September 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
“Appetizing Architecture” is a series of images showing buildings shaped like food. It is a similar list to one I’ve previously shared, Buildings That Look Like Food, but, though there is some overlap, each has a number of different examples.
Both are on my The Best Images Of Weird, Cool & Neat-Looking Buildings (& Ways To Design Your Own) list.
Thanks to the Interesting Pile blog for the tip.
September 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
If you’re at an IB school and are teaching Theory of Knowledge, this is just a quick post to let you know I’ve just added a ton of links to our class Theory of Knowledge blog.
You might find them helpful.
September 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments
(World AIDS Day is recognized every December 1st. You can see a lesson plan for English Language Learners at ESL Holiday Lessons)
With the announcement earlier this week of a possible breakthrough in finding a vaccine against HIV, I thought I’d put together a quick list of related resources that are accessible to English Language Learners.
This is not by any means exhaustive, and I’m hopeful readers will contribute additional links. They’re not in any particular order. Some of these sites are probably not appropriate for younger students.
Here are my choices for The Best Web Resources For Learning About HIV & AIDS (and are accessible to English Language Learners):
The CBBC Newsround, as usual, has an excellent feature on AIDS that’s very accessible to ELL’s. It’s called What is Aids?
The National Institutes of Health has an excellent interactive tutorial on AIDS and HIV.
Here’s another simple explanation, with pictures, that has the same title What Is Aids? It’s from the Japa Network, which also hosts a quiz: HIV & AIDS: How much do you know?
Evolution Of AIDS comes from the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.
Students can learn about AIDS (and spelling) from the Avert AIDS game.
AIDS- 25 Years is an Associated Press interactive. This feature, like the one at The Globe and Mail, is a few years old, but still contains a lot of useful information.
The CBC has an interactive map showing the world-wide presence of HIV and AIDS.
Here’s a exercise on AIDS designed for ELL’s.
About HIV and AIDS is a simple animation that provides audio support for the text. It’s from Healthy Roads.
MSNBC has a similar map.
Here’s a simple reading and quiz designed for ELL’s titled Is it Difficult to Catch HIV/AIDS?
What Would You Do? is an online game from UNICEF.
HIV: How can I protect myself? is a cloze (gap-fill) exercise for ELL’s.
Patient Voices: AIDS and H.I.V. is from The New York times and shares short interviews with people diagnosed with HIV. It might only be accessible to high Intermediate ELL’s.
The Peace Corps has a simple quiz that is quite good. Click on “Edzi Todo Quiz” on this page (there’s not a direct link).
HIV Epidemic– Vietnam is an interactive from The Wall Street Journal.
Hope: Living and Loving With HIV in Jamaica is an exceptionally touching presentation.
Camp Heartland is a TIME Magazine interactive presentation on a summer camp for HIV-infected children.
National Geographic has an extensive multmedia feature on AIDS in Africa.
The Face Of Aids is a slideshow from MSNBC.
It’s Up To Us is a downloable curriculum on AIDS designed for English Language Learners.
Here’s a Webquest titled It Won’t Happen To Me! that’s designed for ELL’s.
CBS News has an impressive interactive titled AIDS: The Modern Pandemic.
Marking World AIDS Day is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.
The Face of AIDS is a slideshow from MSNBC. The same site has an interactive map with updated statistics from around the world.
AIDS In Uganda is a slideshow from The New York Times.
“The Quest For A Vaccine” is a Wall Street Journal interactive timeline of the quest for an HIV vaccine.
“Get Offers New Hope In HIV Fight” is the title of a Wall Street Journal slideshow.
LIFE has published a special feature showing several HIV & AIDS-related slideshows.
The 23rd World AIDS Day is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.
World Aids Day 2010 is a series of photos from The Sacramento Bee.
The New York Times has an article (that would have to be modified for ELL’s) on an unusual way celebreties will be raising funds on World AIDS Day on December 1, 2010.
30 years of fighting AIDS is an infographic from The Orange County Register.
Living With AIDS is a Wall Street Journal interactive.
AIDS Treatment: Search For The Elusive Cure is an Associated Press interactive.
The fight against AIDS, 30 years on is a chart from The Economist.
Emory University has introduced AIDSVu, an interactive map that provides a detailed view of the number of people living with an HIV diagnosis in the United States by state and county.
