Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

June 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

This Seems Like A Pretty Easy Way To Practice Speaking….

There are tons of simple tools that English Language Learners can use to practice speaking when they’re in the computer lab, and I’ve got the best ones listed at The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English.

But what about when you’re not in the computer lab? What’s the easiest way to have students do an audio-recording so that they, and their classmates (and others), can listen to — and evaluate — their work?

One option is to consider the tools listed at The Best Sites For Students To Record Audio By Phone.

However, I just learned about a new way that might just be the easiest.

Audioboo is an excellent recording tool, and is on “The Best….” speaking list. And Posterous is a blogging tool that — though it has some disadvantages,too — is on several other “The Best…” lists.

Here’s a short video that shows how easy it is to connect Audiobook to a Posterous blog — and it’s VERY easy. I could see setting-up a class blog, perhaps only for audio recordings, and regularly going around with my iPhone and having students in the classroom record short snippets — of what they’re reading, writing, or some dialogue they’ve prepared. More importantly, at least in my case since we typically have generous access to a computer lab and can use other audio tools that I think are a bit better, it would be great to use this combination when we’re on field trips. I’ll be teaching Beginning English Language Learners next year, and we’ll be going on many short ones, so I could really see this combo working out well.

Thanks to Jeff Thomas for the video tip.

June 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

What Do Immigrants Bring With Them?

The New York Times has published an excellent interactive titled “Belongings.” Here’s how they describe it:

There are three million immigrants in New York City. When they left home, knowing it could be forever, they packed what they could not bear to leave behind: necessities, luxuries, memories. Here is a look at what some of them brought.

Immigrant readers are also invited to contribute.

This is such a great question that all teachers of English Language Learners could use in class! Not only could students answer it, but it’s an opportunity to have them as the same question to their parents. Students could draw and write the answers and/or take images and put them either on the Web or on a classroom poster.

June 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Join Me This Tuesday For An Online Chat About Helping Students Motivate Themselves

Steve Hargadon will be interviewing me this coming Tuesday evening, 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am GMT, in a free one-hour online chat about my new book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves.

You can participate in the interview/chat at this link, and find out more information here.

It will be part of Steve’s Future of Education interview series.

June 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Making Book Trailers With Fotobabble

I’ve previously posted about the video book trailers we’ll be doing in class during the final week of school next week.

As a “warm-up” and for some low-stress practice, we’ve been having students make one minute Fotobabbles about their favorite books of the year. Students just go to Amazon, find the book, right-click on the image, left-click on “View image information” and then copy the “location.” They can then paste that url address into Fotobabble to get the front page of the book. Next, they use the outline I shared in that previous post to say their review.

You can see a some excellent examples at our class blog.

I’m adding this post to My Best Posts On Books: Why They’re Important & How To Help Students Select, Read, Write & Discuss Them.

June 12, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

“YouTube Trends”

I periodically post “most popular” lists of websites (and books) that I think educators might find useful. Of course, there are a number of ways to gauge “popularity.” I just view these lists as opportunities to check-out some new sites, and find it interesting to see which ones might be particularly “popular.”

You might be interested in The Best Places To Find The Most Popular (& Useful) Resources For Educators –2010.

Today, I’d like to share about a site called YouTube Trends.

Here is how it describes itself:

Created by YouTube, YouTube Trends is a new destination for the latest trending videos and video trends on YouTube and a resource for daily insight into what’s happening in web video.

By making use of viewership data and aggregating the wisdom of top curators across the web, YouTube Trends surfaces popular videos in real time, and provides a blog of broader trends developing within the YouTube community.

It seems pretty useful and interesting.

June 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

A New Way To Access Your Blog’s PostRank Analytics

Many blogs, including mine, have a PostRank widget on our sidebars which track the level of “engagement” readers have with individual blog posts. It’s an excellent analytic tool, and I review those engagement levels each month to develop a public ranking of my most popular posts.

Before PostRank was purchased by Google earlier this month, you could find the engagement levels for posts from an individual blog by just typing the blog’s name into the PostRank search box. Unfortunately, though, many things on their site disappeared the day they announced the Google purchase.

I contacted PostRank earlier today, and Melanie Baker, their Community Manager, responded immediately to my question about how to access blog analytics. For now, all you have to do is enter:

http://www.postrank.com/feed followed by your blog’s url address

For example, for my blog, I’d enter

http://www.postrank.com/feed/http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/

That leads me to the ranking of all my blog posts.

Unfortunately, since the the Google purchase, PostRank is not accepting any new registrations, but I thought this information might be helpful to the many bloggers who already use the service.

