Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

Idioms and slang are tricky, but important,  parts of any language.  I’ve found that students really enjoy learning them — especially if the teaching is done in a fun way.  There are certainly lots of enjoyable classroom lessons that can be done on this topic, and there are several good websites that students can use for reinforcement, too.

So, here’s another (short) “The Best…” list…

My choices for The Best Sites To Help ELL’s Learn Idioms & Slang include:

In2English has an excellent series of Animated Idioms exercises.  They include an animated cartoon with text and audio explanations of each idiom.  This site is clearly my number one favorite on the list.

On The Tip of My Tongue is a great site from France that teaches English idioms through the use of cartoons, audio, and games.

NDI English Village has the idiom in text form and illustrates it with a picture.  Then it shows several sentences using it correctly with audio support.  When you go to the link, click on the blue colum in the middle to see the different idioms.

The Slang Game teaches English…slang and idioms.

Slang-o-lator is a neat, colorful, game that first shows an image along with a slang phrase (”hanging out”).  Players then have to choose the correct definition.

The Biz Idiom game can be fun.

Here’s a game to test your knowledge of English animal idioms.

Try The Great Walk game from English Portal Games.

Eye On Idioms is an activity from Read Write Think.

The Idiom Connection has written explanations of many idioms (though they’re not presented in the most accessible way). However, they do have a lot of good quizzes.

Suggestions and feedback, as always, are welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

The first part of this post is my usual introduction to this series.  If you’re familiar with it already, just skip down to the listing of new sites…

Here’s the latest installment in my series on The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly.  As you may remember, in order to make it on this list, the web tool has to:

* be easily accessible to English Language Learners and/or non-tech savvy computer users.

* allow people to create engaging content within minutes.

* host the user’s creation on the site itself indefinitely, and allow a direct link to be able to be posted on a student or teacher’s website/blog to it (or let it be embedded).  If it just provides the url address of the student creation, you can either just post the address or use Embedit.in , a free web tool that makes pretty much any url address embeddable.

* provide some language-learning opportunity (for example, students can write about their creations).

* not require any registration.

You can find previous installments of this series with the rest of my “The Best…” lists at Websites Of The Year.  Several hundred sites have been highlighted in these past lists.   You might also want to take a look at the first list I posted in this series — The Best Ways For Students (And Anyone Else!) To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly, and Painlessly.

You might also want to look at The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2008.

Here are my latest picks:

CREATE A PAINTING WITH YOUR VOICE: Your mouse is the brush and your voice the ink when you create an online painting.

MAKE A DRAWING WITH SAND: Just click and start making a drawing with virtual sand, then save your creation to the gallery.

CREATE A 3D SCENE: Use Kickfly to create a 3D scene of images.

SEND A NEAT eCard: Pigspigot lets you choose and eCard or create your own. As with other apps on this list, students can post it on their webpage or blog. I haven’t looked through all the eCards available here, but, in a quick look, didn’t see anything inappropriate, but you probably want to double-check.

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

World Refugee Day is coming-up in two days.  Here is how it described at the official site:

“The United Nations General Assembly designated June 20 as World Refugee Day to recognize and celebrate the contribution of refugees throughout the world. Since then, World Refugee Day has become an annual commemoration marked by a variety of events in over a hundred countries.

This year’s World Refugee Day theme is “Real People, Real Needs”. Despite the efforts of many, the needs of refugees worldwide are far from being met. Behind the unmet needs are not just numbers but real people with real stories.”

I don’t have time right now to do a thorough job of compiling resources, but, especially since many of our English Language Learner students are refugees, I felt like I needed to post something about the day.

Here are a few of The Best Sites For Learning About World Refugee Day (and are accessible to English Language Learners):

ESL Holiday Lessons has a English Lesson Plan on World Refugee Day that provides audio support for the text and has an online activity.

Here are photo galleries of refugees from around the world from Refugees International.

Against All Odds is an online game created by the United Nations refugee agency.   In the game you play the role of a refugee in various scenarios.  It’s probably accessible to high Intermediate English Language Learners.

The UN has a number of good videos on refugees. Unfortunately, most are on YouTube and will be blocked by school content filters (See The Best Ways To Access Educational YouTube Videos At School)

GOOD Magazine has an infographic called Seeking Refuge: A Glance At Refugees Worldwide.

The Road To Refuge is a BBC presentation on the plight of refugees around the world. It has a substantial amount of resources on the site.  The link in this post connects directly to a slideshow accessible to English Language Learners that highlights refugees from different parts of the globe.

Médecins Sans Frontières and MediaStorm have collaborated to produce Condition: Critical, Voices from the War in Eastern Congo.  It’s a moving, informative, and disturbing audio slideshow about the on-going war in the Congo, and the suffering of refugees.

