Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

February 1, 2012
by Larry Ferlazzo
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PBS Report On Hans Rosling

If you’ve seen the amazing video “Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes,” (and if you haven’t, I’ve embedded it at the end of this post — you can also find it on Part Two Of The Best Videos For Educators — 2010) you’ll want to see yesterday’s PBS News Hour report, which is embedded here. You can also get the transcript at their site:

Watch Rosling Brings Life, Sword-Swallowing to Health Statistics on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

And here’s his amazing video on the world:

December 5, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Even More Population Resources

Here are the newest additions to The Best Resources For Learning About Our World’s Population Of 7 Billion:

Explore your world is an amazing interactive. Here’s how it describes itself:

We live in a world of 7 billion people, living in seven continents and more than 200 countries. Though family size (fertility) continues to decline in most places, our numbers are projected to rise for years to come. This dashboard allows you to take a closer look at the world population in 2011 and beyond: Check out populations by region or country. Look at the proportion of young and old. See what various paths the future population growth may take.

Population Control, Marauder Style is a really interesting infographic from The New York Times.

World population still growing, but slowing is an historical interactive from the CBC.

Hans Rosling on global population growth is a TED Talk

October 26, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
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The Best Resources For Learning About Our World’s Population Of 7 Billion

The seven billionth person in the world is projected to be born on Monday, and I thought that this event called for a “The Best…” list.

Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About Our World’s Population Of 7 Billion:

A global push to 7 billion people is a Washington Post interactive.

Explore Your World is an amazing interactive. Here’s an explanation of it.

The World at 7 Billion is a special TIME Magazine report.

The World Of Seven Billion is from National Geographic.

7 billion: World’s population reaches new milestone is an Associated Press interactive.

Population Seven Billion is a photo gallery from The Atlantic.

Population to Hit 7 Bllion on Halloween is from Breaking News English.

How big was the world’s population when you were born? is an interactive from The Guardian.

Fear of a 7 Billion Population Planet is from The Atlantic.

The upsides of overpopulation is from The Washington Post.

The buzz behind 7 billion people: A milestone and a warning is from CNN.

Country Population: Past, Present, Future
is another interactive from The Guardian.

How the world population got to 7 billion – interactive is yet another interactive from The Guardian, and I think it’s particularly interesting.

World Population: 7 Billion is a photo gallery from The Boston Globe.

The world at seven billion is a fascinating interactive from the BBC, which includes the option of figuring out which “number” you were in that 7 billion.

The making of 7 billion is a Washington Post slideshow.

Visualizing How A Population Grows To 7 Billion is from NPR.

Well, Hello There, Seven Billion is a Wall Street Journal slideshow.

The World’s Top 50, Over Time is an interactive chart from the Journal projecting how different countries population is projected to change over the next fifty years.

Crowded Planet is a special feature from The Guardian.

Picturing 7 Billion is from The New York Times.

Making Sense of 7 Billion People is from Wired.

Bringing Up the Issue of Population Growth is from The New York Times.

World Population Hits 7 Billion is an interactive from USA Today.

We are 7 billion is a video from The Economist.

Who Is The World’s Seve Billionth Person? is a TIME slideshow.

Feeding 7 billion and our fragile environment is a photo gallery from The Boston Globe.

Explore your world is an amazing interactive. Here’s how it describes itself:

We live in a world of 7 billion people, living in seven continents and more than 200 countries. Though family size (fertility) continues to decline in most places, our numbers are projected to rise for years to come. This dashboard allows you to take a closer look at the world population in 2011 and beyond: Check out populations by region or country. Look at the proportion of young and old. See what various paths the future population growth may take.

Population Control, Marauder Style is a really interesting infographic from The New York Times.

World population still growing, but slowing is an historical interactive from the CBC.

Hans Rosling on global population growth is a TED Talk.

Pictured: A World at 7 Billion is an amazing New York Times project.

Do the dead outnumber the living? is from The BBC.

I’ve previously shared videos of Hans Rosling, data magician.

