Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Blog Archives

May 21, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
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“What The Trend”

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

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

Today, I’d like to share about a site called “What The Trend.” It monitors thousands of “hashtags,” the words following the “#” sign, on Twitter. They are used to help Twitter users follow all tweets on a particular topic. What The Trend will help you understand what particular hashtags mean, which are the most popular at any given moment, and which are popular in what country. It actually looks pretty interesting.

Thanks to 10,000 Words for the tip.

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May 1, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
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“What Parent Engagement Posts Did Readers Find Most “Engaging” This Past Quarter?

Many readers know I have written a book about parent engagement in schools and have a separate blog on the topic. I thought readers of this blog might be interested in seeing the most popular posts from that other blog.

Post Rank uses a variety of ways to measure level of “engagement” that readers have with specific blog posts. I have a constantly updated “widget” on my blog’s sidebar that lists these posts, but I thought a quarterly post would be helpful/interesting to subscribers who don’t regularly visit the blog itself.

Here’s a listing of the “most engaged” posts from the previous quarter.

Here are their rankings for this past quarter:

  1. My Best Posts On Parent Engagement Over The Past Six Months — April, 2010
  2. If It Quacks Like A Duck — Thoughts On The “Parent Trigger”
  3. Rahm Emanuel’s “Transactional” Perspective On Parent Involvement/Engagement
  4. Why It’s So Important To Speak Positively To Parents About Their Kids
  5. Good Middle School Journal Article On Parent Involvement
  6. Again, Let’s Not Blame Parents
  7. Annenberg Starts “Center For Education Organizing”
  8. Update On Ridiculous Florida Bill To Give Parents Grades
  9. Memo To Tennessee: I Don’t Think Requiring Students To Document Their Immigration Status Is Going To Enhance Parent Engagement
  10. Newark’s Outreach Effort Appears To Have Been A Sham
  11. More On Star Wars & Parent Engagement
  12. Q & A With Florida Legislator Who Wants To Grade Parents
  13. “What ‘Star Wars’ Can Teach Educators About Parent Engagement”
  14. Now It’s New York City’s Turn To Show Us How NOT To Do Parent Engagement
  15. L.A. District Receives Parent Engagement Recommendations
  16. Mayor Bloomberg Appears Tone Deaf…
  17. “John Muir Elementary SF gets parents more involved”
  18. More On Florida Legislator’s Plan To Grade Parents
  19. “Title I and Parent Involvement: Lessons from the Past, Recommendations for the Future”
  20. “Schools can learn from program that puts parents in classrooms”
  21. PTA Calls For Changes In “Parent Trigger”
  22. Parents Upset In North Carolina
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February 4, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
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The Most Popular Stories On NPR

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

Today, I’d like to talk about National Public Radio or NPR (though I believe they may officially only be called NPR now). You can find the most viewed, most commented, and most recommended stories over the previous 24 hours at their Most Popular page.

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December 31, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Rrrewind Lets You Find What’s Popular In Social Media

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

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

Today, I’d like to share a new site called Rrrewind. It’s like a “Today In History” site for social media. Here’s how TechCrunch describes it:

[It] lets you see what was hot on Delicious, Digg, Hacker News, Reddit, Hulu, Yahoo Videos, YouTube, Dribbble, Flickr, Amazon and Yahoo Buzz for any day in 2010 and some in 2009. Like a snapshot in virality or a Popurls with a history focus, Rrrewind allows you to go back in time and see an archive of the most viewed items on the Internet.

It could be useful, especially as the years go by and if the site survives…

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December 27, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
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Amazon’s Bestselling Books of 2010

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

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

Today, I’d like to share Amazon’s Bestselling Books of 2010. Only books published for the first time in 2010 are eligible for the list. It’s interesting to glance through.

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December 22, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

CNN’s “News Pulse”

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

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

Today, I’d like to share CNN’s “News Pulse.” It’s a new and very sophisticated section of their website where you can identify what stories are the most popular. That kind of feature, obviously, isn’t new. But at News Pulse you can identify the criteria you want — which subject area and in what period of time. It’s pretty neat.

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December 19, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Find The Most Shared Links On Facebook

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

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

Today, I learned about another interesting place to find “popular” items — All Things Now lists the most shared content on Facebook.

It looks like it could be useful.

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December 2, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Bitly News

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

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

Today, I learned about another interesting place to find “popular” items — Bitly News. It lists the most popular links that have used the Bit.ly url address-shortening service, primarily through Twitter.

It looks pretty useful.

Thanks to TechCrunch for the tip.

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November 20, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments

The Best Places To Find The Most Popular (& Useful) Resources For Educators –2010

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

I’ve made quite a few posts that fit into this category, and thought I’d highlight which ones I thought were the best and most useful for educators.

You might also be interested in last year’s edition:

The Best Places To Find The Most Popular (& Useful) Resources For Educators –2009

Here are my choices for The Best Places To Find The Most Popular (& Useful) Resources For Educators — 2010 (not listed in order of preference):

Popular Children’s Books: I originally had a nifty infographic here, but it’s no longer available. You can find the same info, though, here.

Popular Tweets: Favorious ranks Twitter’s most popular tweets based on how many times they have been “favorited.”