Al Jazeera, the Arabic TV network, has a feature on Hmong refugees in Thailand.

Pakistan’s refugee crisis has been in the news a lot recently. Here are some resources specifically about their plight:

Pakistan’s Invisible Refugees is a slideshow from The New York Times.

Children In Pakistan is a series of photos from the Boston Globe’s Big Picture.

Fleeing Swat Valley Fighting - Refugees in Pakistan are photos from The Denver Post.

Here’s a short PDF document from the UN telling about refugee children.

Seeking Refuge is an excellent infographic from The Wall Street Journal showing the “the top countries of origin for refugees.”

I also just received this comment from Richard Millington at the UN Refugee Agency:

Hi Larry,

That’s a fantastic list, we missed two of them ourselves. Thanks for this.

Would you also be able to mention that Microsoft are donating $1 for every person who joins http://www.causes.com/refugee. They are also matching any donation made.

Other suggestions are, as always, welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

I don’t know how long this story will be going-on, but it’s certainly a pretty amazing one now.  I thought I’d put together a quick “The Best…” list that will expand, and which I hope will be useful when I start teaching summer school to a class of English Language Learners next week.

Here are my picks for The Best Sites For Learning About The Protests In Iran (and, of course, that are accessible to ELL’s):

As background, here’s a simple infographic showing Iran’s political system and here’s one from the BBC that’s more detailed. The BBC site also has a fair amount of background on Iran itself.

Agence France Presse also has a nice interactive on the country’s government.

Here are also some accessible pages of basic information on Iran from sites listed on The Best Reference Websites For English Language Learners — 2008:

Iran Information From The World Info Zone

Tehran, Iran From National Geographic

Iran From Harcourt

The Telegraph also has a more detailed explanation of the country’s governance structure, as well as photos of the protests.

Iran’s Disputed Election is a series of photos from The Boston Globe’s Big Picture.

Iran Election Reactions is a series of photos from the Denver Post.

On The Streets In Tehran is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

Here’s a video from Reuters on today’s massive protest in Tehran.
As always, feedback is welcome.

Election Protests In Iran is a slideshow from The Age in Australia.

Thousands Protest In Iran is a video from The New York Times.

MSNBC has another video of Iranian protests.

MSNBC also has a slideshow of protests taking place around the world.

Chaos In Iran is the title of this CBS News video report.

Opposition Defies Protest Ban in Tehran is a slideshow from The New York Times.

USA Today also has a slideshow on the protests.

The English Blog also has more links to photos and articles about what’s happening in Iran.

Here’s a more recent video from The New York Times and Channel 4 News on the protests.

Fourth Day of Protests in Tehran is a slideshow from the Wall Street Journal.

Iran’s Power Structure is a good interactive description from the Associated Press.

Iran’s Recent History is an accessible interactive about…Iran’s recent history. It, too, is from the Associated Press.

Iran: Electoral watchdog eyes recount is a new interactive from Agence France Presse.

Iran’s Continued Election Turmoil is a series of photos from The Big Picture.

Behind The Scenes With Mir-Hossein Mousavi is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.

CBBC Newsround has a very accessible page on updated Iran news, as well as an excellent piece on What’s Going On In Iran?

Protests Rock Iran is a piece from TIME For Kids.

Unrest Continues In Iran is a slideshow from CNN.

Protests Fill Tehran’s Streets is a slideshow from The New York Times.

The Voice Of America has two reports that provide audio support for the text. Plus, they have some good video.

Iran Erupts is a slideshow from LIFE.

Iranian Protests: Then and Now is a video from The New York Times.

Here’s an amateur video of the protests hosted by The Wall Street Journal.

Protesting Iran’s Election Around The World is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.

Iranians World-Wide Protest Vote Results is a slideshow from the Wall Street Journal.

MSNBC describes the key players in Iran’s power structure.

A History of Modern Iran is a slideshow from MSNBC.

Protests Build as Iran Continues Media Crackdown is a slideshow from The New York Times.

CNN has interactive timeline of Iran’s recent history and a map of the protest locations.

Hundreds of Thousands Mourn Dead In Iran is an Associated Press online video on the most recent rally.

Here are more images from the same rally.

The Guardian also has photos from the most recent rally.

CNN has an interactive explaining Iran’s Power Structure.

Iran Mourns, Protests Continue is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

Major Defiance, Small Concessions is a slideshow from The New York Times.

In Tehran, Terror in Plain Clothes is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.

Khamenei Warns Against Further Protests is a slideshow from the Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal has posted an excellent interactive timeline showing what has happened day-by-day in Iran since the Presidential election.

