Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

…For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

January 16, 2012
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Oolone Is A New Visual Search Engine

Oolone is a new search engine that shows you large images of search results instead of text. Those kinds of visual results have obvious advantages for English Language Learners.

There are other search engines the provide similar results, including Google if you hover on the text. Because of that, even though I’m adding Oolone to The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners, who knows how long it will be able to survive?

January 14, 2012
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

2Lingual Could Be A Very Useful Search Engine

2Lingual is a bilingual search engine. You type in your search term and then choose two languages. Search results will show-up side-by-side in both languages.

It could come in very handy for English Language Learners in content classes, as well as for their teachers who might be looking for materials in a second language that they could offer to their students for extra support. I was quite pleased with the searches I did, though I wish they had separate “tabs” for videos.

They provide bilingual searches for Google and for Bing, plus a voice search capability.

I’m adding it to The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners and to The Best Multilingual & Bilingual Sites For Math, Social Studies, & Science.

October 13, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Qwiki Revisited

Qwiki was the number-one ranked site on The Best Websites For English Language Learner Students — 2010

It’s sort of a multimedia search engine that provides audio support for text, and it’s very engaging.

I recently discovered that not only have they vastly expanded the number of webpages they’ve indexed, but that they also have a daily “round-up” of the day’s news. I’ve now added it to The Best Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced English Language Learner Sites.

September 11, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Jawoco Could Be A Useful Search Engine, Especially For ELL’s

Jawoco is a new search engine that could be useful for ELL’s. After you make a query, in addition to the text links, it automatically shows a thumbnail image next to each item. It’s easier for ELL’s to see than in Google, where you have to scroll over each result in order to see a visual preview. Google’s preview is bigger than a thumbnail, of course, but if you scroll over a result in Jawoco, you can also get a much bigger preview.

Of course, the bigger question is if this slight advantage is going to enable Jawoco to make it over the long-term….

As long as it’s around, I’m adding Jawoco to The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners.

January 25, 2011
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments

Qwiki Is Now Open To The Public

Qwiki, the number-one ranked site on The Best Websites For English Language Learner Students — 2010, opened to the public today (you might want to check out TechCrunch’s post — Video Search Engine Qwiki Is Now Available To The Public).

Here is how I described Qwiki on the “The Best…” list:

I first read about Qwiki in Newsweek. Qwiki is described very accurately by TechCrunch:

Qwiki is somewhere in between a visual search engine and a highly interactive and entertaining Wikipedia. It assembles information on the fly for millions of topics, bringing together images and text in a truly magical way.

One thing that TechCrunch didn’t mention, and I learned when I snagged an invite, was that the text is not only very accessible, audio support for it is provided, too. Even though it’s not open to the public yet (but will be soon), I’m adding it to The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners and making it number one on this list. Students are going to love it.

October 22, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Qwiki Is Going To Be A Winner For English Language Learners (& Others)

I first read about Qwiki last week in Newsweek. Then, today, TechCrunch announced that they had a limited number of invites to check it out. The probably don’t have any left by now, but I’d strongly encourage you to go there and try, because Qwiki is definitely worth a visit.

Qwiki is described very accurately by TechCrunch:

Qwiki is somewhere in between a visual search engine and a highly interactive and entertaining Wikipedia. It assembles information on the fly for millions of topics, bringing together images and text in a truly magical way.

One thing that TechCrunch didn’t mention, and I learned when I snagged an invite, was that the text is not only very accessible, audio support for it is provided, too.

Even though it’s not open to the public yet, I’m adding it to The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners. Students are going to love it.

October 17, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

Middlespot Search Engine Unveils A New Version That Looks Great

Earlier today, I shared a new application that the Middlespot Search Engine folks have developed to easily create online books and reports (see “Simple Booklet” Is A New Tool Many Teachers Will Want To Use).

Just now, they shared with me a new beta version of their search engine, which is even better than their present one (which is ranked number one on The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners).

Their new version is like an even easier and embeddable Wallwisher. In other words, it’s a virtual bulletin board with virtual “stickies.”

If you’re searching for an image, website, or video, though, you don’t necessarily have to copy and paste their url addresses (though you can) — if they are in the search results you just click on it to go into your “mashup” and it goes to it automatically. No registration is necessary, and you can collaborate with others.

