April 9, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
“On Music” is a new simple application that lets you search for and play music online.
It meets my “Raffi” test for ELL’s — you can find a number of his songs using the site.
I’m adding the link to Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Music Sites.
April 9, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
April 9, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
A new international study has come-out once again documenting the huge benefits to children of having books at home. Here’s an excerpt:
“Growing up in a home with 500 books would propel a child 3.2 years further in education, on average, than would growing up in a similar home with few or no books…. In the U.S., the figure is 2.4 years — which is still highly significant when you consider it’s the difference between two years of college and a full four-year degree.
We focus a lot on the importance of a home library in our Family Literacy Project. In addition to providing computers and home internet service, we’ve gotten thousands of great books from the Friends of the Davis (CA) Library to stock home libraries.
This is a major issue with low-income and immigrant families. In my book, Building Parent Engagement In Schools, I share the results of various studies that show the average Hispanic family with limited English-proficient children has about 26 books in their home, which is about one-fifth of the U.S. average.
Providing high quality books to parents and students that they could call their own — and that they could help pick — could be a pretty darn effective parent engagement effort.
April 9, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
We have 2,300 students in our inner-city high school, which makes it difficult to know everybody. On top of that, we’re divided into seven “Small Learning Communities” (see What Are Small Communities?) of about 300-350 each, so that makes it even more difficult to know who students are outside your SLC.
As I walk around the school, though, it’s not uncommon to see students acting inappropriately with one another, or speaking inappropriately to another student. The vast majority of time, it’s not an “office-referral worthy” action of physical violence or threat that requires strong intervention. Generally, it might be a curse word told someone in passing, some quasi-friendly verbal kidding with a “bite,” or some physical “horse-play.” It would be easy just to pretend to ignore it.
Given that most of the time it involves students with whom I have no relationship at all, I needed to figure out how best to respond to these issues that — while not critical — can certainly contribute to an undesirable campus climate.
Of course, one way would be giving a reprimand. That might, or might not, immediately stop the behavior, but it certainly would not enhance any possible future relationship I might have with that student, nor would it probably teach anything other than the need to behave that way again in way that would result in not being caught.
A few years ago I came up with a strategy that seems to work well.
When I see, or hear, some kind of inappropriate behavior, I say, in an exaggerated parent tone, “Be niiiiiiccccceeee.” I stretch out the word “nice” when I say it, and my tone is not harsh — just sort of disapproving.
It has almost always resulted in the behavior immediately stopping and a sheepish grin coming to the face of the “culprit.” In addition, if his/her friends are around, often they will take up the cry, “Yeah, be nice!” Sometimes, I’ll even be walking down the hall and a student (who I don’t know) will yell, “I’m being nice, Mr. Ferlazzo.”
I have no way of measuring its long-term effectiveness, but it works in the short term and I feel good about it — certainly a lot better than I would feel if I scolded a student.
Do you have any other “tricks” that work for you in these kinds of situations?
April 9, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
Today is the 145th anniversary of the ending of the American Civil War. Here’s the description from Answers.com:
Apr 9, 1865. At 1:30 pm General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant, commander in chief of the Union Army, ending four years of civil war. The meeting took place in the house of Wilmer McLean at the village of Appomattox Court House, VA. Confederate soldiers were permitted to keep their horses and go free to their homes, while Confederate officers were allowed to retain their swords and sidearms as well. Grant wrote the terms of surrender.
I thought this might be a good opportunity for another “The Best…” list.
You might also be interested in:
The Best Resources About President’s Day (to explore the resources on Abraham Lincoln)
The Best Websites To Teach & Learn About African-American History
Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About the American Civil War (and are accessible to English Language Learners):
To start-off with, I’m going to direct you to my United States History Classes blog. You can find my entire year’s curriculum there, though here are links to the lessons specifically about the Civil War:
In addition to the multiple activities and links in those posts, here are a few more resources:
The Best Civil War Photos from LIFE.
How Stuff Works has countless short online videos about the Civil War.
The History Channel has a similar video collection.
Here are a number of online activities for English Language Learners that are related to the War.
The Story of the Monitor is an interactive exhibition on the ironclad that fought for the Union during the Civil War. Key parts, but not all, of the interactive provides audio support for the text. There are also excellent images.
Here are two accessible movies on the Civil War.
These are two school-oriented websites with a variety of accessible info on the Civil War:
Slave Narratives from The Museum of The African Diaspora.
Mr. Nussbaum’s Interactive Civil War
EL Civics on The Civil War.
“The Price Of Freedom: Americans At War” is a Smithsonian multimedia interactive on each war in United States’ history. Videos (with transcript), images and text are included.
In pictures: Faces of US Civil War is a slideshow from the BBC. The BBC says:
Virginia collector Tom Liljenquist has donated nearly 700 photographs from the US Civil War to the Library of Congress. Library curators say the photos are an invaluable depiction of the ordinary men who fought the war.
