December 18, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are some recent good school reform-related posts and articles:
26 Amazing Facts About Finland’s Unorthodox Education System comes from Business Insider. I’m adding it to The Best Resources To Learn About Finland’s Education System.
How Do Teachers Know What Students Know? is by Walt Gardner at Education Week.
New Policy Brief: The Evidence On Charter Schools And Test Scores is from The Shanker Blog. I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles Analyzing Charter Schools.
December 18, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
As regular readers know, I periodically publish posts sharing what some organizations list as the “most popular” sites or services. I find them interesting and sometimes useful (see The Best Places To Find The Most Popular (& Useful) Resources For Educators –2011).
Every six months or so, I also publish Postrank’s listing of their determination of the “most engaging” education blogs (it changes weekly). I take all these lists with a grain of salt, but it can’t hurt to see a list of who might have important roles in the online discussion about education. Obviously, the usefulness of Postrank’s criteria is very debatable. At the very least, it’s a source of potential new blogs to read.
You can see the entire PostRank list here. And here are the “top ten”:
1. Free Technology For Teachers
2. Mindshift
8. Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day
10. Cool Cat Teacher
December 18, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
4 Comments
David Deubelbeiss says this film is his favorite Christmas movie. It’s pretty neat, and he also has teaching materials that go along with it:
You can see Parts Two and Three on YouTube, too.
I’m adding it to The Best Places To Learn About Christmas, Hanukkah, & Kwanzaa.
December 18, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
With the last United States troops leaving Iraq today, I thought I’d make a few new additions to The Best Web Resources On The Iraq War:
Last Flight Out Of Iraq is a Wall Street Journal slideshow.
Photos: Last U.S. troops leave Iraq is from CNN.
Last US troops withdraw from Iraq is a multimedia timeline from the BBC.
Ten Grim Lessons Learned From the Iraq War is from TIME.
Deadly Iraq war ends with exit of last U.S. troops is a series of videos from CNN.
Leaving Iraq is a NY Times slideshow.
Looking Back at Iraq is a Wall Street Journal slideshow.
December 18, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
Every month I make a short list highlighting my choices of the best resources I shared through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts here on my blog.
I thought it might be useful for both readers of this blog and for me to review those monthly lists and pick a few that I think are the very best “tweets” of the year.
If you don’t use Twitter, you can also check-out all of my “tweets” on my Twitter profile page or subscribe to their RSS feed.
You might also be interested in:
Best “Tweets” Of 2011 — So Far
Here are my choices for The Best “Tweets” Of 2011:
Using inquiry in science education, San Francisco Chronicle
Forgotten Technologies, cute video
“Richard Feynman and “Her” — A love letter” a must-read for anyone who has ever lost a loved one
Famous Inboxes (Thanks to Stephen Davis for the tip)
Funny “Facebook Comment Flowchart”
Onion: Budget MixUp Provides Schools With Enough Money To Properly Educate Students
ADS FOR GOOD 10 Funny Public Service Ads About Serious Issues (VIDEOS)
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 800 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
December 17, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments
Last week, I described a series of lessons I was doing on Celebrating Mistakes. Through these lessons, we learned about the importance of taking risks and not being afraid of making mistakes. Rather, we should celebrate them!
Here are a few videos of students culminating our lessons. We’re also continuing to celebrate Mistakes of the Week, and what people learned from them.
December 17, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Here are the newest additions to The Best Year-End Collections Of Images — 2011:
Zeitgeist 2011: How the World Searched is from Google.
The Denver Post has a three part series of “2011 Best Photos of the Year”:
2011 in review: Arab Spring, disasters, demise of icons is from the Associated Press.
TIME Picks the Best Viral Photos of 2011 is from TIME.
December 17, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
There are several “words of the year” lists that come out annually. The might be useful for advanced English Language Learners, but I think they can be more effectively used in Theory of Knowledge classes (plus, they’re fun to read for English teachers 
)
You might also be interested in The Best “Words Of The Year” Features For 2010.
Here are my choices for The Best “Words Of The Year” Features For 2011:
‘Occupy’: Geoff Nunberg’s 2011 Word Of The Year is from NPR.
2011 Word of the Year? ‘Pragmatic’ is from The Star.
Word Of The Year 2011 According To Dictionary.com Is ‘Tergiversate’ is from The Huffington Post.
Merriam-Webster names “pragmatic” word of 2011 is from CBS News.
Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2011: ‘squeezed middle’ is from…The Oxford Dictionaries.
Poll: What Is 2011′s Word of the Year? is from TIME.
Top Words of 2011, ‘Occupy’ is 2011 Word of the Year is from The Global Language Monitor.
