Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has what best can be described as an I Spy Game with artwork. You’re provided several pieces of art, and lists of objects to find within each one of them.

These kinds of games, which I’ve written a lot about and have posted on my website, are good, fun ways for Beginning English Language Learners to begin to build vocabulary.

I’ve posted the link on my website under Music and Art.

By the way, once you’ve found all the objects in this particular game, there are some other activities you can also do that might be worth exploring.

Creative Kids Central has a number of very engaging online activities related to classical music. I particularly like its “talking” and musical story on the 1001 Arabian Nights and its online video game on the composer Brahms.

Both are accessible to English Language Learners.

I’ve placed the direct links on several sections on my website.

Thanks to Phyllis’ Favorites for the tip.

The nine national museums in Great Britain have a nice collection of webquests.

I’m adding the link to The Best Places To Create (And Find) Internet Scavenger Hunts & Webquests.

Thanks to Eric Sheninger for the tip.

INudge lets you quickly compose your own song, which can be played on an embeddable widget.  No registration is required.

I don’t think it’s quite good enough to be added to The Best Online Sites For Creating Music, but it will make it onto the next addition of The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly.

This is my week for interviews!

If you’re interested, here is an interview with me on using music with English Language Learners.

Away We Go is a movie (it actually sounds pretty interesting). But the reason for this post is the neat online tool they have on their website. You type in any address or location you want that has some kind of special memory for you, and your brought to it. Then, you have an option to pick one of quite a few different musical tracks that might remind you of that significant moment, your write about it, and then the song and what you have written appears on the map. No registration is required.

It could be quick and fun activity for English Language Learners.

In 1980, my extraordinarily talented  mother-in-law, Marilyn Judson, co-wrote a neat book titled Simple Folk Instruments to Make and Play.

It’s filled with simple, step-by-step instructions to easily make musical instruments.

I’ve used it for lessons with English Language Learners. Making a musical instrument provides tons of language-development opportunities — both during and after the lessons. I figure music teachers might find it fun, too.

The book is long-out-of-print, but it’s available used on Amazon for peanuts.

No new wealth will accumulate to our family by your purchase since you can only buy it used, but I think it’s a good resource for teachers to have.

By the way, not only is Marilyn talented, she’s good-hearted.  She is a leader in the Davis (CA) Friends of the Library and has arranged for thousands of books to be donated to recent immigrant families.

Moof is the latest addition to Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Music Sites.  It has a large selection of available music, and you can easily create playlists.

It meets my “Raffi” test — there are plenty of his songs.  I figure if a music site has them, then they’ll be likely to have quite a few others that are useful in teaching ESL/EFL.

Public Domain 4 U has music available for download from before 1922 that is now in the public domain.

I’m adding it to The Best Places To Get Royalty-Free Music & Sound Effects.

I learned about it from Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age, and I learned about that blog from Maryna Badenhorst.

Matisse For Kids is an online interactive from the Baltimore Museum of Art.

It’s accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners and, even though it doesn’t have audio support, is a very engaging guide to artist Henri Matisse’s work and art in general.

I’ve placed the link on my website under Music and Art.

Odosketch is a neat and free online drawing site that I learned about through EFL Classroom 2.0 (a site I think all ESL/EFL teacher should join).

It’s fun.  Unfortunately, you have to register with the site in order to save your drawing, and it doesn’t have the ability to write text in it.  I have other free web tools listed in The Best Art Websites For Learning English that don’t have either of those drawbacks.

But Odosketch is still worth a look.

iZaRia is a new site similar to others on Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Music Sites (and I’ve added it to that list).

It passes my “Raffi” test…barely — it only has one of his songs.  One nice feature it has is that once you pick one song, it recommends other, and seems to do a good job of it.

This is a little different from my other “The Best…” lists.

For the sites listed in the first section of this post, I’m planning on having my English Language Learner students look through these accessible sites, identify which images they found particularly intriguing, and explain why — in writing and verbally.  It’s an opportunity to practice language-development skills, and I suspect they’ll find the content pretty engaging.  I certainly did as I was developing this list!

And for the sites in the second part, they’ll have an opportunity to design their own house…

Here are my picks for The Best Images Of Weird, Cool & Neat-Looking Buildings (& Ways To Design Your Own):

IMAGES:

America’s Favorite Architecture shows the top 150 buildings voted on by “the American public.”

Here are images of “The World’s Most Creative Buildings.”

The Sacramento Bee has a photo gallery of the Winchester Mystery House.

How about the 20 Most Bizarre Houses around the world?

Check-out the World’s Slimmest Houses and Buildings.

50 Strange Buildings Of The World is another amazing list.

And next is 50 Strange Buildings of the World Part Two.

15 Beautiful Buildings Carved from ‘Living Rock’

You can see The Official New 7 Wonders Of The World and other finalists. Most of them would qualify as “buildings.”

How about 8 Of The Best Treehouses In The World.

How about taking a look at some neat Sand Castles?

10 Most Creative Apartment Blocks contains images of some pretty strange apartment buildings.

World’s Wildest Homes

World’s Wildest Houses

It sounds bizarre, but Buildings That Look Like Food shows a series of photos of…buildings that look like food.

The Recycled Houses is the title for a neat New York Times slideshow on houses built out of recycled materials.