Mathew Brady: Civil War photographer is a Washington Post slideshow. It’s part of a special feature the Post has on the 150th Anniversary of The American Civil War.
Thinkfinity has a number of useful lessons on the Civil War.
A Civil War Interactive Timeline from The New York Times
150 years later: Civil War anniversary stirs controversy is an interactive from The Associated Press
The Civil War is from Mr. Nussbaum
Civil War: 150th Anniversary is from The History Channel
Faces of The Civil War is a Washington Post slideshow
Decisive Battles of the Civil War is a U.S. News interactive
How Stuff Works has many Civil War related videos
African-Americans And The Civil War is a slideshow from NPR.
Faces From The Civil War is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.
Civil War 150 is from the History Channel.
Who Am I? is an interactive from the Smithsonian.
The Civil War is from Shmoop.
The Top 10 Civil War Innovations is a slideshow from Discovery.
The Kids Guide to The Civil War is a student-created site.
The Civil War comes from Parade Magazine.
On War: The 150th Anniversary of the Civil War are photographs from The Denver Post.
Here’s a video from MSNBC showing newly discovered photos from the Civil War:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Hundreds of Civil War photos unearthed comes from MSNBC.
150 years on, 3-D Civil War photos unveiled also comes from MSNBC.
Civil War Photography is a slideshow from Discovery.
Of Course the Civil War Was About Slavery is from Miller-McCune.
Photo Essay: The Civil War: Between the Battles is from the PBS News Hour.
Here are several Civil War-related slideshows from LIFE.
Resources | Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War comes from The New York Times Learning Network.
Then and now: Civil War battlefields is from CNN.
Blogging History: Interpreting Civil War-Era Primary Sources is from The New York Times Learning Network.
Battles and Casualties of the Civil War is an interactive from The Washington Post.
Civil War Timeline: Fury Unleashed is another interactive from The Post.
Slavery, Not States’ Rights, Caused Civil War Whose Political Effects Linger is from NPR.
Five myths about why the South seceded is from The Washington Post.
3-D ‘Motion Pictures’ From The Civil War is a series of really cool “animated” photos from the Civil War. You really should check them out.
Russel Tarr, who has created a ton of great online learning activities, has just unveiled another one — an interactive simulation of the American Civil War. It seems quite engaging, and I’ll try using it in my U.S. History class this year. Russel has also created an entire unit on the war.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome!
If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.
You might also want to explore the 400 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
April 9, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Weekly Reader has some nice online and downloadable resources on their Women’s History page.
I’m adding the link to The Best Sites For Learning About Women’s History.
April 9, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here is today’s review of a few “The Best…” lists, this time on The Best Reading Sites. Again, I hope you find them helpful. Because of some technical issues that I’m too lazy to fix, these particular links might not work well if you’re subscribing to this blog via email, or viewing it on Facebook. RSS Readers feeds should be fine. If you go directly to my blog, though, they’ll all work fine.
They include:
April 8, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve just substantially updated and revised The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English.
I was surprised to see how many of the original sites on the list have gone out of business. But there are still plenty of options available.
April 8, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Jonathan Raymond, the Superintendent of the Sacramento City Unified School District, announced yesterday that he would no longer pursue inviting Teach For America to come to Sacramento next year:
I have also decided against further exploration of Teach for America as a staffing option for the upcoming school year…. I have been in conversations with the University of California, Davis, California State University, Sacramento, and Fortune School of Education (formerly Project Pipeline) to find new and creative ways to expand our relationships. While I still believe that the Teach for America program has great merit, I intend to exhaust all local options for meeting staffing needs before looking at alternative programs.
I believe Superintendent Raymond is showing good judgment in this decision, and commend and respect him for it.
I’ve written in the past about my perspective on Teach For America. You can read:
Why I Oppose Teach For America Coming To Sacramento
“Looking Past the Spin” Of Teach For America
Don’t Expect Teach For America To Be Coming To Sacramento Anytime Soon…
April 8, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Robot to help with housework is a video and article from The Telegraph.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About Robots.
Thanks to Michelle Henry for the tip.
April 8, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Sitehoover is a new application that lets you create a personal homepage showing thumbnail images of your favorite websites. You can also organize them into separate “folders.” Unfortunately, however, you can’t write descriptions for each site. (oops, Stephen Ransom informed me that you can indeed write a description).
Nevertheless, because it’s so easy to use, I’m adding it to The Best Personal Home Page Creators. You can read there how I use these apps in the classroom. I also used the opportunity to update and revise that list.
April 8, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here’s another review of past “The Best…” lists, this times on Economics and Jobs. I’ll be doing a few more similar posts this week. I hope you find them helpful. Because of some technical issues that I’m too lazy to fix, these particular links might not work well if you’re subscribing to this blog via email, or viewing it on Facebook. RSS Readers feeds should be fine. If you go directly to my blog, though, they’ll all work fine.
