October 26, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
If you didn’t laugh and cry enough when you saw Be Prepared To Laugh With Tears Flowing After Watching “Collaborative Planning” Video, here’s another one (you’ll have to go to my blog to see it if you’re reading this on an RSS Reader):
October 26, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
For English Language Learners, I think the best places to create online slideshows (including some that offer the additional language-learning opportunity of easily recording audio to go along with it) are listed at The Best Ways To Create Online Slideshows.
However, for my mainstream students, I don’t think there’s much added learning benefit to them by providing audio narration to their creation. In addition, since I’m lucky enough to teach in a Small Learning Community focusing on Information Technology, most of them also take a computer-related class. The teacher there often lets my students work on projects related to our class. And, since one of the things they’re learning is how to use PowerPoint, it’s easy to have them create PowerPoints related to what we’re studying in my class.
They upload them to our class blog and then other students can look at them and leave comments. We sometimes also share them in class.
I don’t think there’s any question that the easiest and best application for them to use is Slideshare. Slideshare, the popular online slideshow site, has also added a new feature called Zipcast. With a simple click, it allows you to create a public or private video and text chat next to the slideshare presentation you’re viewing.
However, at times our school computers haven’t worked well with that site, so I’ve always given students a list of other places they can use if they are having a problem with Slideshare.
I thought it might be useful to share that list here, too, since some teachers might be having the same problem, or Slideshare might be blocked by your filtering software.
Here’s a list of those alternative sites:
All feedback on this list is welcome.
If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.
October 26, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are the newest additions to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween:
Top Halloween Costumes of 2010 is a Wall Street Journal slideshow.
Dog owners celebrate Halloween by dressing up their pets in bizarre costumes at parades is a slideshow from The Telegraph.
October 26, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
It’s a funny name for a serious day on November 19th designed to bring attention to public sanitation issues in the developing world.
I’ve revised and updated The Best Resources For Learning About World Toilet Day & The Issue Of Public Sanitation In The Third World.
October 25, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
You can create your design for the famous “Julius” the monkey at Paul Frank’s Planned Pines site.
Click “enter” and, after it’s complete, the url address of the student’s creation can be posted on a student/teacher blog or website, and students can describe and discuss it.
October 25, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
A billionaire from India has just moved into the world’s first billion dollar home. I’m adding some images of it to The Best Images Of Weird, Cool & Neat-Looking Buildings (& Ways To Design Your Own). I think it fits into the “weird” category.
Check-out a slideshow from The Los Angeles Times
October 25, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Stories of Hope and Hardship of ‘Los 33’ is a New York Times article interviewing some of the miners who were trapped in Chile.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The Trapped Miners In Chile.
October 25, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Sacramento Bee reports new Census figures illustrate the economic importance of going to college:
The statewide unemployment rate for those with just a high school diploma was 12.2 percent during 2009, compared with 6 percent for those with a bachelor’s degree, census figures show.
It’s particularly important in Sacramento, the article says:
The median earnings of local residents without a high school diploma fell to $18,394 during 2009, an 11 percent drop from 2008, new census figures show. High school dropouts made 65 cents for each dollar earned by graduates, a decline of 3 cents from the previous year.
And those with only a high school diploma earned just 54 cents for each dollar earned by those with a bachelor’s degree, down 5 cents from the prior year.
A college graduate in Sacramento now generally earns as much in four months as a high school dropout earns in a year.
I’m adding this post to The Best Resources For Showing Students Why They Should Continue Their Academic Career.
October 25, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve updated a very lengthy The Best Sites To Learn & Teach About Thanksgiving.
Even though it’s long, there’s always room for good additions if you’d like to suggest some!
October 25, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Day of the Dead – El Día de los Muertos – Worksheets and Exercises comes from ESOL Courses.
I’m adding it to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween.
October 25, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
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 — 2010.
I’ll also be publishing an “all-time best” list next year.
Here are the newest additions:
SEND ARTISTIC eCARDS: The Guggenheim Museum has an amazing collection of eCards that can be sent by email and then its url address can be posted on a student/class blog or website.
MAKE A BOOK: Simple Booklet is a great new tool that lets you create online books and reports that can be embedded or linked to by its url address. It’s free, you can grab images and videos off the web, and extremely simple to use. No registration is required. What’s not to like?
CREATE A COMIC STRIP: Never Mind The Bullets is an unfortunately named, violent, and very unusually displayed comic that is probably best for older or adult students. It lets you create a similarly displayed comic with speech bubbles showing an old Western shoot-out that can also be posted online.
Feedback is 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 500 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
October 24, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
cvmaker is another good site where students can create resumes.
I’m adding it to The Best Places For Students To Write Their Resumes.
October 24, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Learning Chocolate is designed for English Language Learners to gain basic vocabulary through many interactive exercises.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites Where ELL’s Can Learn Vocabulary.
Thanks to Christine Burgmer for the tip.
October 24, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Winkball lets you easily create a video or just an audio blog. You can also use it to send video messages. It seems to have other possibilities, too, but I’m still exploring the site. It could provide a good speaking opportunity for English Language Learners.
I’d be interested in hearing from others who have tried it out.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English.
Thanks to Teachers First for the tip.
October 24, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
October 24th is United Nations Day, marking the anniversary of the UN’s creation.
Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About United Nations Day (and are accessible to English Language Learners):
United Nations Day is an excellent lesson from ESL Holiday Lessons.
The History Channel has short video on the founding of the UN.
EL Civics has a UN Civics Lesson.
How Stuff Works has several videos about the United Nations.
Heads Up English has an accessible lesson on the UN.
A student-created website at Thinkquest provides a good overview of the UN.
Additional 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 nearly 500 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
October 24, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve recently discovered some good resources for job interview practice, though they’re not good enough to add to The Best Websites For Students Exploring Jobs & Careers.
Monster’s UK site has an excellent interactive virtual job interview. However, the video portion is hosted by YouTube, so won’t be accessible in most schools.
Monster in the U.S. has a series of interactive interviews for different jobs, but they’re all text-based and only accessible to advanced English Language Learners.
October 24, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Here’s my monthly round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted in October (and a couple of late September):
The Best Sites For Learning About Dinosaurs — September, 2010
A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists On Space — September, 2010
The Best Posts & Articles About The Teacher-Bashing “Waiting For Superman” Movie & Associated Events — September, 2010
A List of Interviews With…Me — September, 2010
The Best Sites To Learn “Feelings” Words — September, 2010
The Best Infographics — 2010 — October, 2010
My Best Posts On Parent Engagement Over The Past Six Months — October, 2010
The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me — October, 2010
The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Oceans — October, 2010
The Best Social Studies Websites — 2010 — October, 2010
The Best Posts About The Appalling Teacher-Bashing Column Superintendents Wrote In The Washington Post — October, 2010
The Best Examples Of “Unusual” Art — October, 2010
The Best Sites For Learning About Historic Maps — October, 2010
The Best Sites Showing The Most Popular Tourist Destinations In The World — October, 2010
The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2010
A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists On Blogs & Blogging — October, 2010
October 23, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I have what I think is a pretty interesting “The Best…” list titled The Best Sites For Walking In Someone Else’s Shoes.
In that list, I share a funny and insightful map of Europe as it might be seen though the eyes of United States’ residents. I also describe a lesson plan using it.
I’m adding several other similar maps to that list:
Mapping European Stereotypes shows many maps of Europe seen through the eyes of people from different parts of Europe. They, too, are funny and insightful.
The World According to San Francisco is another one that can be described the same way.
October 23, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
5 Comments
In the guest post I wrote for the Washington Post a couple of months ago, The best kind of teacher evaluation, I shared the elements that I have found useful in the evaluation process we use at our school.
I want to add another one to that list today. This post will sort of be an introduction to it, and I’ll write a more thorough description as it proceeds.
We’ve just begun experimenting with Kelly Young of Pebble Creek Labs, an extraordinary teacher trainer and mentor who also has developed much of the curriculum we teach at our school (and at others across the country), videotaping teacher lessons. I invited him to visit my classroom, and he taped one period of my double-block ninth-grade English class.
The previous day I had explained to the class that, even though it would be hard for them to believe, I was not a perfect teacher 
. So, Mr. Young, who also was the writer of the curriculum we used in class, was going to come in to videotape the lesson the next day. He would then meet with me at a later date to review it and help me become a better teacher. Only he and I would see the tape. One of the students said, “Are you in trouble, Mr. Ferlazzo? We think you’re a good teacher.” I explained that, no, I wasn’t in trouble — I just wanted to become a better teacher. Others wanted to know if they could get to see it, too, and I told them that I hadn’t thought about that, but that I would explore the idea with Mr. Young.
The next day, coincidentally, the lesson was focused on them being “teachers” for the first time. They needed to demonstrate their use of reading strategies by teaching a “Think Aloud” to members of a small group. They needed to show what the “little voice inside their head” was saying as they were reading a passage aloud to their group. The lesson included us making a list of what they thought were the qualities of a good teacher, which they had to use to reflect on their own work at the end of the lesson.
Kelly now will take the hour-long video and edit it down to fifteen minutes. He’ll meet with me to review it. Students, though, continue to talk about wanting to see it, too, and that got me thinking — why not? In fact, it seems to me that it would be great to show the edited footage and even ask Kelly to come in and provide a similar commentary to them that he will provide to me.
Doing that would accomplish a lot:
* Students would see me modeling being open to critique and not viewing it as weakness. In fact, I’d be modeling it as a strength.
* Especially since the lesson was on them being teachers, and that they will be doing that several more times this semester, they will gain insight on what a good teacher does and doesn’t do.
* Since I have emphasized from the first day the qualities researchers have found make-up a good learner, and that one of them is being a good teacher, this kind of public exercise will only reinforce that idea.
* Students could give their reaction to the commentary — do they agree that some teacher actions are good and others not-so-good, and why, which I think will be helpful to both Kelly and to me.
* It would help them to become better prepared to give critique to me on what is happening in the classroom — both informally and formally during our regular Friday reflections.
I’m sure that one of the reasons they want to see the tape is because they want to see themselves, but I also think there is a genuine interest on many of their parts to learn more about why teachers do what they do in the classroom.
As I mentioned, I’ll write a much more lengthy post after the entire process is complete, which should happen fairly soon.
October 23, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
7 Comments
I believe Tom Hoffman created this “must-watch” video.
I’ve never had a principal like the one featured, but I know others who have.
Thanks to Alice Mercer for letting me know about it.
