Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Monthly Archives: August 2009

August 14, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Part Thirty-Eight Of The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly

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 (for example, students can write about their creations).

* 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.

You might also want to look at The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2009.

Here are the newest additions:

REQUEST SOME “BLISS”: In yet another bizarre example of viral marketing, Jamba Juice has created a gimmick that can be very useful to English Language Learners (see my article titled Samuel L. Jackson, My ESL Students, and Me to learn more how I use these web tools for language-development).Jamba Juice lets you make a virtual Brown Bag Bliss Request. You choose a a face to put on a paperbag, type in a message of something you want in life, and then its text-to-speech feature has a person with that bag over their read speak the message. It can then be posted on your blog or website.

SEND AN eCard: eCards is a new site that lets you create and send a lot of different….eCards.  No registration is necessary, and the site also hosts what you send.  The link can be posted on a student blog or website.

SEND SOME “MIXED-UP FRUIT”: A fruit drink company lets you write a message and send a very weird animated card of bizarre fruit (Where do they come up with this stuff?)

PARTICIPATE IN A VIRTUAL MARCH AGAINST BREAST CANCER: Create a virtual “you” and march against breast cancer.  If you do, a company will make a contribution to fight the disease.

DANCE ON THE MOON: Upload a picture, or choose one of theirs, and NASA will have you dancing on the moon. Students can create one, and then describe what they’re doing.

If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.

You might also want to explore nearly 300 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.

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August 13, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Lavva Search Engine

The Lavva Search Engine will show thumbnail images next to each text description in your search results. You can then enlarge the image without leaving the search page.

That kind of visual support can be helpful to English Language Learners, and I’m adding it to my website under the Search Engines section.

It can apparently do a bunch of other stuff that I can’t quite figure out. And it does describe itself in a pretty weird way:

“Just as the flow of volcanic lava cannot be controlled or stopped, Lavva is not owned or controlled by anyone.”

But it is worth a look.

You might also want to check-out The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2008.

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August 13, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Karooba

Karooba is a neat site for learning games. It has a ton of them, plus you can easily create your own. You don’t have to register to play, but you do if you want to make games. You can play them and only compete against the computer, or you can compete against other people on the site. Unfortunately, though, there doesn’t seem to be a way to choose who you want to play with — it seems you get assigned randomly.

I’m adding the site to The Best Websites For Creating Online Learning Games and to The Best Collections Of Online Educational Games. Because of the inability to choose your opponents, I can’t add it to The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms”. If you use the site, let me know if there’s some way you can do that in case I missed it.

It’s Thursday morning (California time) and it appears the site might be overloaded with new people registering, so you might want to wait awhile before doing so. Just playing the games seems to be working fine, though.

Thanks to Skip Zalneraitis for the tip. If you use Twiiter, he’s definitely a person you want to “follow.”

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August 13, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Mandela Comic Book

We teach a unit on Nelson Mandela as part of our mainstream ninth-grade English curriculum. I’ve heard a lot about comic books that are used in South African schools to help students learn about his life, but I hadn’t been able to find any accessible online.

Now, though, I’ve found a site that has excerpts from the comic books along with video commentary. It’s very accessible to students.

I’ve placed it on my website under Nelson Mandela.

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August 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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My U.S. History Curriculum Online

(This is a repeat of a blog post that appeared earlier in the summer.  I just thought that with the school year rapidly approaching — and, for some, already here — it might be worth posting again)

As regular readers know, this past school year I taught two U.S. History classes to English Language Learners — one in a regular classroom and the other in the computer lab. You can read more about the results of this research experiment at Results From My Year-Long U.S. History Tech Experiment.

I used a blog during the computer lab class. You can access the United States History Class blog and see an entire year’s of lessons designed for student self-access. You can also see links to the students blogs used during the course. The lessons include quite a bit of original material I developed for use in both of the classes, and they are available for download (during the year students would open up the documents and cut-and-paste the exercises into their own blogs).

You’re obviously welcome to use the resources there with your students. I just ask that you not publish or reprint any of my original materials for use other than by your students.

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August 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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The Most Popular Search Queries Used By Kids

This is my usual introduction to one of these “most popular” posts:

As regular readers know, I’ve been posting “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.”

Today, I’d like to share the most popular search search queries used by kids.  Though I’m not quite sure how they figured them out (Richard Byrne was kind enough to share an explanation in the comments on this post), Online Family Norton has a list of the top 100.

Here are the top 20 on their list (you need to go to their site to get the rest):

# 1. YouTube
# 2. Google
# 3. Facebook
# 4. Sex
# 5. MySpace
# 6. Porn
# 7. Yahoo
# 8. Michael Jackson
# 9. Fred (A popular fictional character whose YouTube channel has become a hit among kids.)
# 10. eBay
# 11. You Tube
# 12. YouTube.com
# 13. Gmail
# 14. Wikipedia
# 15. Miley Cyrus (Singer and star of the Disney Channel’s hit series “Hannah Montana.”)
# 16. Webkinz (Toy stuffed animal that comes with a secret code, allowing kids access to the Webkinz World website.)
# 17. Games
# 18. Miniclip (Website with a variety of free online games.)
# 19. Taylor Swift (Country-pop singer)
# 20. Hotmail

Thanks to Read Write Web for the tip.