The lists include:
The Best Websites For Students Exploring Jobs and Careers
The Best Sites For Learning Economics & Practical Money Skills
The Best Websites To Teach & Learn Life Skills
The Best Sites For Students To Create Budgets
The Best Sites To Learn About The U.S. Financial Crisis
The Best Sites To Learn About The Recession
The Best Places For Students To Write Their Resumes
April 7, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Once again, Claus von Zastrow at Public School Insights has written an insightful post. This one is titled “Is Class Size Really That Irrelevant?” There is a great discussion in the comments on his post, too.
In light of the ongoing elimination of class size reductions by school districts here in California to save money, it’s a very timely post.
Critics sometimes question class size’s effect on student achievement. Claus answers them in his post (you might also be interested in a previous post of mine titled Academic Research Has Its Place, But It Also Has To Be Kept In Its Place).
Personally, I think my students and I would do fine if my International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge class had a class size of 35. However, students in my ninth-grade mainstream English class (now at 25) and my Intermediate English class (now at 23) would definitely be shortchanged.
And I would probably go nuts.
April 7, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
PBS will present a new version of The Diary Of Anne Frank on Holocaust Remembrance Day — April 11th.
You will be able to view the movie for free online between April 12 – May 11, 2010.
The site also offers an impressive Teacher’s Guide with lots of good ideas on how to teach about Anne Frank — with or without the movie.
The story of Anne Frank is an engaging one for English Language Learners and mainstream students alike. I’ve personally used the great film Anne B. Real for years in my ninth-grade English classes. It’s about an inner-city teenager who reads and re-reads the Diary. The Diary also plays a prominent role in The Freedom Writers movie. Students watching both movies were inspired to read the Diary itself.
With this new version, I thought it would be timely to list some other additional resources on Anne Frank.
You might also be interested in:
The Best Sites For Learning About The Holocaust
The Best Resources For Learning About The Warsaw Uprising
Here are my choices for The Best Sites To Learn About Anne Frank (that are also accessible to English Language Learners):
The Story Of Anne Frank is a “talking book” created by students.
The British newspaper The Guardian has written about, and posted, a short video clip appearing on YouTube which shows a few seconds of Anne Frank. It’s only a few seconds, but it will still be a valuable clip to show to show in the classroom.
Here are a series of online activities for ELL’s related to the release of that video.
Famous People Lessons has a site just for English Language Learners about Anne Frank.
A horse-chestnut tree in Amsterdam was a source of joy and inspiration to Anne Frank. There is an online Anne Frank Tree project where students can easily leave a virtual leaf sharing their thoughts on freedom, courage and giving (unfortunately, that tree was recently toppled in a storm).
Scholastic has a useful Internet Scavenger Hunt.
How Stuff Works has a video about Anne Frank.
Here’s a short, simple biography of Anne Frank.
Students can try this Anne Frank “Webquest” (which is more like a scavenger hunt).
CNN has some great videos about Anne Frank.
Anne Frank: Lessons in human rights and dignity is an incredible resource from Newspapers In Education.
The Secret Annex Online is a 3D interactive of Anne Frank’s hiding place during World War II. If you’re learning about Anne Frank in you class, this is a not-to-be-missed resource.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a great interactive titled Anne Frank The Writer: An Unfinished Story. It provides audio support for the text.
Channel One has an interactive about Anne Frank.
The Anne Frank Timeline from Anne Frank’s House is impressive.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome!
If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.
You might also want to explore the 400 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
April 7, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Tagxedo is a new and neat word cloud generator. The creator of Wordle calls it not so much an “alternative” to Wordle as much as “Wordle – the next generation”.
I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About “Word Clouds.”
Thanks to techmunoz for the tip.
April 7, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Learn about Top 10 Fantastic and Surreal Creatures (and see pictures) at Listverse.
I’m adding the link to The Best Sites For Learning About Weird-Looking Creatures (And For Making Your Own!).
April 7, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here’s a quote from American Association of School Librarians website:
School Library Month (SLM) is the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) celebration of school librarians and their programs. Every April school librarians are encouraged to create activities to help their school and local community celebrate the essential role that strong school library programs play in a student’s educational career. The 2010 theme will be “Communities Thrive @ your library.”
You might be interested in The Best Sites To Teach ELL’s About Libraries.
April 7, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Yesterday I shared links to all “The Best…” lists related to speaking English, and today I’m sharing links to all “The Best…” lists related to music. I hope you find them helpful. Because of some technical issues that I’m too lazy to fix, these particular links might not work well if you’re subscribing to this blog via email, or viewing it on Facebook. RSS Readers feeds should be fine. If you go directly to my blog, though, they’ll all work fine.
