Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL
Education Books In One Sentence — Part One
Can You Boil Down Well-Known Education Books To One Sentence?
LARRY FERLAZZO’S WEBSITES OF THE DAY
My New Book Is The Most Popular Classroom Management Book On Amazon
I just noticed that my new book is the most popular classroom management book on Amazon:
Education Books In One Sentence — Part One
Earlier this morning I posted Can You Boil Down Well-Known Education Books To One Sentence? and encouraged people to either leave their responses in comments or send a tweet using the hashtag #edbksinonesentence. Here is what has come in so far. Feel free to join in and I’ll included new responses in Part Two: [View the story "Education Books In One Sentence -- Part One" on Storify]
Can You Boil Down Well-Known Education Books To One Sentence?
15 Famous Business Books Summarized In One Sentence Each was just published by Business Insider, and it got me wondering if the same could be done with well-known education-related books. So, if you can think of some, leave it in the comments of this post or send it on twitter using the hashtag #edbksinonesentence. I’ll post a collection of contributions… Funny and or “snarky” summaries are welcom
November’s Infographics & Interactives Galore — Part One
There are just so many good infographics and interactives out there that I’ve begun a new semi-regular feature called “Infographics & Interactives Galore.” You can see others at A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists On Infographics and by searching “infographics” on this blog. I’ll still be publishing separate posts to individually highlight especially useful infographics and interactives, but you
A Good Quote Describing Our School’s IB Program
Today, The Sacramento Bee ran a lengthy article headlined In bid to keep students, Sacramento districts launch IB programs. Though our inner-city school’s program is over ten years-old, it only got a tiny mention, but that mention definitely shows how we are different: Elsewhere in Sacramento City Unified, Luther Burbank High School began offering IB courses to students in the graduating class of
35th ELT Blog Carnival Just Published!
Vicki Hollett has just published the 35th ELT Blog Carnival (formerly known as the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival) and it’s a great one focusing on Teaching and Learning with Video. Teachers from around the world have contributed posts. It’s so good that I’m adding it to The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows For ESL/EFL (& How To Use Them). The next edition will be hosted by Eva Buyuksimkesyan and its
The Best Videos Of Tom Lehrer’s Songs
Readers may or may not know about Tom Lehrer, the mathematician turned songwriter and performer who was particularly popular in the 1960′s (and who is still around today). His satirical songs poked fun at many topical subjects, and I still remember hearing my parents playing his records when they had friends over and laughing uproariously. Some of his songs are a bit dated now, or perhaps not ent
YESTERDAY
Research Studies Of The Week
I often write about research studies from various fields and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that it’s hard to keep up. So I’ve started writing a “round-up” of some of them each week or every other week as a regular feature: Why It Might Be He
This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Useful Posts & Articles On Education Policy
Here’s a collection of new good articles on educational policy issues: “A-F” School Ranking Systems—Exacerbating Racial Divisions and Inequality is by Jan Resseger. I’m adding it to The Best Evidence For Why Giving Schools “Report Cards” Is Bad. Transition to Online Testing Sparks Concerns is from Education Week. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About The “Next Generation” Of Stat
Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL
I’ve started a somewhat regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that have caught my attention: English Agenda is a site from the British Council which offers a wealth of language-teaching research and online professional development. I’m adding it to The Best Ways To Keep-Up With Current ELL/ESL/EFL News & Resear
This Week’s “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t” — November
I have a huge backlog of resources that I’ve been planning to post about in this blog but, just because of time constraints, have not gotten around to doing. Instead of letting that backlog grow bigger, I regularly grab a few and list them here with a minimal description. It forces me to look through these older links, and help me organize them for my own use. I hope others will find them helpful
Resources On Daylight Savings Time
It’s that weekend again… You might be interested in The Best Sites For Learning About Daylight Savings Time.
A Quasi-Milestone: I’ve Now Written One Hundred Articles On Education For Other Publications
In the unlikely event that you’re not tired of reading what I write, this week I wrote my one hundredth article for another publication about education (not counting my weekly pieces for Education Week and The New York Times). You can see all of them here and/or you can see my choices for The Twelve Best Articles I’ve Written About Education.