CNN has photos of police attacking protesters in the most recent demonstration on Saturday.

The Mashable blog has posted Iran Election Crisis: 10 Incredible YouTube Videos. (see The Best Ways To Access Educational YouTube Videos At School)

MSNBC has photos of protesters being blocked by Iran’s security forces.

The Wall Street Journal has video of tear gas being fired at protesters.

Police Officers Clash With Protesters in Iran is a slideshow from The New York Times.

CNN has more photos of violence against protesters in Iran.

Explosion of Violence in Tehran is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

A Troubled Week In Iran is the title of a series of photos from The Boston Globe’s Big Picture.

Heads Up English has an ESL lesson on the Iran protests.

Agence Presse France has an interactive graphic titled Iran: Revolutionary Guards threaten to stifle election protests.

Neda Agha-Soltan, the young Iranian woman whose death was captured in a  famous video uploaded to YouTube, has been a symbol of the protests in Iran.

TIME Magazine has just published a slideshow titled “Who Was Neda Agha-Soltan?”

The New York Times also has a video that includes a clip from the original video as well as commentary.

CNN has also just posted a slideshow on her life.

Timeline: Aftermath of the Iranian Elections is an interactive feature from The New York Times.

Other suggestions are, as always, welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

This “The Best…” list is going to be an expanding one.

These are the ESL/EFL blogs that I subscribe to now, but I’m sure there are many more out there that I just don’t know about…

I hope you’ll contribute their url addresses in the comments section! The criteria I used included that they are updated regularly (more-or-less), their focus is ESL/EFL, and that they provide information that I’ve found useful in my teaching.

Here are my picks for The Best ESL/EFL Blogs (not in any order):

David Deubelbeiss

ELL Classroom

Learning the Language

Adult Education and Technology

Life Is A Feast

Learning Technology Blog

Nik’s Daily English Activities

Nik’s Quick Shout Technology News

Burcu Akyol’s EFL Blog

EFL Geek

Jamie Keddie

Kalinago English

Six Things

TEFLtastic

Carl Dowse

Movie Segments to Assess Grammar Goals

Seth Dickens

Dave Kees

Carla Arena

Think And Dream In English

Teacher Boot Camp

Ozge Karaoglu’s Blog

Ask Auntie Web

The English Blog

Who else should be on this list? Please keep in mind the criteria I’ve used — they’re updated more-or-less regularly, their focus is on ESL/EFL, and that they’ve provided information that has been useful in your teaching.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Learning about inventors and inventions can be connected to many different subject areas, and offers lots of opportunities for English-language development.  Plus, students often find it pretty engaging.

This “The Best…” list is divided into several sections.

The first focuses on sites that offer straightforward and accessible text or online videos on the history of inventions and biographies of inventors.

Next, comes interactives that students can use to learn a little more about specific inventions.

The third section includes sites that students can actively use to participate in the inventive process and develop some of their own ideas.

The final part shares some sites that are just plain fun (and educational!).

Here are my choices for The Best Sites Where Students Can Learn About Inventions:

INVENTION HISTORY:

The History of Invention comes from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and is very accessible to ELL’s.

Fact Monster also provides information on many types of inventions, though it’s not as accessible as the CBC site.

Zoom Inventions and Inventors has a lot of very accessible information.

Here’s a video about American Inventors.

The Library of Congress has a feature on Thomas Edison.

Learn about Technology in the Year 1900.

Watch this video about the Wright Brothers.

How Stuff Works has quite a few short videos on inventions.

You can learn a lot at Invention Facts And Myths.

Take a look at some Ancient Inventions.

Learn about Benjamin Franklin’s inventions. Audio support is provided for the text.

The History Channel has a number of short video clips on different inventions.

The Voice of America has a report on the history of the Internet, including audio support for the text.

Here’s a relatively accessible description of how television was invented.

You can read a very accessible biography of Leonardo da Vinci here.

Here are Top 10 Ancient Inventions You Think Are Modern and 10 More Ancient Inventions You Think Are Modern.

12 Greatest Low-Tech Inventions

INTERACTIVES:

This interactive from Prentice-Hall focuses on a few early U.S. inventors.

Play a “choose your own adventure” game when you pretend to be Thomas Edison. Click on “Inventing”.

Read about Thomas Edison and answer the questions.

This Brainpop movie on Thomas Edison (it requires a subscription, but offers a free trial) includes quizzes.

Watch these early films made by Edison.

How Edison Are You? is a pretty “non-linear” site about Thomas Edison. There’s a timeline and many images of his inventions.  It’s a bit tricky to navigate, and not super-accessible to English Language Learners because of it, but this resource is a nice complement to all the other Edison sites.

