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Another great lesson for teacher training from the Teaching Channel. The teacher looks at themes in _Hunger Games_, but goes beyond the text to what is happening underneath in terms of writing craft. Since the work is familiar, they don't have to work at understanding, but rather can focus on and analyze the "messages" contained in the work. The storyboards are used to have students create a reality show to convey the messages, such as "survival," "acts of resistance," how images and dialogue are used, etc.

Encourages the use of synthesis and deeper reading than just "beginning, middle, and end" by having them put together several readings, e.g., about an autistic child and a psychological case study to analyze a character in fiction. Uses case studies from non-fiction articles to create prototypes of, for example, a robot that pushes emotional or intellectual thinking to the extreme. Scenarios from fiction show what their prototypes have and what they need. As they read they are now thinking about how the reading speaks to humans. The video also has a running text commentary that helps visualize how a teacher can make students think about their reading, see patterns, examine their own thought processes and progress. Questions to consider in the margin, as well as connections to the Common Core Standards.

A project to cultivate 21st century fluencies needed by the "digital citizen": creativity, solutions for real life problems, analyzing and evaluation information, using multiple media, ability to work in collaborations. Interesting article at http://mgleeson.edublogs.org/2012/11/16/21st-century-fluencies/. Focusing on young learners.

This is more a SAT-prep lesson, but could be adapted as an activity for an ESL/EFL class. Video shows the entire lesson and students interacting with each other to help remember and analyze to select the right answer. Can be used as a pre-reading or review activity.

The blog article combines a great many areas: hands-on learning, analyzing poetry using robotics, and sTEM/STEAM, the creative element in the sciences. Great cross-over ideas to think about.

You paste an English text (sentence, paragraph, or more) into the site and Rewordify will simplify it. May help students understand difficult passages, but could also be used as the basis for lessons on vocabulary, paraphrasing, analyzing, etc. The "Smart HIghlighting" feature finds the hard words and phrases and highlights them. See the teacher demo video on the site.

"As part of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), students need to "ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century." Many teachers have little to no formal training on how to teach about climate change. Along with the ever-changing research and the controversy that comes with it, some teachers inevitably shy away or even prevent students from digging deep into the content. Some suggest that teachers might be getting climate change all wrong. Since teachers can't rely on books to stay current with all the new research, digital resources are the only effective way to stay on top of such a dynamic field. Consider these practices when using technology to teach about climate change:" Sites include NASA Global Climate Change, Climate Kids for younger learners, Global Oneness Project, and Earth-Now to analyze realtime data.

This is super cool -- kindergartners use primary resources, such as old movies and photos, from the Library of Congress to explore and analyze how the mail was delivered in the old days and compare it to present work practices and jobs. I really got a kick out of the kids' comments about the mail train and sorting mail. Great example of how content-based, authentic materials can inspire even very young learners.

One teacher explains how to teach thinking skills. A nice build up, e.g., from concepts to topic sentences, observation to finding patterns and drawing conclusions. Starts with magazine advertising as a short path to larger works.

This list of apps is organized according to Bloom's taxonomy of learning: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, creating. This is an ingenious way to check out what students are actually getting out of this technology, or any other, for that matter.

The proper way to use PowerPoint!

Shows brainstorming, text talk time, and writing --an overview, shown with with ELLs in middle school. Each aspect of the student interactions demonstrates a Common Core theme or principle. Nice titling in the video makes clear what the concepts are. A good demonstration of excellence in teaching.

"Create higher order questions in order to analyze and discuss a text," a 6-min video with a real 6th grade teacher.

"Cheating Death by PowerPoint teaches you to make great PowerPoint presentations by avoiding some common mistakes." This is a good show on how to really use PowerPoint creatively. But try Prezi, too. PowerPoint, as the presentation makes clear, seems to want you to fail. This slideshow shows how to overcome the inherent faults of the typical ppt theme and make your shows more interesting to students.

I will analyze three common strands of current thought about education and the Internet. First is the idea that the instant availability of information online makes the memorization of facts unnecessary or less necessary. Second is the celebration of the virtues of collaborative learning as superior to outmoded individual learning. And third is the insistence that lengthy, complex books, which constitute a single, static, one-way conversation with an individual, are inferior to knowledge co-constructed by members of a group."

This slideshow illustrates many of the different types of poetry taught by Kenneth Koch in Wishes, Lies, and Dreams. Miking poetry themselves is really the only way to get students to understand the power of metaphoric language--and they will begin using it in their academic writing as well. You can quickly analyze the short poems structures, and then have your students make similar poems themselves. I usually start by having students generate a poem with the whole class at the board, and then send them off in pairs or individually to create their own. Be sure to have students "publish" their poems, either on the Web or in a class magazine. They will be very proud of their work.

Newsy.com is a multi-source online video news site that monitors, analyzes and presents the world's news coverage. In an increasingly connected world, access to multiple sources of news is in demand by global citizens. News sources are abundant yet redundant. Newsy.com delivers context with convenience to help keep you better informed. Through short video segments available on the web and mobile devices, Newsy.com offers a way to accelerate your global understanding of a news story. Newsy.com takes a step back to show how the world's news organizations are reporting a story - providing an unprecedented global and macro point of view. You'll find CNN right next to Al Jazeera, the BBC right next to ABC. Newsy.com also covers major newspapers, news magazines as well as top blogs from around the world. Like FORA.tv, this site presents current news, but with the added feature of allowing students to compare various news sources.

"Graphic organizers have become a valuable tool for helping students learn to analyze and process information. The visual format makes organizing, interpreting and understanding new material quicker and more successful than simple memorization alone. The graphic organizers on our site were selected for their value and broad appeal to many different educational situations. " Offers a number of visual organizers created in PDF format to download. You don't load in any data online, but they look like a help for organizing student projects

A very detailed guide to writing a research paper, for students in higher ed. This is not oriented toward ESL/EFL, however, it has many good tips and procedures, including how to analyze an essay question, which might help with the TOEFL writing section.

An assessment rubric for teachers to analyze the Language of the WebQuests students have created. Very detailed with several levels of evaluation.