Smithsonian Launches Game Site
The Smithsonian Science Education has just launched an online learning game site. They only have one up-and-running, called Shutter Bugs, but they list more to come. Shutter Bugs is an excellent game for Beginning English Language Learners to learn the names of animals, along with different verbs. It could also be used for very young native English speakers. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Le
It Might Be Hard To Find A Better Short Video Than This One To Portray “Grit”
Perseverance (grit) is one of the key qualities researchers have found to be essential in a successful language learner, as well as other learners. Here’s a video demonstrating that quality that I’m adding to The Best Videos Illustrating Qualities Of A Successful Language Learner. Thanks to Daniel Coyle for the tip. You might also be interested in The Best Resources For Learning About The Importa
Veterans Day Resources
Veterans Day takes place on November 11th in the United States. It’s recognized as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day in Great Britain and in other countries to specifically remember those who fought in World War. You might be interested in The Best Websites To Learn About Veterans Day.
Using Freire & Fotobabble With English Language Learners
I’ve written several times about how I use critical pedagogy with English Language Learners, specifically using a Freirian model (see “Freire’s Learning Sequence” from this blog and a New York Times piece I wrote). In addition, I’ve often written about how I use the Fotobabble tool, which lets you post an image and provide a thirty second narration with it (see Student Writing & Metacognition
OCT 31
“Google Scholar” Alerts Could Be Very Helpful For Research
Richard Byrne has just posted some helpful screenshots about how people can sign-up for Google Scholar Alerts related to particular research topics. Though I skeptical they’ll be particularly useful to students, they seem to me to be potentially extremely useful to those of us educators who frequently do research. I’ve certainly be aware of Google Alerts, though it seems to me that its quality ha
“Student Contest | 15-Second Vocabulary Videos”
The New York Times Learning Network has just announced a great contest for students to create fifteen second videos defining vocabulary words. And, whether you participate or not, it also offers very useful advice for teachers who want to try something like this in the classroom, including student examples. In fact, the contest announcement includes an example from one of my students. It’s embedd
Video: John Stewart’s Two-Part Interview With Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch was on The Daily Show last night. Here’s her two-part interview, which includes an “extended” portion that only appeared on the Web. You might also be interested in the previous time she was on the show — see Jon Stewart & Diane Ravitch Knock It Out Of The Park!
OCT 30
Video: “Edna Krabappel – Ha! Laugh Montage”
Marcia Wallace, the actress who gave voice to Edna Krabappel, the not-to-be-emulated teacher on “The Simpsons,” died several days ago. Here’s a video collection of her “best” moments on the show (thanks to Alexander Russo for the tip):
A Few More Halloween Resources
Here are even more new additions to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween: Apps and Activities for Hallowe’en is from The Book Chook. Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually. A History Of Halloween Outfits [Infographic] by the team at Giraffe.ie
October’s (2013) Best Tweets — Part Five
Every month I make a few short lists highlighting my choices of the best resources I shared through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts here on my blog. I’ve already shared in earlier posts several new resources I found on Twitter — and where I gave credit to those from whom I learned about them. Those are not included again in this post. If you don’t use Twit
New Link For My Article, “Developing Teacher Leadership For The Long Haul”
Photo credit to Planet of Success Here’s a link to my new article at Education Week that doesn’t require free registration — Developing Teacher Leadership For The Long Haul. By the way, the article also includes links to previous pieces I’ve written on developing student leadership and on encouraging parent leadership. Plus, this new Ed Week piece is accompanied by a seventeen minute narrated sli
“Five key strategies to get/keep kids engaged at school”
Five key strategies to get/keep kids engaged at school is an excerpt my new book on Classroom Management. It was just published in The Washington Post.