“Appetizing Architecture” is a series of images showing buildings shaped like food. It is a similar list to one I’ve previously shared, Buildings That Look Like Food, but, though there is some overlap, each has a number of different examples.

19 Weirdest Houses Around the World

This year is the fiftieth anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s death.  I’m adding two slideshows highlighting his work to this list:

Frank Lloyd Wright, Inside and Out is from The Wall Street Journal.

Frankly Speaking is from The Washington Post.

Looking For Mr. Wright is an interactive slideshow from the Wall Street Journal that takes you a tour of buildings designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

DESIGN YOUR OWN:

There are several sites where students can design their own homes.

One, which has been on my website for awhile, is from the school that Frank Lloyd Wright founded and is called Architect Studio 3D.  It’s a nifty application, but it’s only appropriate for very Advanced English Language Learners.

A newer site is called 30 Elm.  There, you can look through many pictures of homes and rooms, pick the ones you like, and then write about them.  Others can then easily access online what you’ve picked and what you’ve written, and even comment on it.

My Abodo allows you to design the inside and outside of a home and then determine how energy efficient it is.  It’s a colorful and relatively simple activity that’s accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.  After they’re done, they can post their creation in a blog or online journal.

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.

KissTunes is a great web tool that lets you make some music and lets you give it a name and describe it. Then, you get a url address for your creation where others can then leave comments. You don’t even need to register!

I’m definitely adding KissTunes to The Best Online Sites For Creating Music.

Meuzer is the newest addition to Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Music Sites.

Like the others on the list, it lets you search for specific songs, share them, and also create a playlist.  It also meets my “Raffi” test by having a lot of his selections.  That, I think, makes it particularly useful for teachers of English Language Learners.  I also like its simple interface.

Thanks to Go 2 Web 2.0 for the tip.

Classic Cat is the newest addition to The Best Places To Get Royalty-Free Music & Sound Effects.

It has 6000 free classical music performances that can be downloaded for free.

Thanks to Russel Tarr for the tip.

The Queensland Art Gallery has two nice interactive games that would be accessible to English Language Learners.

One is about artist Andy Warhol and is called Warhol’s World.

The other is The Call Of The Wild and is loosely related to the American Museum of Natural History.

I’ve placed links to both games on my website under Music and Art.

Five art museums, called the Museum Network, have developed several engaging online activities related to their collections. Most will be accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.

I’ll be putting direct links to each of the interactives on my website under Music and Art. The link in this post, though, will take you to a page where they’re all described.

Musopen is the latest addition to The Best Places To Get Royalty-Free Music & Sound Effects.

It describes itself this way:

“Musopen is an online music library of copyright free (public domain) music… Put simply, our mission is to set music free.”

Many art museum websites offer users the ability to choose favorites from their online exhibitions and create an online exhibition. The best also let you write captions and describe these individualized collections, and then allow you to post the link on a website or blog.

This kind of activity provides lots of language-development opportunities for all levels of English Language Learners. so I thought it would be a good topic for a “The Best…” list.

You can find links to all the sites on this list, and other “art collection” sites that didn’t quite make the grade, on my website under Student Art Collections.

Of course, students can also create collections of art work they’ve have created online. You can find those sites at The Best Art Websites For Learning English.

Here are my picks of The Best Ways For Students To Create Their own Online Art Collections (by the way, all links will take you directly to the “make your own collection” page of the museum). These are not listed in any order of preference, though I do like the last three sites I list a lot:

The Tyne and Wear Museum doesn’t offer that many options of artwork to choose from, but the big advantage is that you don’t have to register to use the activity, either. It highlights paintings from its Love exhibition.

The Seattle Art Museum has a unique kind of activity — students are given sort of a simple (and accessible) art appreciation class as they develop their own collection. The process is a little “clunky,” but it’s a good step-by-step process. You do have to register, but, as with all the other sites on this list that require registration, it can be done in seconds.

The Tate Museum lets you choose from a limited number of paintings, describe your collection, and then email the link. No registration is required.

The Art Institute of Chicago provides over 250 pieces of art to choose from for what they call a “scrapbook.” You have to register, and, like all of these sites that require registration, is slightly more complicated to use than the ones that don’t require you to sign-in. But it’s still quite accessible to English Language Learners.

The Whitney Museum of American Art provides about 60 pieces of art to choose from, and requires a quick registration. It also offers some unique features, including some guided ways to compare and contrast your picks, and to add sound to your personal collection.

My Collection from the Smithsonian American Art Museum is a favorite. You can choose from among 20,000 art objects, and you can display your collection as a slideshow.  Understanding how to use the site isn’t quite as obvious here as it is in the other ones I’ve listed, but it should only take a minute or two to explain to students how it works.

Zoomorama is a virtual museum that has high definition views of many masterpieces. Instead of creating your own collection on their site, it allows you to get the embed code for each painting. You can then create your own collection on your blog or website.

Another favorite that is a bit different is called The Art of Storytelling from the Delaware Art Museum. At this site, you can actually use art from the museum’s collection to create your own storytelling experience. It’s pretty neat, and very accessible.

Creative Spaces is a project of the National Museums Online Learning Project in Great Britain. You can search through nine of the largest British museums can create “notebooks” of different items and describe them. You can also create groups.

If you found this list helpful, you might want to see the other two-hundred-plus ones, too.

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