January 5, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments
Webemailme is another site for creating a temporary email address. I’ve had students use this kind of service to sign-up for we apps that require an email activation.
I’m adding it to The Best Temporary Email Address Sites For Students (Or Anyone).
January 5, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I am astounded when I read, as I did this morning in Sacramento Bee’s coverage of our state’s huge budget gap, these kinds of quotes:
Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, questioned the focus on funding levels.
“California needs to get more education bang for the buck, it doesn’t need more dollars into education,” he said.
I thought I’d pull together a very short list of articles that could refute this type of thinking, and am interested in hearing other suggestions, too.
Here is my short list of The Best Sites For Learning That Money Does Matter For Schools:
Does Money Matter in School Reform? by Walt Gardner at Education Week
If money doesn’t matter… at School Finance 101
When schools have money…, also at School Finance 101
The relationship between education spending and test scores is an important piece.
More Flunkin’ out from Flunkout Nation (and junk graph of the week!) is from School Finance 101.
Inexcusable Inequalities! This is NOT the post funding equity era! is from School Finance 101.
Time to Throw Money at the Problem is by David B. Cohen.
The Albert Shanker Institute has released a report titled “Does Money Matter In Education?” You can read an accompanying blog post about it here, and a commentary in The Washington Post here
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 600 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
January 5, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The next ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival will be published on February 1st at by Alice Mercer. Any posts related to teaching or learning English, including examples of student work, are welcome. You can contribute a post to it by using this easy submission form. If the form does not work for some reason, you can send the link to me via my Contact Form.
Sabrina De Vita from Buenos Aires, Argentina, did a great job collecting eighteen posts from English teachers around the world for The Twentieth edition of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival.
You can see all the previous editions of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival here.
Let me know if you might be interested in hosting future editions. David Deubelbeiss at EFL Classroom 2.0 will be hosting the April 1st edition, and there will be a special May 1st edition focusing on Young Learners and hosted by Shelly Terrell.
January 5, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
“The Quest For A Vaccine” is a Wall Street Journal interactive timeline of the quest for an HIV vaccine.
I’m adding it to The Best Web Resources For Learning About HIV & AIDS.
January 4, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Another Look at PISA is an excellent piece by Diane Ravitch at Ed Week.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Getting Some Perspective On International Test Comparison Demagoguery.
January 4, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Storming Juno is the online site of a television show from History TV about Canadian soldiers landing on D-Day. It has a 3D feature of the landing, plus interviews with survivors that include subtitles.
I’m adding it to The Best Online Resources For Teaching & Learning About World War II (Part Two).
January 4, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
As regular readers know, I’ve been thinking more about collaborative storytelling and how to use it more effectively in my Intermediate English class. Last week, in fact, I published The Best Sites For Collaborative Storytelling. I also recently ordered a game I read about called Story Cubes that I thought might be useful, but once I received it concluded it wasn’t very helpful in a class with English Language Learners.
However, all those ideas got my brain going, and I came up with what turned-out to be an excellent lesson in my Intermediate English class yesterday.
First, I had the class divide into groups of three. Within the small groups, each person was numbered either one, two, or three. Each group was given one sheet of paper, and on the top of each paper the group had to write “Once Upon A Time…”
Next, I put a piece of paper under the document camera and projected it on the screen. I then wrote:
“1) Who?”
That meant that the number ones in each group had to write one sentence describing who was going to be in the story. I told people just to have fun with it, and pushed them to write adjectives. I explained that they would have no more than two minutes to write it.
Then, I wrote:
“2) Where?”
All the number twos had to take the paper and write where the story was taking place. Students began to get engaged with it at this point.
We continued this process until the paper on the overhead looked like this:
3) When?
4) What is the problem?
5) Who said What? (indicating that someone in the story had to say something, which was a great time to reinforce quotation marks).
6) Who said What back to that person?
7) Something bad happens
8)Something good happens
9) Something funny happens
10) It ends
Students then got a big piece of easel paper and converted their sentences into a story with illustrations. Next, in a round-robin routine, each group told and showed their story to one of the other groups.