Watch this video about the Wright Brothers and answer the questions.

Pretend that you’re flying in the first airplane made by the Wright Brothers.

See how many questions you can answer correctly in the Wright Brothers Game.

Read about Alexander Graham Bell and answer the questions.

Here’s an interactive about James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine.

Print-out and complete this cloze (fill-in-the-gap) about the Wright Brothers.

Here’s a downloadable worksheet on strange inventions from ESL Printables. They have a second one, too.

Here’s a U.S. Invention Timeline.

And here’s yet another Invention Timeline.

Here’s an animation of the first printing press.

Check-out Devices Of Wonder from the Getty Museum.

Play this Library of Congress game and guess which inventions are which…

Inventive Kids offers a number of informative games for students to play.

Learn about a cardboard box solar cooker that won an invention contest. Audio support is provided for the text.

Universal Leonardo has a bunch of great online interactive experiences students can have with Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and experiments.

CREATE:

Rube Goldberg made complex machines for performing simple tasks. You can see a video of one of a Rube Goldberg machine here and create your own online version of one here.

Invent your own “gadget” at Kids.com.

Invent something at the Invention Factory.

FUN:

Take a look at 30 Of The World’s Strangest Inventions.

Play invention games at the Invention Playhouse.

You can do a lot of fun stuff at the Cyberchase Inventors’ Workshop. You have to register, but it’s quick and easy to do so.

This one doesn’t necessarily fit in any of my four categories, but here’s a bunch of PowerPoint presentations on inventors and inventions.

Feel free to share additional suggestions.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

I should be getting several Flip video cameras in time to try them out with my summer school class of Beginning English Language Learners. In preparation, I went looking for some resources that might help me get prepared for using them.

The first section deals with the mechanics of using them, while the second relates to ideas on how to use them in the classroom.

Here are my picks for The Best Sources For Advice On Using Flip Video Cameras:

Since I’m fairly incompetent technologically, I found some good sites that provide step-by-step instructions:

There’s a good video on YouTube on How To Use A Flip Video Camera.

How To Us A Flip Camera is a simple guide with screenshots.

David Pogue of the New York Times has a good review/description on using a Flip, and also has a video.

Here are some tips on how to edit your videos after you’ve shot them.

Here are some places to get ideas and tips on using them with students:

Thirty-Nine Interesting Ways* to use your Pocket Video Camera in the Classroom is a great online presentation from Tom Barrett.

7 Things You Should Know About Flip Camcorders is a good overview on using them in education.

Classroom 2.0 has a good discussion on its Forum about using Flips. I believe you can access it without being a member but, if not, it’s free and easy to join.

Feel free to share additional suggestions.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

July 4th is Independence Day in the United States. Most schools aren’t in session during this time, but since I’ll be teaching English Language Learners during summer school, I thought developing a short “The Best…” list would be useful to my students, other teachers, and me.

In addition to the sites on this list, you might also find the Citizenship and Building A New Country sections on my website helpful, as well as The Best Websites For Learning About Civic Participation & Citizenship list.

Here are my choices for The Best Websites For Learning About The Fourth of July (and are accessible to English Language Learners).  They are not listed in any particular order of preference:

Heads Up English has an accessible description of the holiday and provides audio support for the text.

EL Civics has an ESL Fourth Of July Lesson.

ESL Home has some nice reproducibles for classroom use.

The History Channel has a good Fourth of July site.

Topics Online Magazine (for English Language Learners) shares descriptions about how other countries celebrate their own Independence Days. It would be a great resource for students to write a Compare/Contrast essay using a Venn Diagram.

Glencoe has an online cloze (gap-fill) on Independence Day.

How Stuff Works has two resources that could be modified by teachers to make them accessible to English Language Learners. One is a feature on Independence Day and the other is on How Fireworks Work.

The Wisconsin State Journal lets you create your own July 4th fireworks at Behind The Boom.

The New York Times has a slideshow showing how people celebrate the Fourth Of July. It has another one highlighting July Fourth “cookouts.”

Read about the holiday and then solve a “sentence scramble.”

I’d certainly be interested in hearing other suggestions, so please feel free to leave them in the comments section.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

I’ve written several posts recently about TED Talks, and thought I’d pull together a short list of resources that would be helpful to other teachers (and me) as we consider how to use them most effectively in our classes.

I’m going to start off with a quote from their website explaining what these “things” are:

“TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 400 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks feature closed captions in English, and many feature subtitles in various languages. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.”

Here are my choices for The Best Teacher Resources For “TED Talks”:

The number one place to go is a wiki created by Jackie Gerstein that is called Teaching With Ted. It shares videos along with lesson ideas connected to each one.

