October 6, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Lottery Of Life is a neat site from Save The Children. It gives you a chance to see how your life might have looked if you had been born in another country.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Walking In Someone Else’s Shoes.
October 6, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Flight and Expulsion is an impressive interactive map showing the refugee flow from and to all parts of the world.
You can go and check it out directly, or you might want to read and see this short description from Fast Company first.
October 6, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
All About Autumn is a slideshow from Slate Magazine.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Images Of Fall Foliage (& For Teaching About The Season).
October 6, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Spark Lab is a project of the Smithsonian, and they have a nice list of simple and easy science experiments that you can do.
I’m adding the link to The Best Sources Of Ideas For Simple Classroom Science Experiments.
October 5, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
National Geographic has just unveiled a new site to support their November extravaganza on “Great Migrations.” It’s an amazing site, filled with incredible videos, interactives, photos — the works — all on animal migrations.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Animals.
October 5, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
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.
I’m adding the link to The Best Sites For Learning About The American Civil War.
October 5, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
What I Learned at NBC’s Education Nation Summit is a must-read post by teacher Brian Jones. He participated in one of the panels of NBC’s Education Nation.
I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles About The Teacher-Bashing “Waiting For Superman” Movie & Associated Events.
October 5, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
“Teach!” is a slideshow from Slate showing educators from throughout the world. It’s in honor of today being World Teacher’s Day.
I’m adding the link to The Best Resources To Learn About World Teachers Day.
October 5, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Emperor penguins in Antarctica: a gallery of pictures is a slideshow from The Telegraph.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Penguins.
October 5, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
On my The Best Ways To Create Online Video Playlists list, I don’t include applications that restrict the videos that can be saved and played to YouTube. Since YouTube is blocked in most schools, it just didn’t seem to make sense to talk about those apps.
However, today I learned about a new site called List and Play. It does only use YouTube videos, but it’s so easy to use I thought some readers might find it useful. I’m adding it to that “The Best…” list as a sort of addendum.
October 5, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
It’s that time of year, and I’ve updated The Best Sites For Images Of Fall Foliage (& For Teaching About The Season).
Feel free to suggest additional resources.
October 4, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
I’ve posted and sent tweets about many ocean-related resources, and thought it would be useful for me to put them all together in one place.
In addition, an international effort to create a Census of Marine Life was completed today. Several links related to it are included on this list.
Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About The Ocean (and are accessible to English Language Learners):
I’ve got to begin with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History’s “Ocean Portal.” You can find just about anything about our oceans there, including slideshows, videos, interactive timelines, etc.
Jean-Michel Cousteau has several Ocean Adventure Interactive Web Games on the PBS site that would probably be accessible to high-beginner/intermediate English Language Learner students. They’re fun activities which put students in the place of endangered fish.
Our Amazing Planet: Top To Bottom is a neat infographic.
Creatures Of The Deep Sea is a neat interactive.
Discovery has a video of the Great Barrier Reef and Australia’s Deep-Sea Creatures is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.
How Stuff Works has a zillion ocean-related videos.
The British Council has a “talking story” about dangerous animals found near or on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It’s called “Angel! Look Out!”
The Council also has a nice song called Sea Creatures.
New Fish On The Reef is a talking story, as is Whisper of The Whale.
Coral Reef is a science interactive from Harcourt.
Sea Animals is a talking dictionary.
Ocean Pollution: Not Just For the Oil Companies is a useful infographic.
Ocean Explorer has a ton of resources.
Waterworld:How the ocean made us who we are is an interactive from The Boston Globe.
Winter’s Tail has many resources about dolphins.
First global census of marine life is an interactive from The Guardian.
In pictures: Charting the depths is a slideshow from The BBC.
See tons of images and videos at The Census of Marine Life.
Census of Marine Life: pictures of new ocean species discovered is the title of a slideshow from The Telegraph.
Life Under The Sea is a Wall Street Journal interactive.
Marine census publication marks ‘decade of discovery’ is a BBC interactive.
Here are several resources specifically about whales:
Swimming With Whales is an MSNBC interactive.
Let’s Learn About Whales is a story and quiz.
