Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Monthly Archives: September 2010

September 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
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“Structures Around The World”

Structures Around The World is a joint project of three international museums, including the Exploratorium. The website provides simple instructions for how students can create models of different structures.

I’m particularly interested in the ideas about building bridges and, because of them, am adding the link to The Best Images Of Spectacular Bridges (& How Students Can Make Their Own).

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September 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
5 Comments

Transcript Of President Obama’s Speech To Students Today

The White House has released the transcript of the speech the President will make to students today.

It seems fine — nothing earthshaking.

I think these passages might be useful a useful addition to a lesson I do on the importance of effort, as opposed to “natural” ability:

I know some of you may be skeptical about that. You may wonder if some people are just better at certain things. And it’s true that we each have our own gifts and talents we need to discover and nurture. But just because you’re not the best at something today doesn’t mean you can’t be tomorrow. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a math person or as a science person – you can still excel in those subjects if you’re willing to make the effort. And you may find out you have talents you’d never dreamed of.

You see, excelling in school or in life isn’t mainly about being smarter than everybody else. It’s about working harder than everybody else. Don’t avoid new challenges – seek them out, step out of your comfort zone, and don’t be afraid to ask for help; your teachers and family are there to guide you. Don’t feel discouraged or give up if you don’t succeed at something – try it again, and learn from your mistakes. Don’t feel threatened if your friends are doing well; be proud of them, and see what lessons you can draw from what they’re doing right.

You can read how I used his speech last year here.

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September 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Part Fifty-Two 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.

I’ll also be publishing an “all-time best” list later this year.

Here are the newest additions:

CREATE A “FEELINGS” COLLAGE: PixSmix first lets you choose a facial expression (happy, sad, etc.). Then the user creates a collage of pictures that demonstrate that feeling. You can then embed the collage or link to it. Students could post it on a class blog or website and then describe their creation.

MAKE A MULTIMEDIA CUBE: At What Makes Me, you can create a “cube” using photos, video, and audio (you can easily grab them off the web our upload your own). Your creation is supposed to be a representation of “you.”

WRITE A MESSAGE WITH DOTS: Dotty-Dots first lets you type in a message. Then it turns that message into cool-looking interactive connected dots. Students can then post the link to their creation on a student/teacher blog or website.

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

You might also want to explore the 500 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.

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September 13, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Newseum Has A Neat Interactive Map

Many teachers are familiar with the Newseum’s great resource of showing the front pages each day from newspapers around the world.

However, some people (like me) might not know about their cool interactive map that lets you roll over the country and then it shows you the front page. For all I know, they have had this map for years, but I just learned about it.

I’m adding the link to The Best Tools To Help Develop Global Media Literacy.

Thanks to both Michelle Henry and to Renee Maufroid. All teachers, especially those who teach ELL’s, should regularly visit their websites.

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September 13, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
4 Comments

This Is What I Do When Students Are Late For Class…

I generally don’t have much of a problem with students coming late for class. I think that’s due for a couple of reasons:

* I’m clear with all students that class starts three minutes before the bell rings. Since our school is divided into Small Learning Communities (300 students stay together with the same twenty teachers for four years, and we’re geographically all in the same place) students definitely don’t need seven minutes to physically walk to the next class.

* I think most students just like being in my class (at least, most of the time)

The occasional issue, though, arises for first period and right after lunch.

When a student is late, I ask them to go outside with me and I say something like:

“It makes me sad when you’re not in class at time. I look forward to seeing you. It makes me feel like you don’t want to be here and you don’t like our class. I’m sure you don’t want to make me said, do you? Can you be on time in the future, please?”

I typically say it in an exaggerated tone. And, except for very rare situations (students who face particular transportation or behavior challenges), it usually only takes one time. It actually seems to work best sometimes with students who have major behavior challenges.

It gets the point across clearly, it seems to work, students re-enter the classroom focused on learning, and I feel good about it. Sounds like a win/win.

In many ways, it has similar elements to my “Be Niiiiiicccccceeeee” strategy.

What strategies do you find works to deter students from coming late to your class?

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