American Dialect Society To Choose Word Of The Year is from NPR.
The Year in Words, 2011 Edition is from The Visual Thesaurus.
What we talked about in 2011 is from The Boston Globe.
100 Words and Phrases That Ticked You Off in 2011
Philanthropy Buzzwords of 2011 comes from The Chronicle Of Philanthropy.
Which Words Will Live On? is from The New York Times.
2011 in Words is from The Wall Street Journal.
The words of 2011 is from Cambridge Dictionaries.
What’s It Been A Good Year For? Here’s The Word(s)
List of banned words for 2012 includes ‘man cave,’ ‘baby bump,’ ‘occupy’ is from USA Today.
What’s It Been A Good Year For? Here’s The Word(s) is from NPR.
What the Words of the Year Say About Us is from TIME.
Words we don’t want to lose is from Salon.
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 over 800 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
December 17, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I recently updated The Best Sites For Learning About New Year Celebrations.
Additional suggestions are always welcome…..
December 16, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The websites on this list were not designed with education in mind, but which can easily be used for learning purposes — particularly, though not exclusively, for English language development. I only hope that creators of “educational” content can learn from the qualities that make these sites so engaging.
You might also be interested in:
The Best “Fun” Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2010
Part Two Of The Best “Fun” Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2009
The Best “Fun” Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2009
The Best “Fun” Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2008
Here are my choices for The Best “Fun” Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2011:
VIDEOS:
These would be fun clips to to use in any of the video activities I describe in The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows For ESL/EFL.
This is video is from a “talent” show in India. You would only want to show it to a class that you would be sure were mature enough not to be inspired to go out and try some of the stunts:
Here’s an amazing video of birds that moonwalk. It’s from PBS. I’ve “tube-chopped” the best minute-and-half here, but you can see the entire longer video here. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Animals.
Five thousand people from Grand Rapids, Michigan came together to create what Roger Ebert has called “the greatest music video ever made.” And it is, indeed, pretty amazing. It was shot in one take. Even though the song’s lyrics are probably not the best for English Language Learners, the video itself would be a lot of fun.
Here’s a video of The Great Escape — Panda style:
This is a video of Remi Gaillard, known as France’s greatest prankster:
Luke Burrage juggles around the world in this clip:
Check out this Stop-motion animation and drumstick music video:
How about this surfing bulldog:
Show this next video, but only if you don’t think your students will be inspired to try some of the stunts themselves!
“Bridge” is a short and delightful animation that is perfect to show English Language Learners (in fact, to any students) and then have them write and discuss it. It’s a great opportunity for them to literally describe what they see, plus incorporating the messages of the film. As its creator says:
Bridge is a story about four animal characters trying to cross a bridge, but ending up as obstacles to one another in the process. The moral behind this story revolves around how there are often disagreements or competing paths in life, and the possible results of pride, obstinance, and compromise.
I’ve embedded it below:
ONLINE VIDEO GAMES:
“Dr. Stanley’s House 2″ is what is known as a “point-and-click” adventure game. Its “Walkthrough,” or instructions on how to win, can be found here. You can my article, Free Online Games Develop ESL Students’ Language Skills, to learn how I use these kinds of games as a great language-development exercise.
Inspector Kloo 4 is another fun online video game that offers a great opportunity for English language learning. You can find its walkthrough (instructions on how to win) here.
Inspector Kloo 5 is a fun online video game that offers a great opportunity for English language learning. You can find its walkthrough (instructions on how to win) here.
The Ballad of Ketinetto 8 is an online video game that provides lots of language-learning opportunities. Here is its “walkthrough.”
Mild Escape is an “escape the room” game with a walkthrough.
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS:
These are excellent tools for students to write about and discuss:
25 Brilliant Optical Illusions For Kids
Check out the illusion in this video. And if you like it, you can find more here.
Here’s an amazing magic show:
BONUS:
Smurf Yourself lets you choose and dress a Smurf, record it saying something, and then send or post it on blog or website. No registration is required. It’s a fun and simple way for students to practice their English.
Draw a Stickman is an amazing adventure where you…draw a stick and he comes to life. You’re given instructions about what to draw and when, and then the stickman uses what you have drawn. It’s an excellent language learning opportunity for ELL’s and fun for everybody. You can also write your own message that shows at the end of the activity.
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 700 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
December 15, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment
As regular readers know, I’m an enthusiastic supporter of teachers make home visits, and the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project.
Over at my other blog, I’ve just published a report on a recent Parent Teacher Home Visit Project national conference and have made new additions to The Best Resources For Learning About Teacher Home Visits.
