CALL_IS_VSL

This article has a list of great sites for the K-6 audience (many adaptable to 7-12 and adult). All of them are free and no registration is required. Some are very low tech.

"Learni.st makes it super easy to share what you know by pointing to existing web resources. You can use videos, blogs, books, documents, images, anything to explain how to learn something. This short video will teach you about the basics of Learnist like how the homepage is laid out and what is on a Learn Board." You will need an invite in this current Beta stage, but I think it will catch on.

This is a short article linking to several educational game-making sites. Creating your own game means targeted practice for your students, but most of the sites also have a bank of games made by other students and teachers. Most are exceedingly simple, but students find them really motivating. And students will learn even more by making their own for self-study or practice with friends.

These are simple instructions for creating an easy T-F or even MCQ quiz using Powerpoint. This is a nice backup if you can't get online to SurveyMonkey. It might be a good challenge for students to create their own quizzes or a kind of flashcard set.

"8 ways to use Learnist, a Pinterest-like education sit By Lindsey Smith Learnist bears a striking similarity to Pinterest by way of Wikipedia, and the busy knowledge-sharing site is bursting at the seams with content. "Want to know how to write objectively, use Photoshop, or experiment with the "flipped classroom"? Now you can with Learnist boards. Experts create pages or "boards," which serve as informative or instructional layouts where external sources are used to support any given topic. "Education Dive compiled a list of 8 ways that education-focused Learnist boards present trends, tips, and resources to help you learn and eventually share what you know:" This is an informative list that shows how to use a technology in ways that can expand the mind to other applications/format. Good links!

An absolutely great site for video tips on great techniques used by good teachers to manage their classrooms. Effective teaching practices, though not specifically related to ESL/EFL, can be adapted to your own setting. A terrific resource.

"The idea of "portfolio" implies that the sum of the parts is greater than its individual parts, that there is some benefit to seeing the whole work longitudinally or from start to finish. A portfolio, here, is a collection of written work, related or not, presented as well as it can be, by a student for the purposes of showing, well, the best that the student can do at a given time. Traditional portfolios were glossy notebooks full of typed papers, some with cover pages, that people would thumb through at our end-of-term exhibits; they would then often go home with the student, to be buried at the bottom of some drawer somewhere, having very little practical influence in terms of what the papers said, or in terms of their influence on the presumed audience of English speakers in the community."

"So , as educators and teachers, you would be asking yourself how to ethically use images without having to worry about the copyright issues.Well the answer is very simple you will have to use images licensed under GFLD or Creative Commons especially this latter as it has images that can be used in teaching materials, blogs, wikis, ..ect. How to find such kind of images is what the guide below is all about. It walks you through the different steps on how to locate images licensed under Creative Commons . It contains illustravie snapshots and is ideal for use with your students. The guide is just two pages long but has everything you will need to teach your students about how to get free images in Google Image."

Video clips are sorted by level (primary or secondary) and subject, and include Chinese and some European languages, as well as science, maths, biology, etc. Clips can are all very short and can be sorted additionally by topics. Could be useful for content-based learning as well as language study.

Another excellent set of exercises by Mauricio Aldana. This one includes Brain Teasers, Assumptions and Context, and Key Questions to Exercise Critical Thinking. The latter looks esp. appropriate for online reading.

"Harness the power of video in conveying emotion, tone, and energy while leveraging the flexibility of an email-like system, where each party can send and view messages at their convenience. Sending video messages with Eyejot is as easy as sending email. There is no software to download or install. Just login to your account, record or upload your video, and send! The recipient gets a friendly email message telling them they have a new video message, and they can watch it with a single click. No registration required. "

Allows the user to download videos from a variety of sites, such as YouTube, and save them on the desktop. Would be very useful for projects with students. Note: please be aware of copyrights when using Internet videos.

Extensive series of podcasts on English phonemes; practice in minimal pairs, useful situational phrases, e.g., how to give service in a resturant, etc.

Hundreds of how-to videos (mainly on lifestyles) that could be used for Hot Pot exercises, particularly for high school-adult classes. Some content may be objectionable to the very strict (e.g. "How to Photograph a Nude Woman," though it is quite tastefully done), but most is highly practical, and some looks very professional. The only thing lacking is a good organizational system, besides its search engine general categories, and tags. A good project would be to have students make their own instructional video to add to the collection.

"Safely connect, collaborate and learn using our leading protected email and blog solutions for schools and districts" Not just epals, but also project-based, collaborative learning with a variety of curriculum content.

"This is a guide with step-by-step instructions for recording and publishing internet video. Make Internet TV is suitable for many levels of experience; just jump right in at the chapter that seems right for you."

Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) has started its own YouTube site to collect resources for teachers. Recent films include Second Life and ePortfolios. This spot should develop into a very useful place on the Web.

"Building bridges for the future through collaborative projects" This site is a huge collection of inter-related blogs, videos of collaborative student projects, likes to wikis, Twitter and Skype pals, etc., etc.--open the box and start devouring the candy! Based on Tom Friedman's concept, "the world is flat," this is the place to find help with teaching, display your students' work, discuss issues and projects, et al.