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True grit may be the most important thing students can learn from you, according to this TED talk. Darwin thought that hard work was not only the most important thing in intellecutual endeavor, but the only thing. To see how to inspire grit, check out Larry Ferlazzo's inks and other resources, including free excerpts from his books, at this blog post.

This site is going EFL/ESL in a big way, using video: "We recently found out that 22frames.com is becoming a popular site for learning English as a second language (ESL). It turns out that watching captioned videos provides a way to not only learn formal English but also idioms and other cultural concepts. To find videos, you can browse through categories or make caption-only video searches on your interests. Even more, we have been devoting significant time and resources to developing ESL-specific features that are motivated by our users' feedback." "Recently, we found out that many of our users are using the site to supplement their English learning (see: http://www.22frames.com/esl.aspx ). They also began to pitch ideas we could implement to make the site even more useful for this activity. With so many requests, we decided to seriously consider these ideas and devote significant time and resources into realizing them. Now, we are turning our site into a substantial and FREE English learning resource. We are aware of a couple sites out there that are also focused on using captioned videos for English learning, so we've been focusing on the unique user-motivated features. Therefore, my goal here is to let you know about our free resource and that we are opening the door to requests for anyone who might desire features that have not been implemented elsewhere. Perhaps, you can share this with your colleagues/readers/etc as it will help us better gauge which features to prioritize and to increase the rate with which we will release new features. Please note that we are really serious about considering whatever feedback we get. I'm also pleased to announce our first feature, which we expect will help in learning/teaching popular English idioms. Idioms are a big deal in learning English, and it is clear that watching them used in real situations will increase the rate with which they are learned. We therefore processed a large group of YouTube videos in o

22 Frames is going to the ESL/EFL market, and is free. First features are idioms.

"What you see here are candid submissions from people who have engaged in a little exercise. Here's how it works. Think about the word Race. How would you distill your thoughts, experiences or observations about race into one sentence that only has six words?" This National Public Radio blog makes the perfect starting point for a multicultural lesson for ESL/EFL students. The entries are sheer poetry and give a great deal of content to think about the issue of race and one's place in society, for better or worse. Each 6-word "poem" makes us, as one contributor said, "Look past race to underlying humanity."

In an ideal world, every time your company rolls out a new application or a major upgrade on an existing application, full-time trainers would handle the duties of educating end users. In the real world, however, help desk analysts not only provide support for these applications but are often asked to train users on them as well.

"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.

"Do you Diigo? To be honest, I signed up but never used the online social-bookmarking tool. Fortunately, TESOL's Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL) Interest Section has been busy bookmarking some great online resources. Dr. Elizabeth Hanson-Smith shared the Diigo CALL IS Virtual Software List on the TESOL CALL Community: http://www.diigo.com/user/call_is_vsl. This list contains tons of resources on various teaching topics! However, this post focuses only on the teacher-training videos." A nice review and selection by Sandra Rogers for the TESOL Blog.

"Mouse Mischief integrates into Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, letting you insert questions, polls, and drawing activity slides into your lessons. "Students can actively participate in these lessons by using their own mice to click, circle, cross out, or draw answers on the screen. " This sound like a great tool to make your presentations interactive, get students attention and help them learn as you teach. Sorry--looks like Windows only. Originally from Gre Duncan's blog: http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com/2012/02/add-little-mischief-to-your-next.html

This article goes a long way to debunk the myths perpetrated by Gardner and the brain-based learning movement. Once again, Schools of Education have fallen for the mythical. "So let's reiterate: A "learning style" curriculum won't affect the way you learn. You don't only use half of your brain, so being taught to your "left-brain" or "right-brain" won't help you, either. Fiddling with an iPhone app? Unlikely. "What might affect how you learn? The types of things you've learned before. "It's not so much based upon how the brain is structured," Alferink says, "it's based upon our experiences." So if you're not a very strong reader, for example, you probably won't learn very well by reading. "Our experiences do affect brain development," he says. "The wiring of the brain depends upon the experiences we have." "And as for the validity of "brain-based" education techniques - that term should really apply to all teaching. After all, Alferink says, "all education is brain-based. It is impossible to learn without a brain.""

"The CALL Interest Section of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) offers language teachers world-wide the opportunity to participate in the Electronic Village Online (EVO), a professional development project and virtual extension of the TESOL 2011 Convention in New Orleans, LA, USA. The intended audience for this project includes both TESOL convention-goers and those who can participate only virtually. Interest Sections, Affiliates, E-groups, and other member groups of TESOL in particular are invited to sponsor sessions related to the convention. "

No downloads, no user limits; only initiator needs to sign in. Can be used for online training/tutoring or brainstorming for student projects.

Archiving tweets with a software called Archivist. It needs to be downloaded and installed. PC only

"Student choice is not only a simple way to increase student engagement, it's also an essential factor in developing digital literacy while building 21st century life and career skills. Choice boards typically start with a specific learning goal, then provide students with a variety of ways to practice a skill, learn a concept, or demonstrate understanding." Site offers a variety of Choice board templates for your classroom use. T/h N.Lafave

A browser-based audio editor

TwistedWave is a browser-based audio editor. You only need a web browser to access it, and you can use it to record or edit any audio file.

All the audio is stored and processed on the server, so you don't need to download anything, or save your work when you are done. Close your browser window and your work is saved. Open TwistedWave somewhere else, and all your audio files, with the complete undo history, are still available.

With a free account, you can edit mono files up to 5 minutes in length. Once you have an account, you can purchase a subscription to increase this limit. T/h to R. Byrne, Free Technology for Teachers.

"Providing your students with a public audience is not only a critical part of the project-based learning process, but it's also a great strategy for building authenticity into assignments to create work that matters. We often leverage our students' parents and guardians in this process because 1) they are easily accessible, and 2) they are our partners in their children's learning plans. Why not then continue and build this partnership in PBL? John Larmer wrote a great blog about how to build parent support for PBL, and one of the best ways he mentions is to keep them involved in the PBL project you launch in your classroom. Here are some strategies to consider as you leverage parents for your next PBL project."