OCT 29
Nanoogo Has Potential For Students
Nanoogo is a new sort of blogging platform that lets teachers create virtual classes and approve student work before its published. It seems relatively easy to use, though it would be nice if you could use images grabbed off the web and not just uploaded from your computer. Being free is a nice feature Here’s a short video explaining how it works: I’m adding it to The Best Sites That Students
A Little Wisdom From My Principal About Superintendents
Ted Appel, our school’s principal, and I were discussing the role of Superintendents the other day. I thought one comment he made was particularly perceptive:
L.A. Deasy Drama: He’s Staying
With his five day drama “to stay or not to stay” drama rivaling former L.A. Laker star Dwight Howard’s free agency adventure this past summer, Los Angeles Superintendent Superintendent John Deasy ended up with a a ”satisfactory” performance evaluation from the Los Angeles School Board and contract extension to June, 30, 2016. Here are some articles about it worth reading: After crowd rallies in h
New Article: “Developing Teacher Leadership for the Long Haul”
Developing Teacher Leadership for the Long Haul is a new article I’ve written that has been published by Education Week Teacher (separate from my weekly column there). Right now, you have to register — for free — in order to see the entire article, but I’ll post a link tomorrow that will grant registeration-free access (though, I’ve got to say, the registration process is quick and painless and I
Free Monthly Email Newsletter Just Sent-Out
I’ve just sent out my latest free monthly email newsletter to two thousand subscribers. It’s easy to subscribe to it here.
October’s “The Best…” Lists — There Are Now 1,189 Of Them
Here’s my monthly round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted this month (you can see all 1,189 of them categorized here): The Best Ideas For Using Games In The ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom The Best Interactives Showing How Obamacare Works The Best Resources For Learning About The Fires In Australia The Best Resources For Learning About Teens In The News The Best Resources On Malala Yousafzai The Best Re
The Easiest & Most Fun Tool On The Web For Creating Music Got Even Better — Again!
I’ve previously posted about Incredibox, and I continue to think it’s the easiest and most fun tool on the web for creating music. You can save your creation, give it a title, and share it. Today, they announced that they completely updated the site (again), including giving it a new url address. Of course, it continues to be on The Best Online Sites For Creating Music.
Interesting Series Of Infographics: “The History Of Addiction”
I thought this series of four infographics on “The History Of Addiction” was interesting and potentially useful, though it really loses something when it doesn’t site its sources. I’ve embedding the first two in this post. Here are links to find the other two: History of Addiction – World War II and Beyond History of Addiction – The Zero Tolerance Era Explore more infographics like this one on th
Two More Excellent Halloween Resources
Just when I think my The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween list can’t get much bigger, I find more excellent resources to add to it. Here are two more: Eek! 50+ Halloween Activities, Resources & Apps is by Shelly Terrell. Halloween Infographics: Treats For Any Lesson is from The ASIDE blog.
OCT 28
“What do You do When You’re Having a Bad Day in The Classroom?”
What do You do When You’re Having a Bad Day in The Classroom? is the new “question of the week” at my Education Week Teacher column. Feel free to leave your responses there or in the comments section here. Long time readers might remember that I asked a similar question here four years ago.
Supporting School-Wide Social Emotional Learning
Quite a few teachers at our school have helped developed the lessons in my student motivation books and taught them over the past few years. Our school is now looking at various ways to be a little more systematic about developing SEL skills, and one of the ways is having our Small Learning Communities choose three lessons from the book; have one-to-four teachers in the SLC actually teach them, an
Nice Review Of My New Classroom Management Book
Julie Dermody has just written a very positive review of my new book on Classroom Management. It appears at MiddleWeb. Here’s an excerpt: Collected and refined from posts at Ferlazzo’s Education Week blog “Classroom Q&A,” the information shared in this new digital book will have you reflecting on your current classroom practices. Better yet, the combined wisdom offered here will have you chang
Video: “Developing Leadership in Classrooms, Schools and Communities”
Here’s my keynote for the K-12 Online Conference. You can find supporting materials for it here.
Excellent Halloween Article For IB Theory of Knowledge Classes
A Halloween scare can sharpen the brain is an excellent article on emotion for IB Theory Of Knowledge classes. It’s from The Los Angeles Times. Here’s how it begins: Halloween is the time to indulge those seemingly pathological cravings to get scared out of your skull. Who in their right mind would subject themselves to blood-splattery horror movies or haunted houses blaring high-pitched screams
Learning About Literal & Interpretative Questions Through The Day Of The Dead
My latest post at The New York Times Learning Network helps students learn the different between literal and interpretative questions by exploring The Day of the Dead. A student interactive is included. I’m adding it to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween.