The World of Whale Wars comes from Animal Planet.
Great Whales is from the BBC.
National Geographic has an interactive on the Blue Whale.
Speaking of whales, here’s an impressive video of one.
National Geographic has an impressive feature called “The Ocean.”
Google Rolls Out Ocean Showcase: It’s a Multimedia, Underwater Street View is a post about new Google resources.
The World Database on Marine Protected Areas has videos and images of the parts of the ocean that have been protected.
6 Amazing Functions Ocean Waves Perform for the Earth is pretty interesting.
Census of Marine Life: What’s in our oceans is a very nice infographic from The Edge, a feature of a Florida newspaper.
Artificial Reefs Around the World is a series of photos from The Atlantic.
Among Giants: A Life With Whales is a TIME Magazine slideshow.
One Ocean has a ton of multimedia information, including interactives, about…the ocean.
In Pictures: The ocean’s giants comes from the BBC.
The Sea: the first wonder of the world – in pictures comes from The Guardian.
Suggestions are always 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 475 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
October 4, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
The Wall Street Journal has a somewhat interesting article (and video) today titled How Handwriting Trains the Brain.
I was particularly interested in what it says about how writing helps the brain learn a new language (over using a keyboard). That makes sense to me. In my teaching ELL’s, computers supplement language learning, but the majority of writing is done by hand.
October 4, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Obama’s Blueprint For Reform Is Very Weak On Parent Engagement/Involvement is the title of my newest post at my other blog, Engaging Parents In School.
I thought readers of this blog might find it interesting/useful.
October 4, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Christian Science Monitor has published an excellent slideshow on New Orleans.
I’m adding it to The Best Websites For Teaching & Learning About New Orleans.
October 4, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
World Food Day is on October 16th, and I’ve updated and revised The Best Sites To Learn About World Food Day.
Additional suggestions are welcome.
October 3, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
I’m going to start being an occasional contributor to The Huffington Post.
They’ve just published my first piece, which is an updated and revised version of an older post I wrote for my other blog, Engaging Parents In School. It’s titled “Private Foundations Have a Place (& Have To Be Kept In Their Place).”
October 3, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Screentoaster was my favorite screencasting tool — you couldn’t find an easier way to screencast. I was very disappointed when they announced they were closing up shop on July 31st of this year, and removed them from all “The Best…” lists they were on.
I just learned from reader Clint Cora, though, that they are back in business!
With Screentoaster, all you do after you log-in is click on a button, open up the window on your screen that you want to record, and it starts recording your screen. After that’s been recorded, you can provide audio or subtitles. And it’s free.
I’ve added it back onto The Best Tools For Making Screencasts and The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English.
October 3, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve previously posted about the eTrade Talking Baby application. Now, a group led by Bono has an app that lets you choose a baby and, using its text to speech feature, make it talk. It’s part of a “No Child Born With HIV By 2015″ campaign.
You can post a link to your create on a student/teacher blog or website.
October 3, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
4 Comments
Yesterday, my wife gave everybody in the family an iPhone as early birthday presents. It was a gracious gesture, but the mood quickly turned ugly as the kids began to argue who was going to have to teach me how to use it. “But, Mom, it’ll take forever!” said one family member to her mother.
After quickly reducing the number of people named in my will, I began to search the Web for potential resources that could help me grasp how I could best use my new gadget.
I’m eager to hear additional suggestions.
Here are my picks for The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me (I tried to only include resources that seemed particularly recent and up-to-date):
iPhone For Dummies Cheat Sheet
20 Ways I Really Use My iPhone To Teach Band Class (this is useful for any teacher)
The Daily Beast: 15 Best iPhone Apps
Lifehacker Pack for iPhone: Our List of the Best iPhone Apps
PC World: The 18 Best iPhone Apps
Extreme Tech: The 30 Best Free iPhone Apps 2010
The “App Hall Of Fame” features monthly listings of iPhone applications thought worthy of “hall of fame” status.
Instagram is a new iPhone app that the blog Read Write Web raved about today — see Instagram Has Made Me an iPhone Photo Addict. NOTE: Instagram just made many changes. You can read about them at Instagram Launches Its Biggest Overhaul Yet (But Still No Android App).