He has a new TED Talk out, and it’s called Religions and Babies. I’m embedding it below:

Beyond 7 billion is a pretty impressive interactive from The Los Angeles Times.

Feedback and 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 800 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.

April 3, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
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March’s Best Tweets — Part Two (A Few Days Late)

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. Now and then, in order to make it a bit easier for me, I may try to break it up into mid-month and end-of-month lists (and sometimes I’m a bit late).

I’ve already shared in earlier posts several new resources I found on Twitter — and where I gave credit to those from whom I learned about them. Those are not included again in this post.

If you don’t use Twitter, you can also check-out all of my “tweets” on Twitter profile page or subscribe to their RSS feed.

Here are my picks for March’s Best Tweets — Part Two (not listed in any order):

What the now-found Bronx zoo cobra tweeted, NY Times

“Pay-4-Performance: Individual vs. Group Incentives” by Larry Cuban

“There are encouraging signs that the right’s war on labor is backfiring” Salon

“research finds a shift in emphasis in pop song lyrics over the decades, from “we” to “me.”

Impressive slavery interactive

Guide to Clouds, NY Times slideshow

“NCELA Quarterly Review: Spring 2011 – English Learners with Special Needs”

“Gadgets You Should Get Rid Of (or Not)” NY Times

“Hans Rosling and the magic washing machine” new TED Talk

LEGO Comic Builder

Famous Inboxes (Thanks to Stephen Davis for the tip)

You might also be interested in seeing a list of favorite tweets at:

Shelly Terrell’s blog

Kalinago English

Eye On Education

December 16, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Part Two Of The Best Videos For Educators — 2010

Yesterday, I posted The Ten Best Videos For Educators — 2010.

Today, I’d like to share “Part Two,” which includes videos that didn’t quite “make the cut,” but which I think readers will find useful, anyway. In addition, this list includes some clips that weren’t actually produced in 2010, but which I learned about this year.

Here are my choices for Part Two Of The Best Videos For Educators — 2010:

Ellen Galinsky has created a great new video titled “Focus And Self Control” on the famous “marshmallow” test. You can read how I have used this in classroom at my previous post, “I Like This Lesson Because It Make Me Have a Longer Temper” (Part One).

There are two things that make this video stand-out (it’s a nice compliment to the one I’ve used in the past). One, it shows Dr. Walter Mischel, the originator of the experiment, actually saying what the long-term implications of the test might be. Since students read about him in the lesson, it will have a double impact. Secondly, the video shows a fun “reverse Simon Sez” activity designed to help children develop self-control skills. It’s obviously designed for small children, but I’m sure even high school students would enjoy doing it for a few minutes after they see the video.

The only existing moving images of Anne Frank were discovered this year. It’s only a few seconds but, if you’re studying her in class, just showing that she was truly a living and breathing person can have an impact on students.

Here’s how Mashable describes it: At the 9 second mark in the clip, you can see Anne Frank leaning out of a second-story window as she watches a bride and groom exit a neighboring address. The Guardian reports that the scene dates back to July 22, 1941 and was provided to the museum by the couple in the 1990s.

Nature By The Numbers is an incredible video “inspired on numbers, geometry and nature”:

This year, I watched the movie “Dangerous Minds” (I might have been one of the few teachers out there who hadn’t seen it earlier). It’s an engaging movie, but it’s one in a long line of nauseatingly paternalistic hero teacher films out there. However, it does have a great two minute clip of a teacher home visit that shows the importance of telling parents positive news about their children:

Volkswagen sponsors a site that shows videos designed to encourage people to do activities that promote social good by making them fun — an idea that all of us teachers might want to keep in mind. You can see all of them at The Fun Theory, and here’s the one that started it off:

Will Richardson highlighted this short clip from the movie “Apollo 13.” You couldn’t find a better one that would show what problem-based learning was all about:

I suspect many people saw “Famous Failures” before I did this year, and it’s a good one:

And everybody has got to see Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes:

As a bonus, two years ago Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach wrote an excellent post including this extraordinary video on John Dewey and progressive education:

Additional contributions 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.