They include:
The Best Music Websites For Learning English
The Best Online Sites For Creating Music
The Best Online Karaoke Sites For English Language Learners
Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Music Sites
The Best Places To Get Royalty-Free Music & Sound Effects
The Best Places To Find Lyrics On The Web
April 6, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments
Today marks the beginning of the sixteenth anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which killed at least 800,000 people.
You might also be interested in:
The Best Web Resources On Darfur
The Best Sites For Learning About The Holocaust
Here are my choices (a small list for now that will be growing) for The Best Sites To Learn About Genocide In Rwanda — that are accessible to English Language Learners (many are resources developed for the fifteenth anniversary last year):
The BBC has an incredible number of multimedia resources on the Rwandan genocide.
The Telegraph has a video Rwanda: 15 Years After.
Rwanda: 15 Years On is a CNN video.
Rwanda 15 Years Later is a CBS News video.
Intended Consequences is an award-winning multimedia presentation on what has happened to 20,000 children (and their mothers) who were conceived by rape during the genocide.
Ghosts of Rwanda is the website of a PBS film.
The History Channel has four short videos.
Rwanda: Remembering The Genocide is an interactive from The Guardian.
Students Remember Rwanda Genocide is a new lesson for ELL’s from Breaking News English.
Reflections on the Rwandan Genocide is a series of photos from TIME Magazine.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome!
If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.
You might also want to explore the 400 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
April 6, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments
I use one of my previous “The Best…” lists, The Best Lists Of “Best Places To Live,” in our Intermediate English unit on neighborhoods (see A Lesson Highlighting Community Assets — Not Deficits). Students compare the criteria they’ve used to determine what is a good place to live with the criteria other studies have used.
In a similar vein, I’ve been collecting links related to measuring happiness. I plan is not necessarily to create a lengthy unit plan but, instead, to make it a more fun (and learning) activity where students explore what makes them happy and again see the criteria used by others. In addition, I think this list can be useful in my International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge class when we explore the role of emotions in determining true knowledge.
Here are my choices for The Best Sites To Learn About Happiness:
Mean Happiness is an infographic from GOOD showing how happy people in different countries have been over the years.
Does Money Buy Happiness? is another infographic.
Does Being Happy Make You Healthy? is a short article from GOOD that would need to be modified in order for it to be accessible to English Language Learners.
Here’s the World Happiness Map, along with an article describing how it was developed.
Your path to happiness is a fun little infographic.
Here’s a downloadable PDF of a poster from Yes Magazine: 10 Things Sciences Says Will Make You Happy
Here’s an article claiming which states in the U.S. are the happiest.
Facebook measures how happy we are — and when — in this infographic. Here’s another version of the infographic.
Look at the World’s Happiest Places. Here’s a map showing the results.
David Brooks explores what makes us happy in this recent New York Times column.
Animated Infographic: Which Countries Are Happiest? comes from GOOD Magazine.
The Greater Good Science Center is based at the University of California, Berkeley, and “promotes the study and development of human happiness.” It doesn’t have much that’s accessible to ELL’s, but their resources could certainly be modified.
The New York Times has published a very interesting interactive map charting people’s happiness across the United States, a good graphic, and an article titled Discovered: The Happiest Man in America.
The Atlantic has a fascinating interview with Dr. Daniel Gilbert, an author and researcher who has just completed a study on how to be happy. Ezra Klein in The Washington Post has a good summary of the interview. Here are a couple of the main pieces of advice:
….consider forgoing whatever it is you want to do most:
Imagine making love to the person of your dreams. That will be a good day. But the day after will not. The good thing about peak experiences is that they make us happy while we are having them, but the bad thing is that they then serve as a standard of comparison for all the experiences that follow. When researchers looked at lottery winners, they weren’t happier than a control group, but they did take less pleasure in everyday events. The big happiness rush you get when you receive the big check is gone pretty soon, and then when good things happen you find yourself saying, “That was nice but it wasn’t like the day I won the lottery.”
….buy lots of fun small things, not a few big ones:
If you asked people if they’d prefer an ice cream cone every Monday for the next few weeks or a great meal at a French restaurant, most would probably take the great meal gift certificate. But it turns out that the frequency of positive events is a better predictor of happiness than intensity of those positive events. Let’s say that you had five good experiences and each had an intensity of 10 out of 10. And I had 10 good experiences each with an intensity of 5. Simple math suggests we should be equally happy. But the odds are that I will be happier than you because happiness is affected less by how good your good experience was and more by how many good experiences you had.
Create A Better Life Index lets you, without having to register, create an infographic emphasizing the qualities that you believe are key for a “better life” and showing how different countries in the world are doing in those areas. You can then share your infographic with others. It’s from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Top 15 happiest nations: Who’s #1? is a slideshow from CBS News.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome!
If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.
You might also want to explore the 400 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