Jeff Mummert has just today published an incredible post titled TED Talks Demystified For Teachers. In it, he highlights the videos that he thinks are particularly useful and divides them by subject area.

Links to a Google doc that lists all of the Ted Talks, including links and descriptions, has been circulating on Twitter for weeks. It’s not clear, though, who created such a helpful document. If it was you, let me know!

Tim Longhurst uncovered The TED Commandments - rules every speaker needs to know. They’re the list of ten presentation rules that are given to each TED speaker, and they’re good to keep in mind for any type of public speaking.

Tom Woodward has created a neat searchable website utilizing all of the TED Talks. He is using software from MIT called Exhibit and just posted it. TED must be “in the air” today!

Here are two lists of favorite TED Talks made by education bloggers whose judgment I trust:

Top Ten TED Talks by David Deubelbeiss

Dangerously Irrelevant has posted the Top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy school administrators.

Learn Out Loud also has lots of audio and visual resources that I’ve found useful in my own teaching. They have their own list of favorite TED Talks.

Suggestions and feedback, as always, are welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

This a short “The Best…” list that functions as a companion to several others ones, including:

The Best Sources For Advice On Student Blogging

The Best Places To Find Good Education Blogs

The “Best” Blog Carnivals

This list shares a few resources that can help teachers (and others) who are either presently writing their own blogs or want to start doing so in the future.

Before I start sharing those sites (that are useful for anybody writing a blog),  I would like to point you towards a resource that I’m sure will be added to this list in the future.

Karenne Sylvester, a talented EFL teacher in Germany who develops great resources at Kalinago English, is specifically inviting ESL/EFL teachers to contribute advice they would give to a new blogger blogging in ESL/EFL. Karenne has also organized a Ning group for ESL/EFL bloggers. Consider contributing/participating in both…

So, now, here are my choices for The Best Sources Of Advice For Teachers (And Others!) On How To Be Better Bloggers:

Suggestions and feedback, as always, are welcome.

Nik Peachey has a new post called Testing Your Blog Idea

Vicki Davis has written How To Be An Incredible Blogger.

You can’t go wrong by reading any of Sue Waters’ posts under two categories on The Edublogger site — Growing Blog Readership and Tips For Better Blogging. Her post, My First Five Tips For Writing Better Blog Posts, is a good place to start.

Sue Waters has also written a great post titled “Here’s My Top Five Mistakes Made By New Bloggers — What Are Yours?” It’s worth a read, and, if you have a “mistake” to contribute, leave a comment on her post.

Mathew Needleman has a good post titled Advice For New Edubloggers.

Warning: Do You Recognize These 21 Blogging Mistakes? is from ProBlogger. (Thanks to Scott McLeod for the tip)

Sue Waters (again!) writes about her experience with the 31 Days To Being a Better Blogger Project and also helped create a wiki about it.

23 Essential Elements of Sharable Blog Posts is a good piece by Chris Brogan.

You might also want to read my post Some Advice For New ESL/EFL Bloggers.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Blog Carnivals are compilations of posts from various blogs that share a common theme.  They’re often excellent ways to discover new blogs that you might be interested in, and are good ways for bloggers to get exposure to a new audience. Often they have rotating hosts.

There are tons of them out there…of various quality.

Most use a site called Blog Carnival to coordinate submissions. It’s free and easy to set-up and contribute, and you can create a simple submission form for contributors to use if you want to start your own.

I thought I’d share a few of my favorite ones, and also point people in the direction of checking out many others. I’ve put “Best” in quotation marks because I’m sure there are many other good ones out there that I don’t read.

Here is my short list of The “Best” Blog Carnivals:

I’m a little biased, but I certainly like the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival. You can see the latest edition at Alice Mercer’s blog, and contribute to the next one by using this easy submission form.

The weekly Carnival of Education has been publishing for several years, and has been organized by The Education Wonks blog. You can see a recent edition (the 225th!) here.

It isn’t a “blog carnival” in the strictest sense, but Kevin Hodgson organizes the weekly Day/Week In A Sentence. It’s a great reflective activity where educators share a weekly reflection in one sentence. Kevin often “mixes it up” with having people leave their sentence in an audio version, or a comic strip, etc. People also take turns hosting it.

I also particularly like Mathew Needleman’s Video In The Classroom Carnivals.

The History Carnival is another one that’s been going on for awhile, and features blog posts about…history.

You can also go to the Blog Carnival — Carnival List Education Category and see quite a few other carnivals.

They also have a list for a History category and a Science one that teachers might find of interest.