It was all done well within two class periods, required next to no teacher preparation, and provided superior opportunities for reading, writing, speaking and listening. One can’t ask a lot more than that…
I do, however, have lots of other ideas about how to maximize it even further.
I’ll be adding a link to this post in “The Best…” list on storytelling I referenced in the first paragraph.
January 4, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Myths and realities about KIPP is an excellent column in The Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog. It’s written by Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. Here’s an excerpt:
The big difference between KIPP and regular public schools, however, is that whereas struggling students come and go at regular schools, at KIPP, student leave but very few new children enter. Having few new entering students is an enormous advantage not only because low-scoring transfer students are kept out but also because in the later grades, KIPP students are surrounded only by successful peers who are the most committed to the program.
I’m adding this link to The Best Posts & Articles Analyzing Charter Schools.
January 4, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Quiet Write is a new and simple application that lets you write online in a no-frills environment and then publish your work and are given a unique url for your creation. Registration is equally as simple — your email and a password. Unfortunately, unlike other somewhat similar apps, you can’t add images to your page.
It’s no “great shakes,” but it could be another option for a super-easy place for students to publish their work online with no hassle.
I’m adding it to A Few Simple Ways To Introduce Reluctant Colleagues To Technology (where there are similar apps that do let you use photos) and to The Best Places Where Students Can Write Online.
January 4, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
“Brainpickings” has a great definition of cartograms — they are “maps of countries and areas distorted to reflect non-geographic information about them.”
They are interesting ways to look at data, and at thinking about communities. In some of my classes, I’ve had students draw their neighborhoods and had them use an idea I learned from Jim Burke by write brief labels about important events that occurred in different spots. Student then use those as sources for writing topics. I’m toying with the idea of having students create cartograms of their neighborhoods — not using hard data — but, instead, using ideas like where they feel most safe or unsafe. I’m just thinking out loud at the moment, and would be very interested in hearing other ideas.
In the meantime, though, here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About Cartograms (not in any order of preference):
Cartograms: Making a Point with Distorted Maps comes from Brain Pickings.
World Mapper is THE place on the web for cartograms.
How the world really shapes up comes from The Daily Mail.
Cartograms – Images of the social and economic world is from The Rehydration Project.
Images of the social and economic world
The world according to newspapers
Fed Ex has a pretty intriguing “3D” interactive world map online. It contrasts various pieces of data as the size of countries change depending how they rank in those data fields.
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 600 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
January 4, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Connecting the Dots: Interpreting U.S. Census Data is a New York Times Learning Network lesson with very good ideas on how to use the interactive I posted about yesterday — “Mapping America: Every City, Every Block.”
In thinking about it, I believe both the ideas in the Learning Network lesson and the interactive itself could be used in one of my favorite lessons — A Lesson Highlighting Community Assets — Not Deficits.
I’m going to add the link to this post in that piece.
January 4, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Nashville Symphony Orchestra Kids site is accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners, and provides opportunities for students to learn (and hear) about musical instruments. It’s very well designed.
I’ve placed the link on my website under Music and Art.
January 3, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Popplet is a new web app that is like Wallwisher on steroids.
You can make an online “bulletin-board” with virtual “post-its” (called “popplets), just like in Wallwisher. And, except for the fact you have to register to use it, Popplet is just as easy and, in some ways, easier to use with a lot more functionality. With Popplet, you search for images and videos on the Web directly within the “popplet” instead of copying and pasting the url address (as you need to do in Wallwisher). You can draw within the “popplet” and it doesn’t appear to have an limit on the number of characters you can use. You can connect the “popplets.” You can also embed the whole thing.
Having to register for it does offer a minor drawback. And you have to be registered in order to participate in collaborating creating the series of popplets. However, for me, at least, I see that as an advantage, since I generally want my students to create something that cannot be changed by others (you can read how I use these kinds of apps for categorization activities in The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students, where I’ll be adding Popplet).
The other negative, of course, is that you still require an invitation to join Popplet — I receive mine, though, less than twenty-four hours after I requested it. Try it out and let me know what you think.