How to squeeze decent photos out of an iPhone has some good tips.
Top 10 Must-Have Apps for the iPhone, and Some Runners-Up is an article in the New York Times.
I was familiar with Storyrobe, but there are other digital storytelling apps for the iPhone that Wesley Fryer will tell you about in his post and screencast (he also includes Storyrobe). iStoryboards is another one.
David Pogue from The New York Times has published his “10 Favorite iPhone Apps.” He also includes several “runners-up.”
Mashable has posted a useful list titled “10 Unique iPhone Photography Accessories.”
The Top 10 Apps To Make Your Holiday Travel Much Safer is a nice list from EDUdemic.
Read Write Web has a post highlighting a number of sites where you can get reviews and recommendations for mobile phone apps, including ones for the iPhone. Two of the betters ones seem to be appolicious and appsfire.
10 Best Free iPhone Apps For Ebook Reading is a useful list to explore further.
I’ve learned about two interesting iPhone apps that I’m adding to this list:
SoundCloud has created one that makes it super-easy to record audio and upload it to your social networks. You can read more about it at TechCrunch.
“CellSpin offers the ability to capture video, photo, audio or text and upload it simultaneously on all of your social networking sites.” That’s a quote from Mashable’s post titled 16 Handy iPhone Apps for Better Blogging.
Top 6 Transportation Apps of 2010 is an intriguing and useful list of apps for the iPhone.
How to Take Better Pictures with Your Smartphone’s Camera comes from Lifehacker.
My favorite iPhone photography apps comes from the writer of the Los Angeles Times photo blog.
12 Smartphone Apps to Help With Last-Minute Holiday Shopping comes from The Atlantic.
A Veteran Tech Reporter’s Favorite Apps is a useful article by NY Times journalist John Markoff about the apps he has on his iPhone.
The Best Media Streaming Apps for Your iPhone from Lifehacker
The Best Shopping Apps for iPhone, also from Lifehacker
The Best iPhone Apps for Your Car from Lifehacker
The Top 40 iPhone Apps of 2010 is a very useful post from TechCrunch
Mashable has published The Ultimate iPhone Guide: 60+ Essential Resources. Out of that massive list, here are the resources I’m adding this list:
Free Books is an app with 24,000 free classic.
Open Culture has an educational audio and video collection.
10 Useful iPhone Shortcuts, Tips and Tricks
7 Useful iPhone Camera Tips and Tricks
HOW TO: Give Your iPhone a Spring Clean
Just got an iPhone? The best apps, accessories, and tips comes from Engadget
85 Best Free iPhone 4 Apps Of Year 2010: Reviewed By Category comes from SaveDelete.
Skype’s New App Brings Video Chat To The iPhone, iPad And iPod Touch comes from TechCrunch.
How to Use Dropbox with an iPhone or iPod Touch
Camera+ looks like a very nice photo app. I especially like its zoom feature.
PicPlz is another photo app that has potential.
50 Best iPhone Apps 2011 comes from TIME Magazine.
Word Lens is an amazing new iPhone application that will translate written words in an image. Right now it just does English/Spanish, but the developer is planning expand its number of languages. You can read more about it at a TechCrunch post, and watch this video:
Google has announced that their Google Translate app for the iPhone now includes “speak-to-translate” and “listen to your translations” features. Read all about it at TechCrunch.
Essential apps to buy before traveling is from the Daily Aztec.
12 Totally Awesome (Yet Free) Photography Apps For Your iPhone is from Luke Tech Tips.
The iPhone for Advanced Beginners is a short and useful video from The New York Times. I’ve also embedded it below:
Tango looks like a good video calling app.
Top 12 iPhone Apps That’ll Increase Your Productivity comes from Dumb Little Man.
FlixLab looks like a good tool to make videos.
Joe Dale has created a new blog just devoted to apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad that might be useful to language learner students and teachers. It’s called MFL edapps, and it looks great.
The Top 30 Best Photography Apps for iPhone is a useful post from The Next Web.