June 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments

What Is The Accurate Edison Quote On Learning From Failure?

I’ve written in this blog (see What Does Learning From Mistakes Do To Your Brain?) and in my most recent book about helping students realize that making mistakes, and learning from them, are important for all of us to do — they’re critical for our success.

Most of us have heard one version or another of Thomas Edison’s famous quote about failure and inventing the light bulb. I’ve just read a version I hadn’t heard before, though I like:

“I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

However, I’ve never found the original source so I could find out for sure what he actually said.

Do any of you have the original citation?

June 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

You Can Continue To Make Music With Les Paul’s Google Doodle Beyond Yesterday…

There probably aren’t many people out there not familiar with Google’s famous Les Paul “Doodle” yesterday that let you compose music, record it, and then gave you a link to your composition. It was pretty darn neat (though, I also have to say, pretty distracting to students in the computer lab )

Even though Google has pulled it from its home page, you can still access it here. With luck, Google will keep it alive for a long time.

If you want inspiration, you can check out 7 Les Paul Google Doodle Tunes From Mashable Readers.

I’m adding this Google Doodle to The Best Online Sites For Creating Music.

June 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Tricider

Tricider lets you write a question (without registration) and then anyone can propose an answer with supporting reasons. People can then vote on which answers they like best. Responses are not moderated, but it appears that the originator can delete them.

You can see an example that Nik Peachey created: How do we encourage pedagogically sound exploitation of technology in language learning?

I’m adding it to The Best Places Where Students Can Create Online Learning/Teaching Objects For An “Authentic Audience.”

June 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Teaching About The Summer

Here are the newest additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The Summer:

Summer Is Nearly Here is the title of a series of photos from The Atlantic.

The East Coast heats up is a Washington Post slideshow.

Heat gripping half of US expected to last for days is from The Sacramento Bee.

June 10, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

A Couple Of Useful Bloom’s Taxonomy Videos

Near the end of the extensive Bloom’s Taxonomy lesson I describe in my book, I show some fun videos demonstrating the thinking levels through scenes from Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean. Links to those videos can be found at The Best Resources For Helping Teachers Use Bloom’s Taxonomy In The Classroom.

The creators of those videos have now made some follow-up ones.

The Pirates of The Caribbean video has been shortened, and the sound has been enhanced so it’s easier to hear the words:

And a sequel to the Star Wars one has been made using clips from The Empire Strikes Back:

I’ve added both to the Bloom’s Taxonomy “The Best….” list.

June 10, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Now You Can Edit A Video Online Collaboratively With Stroome

Stroome is a nice online editing tool that’s on Not The “Best,” But A List… Of Online Video Editors list.

They’ve just added a feature called “groups” that lets you work with a….group of people to collaboratively edit a video. Because of that additional feature, I’m adding Stroome to The Best Online Tools For Collaboration — NOT In Real Time.

Thanks to 10,000 Words for the tip. Their post also explains other new Stroome features.

June 10, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

The Best Resources For Learning About The “Next Generation” Of State Testing

Things have certainly been hopping this week with various multi-state organizations preparing to spend millions of dollars from the Department of Education to develop the “next generation” of state testing. There are two tracks going on — one primarily geared towards more “mainstream” students and the other focusing on English Language Learner assessment. This seemed to be a good time to bring together a few posts and articles about what’s been going on. Feel free to contribute other suggestions.

The past posts that I’ve written and have included in this “The Best…” list also include links to other excellent related resources.

Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About The “Next Generation” Of State Testing:

One of the reasons I’m writing this post today is because the state of California announced today that they were joining the SMARTER Consortium — one of the two groups developing the tests for more “mainstream” students. I’m pleased with that decision (my posts on this list give the reasons why). You can read more information about that decision here. You can also read California Takes Sides in Assessment Development Work at Education Week.

You can read about some of the politics going on behind that choice at the Thoughts on Public Education blog.

A Vision for ELL Inclusion in Tests Pegged to the ‘Common Core’

Making ‘Common Core’ Tests Accessible to All Students is by Mary Ann Zehr at Ed Week.

Common Assessments: More Details Emerge is from Education Week.

New Details Surface About Common Assessments is from Education Week.

Here are my previous posts on the topic:

The Next Generation Of State Tests

Consortia Flesh Out Visions for Common Tests comes from Ed Week.

Want To Learn About The Next Generation Of Tests We’ll Be Giving Our Students?

How Should Teachers Respond To The Development Of New State Assessments?

There has also been a lot of recent movement in a parallel effort by states seeking funding from the Department of Education to develop common tests for English Language Learners. I’ve previously written about the concerns I have about this move at Wasting Money On New Tests For English Language Learners.