OCT 27
Fifteen Second Video: “Praise In The Classroom”
I’m considering making a series of fifteen second videos highlighting key points from my student motivation books. This is my first and obviously rough attempt, though, if I do them, I want to keep them simple. Let me know if you think more videos like this would be useful to educators…. I’m adding the video to The Best Resources For Learning How To Best Give Feedback To Students.
Interview With Ann Foreman, Coordinator Of The Most Popular Site On The Web For English Language Learners
Last month, I posted The Best Three Sites On The Web For ESL/EFL/ELL/ELT Teachers. I’ve since interviewed the people behind each of those sites, and will be publishing them over the next few weeks. Two weeks ago, I published my interview with David Deubelbeiss, the founder of EFL Classroom 2.0. Last week, I posted responses from Michelle Henry from Ressources Pour Le College En Anglais. And, toda
October’s Best Posts From This Blog
I regularly highlight my picks for the most useful posts for each month — not including “The Best…” lists. I also use some of them in a more extensive monthly newsletter I send-out. You can see older Best Posts of the Month at Websites Of The Month (more recent lists can be found here). Here are some of the posts I personally think are the best, and most helpful, ones I’ve written during this pas
The Best Ideas For Using Games In The ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom
I have many “Best” lists related to using online games with English Language Learners, and you can find them all at A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists On Learning Games. I’ve also written a lot and published a number of posts and resources related to playing non-online games in the classroom, but just realized I had never brought them all together in one place. Here they are (feel free to offer mo
GIF: “Sneaky Seal”
I have a “The Best” list called The Best Video Clips Of Sneaky Critters that includes great clips to show to English Language Learners and then have them describe what they see. I also use them in my IB Theory of Knowledge class in a discussion about if animals have ethics. Here’s a new addition:
OCT 26
Here Are Some More Vocabulary Videos By ELLs
Over the past week, I’ve posted examples of short vocabulary videos created by my English Language Learner students. They used either Vine or Instagram. On Friday, our Beginners taught the advanced ELLs in another class how to create them. Here are a few of their creations:
This Week’s “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t” – October
I have a huge backlog of resources that I’ve been planning to post about in this blog but, just because of time constraints, have not gotten around to doing. Instead of letting that backlog grow bigger, I regularly grab a few and list them here with a minimal description. It forces me to look through these older links, and help me organize them for my own use. I hope others will find them helpful
Research Studies Of The Week
I often write about research studies from various fields and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that it’s hard to keep up. So I’ve started writing a “round-up” of some of them each week or every other week as a regular feature: Exercise ‘boosts a
October’s Infographics & Interactives Galore — Part Four
There are just so many good infographics and interactives out there that I’ve begun a new semi-regular feature called “Infographics & Interactives Galore.” You can see others at A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists On Infographics and by searching “infographics” on this blog. I’ll still be publishing separate posts to individually highlight especially useful infographics and interactives, but you
This Week In Web 2.0
In yet another attempt to get at the enormous backlog I have of sites worth sharing, I’ve recently begin a regular feature called “The Week In Web 2.0.” It’ll be a short compilation of new decent sites that are worth noting, but maybe not necessarily worth a separate post and generally — though not always — not worthy of being on a “The Best…” list (let me know if you think I’m wrong in my assess
Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL
I’ve started a somewhat regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that have caught my attention: The nine golden rules of using games in the language classroom is by Adam Simpson. Immigrants’ education varies by country is an interesting report from The BBC. Story telling: the language teacher’s oldest technique is by
This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Good Posts & Articles On Education Policy
Here are some useful posts and articles that appeared this week on education policy issues: Teach for America rises as political powerhouse is from Politico. I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles Raising Concerns About Teach For America. The Great Lakes Center has released an excellent report on Data-driven Improvement and Accountability. The Washington Post published an excerpt, Six pri
Video: “Think Back: America’s Immigration Debate”
Think Back: America’s Immigration Debate is a new short video from The New York Times. It describes past efforts to restrict immigration to the United States. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Immigration In The United States: