September 15, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
David Kapuler has a great blog on educational technology that I’ve written about several times.
He’s started a fun little feature he calls “Inside The Cyber Studio” where he interviews various people in the education world on how they use technology. Today he published an interview with me.
If you didn’t get enough of me on the Ed Week Chat this afternoon, now you can get even more 
September 15, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
5 Comments
I had a great and stimulating experience as a guest in an Ed Week chat today on Engaging Parents.
If you’re interested, you can read the chat transcript.
I was particularly pleased that I didn’t mess-up using the software. Alice Mercer and Sue Waters would be proud of me!
September 15, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
This is the third edition in this particular series of “The Best…” lists. The first two were:
The Best “Fun” Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too
The Best Fun Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2008
To introduce this list, I’m just going to quote from the first one:
These are websites that were not designed with education in mind, but which can easily be used for learning purposes — particularly, though not exclusively, for English language development. I only hope that creators of “educational” content can learn from the qualities that make these sites so engaging.
I’m not listing these sites in any order of preference.
Here are my picks for The Best “Fun” Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2009:
DANCING:
Eternal Moonwalk is a Michael Jackson tribute site where people upload short videos of them doing a moonwalk…that connects to all the other moonwalks people have uploaded. It’s almost impossible to stop watching. You could certainly have students use English to plan their dance and then describe it. I know it’s a stretch but, as I said earlier, it’s so much fun!
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS:
In my classes I help students learn academic vocabulary. One new word has been “interpretation” and its various forms. I usually show students several optical illusions that can be found at various sites. Then, they have short conversations with other students about what they see:
“What is your interpretation of what’s in the picture?”
“It seems to me that there’s a ……”
Here are two new resources for illusions that can be used in this way:
83 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena
PHOTOS:
Students can pick some of these photos to write about or describe, or they can be used in class as part of the Picture Word Inductive Model teaching strategy:
Off the wall: The astonishing 3D murals painted on the sides of buildings by a trompe l’oeil artist
20 Awesome 3D Pavement Illusions
Extreme Ironing: shirt-ironing the hard way
Here’s a TIME Magazine slideshow on wild human-powered flying machines.
VIDEOS:
Fun videos are always useful. If you have a computer projector, students can watch them using the “Back-To-The-Screen” activity (read how to do it at The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows For ESL/EFL). Or, if you don’t have a projector, you can do a similar activity if you’re at a computer lab. Or you can just have everybody watch the same video and write about it as a class.
Most of these videos are from YouTube (which is likely blocked by school content filters), but some of them are worth using a converter to download into your laptop or a service like EdublogsTV or Watch Now to show to students. They’re great for English Language Learners – short, engaging videos that students can then write about and discuss.
Here are my video suggestions:
Inspired Bicycles – Danny MacAskill April 2009 shows some amazing bicycle acrobatics, though one hopes it wouldn’t give students any ideas…
The PEN Story is an incredible “stop motion” movie using thousands of photos to show a man’s life story — in three minutes.
You can also pick from 21 Stunning Examples Of Creatively Done Stop Motion Animations.
The Top Ten Odd-Looking Pets from Animal Planet are always winners with students.
Here’s a video of the most fun wedding entrance — ever!
Here are two videos — one of two “talking” cats making their actual sounds, and another of them with dubbed-in conversation. After showing students both, a fun lesson would to have ELL’s develop their own version of the dialogue.
The Flawless – Dance Act – Britains Got Talent 2009 is pretty amazing to watch.
This video of a surprise musical performance in a train station is a fun one.
This next one wouldn’t work for ELL’s because of the fast dialogue, but it would be good for advanced or native speakers. It’s called The Figurative Language Bomb, and it would be a fun introduction to…figurative language.
ART:
This strange tool lets you create a painting with your voice. Your mouse is the brush and your voice the ink when you create an online painting. Then send it to the site’s gallery to get a unique url address to post on a student or teacher website/blog, and then give a description.
Just click and start making a drawing with virtual sand, then save your creation to the gallery. Again, students can post it and then provide an oral or text description.
Create a star constellation that moves with Rule The Stars. Then email and post the url to your creation, along with a description.
Make a snowflake, describe it, and post the link on a student/teacher blog or website.
At Connect The Dots, you can upload any photo and easily turn it into a “connect the dot” puzzle that can be shared and solved by others. It seems to me it has extremely limited educational value — I guess Beginning English Language Learners could use it as a fun vocabulary-building activity since you have to type in the category your photo fits in. But — educational or not — it’s a pretty neat web tool!
VIRAL MARKETING:
I’ve written how I use viral marketing tools with my English Language Learner students. Here are some of the ones that students have enjoyed the most:
You can become a talking Star Trek character. Using the text-to-speech feature, choose a Star Trek character and have him/her speak, then post it on a student/teacher website.
You can turn into a talking potato With Spud Yourself! Take your own image or use one of the site’s pictures. By using the text-to-speech feature, English Language Learners can develop their language skills in a fun way through writing and listening. You can post the link to your talking potato on a teacher or student blog/website.
Made For Each Other is yet another weird example of viral marketing that can be used as a fun and useful language-learning tool (you can read about how I use these applications here). I guess it’s connected to advertising to Frito-Lay in some way (though it’s hard to tell how). It’s too strange to explain, other than to say you connect two creatures to one another and then write a love note for one of them to give to the other. You are then given the link to that note that can be posted on a student or teacher website. If you have a few minutes left to kill in the computer lab, and you want to give your ELL students a short and engaging writing task, this would certainly be an option.
Purina has created a fun little online tool where users can learn to speak…dog. You type in words to finish the sentence “Learn how to say ‘I’m _________________’ in dog.” Then, a dog does an action showing how they communicate that feeling. It would be a fun way for English Language Learners to practice some vocabulary if you have a few minutes left to “kill” in the computer lab.
ONLINE VIDEO GAMES:
I’ve written about how I use online video games as language-development activities with my students.
Here are a couple of particularly good ones that came out this year:
Griswold The Goblin includes audio supported text and a lot of fun. Here’s the Walkthrough.
The Ballad of Ketinetto is an online video game excellent for English Language development. Here’s the Walkthrough.
The same creators of the last game also have an excellent seventeen part series of games called Esklavos, several which have come out in the past year. You can find the Walkthroughs to the series here. That same Walkthrough page also has links to all the games, but because I think it’s more likely that the site featuring the walkthroughs will be blocked by school content filters, I’m going to list direct links to all the games here (except for the first one, which is in Spanish only):
Feedback, of course, is 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 14, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
YourVersion just opened to the public today, and also just won a big award at a conference being put on by TechCrunch.
After you register, you identify your areas of interest, and YourVersion then seems to do a good job of identifying sites you might be interested in. It also has a lot of other bells and whistles.
I’m adding it to The Best Places To Get Blog, Website, , Book, Movie, & Music Recommendations.
September 14, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Smithsonian has just unveiled their online Smithsonian Hispanic Heritage Cultural Tour. it’s a pretty neat multimedia site, which includes a lot of interactivity. In fact, users can create their own personalized tour.
I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Hispanic Heritage Month.
September 14, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
David Shenk at The Atlantic has a good, short article titled Does Homework Work?. He includes several excellent links to good pieces written about the topic, and ends with this:
“But it seems the time has come for all parents to revisit this subject with considerable skepticism.”
His article prompted me to review a number of other resources on the topic that I’ve bookmarked, and thought that a quick “The Best…” list might be useful to readers and to me.
I’ve never delved too deeply into the subject, and have generally shied away from giving it except for a regular assignment of reading a book for 1/2 hour each night — whatever book students want to read. I do give other “homework,” particularly in my ESL classes, including students writing a weekly journal about their lives and an individual dictionary where they identify four new words they’ve learned that week. However, I usually give them ample time to finish it in class.
Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About Homework Issues:
Of course, David Shenk’s Does Homework Work? article, which also contains some great links to thoughtful pieces.
The Place of Homework in the 21st Century at Langwitches.
Practice, Practice, Practice (Or: Homework, Homework, Homework?) from the ASCD Inservice Community Blog.
Homework: How Much is Too Much? from National Public Radio.
Dealing With Missing Homework by John Norton from Teacher Magazine (free registration required).
Alfie Kohn has written “Rethinking Homework.”
Dr. Kathy Vatterott has created a website called The Homework Lady, and you can read an EdWeek interview with her here. She is the author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs (ASCD, 2009).
End Homework Now is an article that appeared in Educational Leadership magazine.
Forget Homework is from Slate.
To hear some thoughtful differing perspectives, check-out:
The Weak Case Against Homework by Jay Matthews at The Washington Post. That column has some interesting quotes from Deborah Meier.
ASCD’s Inservice blog recently revisited a 1985 article titled Homework’s Powerful Effects on Learning. The comments by today’s educators on the post are very interesting reading.
Five Hallmarks of Good Homework is a very good article in this month’s issue of Educational Leadership. It’s written by Cathy Vatterott.
Show Us What Homework’s For is an article in Educational Leadership interviewing teenagers about their perspectives on homework.
I’ve written a post titled “Sensible Homework Advice.”
Homework For English Language Learners
New Study Says Homework Has No Impact…Except In Math
Homework: The useful and the useless is by Valerie Strauss at The Washington Post.
Three Intriguing Articles On Homework
Alfie Kohn wrote this letter to The New York Times about homework.
Feedback and other suggestions 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.
September 14, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Google Fast Flip is a neat new way to read news online. You can read how Google explains it here.
I’m adding it to The Best Visually Engaging News Sites.
Thanks to Fred Delventhal for the tip.
September 14, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments
Both Mary Ann Zehr and the San Francisco Chronicle have recently written about a new high school starting in San Francisco for recent immigrant youth.
It sounds like they have a wonderful program there, but I wonder if having separate high schools for immigrants is really the way to go?
Do they provide an excuse for comprehensive high schools to not take responsibility and respond to the needs of English Language Learners? Does this sort of segregation limit the opportunities for immigrant young people to connect with young people from other cultures and develop relationships?
At our high school, we certainly have specific classes for newcomers — throughout the school, not just limited to one physical area. But they are immediately integrated into some mainstream classes immediately, even if it’s just Physical Education or Art. And we constantly look for opportunities to place them in more mainstream classes as their English improves. Few, if any other schools in the state have have a track record of higher test scores for ELL’s (though, obviously, test scores are not necessarily the best evaluative tool of effectiveness).
And do the other comprehensive high schools lose out, too? The principal of our school and I co-wrote an article titled The Positive Impact Of English Language Learners At An Urban School, which shares how the whole school has benefited by our large number of ELL’s (including hundreds of newcomers).
What do you think?
September 14, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Nick Peachey has put together a great online e-book with an accompanying video on Web 2.0 Tools for EFL ESL Teachers.
I’m adding it to The Best Sources For Ideas On How To Use Technology With English Language Learners.
September 14, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
The next ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival will be hosted by the ELL Classroom , and the deadline for submissions will be September 30th, with October 1st the publication date. You can contribute posts by using this easy submission form.
Any posts related to teaching or learning English are welcome, including examples of student work.
Candace Wlliams posted the Twelfth Edition of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival earlier this month. She called it “Summer Break Time” and definitely did some great creative things with it. Check-out what bloggers from throughout the world contributed!
Let me know if you’d like to host future editions.
You can see all the previous twelve editions of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival here.
September 13, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
8 Comments
Both Richard Byrne and MagistraM have recently posted about their “must-read” blogs.
That got me thinking…
I do have several related specific lists, like:
The Best blogs for sharing resource links
The Best Places To Find Good Education Blogs
The Best (& Most Thoughtful) Blogs On “Big Picture” Education Issues
The Best “Practical” Ed Tech Blogs
I’ve also listed the best blogs offering resources for International Baccalaureate “Theory of Knowledge” classes.
But I’ve never actually made a list of what I consider to be the very best ones — blogs that I immediately look at when I see a new post on my RSS Reader.
My criteria to be included in this list are:
* The blog consistently provides me with information or advice that I can use in my classroom, or
* The blog consistently provides intellectual stimulation that energizes me, or
* The blog consistently provides me with information that I can use in my efforts to make institutional school change, or
* The blog consistently makes me laugh.
