black-and-white TV set in the living room.
I thought I’d put together a short “The Best…” list highlighting a few resources people might find useful — if you happen to be teaching summer school.
You might also be interested in these other “The Best…” lists:
The Best Sites For Learning About Planets & Space
The Best Sites To Learn About The Hubble Telescope
The Best Images Taken In Space
Here are my picks for “The Best Sites To Learn About The Apollo 11 Moon Landing” (and, of course, are accessible to English Language Learners):
Space: 40 years since man walked on the Moon is the title of a nice interactive from Agence France Presse.
NASA has one central site including links to a ton of neat interactive features, including a panorama.
The Smithsonian has a neat multimedia interactive timeline on the mission.
We Choose The Moon has been set-up by the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library & Museum. Starting on July 16th, you can “experience a real-time audio and visual re-creation of the historic mission” on the website.
You can watch a seven-minute video about the mission here.
National Geographic has a video of the moon walk.
How Stuff Works also has a number of short videos on the mission.
Remembering Apollo 11 is a collection of photos from the Boston Globe’s Big Picture photo blog.
Here’s a quote from The New York Times: “On Thursday, 40 years to the day after the Apollo 11 spacecraft began its journey to the moon, NASA released what it called, “newly restored video from the July 20, 1969, live television broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk.” You can view it here.
LIFE Magazine has just published a slideshow titled Apollo 11 – Scenes From The Moon.
40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 Moon Landing is a series of photos from the Denver Post.
The Times of London has a good slideshow on the mission.
The Wall Street Journal has an interactive called “Mission: Moon” and a slideshow titled With Their Steps Came Great Relief on Earth.
ESOL Courses has a very nice reading, along with comprehension questions, on the lunar landing.
Celebrating Apollo 11′s Return To Earth is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.
The Associated Press has an impressive interactive.
Here are several additions to this list. All of them are from The New York Times:
Slideshow of photos taken by the astronauts themselves
Slideshow on what happened to each astronaut after the lunar landing
A narrated slideshow titled Mission To The Moon.
The History Channel has some good videos.
The Incredible Things NASA Did to Train Apollo Astronauts is a photo gallery from Wired.
Feel free to share 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.
July 11, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
It’s easy to create your own online hangman game in English or practically any other language at My Language Exchange.
You can play a ton of word games, too. After you register, just click on Word Games, and then go to the bottom. You’ll see a link that says “Create a game.” You don’t have to register to play them, just to make ‘em.
I’ve placed the link on my website under Student Hangman Games.
July 10, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Thanks to Claus von Zastrow for pointing out two important omissions in my original The Best (& Most Thoughtful) Blogs On “Big Picture” Education Issues.
I’ve now added:
In addition to The Tempered Radical, which is on the list already, you can read three other exceptional blogs hosted by the Teacher Leaders Network on their Featured Blogs page (I’m a TLN member, but didn’t know about their (our?) featured bloggers page until Claus pointed it out).
July 10, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
4 Comments
As in any specialized profession, the world of ESL/EFL/ELL has its own unique terminology. I quite regularly come upon words that I’m not familiar with.
I thought a short “The Best…” list might be useful for readers.
I haven’t found one glossary of these kinds of terms that I would consider “complete” and accessible, so I’m listing a few of them.
Here are my picks for The Best Guides To ESL/EFL/ELL Terminology:
A (Mostly) Complete Glossary for ESL EFL Teaching From Heads Up English (I would say that this is the best one on this list)
ESL Glossary From Bogglesworld
ESL Terminology From State University of New York — Courtland
ELT Terminology, Abbreviations & Acronyms From TEFL.net
Understanding Second Language Terminology From Everything ESL
The British Council’s Teaching Knowledge Database
Teaching Foreign Languages Glossary from Annenberg
Common TEFL Confusions is sort of a glossary-plus for ESL/EFL teachers. It’s very good and is from TEFL.net. They also have a good glossary.
The last two were suggested by David Deubelbeiss. Thanks, David!
The American Institutes For Research has a good document titled Common ELL Terms and Definitions.
Colorin Colorado has a good glossary.
Other suggestions are, as always, 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.
July 10, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
5 Comments
Readers of this blog know I have a particular interest in broader “school reform” issues. Similar to my “The Best ESL/EFL Blogs list, I thought people might be interested in my choices for what I consider to be “The Best (& Most Thoughtful) Blogs On Big “Picture” Education Issues.”
My criteria include:
* They provide thoughtful analysis and commentary, and are not dogmatic.
* They post relatively regularly.
* Their posts include information that I find useful in my own teaching.
I don’t have that much time right now, so I’m just going to list them and not include a description. Since it’s such a short list, it won’t take you much time to check them out:
The English Teacher’s Companion
Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
In addition to The Tempered Radical, which is on the list already, you can read three other exceptional blogs hosted by the Teacher Leaders Network on their Featured Blogs page (I’m a TLN member, but didn’t know about their (our?) featured bloggers page until Claus von Zastrow pointed it out).
Advancing The Teaching Profession
Who else do you think should be on this list?
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.
July 10, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
As I’ve explained in earlier pieces, I periodically post “most popular” lists of websites that I think educators might find useful. Of course, there are a number of ways to gauge “popularity.” I just view these lists as opportunities to check-out some new sites, and find it interesting to see which ones might be particularly “popular.”
This particular list is sort of a supplement to The Best Tools To Help Develop Global Media Literacy, where I share resources that students and teachers can use to compare and contrast how different current events are handled by media in different countries.
I also plan on developing a similar list of the most popular news slideshows and videos.
Here are some Places To Find The Most Popular News Stories On The Web:
The Newseum has front pages each day from newspapers around the world.
BBC News has a neat Live World Map that shows what news is popular in what part of the world at anytime. Here is a good explanation about how it works.
I’ve known for awhile about the next resource I want to share, but Richard Byrne just wrote about it, and he described it perfectly. So I’m going to quote from his post, and I would encourage you to go there to read his ideas on how to use it with students:
“Ten by Ten is a unique program that links images with news stories. Every hour the top 100 news stories from around the world are linked to images on a ten by ten grid. The stories are ranked.”
Here are direct links to regularly updated pages of major news sites that show their most popular news stories:
USA Today Most Popular Stories
MSNBC Most Popular News Stories
Yahoo News Most Popular News Stories
New York Times Most Popular Articles
Times Of India Most Read Articles
The Globe and Mail Most Popular
Wall Street Journal Most Popular
Here are a couple of resources from The Best Tools To Help Develop Global Media Literacy that I’d like to highlight in this post:
One is very new and is called Media Cloud — Visualizations. It’s probably worth reading Read Write Web’s extensive post on the site. In a nutshell, you can identify three media sources from throughout the world and then get a chart for their most frequently used words over the past ninety days or a comparative map showing the depth of coverage of different parts of the world. Both visualizations would be accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners, and the discussion potential is rich.
Geographical Media is the newest addition to that list. After you register (which is a free and easy process) you can see which topics are being covered in the news media in different parts of the world, and compare the differences. The site seems to have a number of other features — and it’s not particularly intuitive how to navigate through them — but the site has a lot of potential. I’m still exploring.
Suggestions and feedback are, as always, welcome.
July 10, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
BP (which I assume is British Petroleum) has a series of very accessible online interactive science activities. They include text, images, animation, and audio support.
You have to register to gain access to them, however. It’s quick and easy to do so, but it would certainly be better if they, like most other links on my Science page, were accessible directly.
July 9, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Yack All is a new application that lets you create a private chatroom.
I have a ton of similar tools on The Best Online Tools For Real-Time Collaboration and The Best Online Tools For Collaboration — NOT In Real Time.. In one way Yack All is less convenient than most of them because it requires registration and sign-in (though it’s extremely easy to do so).
One nice feature, though, that Yack All has but many of the others do not is that it saves the chat indefinitely.
I’ll be adding it to those “The Best…” lists because of that feature.
Thanks to Jane Hart for the tip.
July 9, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve had Pestworld For Kids on my website for awhile. They’ve recently revamped the site, and have several good online video games that provide audio support for text and teach about insects and rodents.
I’m placing the link on my website under Science.
July 9, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Yes, you read the headline correctly — The Most Popular Mathematicians.
The School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of St Andrews in Scotland has an impressive website filled with biographies for 2100 mathematicians.
Earlier this year, they developed a list of Most popular biographies and identified and ranked the 100 bio’s that were visited most often.
As I’ve explained in earlier pieces, I periodically post “most popular” lists of websites that I think educators might find useful. Of course, there are a number of ways to gauge “popularity.” I just view these lists as opportunities to check-out some new sites and information, and find it interesting to see which ones might be particularly “popular.”