Feel free to share your own favorites in the comments section…

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

As regular readers of this blog know, earlier today Sue Waters, as part of the Edublogs Live Events, helped get me set-up with my very own Facebook page, which can be seen here. I’m still getting a handle on how it all works, but it’s a beginning!

I’ve posted about how it seems to me that Facebook is the online space most used by teachers — more so than blogs or Twitter — so it seemed to make sense to go “where the people are.”

In my effort to learn more about the ins-and-outs of how to use Facebook, I thought I’d prepare a short list of resources I plan on exploring over the next few days and weeks. I know that Sue will also be posting a recording of today’s Webinar soon, so I’d encourage you to watch that, too, since it’s specifically geared towards teachers. (Actually, Sue has just posted The Elluminate recording to Pimp My Facebook)

I’ve only found a few other resources that I thought were particularly usefulf for Facebook newbies like myself, but I’ve got to believe there is a lot more out there.  That’s why I’ve just called this “A Beginning List…”  Please leave suggestions in the comments section.

I’m only looking at Facebook as a way to make professional (and continue some personal) connections. However, I also know that there is a lot of controversy about if and how teachers should use it to connect with students.

I don’t include any resources offering commentary on that issue, but I’m hopeful that readers can suggest some good ones.

Here are my picks forA Beginning List Of The Best Resources For Learning About Facebook:

Facebook 101 is offered by the Goodwill Community Foundation.  This resource is not designed for English Language Learners, but another one of their projects, The Everyday Life Project, is on The Best Sites For K-12 Intermediate English Language Learners list.

Expert Village has several online video tutorials.

The publishers of the famous “Dummies” series of books has two online videos on Facebook basics.

Sue has written a post titled How To Import Your Blog Posts Into Facebook.  In it, she invites comments from others about advice to educators on using Facebook, so it’s well worth reading the post and the comments (and contributing some yourself!)

Suggestions and feedback, as always, are welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

I’ve written a fair number of posts about online video games that provide excellent English-language learning opportunities, and have written an article about it.  I’ve also written The Best “Fun” Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too.

I thought readers might find it helpful to see a “The Best…” list sharing my picks for the best places to find these kinds of games and their “Walkthroughs” (the instructions on how to “win” the game — you might want to read my article to see how I use those in English language development).  Of course, they also have a lot of games that have very little value at all, so you have to be very selective.

Here are my picks for The Best Places To Find Fun & Educational Online Video Games:

Jay Is Games

Escape Games 24

Lazylaces

Online Games

Bonte Games

Free Game News

Channel 4 Games

Game Walkthroughs

If you’ve found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Having students perform simple classroom science experiments are a great way for English Language Learners to develop language skills — through the speaking with a partner that’s necessary to do the experiment, through the listening needed to understand directions, through the writing done to record results and to afterward describe what they did, and through the reading that occurs if use the Language Experience Approach and as a class write a chronology of events together on a whiteboard.

Plus, of course, students learn science content knowledge and gain an understanding of the scientific method that is useful in all subjects.

On top of all of those benefits, students love doing it, too!

I’ve only found one drawback — I know next to nothing about science.

Happily, though, there are plenty of online resources that offer ideas on how to do science experiments with little preparation necessary.

You can find the sites I’ve included in this “The Best…” list, and many more, on the Teacher’s Page of my website under Science Ideas.

Here are my picks for The Best Sources Of Ideas For Simple Classroom Experiments:

Try Science

ZOOM — Activities

Funology Laboratory

Newton’s Apple Teacher Guides

Hands-On Technology Program

Reeko’s Mad Scientist Lab — Experiments

Middle School Science Mania

Joey Green’s Mad Scientist Experiments

Beakman’s Experiments

Hunkin’s Experiments

Steve Spangler’s Science Experiments

The Naked Scientists — Kitchen Science Experiments

Science Bob Experiments

Chem Shorts For Kids

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Over the past two years, I’ve been involved (off-and-on) with an International Sister Classes Project involving teenage Intermediate ESL/EFL classes around the world. We’ve had a blog where students have shared online presentations, like Voice Threads, and commented on them back-and-forth.

It’s been a good experience for the students and for me.  Let me know if you have an Intermediate English class of students between the ages of 12 and 20 and might be interested in participating in the fall.  It would be a very low-pressure relationship — I would envision classes posting VoiceThreads (or similar tools) like we’ve done in the past, and students then exchanging comments.

I thought it might be useful to share other examples of joint “sister class” projects, and of places where teachers can connect with other classes.   I just didn’t have it in me today to write much of a description about each one, but they’re all worth a visit.