* The final criteria is that the writer has to also post consistently.
Given that criteria, here are The Twenty Blogs I Read First (not in order of preference, just in alphabetical order):
EFL Classroom 2.0 — Teacher Talk by David Deubelbeiss is always insightful in his writing about working in the ESL/EFL classroom.
English Raven by Jason Renshaw offers great practical advice for teaching in the English Language Learner classroom.
Flowing Data is great for sharing the best infographics (visual representations of data or information) around.
Free Technology For Teachers should, of course, be on everybody’s list. Richard Byrne does a tremendous job finding and sharing resources.
Go 2 Web 20 (I’m talking about the blog, not the associated website) identifies real gems in the world of start-up Web 2.0 applications.
Google Maps Mania scours the Web for the most creative and useful “mashups” that use Google Maps effectively (and sometimes humorously).
Information Aesthetics is another great source of infographics.
Interesting Pile blog compiles the best, most useful, and often funniest “lists” that can be found on the Web. I probably send more “tweets” about items I find here than from any other source.
Langwitches is on many of my “The Best…” lists, and is a great source for links and practical advice.
Learning The Language by Mary Ann Zehr is THE place for keeping up on the latest policy and research issues related to English Language Learners in the U.S.
Public School Insights by Claus von Zastrow posts excellent reports on what’s happening in schools around the country, and provides essential critical reflection on what is being done, or should be done, in the name of “school reform.”
Sue Waters, who is probably the most popular person in the education blogosphere, writes two blogs and they’re both on my list — one is now called Sue Waters’ Blog and the other is The Edublogger.
Oddee is another source of fun and useful lists.
The Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog has fabulous image collections documenting important current events.
Reflections On Teaching is the blog written by Alice Mercer, my Sacramento colleague, technical wizard, critical thinking, and all-around wonderful person.
I’ve often written about how much I like The Tempered Radical, written by Bill Ferriter. He gets me thinking all the time!
This Week In Education by Alexander Russo helpfully finds informative school and school-reform related posts and articles so we don’t have to, plus he adds his own inimitable commentary.
Kevin Jarrett’s Welcome To NCS-Tech may be the “Dean” of all education resource bloggers, and continues to churn-out posts about helpful resources.
I’m liking The Answer Sheet, a new Washington Post blog about education written by Valerie Strauss, but it’s too new for me to officially place it on this list. But it’s worth checking-out.
It was not easy narrowing it down to twenty, and I obviously subscribe to, and read, a lot more. I haven’t included some just because they don’t write posts very regularly. I think these twenty, and all the others in my previous lists, deserve to be in people’s RSS Reader.
As always, feedback is welcome.
(Oops! After I posted this I realized I had forgotten to include TechCrunch on this list. It’s the “gold standard” for coverage of any new advances in the tech world. I guess I should change the title of this post to “The Twenty-One Blogs I Read First…”)
September 13, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
5 Comments
As regular readers know, I’ve just begun teaching a class for our school’s International Baccalaureate program called “Theory Of Knowledge.”
In the Theory of Knowledge class, students basically learn to not take anything they’re being taught in school or hearing elsewhere at face value, and that the world is not black and white. So I encourage them to question what they’re learning in all their other classes
It fits in with one of my favorite quotes from Saul Alinsky, who is considered the “father” of modern-day community organizing, and who started the organization where I spent most of my nineteen-year community organizing career:
“I detest and fear dogma…The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right..”
I’m looking forward to modifying the lessons I use in this class so I can use them with my English Language Learner students.
I’ve just begun a blog for this class, and it’s called….. Theory of Knowledge. I’ll be using it a little differently from my other class blogs. This one will be more of a place where I’ll be accumulating resource links on the sidebar that I’ll be having students access for study or for use in my actual classroom with an LCD projector. I won’t have many actual blog posts laying out assignments. So, you might want to subscribe to that blog but, more importantly, you might want to “manually” check it regularly for new sidebar content.
There aren’t an enormous number of resources there right now, but it will be increasing rapidly.