The Centers For Disease Control has a video, with closed-captioning, showing the history of HIV/AIDS from 1981 through 2008.
The Changing Face Of AIDS is an impressively done infographic from GOOD Magazine.
Teach Aids has good multilingual animations. You can read more about it at Richard Byrne’s blog.
World AIDS Day 2011 is a photo gallery from the Sacramento Bee.
HIV and Aids: interactive timeline of a global crisis is from The Guardian.
World AIDS Day 2011 is a slideshow from The Boston Globe.
The Graying of AIDS is a TIME slideshow.
AIDS treatment: Global leaders recommit to AIDS fight is an interactive from The Associated Press.
The Photo That Changed The Face Of AIDS is from NPR.
Suggestions are 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.
September 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The nine national museums in Great Britain have a nice collection of webquests.
I’m adding the link to The Best Places To Create (And Find) Internet Scavenger Hunts & Webquests.
Thanks to Eric Sheninger for the tip.
September 27, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Students can write-up simple tutorials on just about anything and submit them to LearnThat. There doesn’t seem to be any tutorials on the site that are inappropriate for classroom use.
I’m adding it to The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An “Authentic Audience”.
Thanks to the Interesting Pile blog for the tip.
September 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Conditional Cash Transfers, Parents, And Schools is the title of my newest post at my other blog, “Engaging Parents In School.”
I typically don’t “cross-post,” and won’t here, either. However, I think readers might find this post particularly interesting. I suspect we’re all going to start hearing a lot more about Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT’s), and it might be worth learning (if you don’t know already) how they might be used in attempts to affect parent and student behavior
September 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
8 Comments
Every month I make a short list highlighting my choices of the best resources I shared through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts here on my blog.
I’ve already shared in earlier posts this month several new resources I found on Twitter — and where I gave credit to those from whom I learned about them. Those are not included again in this post.
If you don’t use Twitter, you can also check-out all of my “tweets” on my Twitter profile page or subscribe to their RSS feed.
Here are my picks for September’s Best Tweets (not listed in any order):
Nine Myths About Public Schools by Gerald Bracey (Thanks to Margaret Haun for the tip)
Making Education Policy: Is Research in the Mix?
Curiosity, Ingenuity and Styrofoam Science, excellent article on “open-ended curiosity” from The Atlantic
29 Rare & Exotic Animal Photographs
10 Things Global Warming Could Change Forever
Infographic analyzing nutritional content of typical school lunch
Great resources on “Essential Questions”
Good critique of “merit pay” (Thanks to David Cohen)
12 Shocking Ideas That Could Change the World from Wired Magazine
Learning From Mistakes Beats Learning From Success (Thanks to Nancy Blair)
Top 10 Time-Lapse Videos Show Nature at Work
New York Times article on programmers working in pairs is similar to social learning in schools (thanks to Katie Day)
Putting Poverty in Its Place, the challenge of “neighborhood” based approaches (thanks to Alexander Russo
Infographic: The Most Frugal Cities In America
50 Stunning & Inspirational Stop Motion Videos
The 50 best things to eat in the world, and where to eat them
“Is Happiness Catching?” — pretty interesting article in The New York Times Magazine
New Book by Malcolm Gladwell
Interesting interactive on climate change (Thanks to Ozge)
Wired Infographic on which parts of the US are most guilty of each of the 7 Deadly Sins
Lego Versions of 13 Classic Photographs
Using Technology to Support Creativity and Critical Thinking
“Is Online Learning REALLY Better?”
Visual Effects: 100 Years of Inspiration
You might also want to check out other collections of tweets at Mission to Learn and at Shelly Terrell’s blog.
September 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
6 Comments
The success of my lessons on learning’s physical impact on the brain has prompted me to think of creating similar lessons that might encourage students to see how learning can more directly benefit them beyond the schoolhouse door.
I’ve begun developing a lesson on the importance of having self-control. Studies show that the ability to have self-discipline (also known as self-regulation) can result in tremendous learning and life benefits.
I’ve just begun to think about it, and am open to hearing ideas. I’ll be posting what my final plans look like. Here are the resources I’m reviewing now:
A TED Talk by Joachim de Posada focused on the lessons from famous marshmallow experiment. A marshmallow was put in front of children, the researcher left the room after telling the child he/she would be back shortly and if the child could resist grabbing the one marshmallow she/he would get more upon the researcher’s return. Years later, those who showed self-control were much more successful in their lives.
