" Mind maps are content- and purpose-agnostic. Use them for anything that requires thinking, planning, organizing, or writing." This is the third of three articles (linked here) ab out using mind-mapping productively. Great article for teaching writing. It's not all about "outlines."

Describes LinoIt and how to use it--a nice brainstorming and student collaboration tool, but it's great to see examples and how it can be used with students. Free.

Looks like it might be a nice, free place to create a media rich portfolio. Probably more oriented to high school-adult, given the professional look.

"Classroom Clipart: The Source for Free Clip Art, Illustrations and Photographs" has a huge list and a search engine. Very useful for students creating presentations and projects.

"You can listen to all the podcasts for free, but in order to download the worksheets and transcripts (except for the ones on this page) you must become a member." For elementary students. Also has worksheets, webquests, vocabulary exercises, transcripts for members.

Stannard gives a quick overview of http://www.rhymes.net, which helps you find words that rhyme with other words. But he doesn't mention that the site speaks the word too! There are also many other tools, such as a dictionary, words with multi-syllables, quotations using the word, phrases, abbreviations, etc. Great for vocabulary work, pronunciation, and writing poetry.

Stannard's training video on how to use Windows Movie Maker (Windows 7) is very detailed and complete. Subsequent parts give directions for XP and Vista. He first suggests downloading the free classic version, which has more features than WMM for Win 7.

"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. "

This video shows how to use Feed Marklet to create a button on your browser toolbar to add an RSS feed. Takes about 1 minute. You can use an RSS feed to keep track of student Webpages, and have them use it to keep track of each other's work. For instance, they might add all the pages they are making, or their blogs, and so be able to read them quickly when new content is added.

Create a bookmarklet with a little video message. Might be fun for student projects.

Thanks for your update, Mbarek!
--Elizabeth

Prezi allows you to create stunning presentations online. There is a free version, or a better quality academic free version with more features. Excellent for teaching content, and it is more like a video than an ordinary old ppt.

A lesson plan for writing dialogue/short play online at a cartoon creation site.\n\n"Lesser controlled computer room writing activity. This activity can be adapted to the level and grammar area of your choice.\n\nLevel: Intermediate & above\n\nLocation: Computer room\n\nTopic: Writing direct speech in a cartoon\n\nLanguage Focus: Direct speech, present tenses etc\n\nTime: 30 minutes"

Poetry Forge has online (Flash) tools for generating instant poetry, as well as a downloadable version of the tools to use on the desktop. It's really fun to add some words to a list and then have the poetry-maker pop up your new poem. Students can learn a lot about metaphorical language here.

This could be a useful place to find and compare free wiki services.

Although this is a science and math teacher blog, the tips and tools mentioned here are outstanding. Blog by David Wetzel (drwetzel)\n\nTopics that include a brief lesson idea and tools to use: book trailer video, interactive poster/presentations, audio/video podcasts, slideshows, collaborative project sharing.

"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.

Another way to use tagging. if it can be found in a search engine, you will see it displayed on a visual wall, as in this example from the Webheads in Action: http://spezify.com/#/webheads Makes using tags of all kinds even more important. Be sure your students select really unique tags. (In this example, there is a YouTube video and other materials related to Spider-Man, whose fans are also called "Webheads.") Extra nice feature--click an image to expand. If you click elsewhere, the video or whatever will stop playing.

This is a good article on what makes a good teacher, but see my comment on it to understand why outstanding single examples of good teaching are not enough to create reform of a whole system.

This is the big question. See my comment below about the problems involved, however. --EHS

These wonderful videos take you from initial lessons to interviews with teachers and students to advice by the expert, and a view of how those lessons are put to use in the classrom. Amazingly good teacher training in 26 videos.