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August 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Share Your Blogging Tips In A Contest!

Sue Waters has just announced a contest in a post titled “Share your tips” — and win BIG!. Winners will receive free Edublogs supporter 12 month subscriptions.

You should read her post for details, but the key is:

Just write a post based on any of the topics themes listed below:

1. What are your 5 most important tips for educators starting out blogging with students?
2. When you first started blogging what aspects of blogging worked well? What has caused problems? What would you change? — you can discuss this in terms of class, student or your own personal blogging!
3. What are your 5 most important questions you would like to ask experienced bloggers? And why?
4. What do you like about blogging? What have you found hard about blogging. Students – How can teachers make the process easier?

On another note, I’m adding Sue’s Tips For Using Blogs With Students to The Best Sources For Advice On Student Blogging.

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August 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Recordr

Recordr is a new site that lets you record either a video or an audio of you speaking, and which you can then embed on your website (you don’t have to register in order to use it). I learned about it from The Make Use Of blog.

It’s still in beta, and it showed. I tried it a number of times, and only worked smoothly for a small number of my attempts. More importantly, you can access other people’s recordings from the site, and when I accidentally clicked on one the video wasn’t inappropriate for the classroom, but the advertising sure was.

Perhaps in the future Recordr might be a good option for ELL’s. But for now, stick with the better tools on the The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English list.

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August 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
14 Comments

What Do You To Make Sure Small Groups Work Well In Class?

“What Do You Do To Make Sure Small Groups Work Well In Class?’ is the next topic of my “What Do You Do?” series.

I hope you’ll share your experiences in dealing with this question — just leave a comment on this post, and I’ll include it in my post on the topic. The deadline for sharing your ideas will be September 15th.

You might also want to check-out previous posts in this series:

What Do You Do When You’re Having A Bad Day At School?
What Do You Do To Keep Students (And You!) Focused Near The End Of The Year?
What Do You Do On The Last Day Of Class (Part Two)?
What Do You Do When You Have A Few Minutes Left In Class? — Part Two
Answers To “What Do You Do On The First Day Of School?”

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August 11, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments

Job Spice

Job Spice is a new site to create resumes for posting online or for printing out. It’s very accessible to English Language Learners. Demo Girl has also created a screencast on how to use it.

My only concern is that it appears you have to download your resume prior to printing it out, which might be a problem for some school computers that are configured to not allow downloads. I might just be missing something, though.

I’m still adding Job Spice to The Best Places For Students To Write Their Resumes.

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August 11, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Bonneville Environmental Foundation

The Bonneville Environmental Foundation has very engaging carbon and water calculators to determine your environmental impact. In addition, their suggestions for how to reduce them are equally well-done.

I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Teaching & Learning About World Water Day, and I will be including it in an upcoming “The Best…” list on carbon calculators.

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August 11, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
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The Best Resources For Finding And Creating Virtual Field Trips

Virtual field trips are what the name implies — going on a field trip without actually leaving school grounds. Nothing really beats going out on a real trip for creating zillions of learning opportunities, but if money is tight and/or you don’t expect to be taking your class on an international adventure anytime soon, a virtual trip might just have to do.

These kind of trips come in four “sizes” — ones that you schedule in advance and have live interaction with someone on the other end; one that is pre-recorded and can be accessed at anytime; one that you create on your own; or one that students create after experiencing one as a model.

Most, though not all,  of the sites listed on “This Best… list” offer more than one of these options.

You might also find sites on The Best Sites For Panoramas list useful for planning some virtual trips.

Here are my choices for The Best Resources For FInding And Creating Virtual Field Trips:

Here are three sites that have very extensive collections of various virtual field trips:

Belmar Elementary School

Utah Education Network

Internet 4 Classrooms

Eduscapes has a nice feature called Virtual Adventures.

Edutopia has a good article titled Internet Explorers: Virtual Field Trips Are More Than Just Money Savers.

The iLearn Technology blog has a post on a trip that looks particularly engaging. It’s called the Smithsonian Virtual Museum.

Wes Fryer has a number of good virtual field trip resources.

Here are some resources from Web 2.0 Guru.

Google Earth is another source for these kinds of trips. Here are some specific resources for that application:

Google Earth Virtual Voyages, Virtual Field Trips: Resources

Here’s a free ebook titled An Illustrated Guide to Creating Virtual Field Trips Using Google™ Services

Simple K-12 Virtual Field Trips has a nice collection of links to…virtual field trips.

e Field Trips looks like it has a number of free virtual trips that you have sign-up to “attend.”

Project Explorer offers in-depth multimedia virtual field trips to Jordan, South Africa, Shakespeare’s England, and — later this year — Mexico. Different versions of each are offered to different grade levels. No registration is necessary — just go to the site and begin.

Calvert County Public Schools Social Studies Virtual Field Trips

Techtrekers

100 Incredible Virtual Tours

Google has created a gallery where you can visit historic areas around the world using its Street View feature.

The Google Art Project puts some of the most important art museums, and their collections, online with amazing features. I’ve embedded a very short video from the site that shows what it can do — I can’t do justice to it just with words.

Feel free to contribute 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.

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