I briefly explained this study to a joint class we were training to use a web tool to make a slideshow yesterday. The application requires that students email their final creation to themselves in order to obtain the url address of the finished product, which in turn students can then post on our class blog. After taking a minute to summarize the researchers findings, I talked about how tempting it would be once they went to their personal email to open-up other messages from friends in addition to the one from the slideshow site. But I wanted them to “remember the marshmallow.”
These students actually do work for our English classes in a different computer applications class. I spoke to the teacher after school, and he told me that — as far as he could tell — no students did anything other than open up the one email from the slideshow site.
Three other excellent resources on this topic are:
DON’T: The Secret of Self-Control from The New Yorker magazine.
Self-Regulation Supports Student Learning and Achievement by Kevin Washburn
Just today, The New York Times published Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?
Any other suggestions of resources or ideas are welcome.
September 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
How to Avoid Plagiarism: A Complete Guide for ESL Learners is an excellent article specifically designed for ELL’s. It even provides audio support for the text.
I’m adding it to The Best Online Resources To Teach About Plagiarism.
Thanks to Tara Benwell from English Club for the tip. I also think she created the resource.
September 26, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
Teaching and Learning Idioms: The Big Picture is a helpful article by Eve Zyzik.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Help ELL’s Learn Idioms & Slang.
September 25, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
“Flooding In The Southwest” is the title of the latest series of photos from The Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About Georgia’s Floods.
September 25, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Tsoni is another nice re-packaging of the Google Translate program. It’s very similar to Tradukka.
You can find other similar tools on The Best Reference Websites For English Language Learners — 2008.
September 25, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Layers is a new site that lets you annotate any webpage. Two especially nice features it has are (1) you can add photos and videos to your annotation by just including the url address and (2) you can see how other people who are also registered at Layers have annotated the same page.
I quite regularly post about any new site I can find that allows you to easily annotate webpages. I’ve got a lot of them listed on Best Applications For Annotating Websites, but I don’t think I have yet to find the perfect one for students to use. Layers might come close, but it’s not initially particularly intuitive in its initial lay-out on how to use it. Nevertheless, I’m adding it to that list.
As I shared on that “The Best..” list, these kinds of sites are ideal for students to demonstrate reading strategies on the Web, just as the use real Post-Its in the classroom.
I’ll have students give it a try and see what happens.
Thanks to Go 2 Web 20 for the tip.
September 25, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Regular readers know that my book, Building Parent Engagement In Schools, will be published next week.
I just received word from Linworth Publishing that my second book, which will come-out next year, is now going to be called Teaching English Language Learners: Strategies that Work.
I’ll let people know it’s official release date, and will probably publish a “preview” somewhere.
It focuses on many of the teaching and learning strategies I’ve adapted from my nineteen-year community organizing career and found to work successfully in the classroom.
September 25, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The University of Richmond has nice, and large, collection of Webquests.
I’m adding it to The Best Places To Create (And Find) Internet Scavenger Hunts & Webquests.
Thanks to David Kapuler for the tip.
September 24, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
Tomorrow, I’ll be having my mainstream ninth-grade English students do another activity to follow-up the lesson we did on Monday on how reading and learning literally helps neurons in the brain grow and get stronger (“Now I Know My Brain Is Growing When I Read Every Night”).
First, I’m going to explain the difference between “literal” language (I’m very hungry) and figurative (“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse”). I’ll also give a few examples of metaphors and similes.
Then I’m going to ask students to take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. They will title the left-side “This Is Your Brain When It’s Not Learning.” They’ll label the right side “This Is Your Brain When It Is Learning.”
I’m going to give them the choice of either drawing it literally (using images from the video we used showing neurons growing and from pictures in the article we read) or figuratively (maybe they’ll draw something like a dying plant on the left and a blooming one on the right). I’ll show the short brain video again, and also show the famous “This Is Your Brain On Drugs” Public Service Announcement as an example of figurative language.
Posting these student-created posters on the classroom wall might be one way to help students remember what they learned. Plus, I think it’ll be interesting to see which ones choose to show it literally and which go the figurative way. Finally, it will be a good introduction to that vocabulary and concept.
I might post a collection of their drawings as a slideshow. If it goes well, we might make videos illustrating the same concept.
Reactions are welcome, including suggestions on how to make it better.
(This lesson went great, and you can see examples of what students came-up with in this slideshow)
September 24, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The number one rated site on The Best Websites For Intermediate Readers is from the Marshal Adult Education Center in Minnesota. They have a new web address, and I’ve made the change on that “The Best…” list, too.
They have Reading Skills Stories 2. There are many leveled, high-interest accessible stories with several follow-up activities for each one. They also have a great Student Lessons section, too.
September 24, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
6 Comments
This “The Best…” list is sort of a combination of two lists I had been thinking of making to go along with The Best Online Resources To Teach About Plagiarism (Another list to keep in mind might be The Best Reference Websites For English Language Learners — 2008).
The more I thought about it, though, the more I felt that a list of engaging (and even fun) sites to teach research skills and accessible citation resources would make a good combination.
Since a graduation requirement in our district is that seniors need to develop a “Senior Project,” I’ve spent some time finding these kinds of helpful sites that might be accessible to English Language Learners. I have to say, though, that these sites (except for the first one) would probably only be accessible to more advanced ELL’s.
Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning Research And Citation Skills:
LEARNING RESEARCH SKILLS:
Here’s the one resource that’s probably accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners. It’s called How To Do Research, and its from the Kentucky Virtual Library. It’s designed to look like an interactive board game.
The Information Literacy Game comes from the University of North Carolina. It’s an online game designed to help students develop research and citation skills.
Research 101 comes from Lycoming College. It was created to teach students how to navigate successfully around library resources. They also have a Choose Your Own Library Adventure Game.
Students learn some Internet research skills through playing The Gold Rush Game. The group that created this game, 21st Century Information Fluency, has also developed quite a few other interactives designed to help students learn about using the Web for research. All of these are accessible to Intermediate ELL’s.
The St. Joseph School Library has a large number of surprising accessible games related to research. This site might be accessible to high Intermediate English Language Learners.
Boolify is a search engine designed for elementary and middle school students that is accessible to English Language Learners. I think there are others that are more accessible, but this is a good one to help teach basic search strategies. It’s on The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2008 list.
The City University of New York has an excellent series of exercises on actually writing a research paper.
The Rutgers Research Information Online Tutorial is an excellent interactive tool to help students learn research schools. Closed-captioning is also provided, which helps English Language Learners. It’s still a bit advanced, but is worth a look.
“Searching With Success” is an engaging tutorial on searching the web. It’s from Acadia University, and is accessible to high Intermediate English Language Learners.
Acadia also has a tutorial called Credible Sources Count. It’s probably only accessible to advanced ELL’s.
CITATIONS:
Eastern Washington University has a good tutorial on Citing Your Sources.
Here are several sites that will correctly format citations once you input the necessary information:
Ottobib
Citation Machine
Bibme
EasyBib
OSLIS Citation Maker
Knight Cite
Cite This For Me is a new web app that helps you create reference citations in the “Harvard Referencing Style.”
Suggestions are 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.
September 23, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
ELL 2.0: How to Make the Most of the Web is the title of my most recent article in Teacher Magazine. I share a few thoughts on using the Web with English Language Learners, and include my picks for the most useful thirteen websites.
Free registration is required to view most of the article.
My article appeared as a result of my membership in The Teacher Leaders Network.
September 23, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Education Secretary Duncan is going to be giving a speech on Thursday where he calls, once again, for a testing system that “accurately and fairly measures student growth and uses data to drive instruction and teacher evaluation.”
I’ve posted before about the crucial difference between being “data-driven” and being “data-informed,” which I learned from Ted Appel, our principal.
Here’s an excerpt from that post, which I wrote earlier this month after state testing results came-in:
If schools are data-driven, they might make decisions like keeping students who are “borderline” between algebra and a higher-level of math in algebra so that they do well in the algebra state test. Or, in English, teachers might focus a lot of energy on teaching a “strand” that is heavy on the tests — even though it might not help the student become a life-long reader. In other words, the school can tend to focus on its institutional self-interest instead of what’s best for the students.
In schools that are data-informed, test results are just one more piece of information that can be helpful in determining future directions.
You can read more what that looks like in practical terms for me this year by reading that post, “Data-Driven” Versus “Data-Informed.”
Thanks to Andres Henriquez for the tip on the USA Today article.