Here are my picks for The Best Ways To Find Other Classes For Joint Online Projects:

Without a doubt, I’d start in two places:

One is by reading Kim Cofino’s blog post A Step-by-Step Guide to Global Collaborations, viewing her slideshare presentation Connecting Across Continents, and reviewing the resources she has posted on her wiki.

The other would be to read Sue Waters’ post Looking For Global Projects For Your Students? Sue highlights a couple of exciting collaborative projects, including Bringing Us Together, a project that she and Sue Wyatt have begun; and Silvia Tolisano’s Around The World With 80 Schools project.

Here are some others worth checking-out, too:

VoiceThread 4 Education

iLearn says it is “the world’s largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and youth to use the Internet and other technologies to collaborate on projects that enhance learning and make a difference in the world.”

Teachers Connecting

Taking It Global offers connections around the world, plus many more resources.

Global Education Collaborative

Flat Classroom Project

ePals

Global School Net

You can read a little more about some of these sites in the comments section of the Dangerously Irrelevant post titled Help wanted: Sites that connect classrooms across the globe?

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

The first part of this post is my usual introduction to this series.  If you’re familiar with it already, just skip down to the listing of new sites…

Here’s the latest installment in my series on The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly.  As you may remember, in order to make it on this list, the web tool has to:

* be easily accessible to English Language Learners and/or non-tech savvy computer users.

* allow people to create engaging content within minutes.

* host the user’s creation on the site itself indefinitely, and allow a direct link to be able to be posted on a student or teacher’s website/blog to it (or let it be embedded).  If it just provides the url address of the student creation, you can either just post the address or use Embedit.in , a free web tool that makes pretty much any url address embeddable.

* provide some language-learning opportunity.

* not require any registration.

You can find previous installments of this series with the rest of my “The Best…” lists at Websites Of The Year.  Several hundred sites have been highlighted in these past lists.   You might also want to take a look at the first list I posted in this series — The Best Ways For Students (And Anyone Else!) To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly, and Painlessly.

You might also want to look at The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2008.

Here are my latest picks:

WRITE A NEAT STORY:  My Storymaker is a very neat tool that lets you interact with it and create an animated story. It’s from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and I heard about it from a blog I’d encourage you to add to your RSS Reader — David Kapuler’s Technology Tidbits. You can read more about Storymaker (and see a sample) at his post about it

CREATE A STAR CONSTELLATION THAT MOVES: Rule The Stars lets you do just what my title says, and you can email and post the url to your creation.

DRAW A PICTURE (& TYPE TEXT): Any Canvas lets you draw something, and includes a lot of “bells and whistles.” You can type in text as well, and post the link to your creation on a blog or website.

CREATE AN ANIMATED FLAG: You can create an animated flag, with your own text and images, at Make Sweet. You can then post the link for others to see.  In addition, the site offers several other ways you can create customized images.

POST ANYTHING ONLINE IN SECONDS: File2.ws lets you, without registering, quickly upload any document and turn it into a webpage.  This is an extraordinary tool.  You can see examples of how my students used it to create multilingual materials on swine-flu prevention. Students can create anything, for example, using Microsoft Word, and immediately turn it into a webpage.

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Today, President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Sotomayor is the first Latina ever nominated to serve on the Court. To quote from the National Public Radio report on her nomination:

“Sotomayor was raised in a housing project in New York’s South Bronx by Puerto Rican parents who came to the United States during World War II. Her father was a factory worker who had a third-grade education and spoke no English. He died when she was 9, a year after she was diagnosed with Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes.”

The nomination of Judge Sotomayor provides a great opportunity to both help English Language Learners see that they can indeed aim high in their own lives, and to help them learn about the Supreme Court and the U.S. judicial system.

Here are my picks for The Best Sites To Learn About The U.S. Supreme Court (and are accessible to English Language Learners):

EL Civics has a good introduction to the Supreme Court that’s specifically designed for ELL’s.

Ben’s Guide To U.S. Government has a slightly more detailed explanation.

Scholastic has a good explanation of how the Supreme Court works.

The Associated Press has an interactive overview of the Court.

Here’s another short description of the responsibilities of the Court.

Scholastic News has a report on the nomination of Judge Sotomayor.

Here’s a New York Times slideshow on Sotomayor.

The New York Times also has a video of the President’s announcement and Sotomayor’s comments.

CBS News also has a slideshow on Sotomayor.

TIME Magazine has a slideshow on her, too.

National Public Radio another slideshow on Sotomayor.

You Be The Judge is a good interactive about the American judicial system, though not specifically on the Supreme Court.

Courts In The Classroom is an animated and interactive look at the United States legal system.  is an animated and interactive look at the United States legal system.

Our Courts has a video and some simple lesson plans on the court system.

How Stuff Works has short videos about the Supreme Court.

