January 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are two really exceptional resources I’ve just added to The Best Resources For Teaching About The Arizona Shooting:
The New York Times has an exceptional interactive video of the President’s speech with the text.
The Times has also published another interactive feature showing other examples when President’s have had to “console a nation” after a tragedy.
January 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are the newest additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The One-Year Anniversary Of The Haiti Earthquake:
One Year Later: Studying Post-Earthquake Haiti is a pretty impressive post from The New York Times Learning Network. It’s probably the most useful one I’ve for teachers on this topic.
Haiti earthquake anniversary: Haitians remember the thousands that died is a slideshow from The Telegraph.
Haiti, one year later is a series of photos from The Big Picture.
January 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I’ve just updated and revised a pretty extensive The Best Sites To Learn About Valentine’s Day.
Feel free to offer additional suggestions.
January 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
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“Your Hurricane Emergency Kit: Here’s What Should Be in It” comes from TIME Magazine.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Hurricanes.
January 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
Spelling City is already on several of my “The Best…” lists for learning games, and it’s now gotten even better — and changed it’s name.
It’s now called called “Vocabulary and Spelling City” and has added quite a few new games, including ones using “sentence scrambles.” If you haven’t visited in awhile, I’d encourage you to do so now.
January 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are the newest additions to The Best Resources For Teaching About The Arizona Shooting:
Relatives, friends remember 6 slain in Tucson is a slideshow on some of the victims — from CNN.
Here is a video of President Obama’s speech at the Tucson Memorial Service — from MSNBC.
Here is the text of his speech.
MSNBC also has several other multimedia features.
January 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I forgot to include three important resources in yesterday’s post, The Best Resources For Creating Infographics.
I’ve now added:
The Best Sites For Learning About Cartograms
The Best Map-Making Sites On The Web
Teaching With Infographics | A Student Project Model from The New York Times Learning Network.
January 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
There are now exactly 600 “The Best..” lists that are regularly revised and updated on education-related topics.
You can find them divided into categories here and listed chronologically here.
That’s a lot of lists….
January 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
It’s not uncommon to hear that our schools need to be run more like businesses. That argument holds a lot of appeal to some people (including, but not limited to, people who might make a profit out of it).
I thought I’d bring together a few resources that provide a counterpoint to those beliefs. I’m starting off with a short list, and hope that readers will provide additional suggestions in the comments section of this post.
Here are my choices for The Best Posts & Articles Explaining Why Public Education Should Not Be Run Like A Business:
My Sacramento colleague Alice Mercer has written an excellent post titled The Business of Education. Here’s a short excerpt:
While I think there are some things that can be learned from best practices in other fields, trying to adopt reform models from business on a “wholesale” basis ignores some basic differences between the function and ecology of public education, and a for-profit business.
Diane Ravitch provides a good response to the third question (which is on the topic of business models and schools) in this Public School Insights interview.
Nancy Flanagan points out that schools might be able to learn some things from businesses, as long as we look at the right businesses.
Why schools can’t be run like a business is a post from A Year In The Life Of A Teacher that tells a well-known story illustrating that point.
I’ve written a post about some of the consequences hospitals are experiencing in their efforts towards creating more “efficiency” and its implications for schools. It’s titled Should “Efficiency” Really Be The Driving Force In Hospitals (And Schools)?
“The Price Is Double” — Two Stories About School Reform & Money is another related post I’ve written.
Turning the Tide: Taking Competition Out of School Reform comes from Edutopia.
Déjà vu all over again: A lesson from the history of school reform is by Mike Rose and appeared in The Washington Post.
Business and Education Don’t Mix is by Walt Gardner at Ed Week.
What Do Teachers “Produce”? is by Diana Senechal and appeared in the Core Knowledge Blog.
I made some revisions to my book excerpt that appeared in Education Week recently, and it was just published in The Washington Post. My small changes connected the idea of helping students motivate themselves to school reform, and how perhaps making schools adopt what some see as business practices might not be a good idea.
Students & Their Families “Are Not Consumers”
Social Norms Beat Market Norms is by Diane Ravitch.
Are Public Schools Supermarkets? is by Walt Gardner at Education Week.
Principals as Management, Teachers as Labor is by Walt Gardner at Ed Week.
Why I’m Against For-Profit Schools is by Chris Lehmann.
The corporate lobby and public education is by Valerie Strauss at The Washington Post.
False Choices: The Economic Argument Against Market-Driven Education Reform is a report from Minnesota 20/20.
Again, I’m sure there are quite a few other excellent articles and post out there on this topic. Please let me know about them.
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 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Teacher Magazine has just published an article that I think is the best piece I’ve ever written.
Titled My Students Help Assess My Teaching, I describe in the article how using a video of my class turned into a profound learning experiences — for both my students and me.
In my dreams, the Gates Foundation pays attention, and stops the destructive ways they want to use videotaped lessons of teachers…
January 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are the newest additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The One-Year Anniversary Of The Haiti Earthquake:
Haiti One Year Later is a TIME Magazine slideshow.
Haiti A Year After The Quake is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.
Year ‘was hell for us’: Will Haiti be rebuilt? is a series of photos, videos and interactives from MSNBC.
January 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here’s an especially interesting addition to The Best Sites For Learning About The Vote In Southern Sudan:
Southern Sudan students’ high school dreams – audio slideshow comes from The Guardian.
January 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are new additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The Australian Floods:
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.
January 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The New York Times has a video of a convention of “tiny car” enthusiasts.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About “Cool” Cars (& Designing Your Own!).