January 3, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
The flooding in Australia does not look like it’s going to be ending anytime soon, unfortunately. Flooding is a particularly sensitive topic here, since Sacramento is considered the most likely major U.S. city to suffer a catastrophic flood.
Here is a quick list of my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About The Australian Floods (I’ll also be adding this list to A Compilation Of “The Best…” Lists About Natural Disasters):
Floodwaters Inundate Northeastern Australia is a TIME Magazine slideshow.
CNN has several videos about the floods here.
The News in Australia has a slideshow.
The Guardian has an interactive map.
Australian Flooding is the title of a series of photos from The Boston Globe’s Big Picture.
In pictures: Australian floods from the air is from The BBC.
In pictures: Australia floods is also from the BBC.
The CBBC Newsround has a lot of accessible text about the floods.
Heavy Floods Hit Australia is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.
Queensland floods is a slideshow from The Guardian.
New storms soak flood-weary Australian communities is a series of photos from The Sacramento Bee.
In pictures: Queensland flash floods is a slideshow from The BBC.
Australia floods: an interactive map is from The Guardian.
Flooding in Australia is a series of photos from The Denver Post.
Australian flooding is a slideshow from CNN.
Australia’s Flood Crisis is an interactive from The Wall Street Journal.
‘Horror’: Massive Australia floods spark panic is a feature from MSNBC that includes videos, interactives, and slideshows.
Joanne McKell sent me a display of photos from ABC News in Australia titled Brisbane floods: before and after. Though I’ve seen, and posted about, several other “before and after” photos from other natural disasters, these are displayed in a way I haven’t seen before. Check them out and you’ll see what I mean.
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 600 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
January 3, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The Huffington Post has just reprinted my Education-Related Predictions for 2011 post.
It’s been slightly revised, and I’ve added a number of links to the Huffington Post version.
January 3, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve previously posted about the great app Dropbox.
If you ever have any questions about how to use it effectively, Jeff Thomas has created The Complete Dropbox for Educators for you. It’s the ultimate Dropbox reference guide.
While I’m at it, here’s another much less complete guide that’s focused on How to Use Dropbox with an iPhone or iPod Touch.
January 3, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Mapping America: Every City, Every Block is an amazing interactive from The New York Times that displays U.S. Census data from…everywhere. The New York Times Learning Network also has a simple lesson plan related to it.
I’m adding both links to The Best Reference Websites For English Language Learners and to The Best Resources To Learn About The U.S. Census.
January 3, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
5 Comments
With the number of my “The Best…” lists approaching 600, I thought it might be useful to share why I write them and what I have in mind for them over the next twelve months.
Coincidentally, The New York Times recently ran an essay on this very topic — titled “The Joy Of Lists”.” In it, Arthur Krystal writes:
“….there is something reassuring about a list, a precision and formality that makes us think we’ve got a handle on things. Isn’t every list in reality a ceremonial flourish against amnesia and chaos?”
In many ways, that says it all for — my “The Best…” lists are how I combat my own amnesia and the chaos of the Information Age. I have developed my short critieria — accessible to English Language Learners; I can learn how to use it within one minute; and it’s useful to my own teaching and learning — and just won’t include anything on the lists that I don’t believe “make the cut.”
I’ve got to say that when I began writing the lists three-and-a-half years ago I never expected them to reach the quantity they have now. And that number presents some challenges. I work hard at regularly revising and updating all of them, and during the next twelve months will approach those revisions in a more systematic way.
Even though I think these lists help in refining the chaos of the Web for me (and for other teachers), their quantity can even get overwhelming for me sometimes. So, during the next year, I’m going to start writing a new series of lists that highlight my choices for “The Best Of The Best” in various broader categories.
And, of course, I’ll be creating new topics as current events dictate, and as my own teaching needs arise.
I hope these “The Best…” lists are as helpful to you as they are to me…..
January 3, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Fasten Your Seat Belts provides “light-hearted” videos to explain cultural norms in Asia and in Europe. You can read more about it at Free Technology for Teachers.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures.
January 3, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Capturing the world’s oldest living things is a slideshow, video and article at CNN that includes information and media about several trees.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About Trees.