Popular Videos: Zocial TV shows videos, divided into categories, that are most popular on Twitter or Facebook at any given time.

Popular Stumbleupon Sites: if you want to see the top five StumbleUpon sites each week, you can read about them in The Independent.

Most Visited Sites On The Web: Here’s a list of “The 1000 most-visited sites on the web.” Number one is Facebook and number two is Yahoo. I can’t find Google anywhere on the list, though, and that seems pretty bizarre…

Most Shared Content On Facebook: “Its Trending” lists the most shared content on Facebook.

Most Shared & Saved Posts On Google Reader: Google launched Google Reader Play this year. As TechCrunch describes it:

It is a more visual way to browse through the most popular items being saved and shared on Google Reader. When you launch it, you are presented with a large photo, video, or text excerpt on the main part of the screen, and can flip through by clicking on arrows or selecting an item from the filmstrip at the bottom of the screen.

Most Popular Flickr Photos: Here’s a link where you can see a constantly changing slideshow of the most popular Flickr photos over the last seven days.

Most Highlighted Book Passages: Amazon has a feature called “Most Highlighted Passages Of All Time.” Here’s how Amazon describes it:

The Amazon Kindle, Kindle for iPhone and Kindle for iPad each provide a very simple mechanism for adding highlights. Every month, Kindle customers highlight millions of book passages that are meaningful to them. We combine the highlights of all Kindle customers and identify the passages with the most highlights. The resulting Popular Highlights help readers to focus on passages that are meaningful to the greatest number of people. We show only passages where the highlights of at least three distinct customers overlap, and we do not show which customers made those highlights.

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

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October 1, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

“Best-Selling Children’s Books Of All Time”

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

Today’s “installment” in this series is a nifty infographic highlighting “The 20 Best-Selling Children’ts Books of All Time.”

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August 8, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
5 Comments

What Makes Something Popular On The Web? And What Makes Something Popular In The Education Blogosphere?

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

Related to all this, I have just read a memo from the head of the “Gawker” web media “empire” where he tells his staff what makes something popular on the Web. It’s of limited educational value (though it might be useful in my Theory of Knowledge class and I might refer to it when I teach writing in other classes), but it is interesting.

It got me wondering about what a similar list might look like for the education blogosphere. What makes something popular in our “neck of the woods”? Share your thoughts in the comments section by September 1st,and I’ll put everybody’s ideas into a post. I figured it would be a mildly interesting question to raise in the remaining weeks of our summer vacation. Obviously, that’s not the primary reason why we write, but it might be useful to know. I think most of us would like as many people as possible to read what we write, and if we can channel the essence what we want to communicate more into what people would like to see, it’s a win-win situation.

Here are Gawker’s main criteria:

* Explanation — “There’s too much news on the web; and way too little explanation.”

* “Readers enjoy strong opinion”

* “They like photographs”

* “video”

* “great yarns”

* “stories featuring teenagers”

* “female trumps male”

* “Youth also trumps age”

Do any of these carryover into the education blogosphere? What are your ideas?

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July 21, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

What Does PostRank Say Are The Top Ten “Most Engaged” Education Blogs?

Post Rank uses a variety of ways to measure level of “engagement” that readers have with specific blog posts. I thought that readers might find it interesting to see the top ten education-related blogs based on that engagement ranking (You can see the entire list here). It also changes every day.

Here they are, in order:

1. LiveScience.com

2. Inside Higher Ed

3. Teacher Lingo

4. Free Technology for Teachers

5. NYT > Education

6. BlogHighEd.org

7. apophenia

8. Catatan Sawali Tuhusetya

9. Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

10. Cool Cat Teacher Blog

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July 17, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Zocial TV

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

Zocial TV is the newest site to this expanding list. It shows videos, divided into categories, that are most popular on Twitter or Facebook at any given time.

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June 5, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Most Popular StumbleUpon Sites

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

I recently discovered that StumbleUpon, the popular web discovery site, published a list of The Most Stumbled Sites of 2009. That link will take you to the top three in various categories. You can see the complete list here.

In addition, if you want to see the top five StumbeUpon sites each week, you can read about them in The Independent.

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May 28, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

“The 1000 most-visited sites on the web”

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

Today, I’d like to post a link to a list of “The 1000 most-visited sites on the web.”

Number one is Facebook and number two is Yahoo.  I can’t find Google anywhere on the list, though, and that seems pretty bizarre…

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April 28, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

“Its Trending”

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

Today, I’d like to highlight a new site called “Its Trending.” It lists the most shared content on Facebook. It might be worth a look now and then.

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March 10, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

“Google Reader Play”

Google launched Google Reader Play today.

As TechCrunch describes it:

It is a more visual way to browse through the most popular items being saved and shared on Google Reader. When you launch it, you are presented with a large photo, video, or text excerpt on the main part of the screen, and can flip through by clicking on arrows or selecting an item from the filmstrip at the bottom of the screen.

You can read more about it at TechCrunch’s post. It seems like an interesting way to find new items of interest.

I’m adding it to The Best Places To Get Blog, Website, Book, Movie & Music Recommendations.

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February 14, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Most Popular Flickr Photos

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

Today, I’d like to share a link where you can see a constantly changing slideshow of the most popular Flickr photos over the last seven days.

It’s pretty neat.

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