Photsynth is a new free Microsoft app for the iPhone for taking panoramic photos. Here’s how ReadWriteWeb describes it:
Photosynth stands out as you can capture images not just along a horizontal line, but in all directions – up, down, left and right. And rather than just relying on you to hold the camera steady while you pan, the app gives you guidelines of where the next image should be places and next photo snapped.
It also lets you share the photo to Facebook and to Bing Maps.
HOW TO: Master Smartphone Photography [PICS] comes from Mashable.
16 Tips to Take Your iPhone to the Next Level is from The New York Times.
Onavo Is A Money-Saving, Must-Have App For EVERY iPhone Data User is a pretty interesting post from TechCrunch about a new iPhone app.
Videolicious For The iPhone Helps You Edit Quality Videos, Fast is a post from TechCrunch about a new free iPhone app that appears to make it super-simple to edit video.
New Apps to Post Videos With Ease is a New York Times article.
I’m adding two more resources: They are 25 Essential Apps for Travelers from TIME Magazine and TripLingo Teaches You Foreign Language Phrases You’ll Actually Need When Traveling.
10 Excellent Photography Apps for iPhone Users comes from Smashing Hub.
David Einstein writes an advice column on technology for the San Francisco Chronicle, and recently wrote one on apps for translating languages on smart phones. It’s short and worth reading. Here are the three he recommends:
Here are a couple of great smart phone resources to use with students in class:
This Seems Like A Pretty Easy Way To Practice Speaking….
Sock Puppets is a simple iPhone app that lets you easily record a student and upload it to YouTube. It can be used to briefly record a student speaking or reading in class, or even to have two or three students record a simple play (the free app allows thirty seconds of recording while for 99 cents you can upgrade to 90 seconds). One major advantage of using this for speaking practice is that it’s the sock puppet that’s actually speaking on the display, not the student. It looks like it could have potential. Thanks to techchef4u for the tip.
50 Best iPhone Apps 2011 comes from TIME Magazine.
Lifehacker Pack for iPhone: Our List of the Best iPhone Apps
Add Pictures to Your Audio Recordings with Snoozerr is a Lifehacker post about an app that lets you make an audio recording connected to the photo you’re taking.
100 Cameras in 1 looks like a useful app.
iPhone App From SimpleGeo Discovers the History, Politics & Wildlife Around You
11 tips to ensure great smartphone photos is from MacWorld.
Here’s a post from TechCrunch about Photovine, Google’s photo-sharing app.
What Is That? Let Your Smartphone Have a Look is a useful New York Times article
Klip is an impressive app to share videos from your iPhone.
Kleiner-Backed Vlix Is An Instagram For Video; Adds Filters, Effects And More To Mobile Video is a TechCrunch post about a new iPhone application.
Dear Apple, Please Make My iPhone 4S Battery Life Suck Less is from TechCrunch. The tips in the comments section are particularly helpful.
iPhone 4S Battery Life Bugs Got You Down? Try This is also from TechCrunch.
25 Essential Apps for Your New iPhone 4S is from Mashable.
Show and Tell: iPhone 4S is a video from David Pogue at The New York Times.
I just learned about APPitic, which describes itself as:
…an directory of apps for education by Apple Distinguished Educators (ADEs) to help you transform teaching and learning.
It has over 1,300 categorized apps, including a ton organized by Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Hidden iPhone Tricks: Secret Keyboard and Panoramic Photos is from TIME.
Forget Text, Vimessa Brings Visual Voicemail to the Masses is from Mashable.
iPhone photo apps to download now is from The BBC.
Apps 4 Edu comes from the Utah Education Network.
The Top 20 iPhone And iPad Apps of 2011 comes from TechCrunch.
Best iPhone Apps of 2011 is from The New York Times.
New iPhone? Try these apps for travelers is from MSNBC.
Want To Make Your iPhone’s PIN More Secure? Repeat A Digit is from TechCrunch.
Instahub collects links to all apps and sites related to the popular smartphone app Instagram.
Finding apps for the shadow economy: The digital divide is fast becoming ancient history, thanks to the all-powerful smartphone is a very interesting article from Salon.
Feedback is welcome.
If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 520 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free