Mary Ann Zehr at the Learning The Language blog at Education Week has been providing excellent coverage of the two multi-state groups leading that effort (I haven’t taken the time to compare these groups with the mainstream testing groups, but it would be interesting to see if the make-up of each is similar). Here are her recent posts and articles:

Draft Rules Point Way to Consistency in ELL Policies

Calif., Wis. Take Lead to Propose ELL Tests for ‘Common Core’

WIDA Tally: Montana and Maryland Join Consortium

At Proposals for English-Proficiency Tests for the ‘Common Core’, Mary Ann Zehr at Education Week shares links to the proposals to create new state assessments for English Language Learners.

“Common Core ELL Assessment Will Be Developed by Wisc. Consortium”

Questions Arise Over Grants for ELL Tests is from Education Week.

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 700 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.

June 9, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments

Oh Boy, Here’s Another Study I Don’t Quite Get…

Perhaps my brain is “fried” by this time of the school year, but — hot on the heels of not really “getting” what one publicized study meant (see Help Me Understand The Significance Of This New Study That “Finds Sudden Insights Key to Learning Words”), The New York Times has written about another one with which I am having the same difficulty.

Brain Calisthenics for Abstract Ideas is the title of the article.

It seems to me to say that inductive learning — pushing students to identify patterns and rules from what they see — can be a more effective instructional strategy than deductive learning — giving students “rules” and having them apply those to examples. If that is an accurate understanding of the study the article discusses, I don’t really understand the big deal. Tons of studies and teachers, including me, already know this, and many people have already written about how to apply the brain’s desire to seek patterns to teaching and learning. I’ve written extensively about it in two of my books, Helping Students Motivate Themselves and English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work. In both those books I document multiple studies backing-up its importance and effectiveness.

However, I freely admit I might be missing something here. If so, it won’t be the first time and certainly won’t be the last, either. Please let me know — either way — your interpretation of the study.

June 9, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Tweetolife Compares How Men & Women Use Words On Twitter

Type in some words into Tweetolife and in return you’ll get a visualization comparing how men and women use them on Twitter.

I’m adding it to The Best Third-Party Twitter Apps That Don’t Require Your Password.

Thanks to Flowing Data for the tip.

June 9, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

More On The Volcano In Chile

Here are the newest additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The Puyehue Volcano Eruption in Chile:

In pictures: Chile volcano spews ash is from the BBC.

Volcano Erupts In Chile is a Wall Street Journal slideshow.

Volcano Erupts In Chile is also the title of a series of photos from The Big Picture.

Here’s a video of the volcano:

And here’s a CNN video:

June 9, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments

Dan Ariely On Pay For Performance

Dan Ariely has done a lot of research on motivation. Here’s a short video of him talking about pay for performance. I was particularly struck by something he says near the end. He asks if we were going in for surgery, would we want to tell the surgeon that if he/her does his job well we’ll give him a lot of money and if he doesn’t do his job well we’ll sue him, or would we rather have him just concentrate on doing his job?

Perhaps advocates of merit pay for teachers might want to think about that question, too?

You might also be interested in The Best Resources For Learning Why Teacher Merit Pay Is A Bad Idea.

June 9, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Another Special Edition Of “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t”

(NOTE: I usually publish this kind of post once-a-week. However, even more links than usual have accumulated during our annual field trip where we take one hundred students to San Francisco, and then during my subsequent recovery time. So, here’s a collection to get them “out of the way.”)

I have a huge backlog of resources that I’ve been planning to post about in this blog but, just because of time constraints, have not gotten around to doing. Instead of letting that backlog grow bigger, I regularly grab a few and list them here with a minimal description. It forces me to look through these older links, and help me organize them for my own use. I hope others will find them helpful, too. These are resources that I didn’t include in my “Best Tweets” feature because I had planned to post about them, or because I didn’t even get around to sending a tweet sharing them.

Here are This Week’s “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t”:

NASA has created an amazing slideshow of the International Space Station compiling photos taking from a recent Soyuz flight. I’m adding it to The Best Images Taken In Space.

The world’s tallest skyscrapers and structures is a slideshow from The Telegraph. I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About The World’s Tallest Buildings.

Beating The Heat On The East Coast is a Wall Street Journal Slideshow. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The Summer.

Jot Form looks like a pretty intriguing way to create forms, surveys and polls on the web. It’s a little more complicated than other tools I have on The Best Sites For Creating Online Polls & Surveys list, so I’m not sure if I should add it there. What do you think?

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