Milestones: Sonia Sotomayor is an interactive feature from The New York Times.

Before Judge Sotomayor, There Was Sonia is another interactive from The New York Times.

Here is a short video about Sotomayor’s life.

PBS has a series of Court-related games, though they might only be accessible to advanced ELL’s.

There are several interactive timelines about the Supreme Court that would probably only be accessible to high-Intermediate or Advanced ELL’s:

The Bill of Rights Institute Supreme Court Timeline

CBS News Supreme Court Timeline

PBS Court Timeline

You can also take a panoramic tour of the Supreme Court here.

Voice of America Special English has a report on the nomination of Sotomayor and provides audio support for the text.

Suggestions and feedback, as always, are welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Helping our students learn how to deliver good presentations, and helping ourselves practice what we preach, is always a challenging exercise (at least, it is for me). I thought it might be useful to create a “The Best…” list with the resources that I’ve found useful for doing both.

Here are my picks for The Best Sources Of Advice For Making Good Presentations:

10 Powerpoint Tips for Preparing a Professional Presentation

Ten Tips For Students In Making A Good Presentation by Dr. Delaney Kirk (Thanks to Angela Maiers for the tip)

5 Ways to Ruin Your Next Presentation (thanks to Doug Peterson for the tip)

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

The TED Commandments - rules every speaker needs to know

Tom Peters On Presentations

From design to meaning: a whole new way of presenting?

Top Ten Delivery Tips from Garr Reynolds

Make Better Presentations - The Anatomy of a Good Speech

Really Bad PowerPoint by Seth Godin

Brain Rules For Presenters (thanks to EdTech Update for the tip)

The 10 Worst Presentation Habits

Suggestions and feedback, as always, are welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Bloom’s Taxonomy is talked about a lot in educational circles.  However, if you believe a recent survey of visits to 23,000 U.S. classrooms, the higher-order thinking skills it’s ideally designed to promote doesn’t get much use.

And I can understand why.

It’s easy to get caught-up in the day-to-day work involved in teaching a class or multiple classes, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of doing the “usual stuff” and not “think out of the box.”

I thought it might be useful to share in a  “The Best…” list the resources that help me try to use Bloom’s Taxonomy in my classroom.

There may very well be resources out there that do a far better job of explaining the Taxonomy and how to use it. However, a lot of them are caught up in academic jargon or are just not offered in a way that I find particularly usable.

I personally try to use Bloom’s Taxonomy in two ways. One, I have a big wall chart in the front of my classroom with a summary of each level of the Taxonomy and “question starters” for each of them. Since I spend a lot of time helping my students practice reading strategies, and one of them is asking questions, they can take advantage of the accessibility of this poster. After reviewing what the whole thing means, we discuss how — by practicing asking themselves the higher-level questions while they read a text — they can gain a deeper understand of its meaning.

In addition, I try to use Bloom’s to help me formulate my own lessons. In order to do that, I just need simple, accessible, and practical reminders that I can use. That’s what you’ll primarily find on this list.

Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Helping Teachers Use Bloom’s Taxonomy In The Classroom (most, though not all, are materials prepared by different school districts):

Here’s a Bloom’s Taxonomy chart that’s organized very simply, and that I can keep on my desk or with my papers to help me remember the levels, questions, and practical activities that could go with them.

Here’s another simple list that contains the questions but, more importantly, good ideas on how to implement them in the classroom.

This short article has an even smaller Verb Chart that can serve as a reminder when planning lessons.

I really like this site because of its list of “potential activities and products” for each level.

This site has good practical suggestions on how to apply Bloom’s to reading.

A blog called ESL School ran a series of posts last year on applying Bloom’s specifically to English Language Learners. Here are individual links to each of their posts:

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

Memory

Understanding

Applying and Analyzing

More On Analyzing and Evaluating

Educational Origami has a wiki that is THE place to get ideas on how to relate technology to Bloom’s.

Feedback is always welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Father’s Day is on the third Sunday of June, and I thought it would be a good topic for a short “The Best…” list.

Here are my choices for The Best Father’s Day Sites (that are accessible to English Language Learners):

EL Civics has a Father’s Day Lesson designed specifically for ELL’s.

Apples For The Teacher has a short and simple description of the holiday’s history.

The Orange County Register has an interactive quiz about Father’s Day.

Fact Monster shares a lot of interesting statistics about fathers from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Here is a variety of accessible information on Father’s Day.

Heads Up English has a good list of questions to ask in class that are related to Father’s Day.

You can write and send Father’s Day E-Cards at Blue Mountain and American Greetings. All three appear to host the cards indefinitely on their site, so the url address can be posted on a student/teacher blog or website.

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.