Group items tagged

"4Teachers.org works to help you integrate technology into your classroom by offering online tools and resources. This site helps teachers locate and create ready-to-use Web lessons, quizzes, rubrics and classroom calendars. There are also tools for student use." Loads of tools.

Songs/music videos with lyrics side-by-side. Should be great for teens and young adult learners. (Also great if you never could understand those words!) Have your students write their own lyrics to songs. Or write their own music as a project. If using clips in a project, be sure to respect copyright.

Similar to Bubblr, but this app produces a book-lik presentation, rather than a comic strip format. You add two pictures per open book page, and add text as a subtitle. Good for projects with students' own photos uploaded to Flickr, or pictures found in a search. (See Russell Stannard's description and tutorial at http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/newBubblr/index.html.)

This is an incredibly useful resource for language classes. In combination with news syndicates like ABC, Fox, AP, and AFP, Mapeas collects video news and locates it on a Google map. Students learn geography, read news in English or an FL, and can specify business, entertainment, science news, etc.

A screencaster on the Internet--nothing to download. For Mac or PC, you can record anything within a liited frame for 5 min., so this would be nice to help students start running a program or to create their own short presentations. Easy to upload to YouTube, embed on a Website, or download as mp4. See R. Stannard's instructional video

"Brainstormer is a great tool for group brainstorming. Teachers and students contribute ideas to a shared board, build on each other's thoughts, and vote for their favorite ideas. Plus, it's completely free and no accounts are required. " T/h Nick LaFave

A great example of a clearly defined lesson in guided reading and thinking in an historical context (Ghandi v. Ho Chi Minh as protest leaders). Ms. Duvoor models how to think like a historian as you read original documents.

This brief article by Tom Robb outlines a great new Moodle application that is free if your school already uses Moodle, or accessible online where you can have your own page for quiz access. The add-on offers a short quiz of 10 randomized questions for almost 2,000 commonly read books used for extensive reading programs with the major graded reader series. See the http://MoodleReader.org site.

"I have begun a new Maths Map in Adelaide focusing on addition ideas that can be seen or referred to on the map. It would be great to have your contributions it is very easy to do:" This doesn't have to be just in Adelaide--use Tom Barrett's ideas for a Google Maths Map in your local area. There are math activities for K-5--it's fun, too!

Teaching social bookmarking is the topic of this K-12 blog entry. Tells how and why to use Diigo educationally, but can be applied to other, similar applications.

This may be very useful as a way to show your students both the limitations of software/computer use, and how a summary might proceed.

Lots of bookis read aloud. with text before your eyes. Being read to is a good way to get a sense of the language. Recommended by Russell Stannard at http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/10jan/index.html.

Got to Time.com, select the pull-down menu for Videos, and use the Search engine to find "10 Questions." There are hundreds of these--questions for famous people, newsmakers, politicians, etc. Great way to examine cultural assumptions, explore current events, etc. Teachers will have to develop the lessons, but you see and hear the interlocutors in natural language. Recommended by Russell Stannard.

This blog has great links to citizenship-related exercises and teacher resources, such as the US Constitution in simple English. Should be an important resource for US teachers of adult ed, as well as teachers of American culture overseas.

Karenne Sylvester's blog for teachers of Business English is a huge respository of good Web. Articles are also attractively laid out and easy to access.

"Many people don't realize that The New York Times can be quite accessible for English Language Learners. Due to its focus on current events and news, using The Times to learn vocabulary and practice reading can be much more inviting and rewarding than a textbook. And NYTimes.com has some extra tools and features that are particularly useful for language learning. Here are 10 ideas for using The Times to teach and learn the English language." Includes lookup dictionary, multimedia archive, K/W/L Chart, short activities, culture experiences, lesson plans, this day in history, etc.

"Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can: * Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go, * Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer, * View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen, * Print out the stories and poems to make your own book." You can save to desktop and so free your class of Internet requirements or read and listen on the Web. You can browse alphabetically by author, title, subject matter, or by Reading Level.

Children have a strong disposition to explore and discover. The Project Approach builds on natural curiosity, enabling children to interact, question, connect, problem-solve, communicate, reflect, and more. This kind of authentic learning extends beyond the classroom to each student's home, community, nation, and the world.

A fabulous tool for socio-cultural studies of any country. Click on a country to look at a wide variety of factors: population, social indicators, economy, technical networks, environment, and millenium goals. Fascinating place for students to do comparisons and get info for reports. Or for teachers to learn more about their country of residence.