Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

My Testbook looks like a great addition to The Best Sites That Students Can Use Independently And Let Teachers Check On Progress. It lets students study math, science and English. Thanks to Steven Roberge for the tip.

19 Weirdest Houses Around the World has been added to The Best Images Of Weird, Cool & Neat-Looking Buildings (& Ways To Design Your Own).

How To Use Twitter Lists has been added to The Best Resources For Beginning To Learn What Twitter Is All About.

Academic Vocabulary Games has been added to The Best Websites For Developing Academic English Skills & Vocabulary. Thanks to Diana Dell for the tip.

Learning About Learning has been added to The Best Resource Sites For ESL/EFL Teachers. It’s not specifically for ESL/EFL teachers, but it has an enormous amount of resources about teaching in general. Eventually, I’ll put together a “The Best…” list of broader resources for teachers. Thanks, again, to Diana Dell for the tip.

Smart Bean has just published an interview with me about our book Building Parent Engagement In Schools. They’ve titled the piece Engaging With Your Child’s School: Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo.

Here’s how Smart Bean describes itself:

SmartBean is a site for parents that aims to help parents make day to day decisions on practical aspects of parenting largely related to K-12 education and formal/informal learning. It aggregates and presents current education news, research and commentary relevant to parents and in a digestable form. It provides links to educational websites and other resources, and also highlights educational products, books, software and other products aimed at holistic development of children in a changing world. Although its primary focus is on empowering parents, several teachers and educators have found articles and links that are relevant to their work.

Here are two additions to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween:

Days Of The Dead is a series of images from The Boston Globe’s Big Picture.

Day of the Dead is a group of photos from The Sacramento Bee.

Bill Ferriter has written several posts with great tips for teachers who are having their students write blogs. I’m adding the link to The Best Sources For Advice On Student Blogging.

Here are 63 printable Storyboard templates. I’m adding the link to The Best Digital Storytelling Resources. Thanks to Skip Zalneraitis for the tip.

Here are some more additions to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween:

Happy Halloween is a series of images from The Sacramento Bee.

Holidays for Dressing Up, and for Remembering is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

Ghostscape 2: The Cabin is an online video game that is probably too scary for very young children, but adolescents should love it. The walkthrough isn’t posted yet, but should be soon at this site. It has a lot of language development opportunities.

You can look through a ton of old Halloween advertisements here.

I’ve added that link to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween.

Thanks to The English Blog for the tip. You can also find a slideshow sharing more recent Halloween-related ads there.

Sorry, I just discovered that the Hidden Word Game I just posted about is no longer available, so I’ve deleted that post. I wrote it a couple of weeks ago. Things change fast!

Here are some more additions to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween:

Halloween 2009 is a neat resource from National Geographic (thanks to Interesting Pile for the tip)

114 Cool Pumpkin Art Carvings

Detroit Fights Devil’s Night is a TIME Magazine slideshow about a tragic tradition of arson in Detroit.

ESL Courses has good resources on Halloween and on The Day Of The Dead.

Happy Halloween Escape is an online video game that has potential as a language development activity, especially if it’s used with a walkthrough.

Here are new additions to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween:

LIFE on Halloween is a slideshow from LIFE.

Cutest Doggie Costumes is another LIFE slideshow.

Here are some additions to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween:

10 Stunning Pumpkin Carvings is a nice series of photos.

24 Inspirational Pumpkin Carvings comes from the Los Angeles Times.

(Good news! They’re back online. Voting for The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2009 closes in two weeks!)

As readers know, I have polls for people to vote on whether or not they agree with the way I rank various year-end polls, including:

The Best Online Learning Games — 2009

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2009

The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2009

However, the application I use to create the polls, “Poll Monkey,” is down at the moment so the polls don’t show-up. With luck, it’s just a temporary glitch on their part , but there’s no way of telling right now. I’ll let people know when, and if, Poll Monkey is back online and my polls return.

Of course, the list of sites, their descriptions, and my rankings are still available.

I just learned about Audience Sounds from Nik Peachey. It has a nice collection of sound effects that are easy to navigate, listen to, and download. In addition to using them in student or teacher “creations,” another way I’ve used these kinds of sound effects is as a way to build student vocabulary. We first review what each sound effect is called; then the class is divided into small groups with each group having a small whiteboard; next, I play one sound effect; next, I give the class thirty seconds to write down what sound effect it is. People show their boards, and the teams that get it correct win a point.

Students enjoy it a lot.

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

One Survivor Remembers is a teaching toolkit on The Holocaust, including a film, offered for free to teachers by Teaching Tolerance. Here’s how they describe it:

“One Survivor Remembers” tells the unforgettable story of Gerda Weissmann Klein’s six-year ordeal as a victim of Nazi cruelty. Klein describes her years in Nazi labor camps and months on a forced death march. Though her experience was horrifying, Klein also remembers wonderful acts of decency and normalcy – testaments to the greatness of humanity.

This teaching kit sheds light on the 20th century’s terrible history of devastation and prejudice, yet offers hope that hatred can be overcome. It includes:

* A 40-minute Oscar-winning documentary film by Kary Antholis, available in VHS format, with closed-captioning;
* A collection of primary documents, drawn from Klein’s personal collection;
* A resource booklet including a Holocaust timeline; and
* A teacher’s guide with standards-based lesson plans.

I can’t speak highly enough about the similar free toolkits I’ve gotten from Teaching Tolerance and used with my students. I’ll certainly be requesting this one, too.

Here are additions I’ve made to The Best Sites To Learn About The Tsunami In American Samoa:

Tsunami Strikes South Pacific is a slideshow from TIME Magazine.

Quake Triggers Tsunami is a slideshow from ABC News. ABC also has a video that shows the actual tsunami.

Here’s some “raw” video of the actual tsunami.

Here are additions I’ve made to The Best Sites To Learn About The Tsunami In American Samoa:

CNN has an excellent article, video, slideshow, map, and “explainer” about the tsunami — all on the same page.

Tsunami Sweeps Across the South Pacific is the title of a Wall Street Journal slideshow.

Tsunami Sweeps Samoan Islands is a video from The New York Times.

This TV station site has a ton of videos, pictures, and interactives about the tsunami, including an interactive explaining how a tsunami is formed and information about American Samoa.

“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.

Both are on my The Best Images Of Weird, Cool & Neat-Looking Buildings (& Ways To Design Your Own) list.

Thanks to the Interesting Pile blog for the tip.

Students can write-up simple tutorials on just about anything and submit them to LearnThat. There doesn’t seem to be any tutorials on the site that are inappropriate for classroom use.

I’m adding it to The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An “Authentic Audience”.

Thanks to the Interesting Pile blog for the tip.

Regular readers know that my book, Building Parent Engagement In Schools, will be published next week.

I just received word from Linworth Publishing that my second book, which will come-out next year, is now going to be called Teaching English Language Learners: Strategies that Work.

I’ll let people know it’s official release date, and will probably publish a “preview” somewhere.

It focuses on many of the teaching and learning strategies I’ve adapted from my nineteen-year community organizing career and found to work successfully in the classroom.

For some strange reason, links to my ‘The Best…” lists that came in yesterday’s email summary from Feedblitz didn’t work.  With luck, it was a one time occurrence.  If it continues, I’ll contact Feedblitz to try to find out what is going on.

All the other links, including ones to the original posts, worked fine.  So you could access the lists through a bit of a “round about” way.

Sorry about that.

“Ramadan” is a series of excellent photos from the Sacramento Bee.

I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Teach & Learn About Ramadan.