Group items tagged

"The Newseum displays these daily newspaper front pages in their original, unedited form. Some front pages may contain material that is objectionable to some visitors. Viewer discretion is advised." This would be very handy, and easy to use, for adult ESL/EFL, social studies classes, or cross-cultural study: What is considered important in each location? How is the same news story treated differently in different cities or different parts of the world? Excellent for visual learners.

This would be very useful for h.s. social studies or an adult ESL/EFL class where students can compare how the news is presented in different newspapers, or compare what is considered important in different cultures.

The Newseum displays these daily newspaper front pages in their original, unedited form. Some front pages may contain material that is objectionable to some visitors. Viewer discretion is advised.

"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.

A really nice collection of graphic organizers and literacy strategies tools as well, some online, some in blackline reproducibles. Take advantage of these tools to work with literature and other types of reading.

"Here's an opportunity to put some of your natural flair to use with a chance to win some cash! Grab your pens (not like anyone uses those anymore...so pull out the laptop, tablet or whatever your weapon of choice might be) and check this out"

This link gives you 3 sources including the title: Visual Writing Prompts, The Literacy Shed, and Video Writing Prompts. Some can be browsed by genre, grade, or subject area. And some have the prompts written directly on each image. The title site includes a prompt explanation, an explanation of any relevant vocabulary and language, and a convenient one-click download button. I always used a set of images, culled over years of browsing magazines and newpapers, as writing prompts for various types of writing. Sites with prompts built-in can be an advantage for the busy teacher, or a disadvantage if you don't want to search for something that precisely fits your assignment goals. You can also have students create their own portfolio of images and prompts to share with other writers. T/H to Nick LaFave.

" iBooks Author is still making the news in the educational sphere. This is probably the first mobile app to be embraced wholly in education in such a short time since its release. After posting a simple and guided tutorial on how teachers can use the different services of iBooks Author , today I am sharing with you some hands-on examples of what students can actually do with it." Nice examples of how to use iBooks Author

"With the advance of web 2.0 technologies, there emerged a wide range of educational tools that we can use with our students in and outside the classroom.Collaborative web tools is one example. Using such websites, teachers will be able to help in holding online and real-time discussions with their students, help them in their projects and assignments, guide their learning, do backchanneling, and synchronously moderate discussion threads and many more." The focus here is on tools for collaboration. Many are new and interesting, such as virtual whiteboards, search team to do online searches together, browse websites together, create online projects collaboratively, create your own chatroom, etc. Some of these will be gone quickly, but they all appear quite useful. About 30 in the list.

A search engine for apps, organized first by the type of interface you are using: mobile, desktop, browser, or web (or all). May create some good short-cuts in the elusive quest for the perfect app.

These are divided by subject matter, and each has a short description, so it's not as daunting a list as appears at first glance. Take some time to explore the content areas, many of which are useful for language learners, such as Daily Haiku. There will be many apps with comparable features/functions for Droid-based smartphones and tablets also.

This is a great article on using some of YouTube's lesser-known features: annotations to great adaptive listening exercise, playback speed control, and Safeshare links to remove ads for student viewing. This is a must-read article if you use video with your ESL/EFL students.

This site has some amazing links for all the content areas: sciences, lanugage arts (lit trips), maths, and social studies, including U.S. History Tours, using Google Maps and Google Earth. For multiple grades.

"This list of five things that you may not know about QR codes contains some simple ideas that definitely pack a punch. These tips include strategies for differentiating instruction, distributing materials, and keeping families up to date on classroom activities. If you've tried one of these QR tips or have another to add to the list, the comments section of this post is the perfect place to share!" The article also tells how to make dynamic QR codes requiring a login, for example, for a daily lesson assignment, using Kaywa.

"Google added two fantastic new features to Google Slides. First, Google Slides now has a Q&A feature that lets your audience submit questions to you. Second, Google Slides now has a built-in laser pointer that you can use to call attention to parts of your slides. I've already received some questions about how to use these new features so I made the following short video." t/h R. Byrne This makes Google slides very versatile for online presentations. Check out the how-to video.

"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.

Here is just one example of some suggestions for using Twitter in your class/presentation: ""Tweet Your Questions! If you are training to a new process or procedure, allow participants the opportunity to tweet any questions they may have, either on the job or during training. What makes this strategy more unique is that instead compiling answers and sending them back via one large email, ensure that there is someone monitoring the twitter account so as to provide near real-time response (even if the response is, "I will look into it")."

"We all know Google Presentations is a great tool for making multimedia slideshows. But did you know it can also be used to make interactive quizzes and "Choose Your Own Adventure" style stories? With Google Presentations ability to link to specific slides you can build a non-linear slideshow that allows the user to make choices and go to different slides depending on their choice. Learn tips and tricks to make this work best, and see how this can be used for you or your students to make interactive quizzes and stories." This looks like fun. Users warn that some of the links to help files don't work, but give it a try.

if the expectation is that MOOC participants will remix and repurpose information they find through their MOOC connections or on the Web, plagiarism and scholarly integrity may become a concern. Plagiarism was not an issue in FSLT12, but has been noted in some xMOOCs (Daniel, 2012).

From R. Byrne: "Creating and delivering quizzes and tests online offers a number of advantages over paper-based quizzes and tests. Many online quiz services allow you to create quizzes that give your students instant feedback. Some of the services provide the option to include picture and video prompts in your quizzes. And all of these services save you the hassle of printing your quizzes. "

Potentially a place to publish your students' creative writing. A good place to learn about writing by reading short narratives and poetry. Some classic authors also.

R. Byrne: "Wikispaces recently added a Quizlet widget to the library of widgets that you can embed into your Wikispaces pages. Quizlet is a free flashcard service that anyone can use to create and share flashcards. Quizlet offers a massive library of flashcard sets created and shared by other users of the service. And now you can search for Quizlet flashcards, embed them into your wiki, and use four different study modes while those cards are embedded into your wiki. The screenshots below provide directions for adding Quizlet to your Wikispaces wiki." Quizlet can handle various types of media, so it makes for interesting flashcards. This step-by-step visual explanation makes the embedding task easy; creating the flashcards at Quizlet takes some work and thought.