Feel free to explore my other class blogs, too:
September 13, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Five Borrowed Tips for Helping Students Become Better Bloggers is another great post by Gail Desler.
I’m adding it to The Best Sources For Advice On Student Blogging.
September 13, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Find Water Polluters Near You is an interactive from The New York Times. You can type in your zip code and then learn about nearby companies cited for polluting local water.
The Times also has a video called Toxic Waters.
I’m adding both to The Best Resources For Teaching & Learning About World Water Day.
In addition, I’m adding the interactive to my website under Student Neighborhood Maps. Students use the tools there to do a major project comparing two neighborhoods. One of these days, I’ll get around to explaining this assignment in depth here.
September 13, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
iSeek is an organization out of Minnesota designed to assist young people develop career goals. However, a lot of its materials would be useful wherever a student lives.
I particularly like the many closed-captioned videos about different careers it has, most which are accessible to English Language Learners.
I’ve placed the link on my website under Jobs and Careers.
Readers might also be interested in The Best Websites For Students Exploring Jobs and Careers.
September 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
7 Comments
That’s the cover of my book, Building Parent Engagement In Schools (written with Lorie Hammond).
You can buy it through all the usual ways, including on Amazon. Since the list price is $35, Amazon lets you buy it without charging for postage and handling — if you choose that method (it just means you get it a few days later). You can pre-order it at Amazon.
You can also order it directly from Linworth Publishing. They will give blog readers a twenty percent discount. The only catch is that you can’t order it from their website if you want the discount.
To get that discount, (there doesn’t seem to a way to pre-order it from the publisher) you’ll be able to go here, print-out an order form and fax it to (888) 873-7017. Important — you have to put this special code on your order — 093BLA4 — and say it’s “Larry Ferlazzo’s blog discount.”
You can also call-in your order to (805) 880-6834.
The twenty percent discount also applies to ordering multiple copies.
Let me know if you have any difficulties with the ordering process.
Here’s a preview of the book.
And, as a reminder, I now have a second blog called Engaging Parents In Schools.
You might want to read Expert Advice about Parent Engagement: An Interview with Larry Ferlazzo.
September 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
10 Comments
A recent “tweet” by Keisa Williams (if you use Twitter, she’s a “must-follow”) is prompting this post.
Keisa shared a pretty cool-looking book recommendation site called Lexile. By using it, students can find books about topics of interests that are supposed to be on their reading “level.”
I sometimes wonder about the whole idea of separating books by reading “levels.” I feel like it can discourage students from seeking more challenging texts about topics of interest to them. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see some of the kinds of books students will struggle through because they find them so engaging.
That’s not to say that I’m completely against doing something like that. In my own classroom, because I teach such a wide range of students ranging from early Intermediate English Language Learners to International Baccalaureate diploma candidates (and everybody in-between) I have some division in my classroom library. I emphasize all the time, though, that these few and broad classifications are just a guide. One way I encourage “cross-pollination” is by having separate sections for the “popular” books in each level — books that over the years have clearly been the books most-read by students in all of my classes.
Right now, I don’t have any book recommendation tools on my The Best Places To Get Blog, Website, , Book, Movie, & Music Recommendations list that have any kind of leveling system (at least, I don’t think I do — I might be wrong).
I’d be very interested in hearing people’s perspective on all this. I don’t know of any research on this topic that would back me up or offer different conclusions. Let me know what your experience is, and if you know of any related research. I’m open to changing my mind.
September 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Game Classroom contains a nice collection of Math and language arts learning games. You can read more about it at The Book Chook blog.
I don’t think it’s quite good enough to add to The Best Collections Of Online Educational Games, but it’s close. Let me know if you think I should include it there.
September 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Jason Renshaw has begun writing a series of posts sharing useful ideas on using speaking activities in the ESL/EFL classroom.
They are definitely worth a visit.
September 12, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Earth-Touch is an organization in South Africa that films some amazing nature-related video, and shares them freely on their website. They’re pretty neat.
Thought it doesn’t quite fit into this list, I’m still adding it to The Best Sites For News & History Videos That Won’t Get Blocked By Content Filters (At Least, Not By Ours!).
Thanks to Nik Peachey for the tip.