December 15, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I recently made a number of revisions to The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons list. You might want to take a look….
Additional ideas are always welcome.
December 14, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
The winners of the Edublog Awards were announced tonight, and you can see a full list here.
It’s an impressive group! Many are new to me, so I’ll certainly be checking-out quite a few of them over the coming weeks….
Congratulations to all the winners, to everyone who made the “short lists” and to all nominees!
December 14, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Obviously, photos can be great educational tools with English Language Learners and with any students (see The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons). I post about many photo galleries, also called slideshows. To do it in a little more organized way, though, I recently began this weekly feature called “Photo Galleries Of The Week.” This post is a “round-up” of online slideshows I’m adding to various “The Best…” lists:
In pictures: lunar eclipse is from The BBC. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About A Lunar Eclipse.
Lunar eclipse of December 10, 2011 is from The Boston Globe. I’m adding it to the same list.
The Protester: A Portfolio is from TIME. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Protests In History.
“San Francisco in Ruins” by George Lawrence is a redigitalized version of the famous photo. It’s presented by the U.S. Geological Survey. I’m adding it to The Best Websites To Learn About California.
December 14, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Lots of great resources for ESL/EFL/ELL teachers have been posted on the Web over the past year. I posted The Best Resources, Articles & Blog Posts For Teachers Of ELL’s In 2011 — So Far in August, so this list will just cover the period of time since then.
In addition to that August post, you might be interested in:
The Best Resources, Articles & Blog Posts For Teachers Of ELL’s — 2010
The Best Sites For Teachers Of English Language Learners — 2009
Here are my choices for The Best Resources, Articles & Blog Posts For Teachers Of ELL’s In 2011 — Part Two:
I’m going to start off by sharing “The Best…” lists since I’ve posted in August and that specifically relate to ESL/EFL/ELL teachers:
The Best Resources On ESL/EFL/ELL Error Correction
The Best Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced English Language Learner Sites
The Best Sites For Learning Strategies To Teach ELL’s In Content Classes
The Best Resources On Teaching Multilevel ESL/EFL Classes
The Best Online Resources For “Information Gap” Activities
The Best Resources On ELL’s & Standardized Tests
A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists For Sites Where ELL’s Can Create Art
A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists For Online Books Accessible To ELL’s
A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists For Online ELL Video Sites
Here are some additional resources discovered since August:
Jason Renshaw has made all of his TOEFL iBT practice test materials, tutorials and sample answers available for free!
Useful Charts has a very nice compilation of….useful charts. I really like their English Verb Tenses Explained.
What Teachers Can Learn from English-Language Learners is a nice post from Lesli Maxwell, who is now posting at Ed Week’s Learning The Language blog.
I’ve been doing a lot of video recording using my iPhone this year with my Beginning and Intermediate English Language Learners. It’s been great, though the audio is picked-up pretty poorly. So, last week I invested $50 in an IK Multimedia iRig Mic Handheld Mic for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad and tried it out today. It made an incredible difference, and all you have to do is plug it into the iPhone. My students made book trailers (you can read more about book trailers here). You can see them all on our class blog.
Berni Wall published the 25th Edition of EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival! She asked for teachers to contribute the most popular posts from their blogs and, boy, did she get them. This edition is filled with gems!
Here are some of our class blogs:
This is our new blog for Beginning and Intermediate English Language Learners. Since it’s new, it just includes what we’ve done up to this time of the school year.
This is last year’s blog for Intermediate English Language Learners.
This is our new United States History blog for Beginning and Intermediate English Language Learners. Since it’s new, it just includes what we’ve done up to this time of the school year.
This is our two-year old United States History class blog for Intermediate ELL’s.
Check out my post This Will Be A GREAT Project For ELL Students!
Lynne Weintraub of Citizenship News emailed this video of a naturalization ceremony. I’m just going to quote her description. One thing she doesn’t mention is that it has subtitles. I’m adding it to The Best Websites For Learning About Civic Participation & Citizenship.
If you’re looking for a video of a USCIS Oath Ceremony to show your students, there are plenty on YouTube, however they’re mostly home-made, and don’t have clear sound quality or visuals. Here’s a link to an Oath Ceremony that was filmed 9/23/11, by USCIS for their YouTube channel. The video has professional quality visual and sound quality, and features some famous people: Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security (who administers the oath), Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (who tells about becoming a citizen herself, and how much that meant to her) and Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior. As is traditional for Oath Ceremonies, there is the “Presentation of the Colors” (flag ceremony), the group says the Pledge of Allegiance, and sings the National Anthem.
