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Nice ideas, and a downloadable sheet to get a free teaching aid: "At one time or another, most of us suffer from writer's block and have a terrible time coming up with story ideas. We stare at a blank page, unable to come up with clever story starters or generate ideas for stories to write. In a way it traps us and keeps us from doing the one thing we want to do most when we sit down with a paper and pen in hand or in front of a computer: write. The more time we waste and are unable to come up with ideas for writing stories, the more we get discouraged. That's why we have something to help kick-start your muse.In this free online download, you get two weeks worth of top-notch writing prompts designed to spark your mind and help you flex your creative muscles. From fiction prompts to poem starters to short stories ideas, you'll be able to generate creative story ideas based on a sentence or two of direction."

This blog entry has some great, but simple, ideas for getting group work to, well, work. One is to award, for example 40 points for a 4-person group, and have students award each other points based on how much they thought they did in the group. Another is to use G-Docs histories to see who has actually been working on revisions. And a third is to make students more cognitively aware of themselves as part of a team -- identifying with their team and investing in its success. Great collaboration ideas. This log is focused on middle school learners, but the ideas will work well for any age.

The AATF posts an Idea, Web Site, and Tech Tip of the Month, plus ideas for games and links to technology blogs and suggestions. Ideas may be adaptable to EFL classes.

"As you design blogging assignments for students consider that text may not always be the best medium to have students use to express ideas and share information. For the student who is trying to quickly convey an idea or share research that he or she compiled, posting an infographic or a video presentation might be a better method of sharing than writing a long passage of text and hoping that readers make it all way through to the end." R. Byrne discusses a short list of tools, including Infogram, Thinglink, YouTube, and SoundCloud, that help students make ideas visual and aural/oral.

"Formative assessment: you've heard about it, you've read the research, and you've probably tried it out in your classroom. "Whether you're a formative assessment newbie or a veteran, these techniques can help spice up how you check for understanding in the classroom. They range from the classics, like exit slips, to ideas you may have never thought to try. "This post was inspired by Todd Finley's big, printable list, "53 Ways To Check For Understanding"." Interesting ideas for formative assessment that also involve the students in their own assessment.

Some nice ideas from R. Byrne on how to use comics for courses and activities -- literature, social studies, book reports, expressing feelings (and ideas). He includes 5 free comic-book makers. Some good examples of PBL.

This seems like an interesting way to present (and solve?) problems with your students. I could imagine it being used to solved behavior problems, but I'm not sure how practical this would be in real life. How it works 1. You enter a problem. 2. You enter ideas that could solve the problem. 3. Some ideas lead to new (hopefully smaller) problems. 4. When a problem is solved, the tree gets green. A problem is considered solved, when you found an idea that does not lead to a new problem. The URL is the key * The URL is cryptic (no two URLS are alike). Nobody can access your Solvr without its URL. * However, you can skype, mail, twitter or even blog the URL to give others access. Everybody who knows the URL can do everything.

If you prefer to hear about new classroom ideas, reather than just listening, this teacher idea site by the EFL Classroom group is quite good. Donwload and listen in your car on the way to work, or get the Huffduffer app.

A great podcasting site for teacher ideas.

Collect ideas and vote. Your students can write pro and con sides to an idea or question you suggest. 20 collaborators allowed, but students could work in pairs or groups to formulate their opinions. Tricider could also be used for teams working on a project. A social voting tool.

"Vygotsky controversially argued for educators to assess students' ability to solve problems, rather than knowledge acquisition. The idea of collaborative learning has a lot to do with Vygotsky's idea of the "zone of proximal development". It considers what a student can do if aided by peers and adults. By considering this model for learning, we might consider collaboration to increase students' awareness of other concepts." Excellent, well-documented advise on using collaborative learning and its value for learners.

A nice collection of site with Project-based ideas -- "awesome, engaging, rigorous, and relevant projects." Hundreds of lesson plans and over 30 websites with examples, rubrics, templates, etc., for language arts, science, math, and social studies. Great resource blog.

"Mind mapping is a visual form of note taking that offers an overview of a topic and its complex information, allowing students to comprehend, create new ideas and build connections. Through the use of colors, images and words, mind mapping encourages students to begin with a central idea and expand outward to more in-depth sub-topics." Gives some tips on the pedagogy of using mind-maps and how to teach it to students.

This TESOL board has lots of good discussions and ideas from teachers. (This is just one example -- check out past history for other ideas.) One nice feature -- you can add your own example and/or write a comment on someone else's.

"Whether you are looking for teaching activities, worksheets, lessons, games, ideas or articles, you've certainly come to the right place. The pages at Teach-This.com are designed to direct you quickly and easily to the ESL/EFL teaching resource you are looking for. You will find lots of new teaching ideas and activities to keep your classes imaginative and interesting." Created by Paul Adams, this crowd-sourcing site collects lesson plans and activities from teachers and lets other teachers download pdfs and use them. Categorized roughly by themes and grammar structures, there is a lot of helpful cross-referencing. Each lesson has a designated level (intermediate, elementary, etc.) and a brief abstract. Most lessons are for teens/adult learners. It's up to you what pedagogy or approach is going to work with your students. It's free -- add your own lesson!

This visual index might give ideas for content- and project-based projects around the climate, geography, maps, environment, conservation, etc.

Webinar with dozens of ideas for using online tools to teach young learners writing. Offered at the 2012 EVO. Shelly Terrell offers free webinars every Friday at 21:00 GMT. go to tinyurl.com/ELTLinks to see a list of recent offerings. Recordings are also available for this free online professional development series.

Wiki ,with link to other activities and blog by Dani Lyra, has ideas for lessons with young learners using a variety of online tools. Great for ideas, with RLOs. This particular page shows how to use VoiceThread to discuss differences in people.

This software helps learners develop their basic paragraph writing skills. Students learn how to write an effective paragraph -- developed by reason, detail, sequence, example, and cause and effect. The full version of the software provides 15 interactive writing activities on a variety of topics. Choosing from a menu of topics, students are guided to generate ideas, write a topic sentence, body of a paragraph, and a conclusion. Each interactive activity includes the following steps: pre-writing, writing, organizing, revising, rewriting, and publishing. The software is a great tool for assessment and self-assessment, for individual practice, and may be especially useful in classes where a teacher is not able to provide personal attention to individual student. -- From Lena Shvidko The focus on process in writing is important, from pre-writing to developing an idea. Would probably be appropriate for both young and adult learners.

Very practical classroom ideas to help students get the creative juices flowing. "You will have seen, there is a strong collection between imagination and creativity. We did not want to get bogged down with the neuro-science behind how imagination works (click on the links above if you want to read further about this), but the need to encourage imaginations should not be left behind in Early Years settings. Allow time and space for imaginations to flourish is a tough demand within modern schools, but the importance of finding time is crucial, being something which all educators can play a part in."

This article contains some very good ideas for getting visiting international students comfortable with their new American setting. However, the ideas apply to many other settings, such as online cross-cultural projects.