The new version makes it even more useful for higher level thinking skills like categorization. I describe how to use applications like Middlespot for this purpose in The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students.

Remember, though, it’s still in “beta,” so it may have a few bugs….

October 10, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments

Untabbed Is A Good Search Engine For ELL’s…For As Long As It’s Around

Untabbed is a new search engine that lets you see a large screenshot of any search result.

It’s very similar, though, to the system that Google began unveiling last week (see Google Search Has Just Gotten Better For English Language Learners). Given that the only difference I can see is that it offers a larger size screenshot of the site — which is a nice feature — there doesn’t seem to be any difference between Untabbed and what Google is rolling-out. In fact, Untabbed even uses Google search results.

I’m still going to add it to The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners list. I just don’t know how long it’s going to be around.

October 6, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Google Search Has Just Gotten Better For English Language Learners

Google has just unveiled a new feature in its search engine — the ability to see images of the site search results without having to go to the sites themselves.

It doesn’t seem to be available everywhere yet. For me, it just showed the images of the first few results. But they are rolling it out, and it will be a boon to English Language Learners. I have several other search engines who offer a similar feature on The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners list. It makes things a lot more accessible for ELL’s.

To try it out after you do a search, go to “More Search Tools” on the left of your screen. Click on it, and then go down to “Standard Results” and “page previews.”

May 28, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
2 Comments

Snap Bird Looks Good For Searching “Tweets”

Snap Bird is a new search engine for “tweets” on Twitter.

I may be missing something, but outside of subscribing to your own Twitter feed in your RSS Readers, this appears to be a great way to search for your tweets. In addition, you can easily search anyone else’s tweets just by typing in their user name and your own search term. (and you can do this without having to register)

Anyone have any better Twitter search applications to suggest?

April 3, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
3 Comments

LocPDF — A Visual Search Engine For PDF’s

LocPDF is a visual search engine for PDF’s on the Web. In other words, you see thumbnail sketches of the PDF’s that are in your search results.

I really don’t know how big of a deal it is, or how different the search results are than from typical search engines, but I know when I typed in “parent engagement” I found some resources I hadn’t seen before. It was neat being able to see the images first.

I don’t think it’s particularly useful for English Language Learners, but I think it’ll be useful for teacher research.

April 2, 2010
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

BevyFind Is An Interesting Search Engine

BevyFind is a new search engine that lets you…well, it’s a little hard for me to explain exactly what it does. For English Language Learners, I like the fact that you can click on a text result and see the website without leaving the search page. I also like the fact that you can easily add multiple search results, including images, to automatically add to email that you can describe. That capability is good for higher-order thinking categorization skills.

It appears that it’s primary selling-point for most people, though, appears to be its ability to show lots of different search results on the same page. That’s a bad, and not accurate description, but, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to better explain it. Check it out yourself.

It’s an interesting search engine, but not exceptional enough to be added to The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners.

Thanks to Angela Maiers for the tip.

December 21, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
1 Comment

I Like Sprixi

Sprixi is a new search engine for images, mostly ones that have a Creative Commons license. It’s design is very attractive and easy to use. The key reason I like it, though, is because when you want to use one of their photos, it automatically shows whatever permissions are required. I know the New York Public Library photo collection does the same thing when you use their photos in a VoiceThread, but I’m not sure of other services that do the same.

In the comments section, please let me know what other web applications you know of that offer a similar service.

I’m adding Sprixi to The Best Online Sources For Images.

Thanks to Diana Dell for the tip.

December 8, 2009
by Larry Ferlazzo
0 comments

Kngine Might Be An Excellent Search Engine

I have to try it out some more to be sure, but Kngine looks like it might be a truly exceptional search engine for English Language Learners and other students.

It calls itself a “revolutionary Semantic Search Engine and Question Answer Engine designed to provide meaningful search results.” Users can write a question in — for example, “How many years do you have to go to college to be a teacher?” (I chose that because my students have been doing research on careers). I was really quite impressed with the results that come up in response.

My students had tried using questions like that at some of the “question/answer” sites like Wikianswers. They easily found answers, but they varied wildly in terms of quality. The answers from Kngine seemed to take the best answers from those kinds of sites and include additional resources, too.

Even though I need to experiment with it more before I’m sure, I feel good enough about it to add to The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2009.

I’d be interested in hearing what your experience with it is, too.