It takes a while to view the whole thing (it’s 37 minutes long), but even if you fast-forward through some of the sections, it’s a good resource for giving students an idea of what to expect at their Oath Ceremonies.
Grockit Answers lets you pick any video from YouTube and create a series of questions about it. The great feature is that you can set the time on the video for each question to alert the viewer when the answer will appear. It’s an excellent scaffold for Beginning English Language Learners (though I’d say it’s probably too much of one for many other students). ESL Video is still clearly the overall best video quiz creation site for ELL’s. Grockit Answers, though, is also easy to use, and it’s timing annotation could be very helpful to Beginners.
Brad Patterson began a “Blog Challenge: compare and contrast photo” inviting bloggers to share two somewhat similar photos that students can “compare and contrast.” It’s a great idea, and you can find a list of links on Brad’s blog of teachers who have taken up that challenge and posted their own two similar photos. It’s a treasure trove!
Here is my contribution. The first is a photo of students on a San Francisco field trip, and the second is one of students celebrating Hmong New Year.
I’ve previously posted about the iPhone app called Sock Puppets, and how it’s a great way for English Language Learners to practice speaking. Here’s a sample from my class, and you can see a bunch more on our class blog. By the way, I offered extra credit for students say I was a “bad” teacher in the dialogue, but nobody wanted to :
Eva Buyuksimkesyan published a fabulous 24th Edition of EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival chock full of “Warmers, Fillers and 1st Week Activities.” This is a Blog Carnival that teachers will be referring to for years to come!
Feedback is welcome, including additional suggestions.
If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.
You might also want to explore the 800 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
December 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
There seems to be an avalanche of good school reform-related posts and articles being published this week:
Military Children Stay a Step Ahead of Public School Students is from The New York Times. It highlights the academic achievement by students at schools on military bases. Here’s an excerpt:
Test preparation? “No,” Ms. Kapiko said. “That’s not done in Department of Defense schools. We don’t even have test prep materials.”
At schools here, standardized tests are used as originally intended, to identify a child’s academic weaknesses and assess the effectiveness of the curriculum.
Ms. Kapiko has been a principal both inside and outside the gates and believes that military base schools are more nurturing than public schools. “We don’t have to be so regimented, since we’re not worried about a child’s ability to bubble on a test,” she said.
Military children are not put through test prep drills. “For us,” Ms. Kapiko said, “children are children; they’re not little Marines.”
Is anybody at the Department of Education listening?
Where do teachers come from? is by John Merrow. I’m adding it to The Best Posts On Attracting The “Best Candidates” To Teaching.
Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools is from The New York Times. I’m adding it to A Beginning “The Best…” List On The Dangers Of Privatizing Public Education.
Pro vs. Khan is by Gary Rubinstein. I’m adding it to The Best Posts About The Khan Academy.
December 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments
My Eye On Education Webinar about Student Motivation and Classroom Engagement seemed to go very well this afternoon. Thanks to everybody who participated!
It will be available free for a “limited time” (I’m not quite sure for how long), so you can watch, listen, and download the hand-outs (including several lesson plans) after registering here. The chat was pretty interesting, too, and the full chat log is included in the hand-outs.
If you participated in it today, or if you’re going to watch it at anytime, I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section here….
December 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
I don’t know about you, but it has not been easy for me to get a handle on what Higgs Boson, the so-called “God Particle,” is all about….
So, with all the media attention over the past few days about its possible discovery, I thought I’d bring together some resources that might be useful for a layperson like me.
Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About Higgs Boson, The “God Particle”:
The ones that helped me best understand it were:
World’s biggest experiment discovers key to universe from CBBC Newsround — too bad for the headline since my understanding is that they’re not sure yet they’ve found it.
Physicists search for the mysterious Higgs boson is an Associated Press interactive.
What is the Higgs boson? is from The Guardian.
And here are some other decent resources:
Q&A: The Higgs boson is from the BBC.
Here’s a video from ABC News:
Here’s a CNN video:
National Geographic has an interactive.
MSNBC has another interactive.
What Is Higgs Boson? is a pretty good infographic.
Feedback is welcome.
If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 800 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.
December 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
Classroom Management Suggestions — Part Three is the title of my new post at Education Week Teacher.
I think readers might find it useful.
December 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments
As regular readers know, ever since I discovered them, I’ve believed Henny Jellema’s online TPR Exercises to be not only the best listening exercises for English Language Learners on the Web, but the best ELL activity — period.
Well, I don’t know how I missed it before, but has a number of other similar activities that are just as good:
I’m adding them to both The Best Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced English Language Learner Sites and to The Best Listening Sites For English Language Learners.