January 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Five Words and Phrases that Sound Different to Teachers is a brilliant and funny must-read guest post at Education Week. It’s written by Roxanna Elden.
Read what these words really mean to many teachers:
“Failure is not an option”
Research-based
Rigor
Status Quo
Paradigm Shift
Thanks to John Norton for the tip.
January 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments
Infographics are visual representations of data design to help communicate information clearly. They are great for English Language Learners, and the rest of us, too! The information can also be either serious or humorous.
To see examples of some of the best ones, you can visit:
The Best Interactive Infographics — 2009
You can find even more at The Best Sources For Interactive Infographics.
Of course, you don’t need online resources to have students create their own infographics that can be used towards achieving numerous learning outcomes, as I recently posted about at What A Great Infographic To Use As A Model For Students.
However, creating them online can also be both useful and fun — for both teachers and students.
Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Creating Infographics:
I’m going to start-off with some of my previous “The Best…” lists, including:
The Best Resources For Learning About “Word Clouds”
Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Mindmapping, Flow Chart Tools, & Graphic Organizers
The Best Tools To Make Simple Graphs Online
The Best Sites For Learning About Cartograms
The Best Map-Making Sites On The Web
The Best Posts To Help Understand Google’s New “Books Ngram Viewer”
And here are resources from other sites:
Make Your Own Infographic from the Wild Apricot blog.
5 Unbeatable Types of Infographic + Free Tools to Create Them comes from The Search Engine Journal.
10 Awesome Free Tools To Make Infographics is from The Make Use of blog.
5 Amazing Tools to Create Your Own Infographics comes from Techchai.
Visualize Everything: 32 Free Tools To Create Different Diagrams is from the 1st Web Designer.
Teaching With Infographics | A Student Project Model from The New York Times Learning Network.
The World Bank held a competition for Web developers to create interactives making the World Bank data more accessible. They have received an amazing number of these online apps. You can see all the submissions at Apps For Development. I’m not sure how many, if any, are accessible to English Language Learners, but I haven’t checked them all out and, in fact, have barely scratched the surface. Better World Flux is one that’s getting a fair amount of attention. It’s particularly attractive since users can quickly create their own visualizations with the app and share them with others.
NewsLab has developed some nice video tutorials on using two tools to create infographics — Google Maps and Many Eyes. Here they are:
I posted about a site called Daytum two years ago — before it opened for the public. It’s a super-easy tool to use to visual any kind of data, though its primary purpose for people to use it to keep track of personal data. I had forgotten about it until I saw an article in The New York Times — Illustrating Your Life in Graphs and Charts — that mentioned it. I’m adding Daytum to this list.
The Outreach Editor at the Wall Street Journal has developed a cool tool call “SparkTweets.” They are simple infographics like this one (the tweet itself didn’t come out the way I had hoped, even though I used the Blackbird Pie tool to copy it — oh well, you get the idea):
▇▆▆▇▇▇▇▅▂▁▁▂ Last 12 months of the U.S. unemployment rate, which rose to 9% in April. More data: http://on.wsj.com/jkZPs9less than a minute ago via web 
Favorite 
Retweet 
Reply
Wall Street Journal
WSJ
They’re very easy to create at the Sparkblocks site. You can also learn more about it at the 10,000 Words blog. In addition, you can see how people are using them at the #sparktweet hashtag.
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).
I also have to mention the new website Visual.ly, which began this year and is a source of great infographics and new tools to easily create them. They will be rolling out these tools throughout 2011.
A Few Rules for Making Homemade Infographics comes from The Atlantic.
Creating Infographics with Students is from Langwitches.
Visualize.me lets you immediately turn your resume into an infographic. Unfortunately, right now it only works through Linked In. However, its founder says it will integrate that ability to other sites, too, including Facebook and Twitter.
The Anatomy Of An Infographic: 5 Steps To Create A Powerful Visual is a useful outline.
Feedback is 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 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Here are the newest additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The Vote In Southern Sudan:
A historic vote in Sudan is a series of photos from The Boston Globe’s Big Picture.
South Sudan Vote Begins is a Wall Street Journal slideshow.
January 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
Quora is a question/answer site that many people (or, at least, many blogs) are saying will be “this year’s Twitter.”
I don’t know if I can fit yet another social media site in my schedule (I may be “maxed-out” with Facebook, blogging, and Twitter), but I’ve begun checking it out. I’m definitely interested in hearing from readers who have been on it for awhile, and what, if anything, they feel they gain from it.
Here are a few resources I’ve found useful to get acquainted with Quora:
Quora – Share Your Knowledge & Find The Best Answers To Your Toughest Questions is from The Make Use of blog.
TechCrunch has posted Frequently Asked Questions About Quora.
How-To Use Quora to Share and Find Information! is from Technology Nerd.
9 Ways to Get More Out of Quora is a useful post from Mashable.
Inspired By Wikipedia, Quora Aims For Relevancy With Topic Groups And Reorganized Topic Pages is a post from TechCrunch.
Quora Attempts To Cut Through The Noise With ‘Browse’ is from TechCrunch.
Quora Gets Threaded Comments, Comment Voting, Editing And Images is a TechCrunch post.
Quora Launches Visual Boards That Look Like Delicious’ Stacks is from Read Write Web.
Additional 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 nearly 600 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
January 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
10 scary animals that are totally harmless is a fun and informative slideshow.
I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Animals.
January 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are the newest additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The Australian Floods:
In pictures: Queensland flash floods is a slideshow from The BBC.
Australia floods: an interactive map is from The Guardian.
