CALL_IS_VSL

Webinar on gaming. These recordings of the proceedings are of interest to anyone who wants to use games and/or insert gamification elements into their classroom routines. This webcomference was a joint effort of IATEFL's LTSIG and the TESOL CALL-IS.

This is a nice science activity. You can turn a sunny day into a windy day or even a blizzard. Requires Flash plug-in. For grades 2-6.

R Byrne's blog tells how to use the Interactive Westher Maker with students, and links to other interesting virtual science sites. Not specifically ESP, but should work well with kid learners.

R. Byrne shows how the U.S. National Archives can be used to teach history, allowing students to use digital artifacts in their projects. For high school and adult learners.

"The U.S. Library of Congress offers a wealth of fantastic online resources for teachers and students. A quick jump into the teachers resource page will lead you to things like these primary source analysis guides that I have used with students in the past. The LOC also offers a couple of good iOS apps that are worth noting." Shows how various apps can be used with the teachers' resource pages at the U.S. Library of Congress. Great authentic materials for research papers and projects. H/T to R. Byrne

"The Aesop for Children interactive book is designed to be enjoyed by readers of any age. The book contains over 140 classic fables, accompanied by beautiful illustrations and interactive animations." This app is available for iOS and Android. Some stories have animations as well.

"This is a listing of 82 sites that legally offer free textbooks and written course material. "There is a separate page with links to free audio and video courses Free Audio & Video Courses Online "To the best of my knowledge all of the websites listed here offer only content that they are legally entitled to transfer to you. If you find a site listed here that you know illegally offers copyrighted material, please contact me through the site with a link to the infringing content. Mr6n8 "To the best of my knowledge every website listed here, and its downloads, are safe. By the rules of this site, no website that has a red or an orange rating at Web of Trust (WOT) is allowed in the listings. I also use LinkExtend, a browser addon that offers the ratings from six other website rating products, to verify the sites here are clean. I have never encountered any issue while visiting these sites. Additionally, I have downloaded something from every site that offers a download and have never encountered an issue. If you should ever encounter malware on any of these sites, please contact me through the site and provide the link to the offending content. Mr6n8" The lists will take some time to go through: 783 sites are included, with minimal descriptions. Variety of subjects. T/H to psmiley in Group diigo in Education This list is not comprehensive and if you know of any other sites please post in the comments below or at our forums. A comprehensive alphabetical listing of free books for reading or listening can be found on these pages:"

This page shows how a student website can be created and maintained. The topic is "digital health and wellness" or "digital citizenship" but can be revised and improvised on for other topics. The plan shows how teams are created, expectations for individuals within the team, grading, tasks, etc. Great lesson planning for a problem-based learning experience. T/H to J. Brueck on Diigo in Education.

"One of the more interesting projects to emerge from Evernote's 2013 Devcup hackathon is called Postach.io, a new blogging platform that turns your Evernote notebook into a content management system. Input Logic, the Vancouver-based company behind the now just four-week-old service, has already caught the attention of local investors, as well as Evernote, who met with the team to discuss possible monetization ideas." This might be a useful project for high school and adult learners.

This 2:14 min. video shows how and why Aaron Sams flipped his classroom. Uses direct instruction in video he creates at home, and then can discuss content in the classroom. Great example by a young, energetic instructor in high school.

"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.

"Peer review has long been regarded as beneficial practice in the teaching of writing. In North American educational settings, learners are often asked to provide feedback on each other's papers. However, when international students come to study either in intensive English programs or in institutions of higher education, they may encounter difficulties during peer review activities because many of them never had experiences with this kind of practice. As a result, students tend to give each other broad, irrelevant, essentially unhelpful comments." This blog post offers help in training students for giving good feedback.

"Maps can be a social studies teacher's best friend. But they can also be useful for science teachers and math teachers who wish to have their students take information from data sets and transform it into something new. These maps could provide a model for a project in which your students collect local data and display it on a map. " t/h R. Byrne

"Jumbled Sentences is a series of five free iPad apps designed to help students learn to construct sentences. The apps provide students with drag and drop activities in which they sort jumbled words into sentences. The sound can be turned off and on in each app. When the sound is turned on students can hear the words read them by the narrator. The narrator also reads the sentences that students construct. The app provides students with immediate feedback on each of the sentences that they build. When students correctly create sentences they earn virtual coins that they can then use to buy virtual stickers to mark their progress." These apps might be useful for EFL/ESL students, since they include sound/reading aloud of sentences. t/h R. Byrne

"If This Then That helps you automate tasks like saving your Pinterest pins to your Evernote account, setting text alerts for calendar events, and sending email attachments directly to your Dropbox account. There are thousands of formulas, "recipes" is what IFTTT calls them, available in the gallery of recipes." Byrne suggests uses for teachers, but this might be an good place for students to try out simple programming skills. t/h R. Byrne

"The World Digital Library hosts more than 10,000 primary documents and images from collections around the world. Sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the mission of the World Digital Library is to promote the study and understanding of cultures. " This looks like a fabulous resource and it is map driven, with content described in seven languages.

"Shadow Puppet Edu is a free iPad app that students can use to create audio slideshow videos. The app offers an integrated search tool that students can use to find pictures from the Library of Congress, to search for images from NASA, and to find Creative Commons licensed images from Flickr. Students can also import pictures and videos from the camera roll on their iPads. " R. Byrne's blog also gives directions on how students can use this image search tool integrated with audio-slideshow.

"iCivics is an excellent source of educational games that offer lessons in civics. Since its launch a few years ago, iCivics has steadily grown to the point that it now contains nineteen educational games for students. All of the games require students to take on a decision making role. To succeed in the games students have to apply their understanding of the rules and functions local, state, or Federal government. Some games require an understanding of the U.S. court system and or the Constitution." Sounds like a great site for advanced adult learners getting ready for citizenship, or for high school students studying civics. I can also see this being used in an American culture class overseas. t/h R. Byrne

These are handy widgets, including SpeakPipe to leave messages, a Dropbox service, some embeddable games, and a public Google Calendar to embed. t/h R. Byrne

This is an excellent example of how principal and teachers work through formative assessments and customization of teaching materials collaboratively. It can happen!