The Best Sites That Students Can Use Independently And Let Teachers Check On Progress (You might also be interested in The Best MATH Sites That Students Can Use Independently And Let Teachers Check On Progress) I know “The Best…” list has a very awkward title, but I couldn’t think of a better one. In our Family Literacy Project we provide home computers and Internet access to immigrant families. Eighty percent of household members spend at least one hour each day (many spend considerably more time) on our website. I thought readers might find it useful to see which ones we’ve determined to be the best for kind of program. There are sites we use, and which I think stand-out when compared to similar web applications: Raz-Kids provides a large number of “talking books” at multiple levels that speak-the-text at the same time the words are highlighted. I Know That has tons of engaging learning exercises and game. U.S.A Learns is another addition. Spellbee! It’s quite easy for players to register very quickly. My Testbook looks like a great addition to list. And, it’s free.
Wiki Summarizer Can Help Students Start Their Research Projects Wiki Summarizer is a site that allows you to search Wikipedia, have articles summarized by key points, and provides lists of articles that are related to your original search. Wiki Summarizer also offers expandable webs of related articles. For example, I searched for "Maine" and a web of related terms was created. Clicking on the "+" symbol next to each term opens a new element of the web. The final summary aspect of the Wiki Summarizer is the hyperlinked word clouds for every Wikipedia article. You can click on any word in the word clouds to jump to the corresponding Wikipedia article. Applications for EducationWiki Summarizer could be a good tool for students who are just starting a research assignment and are not quite sure what terms to use or what topics to explore.
The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... Edutopia has published Using Photos With English Language Learners, an excerpt from the recent book on teaching ELL’s that Katie Hull Sypnieski and I have written. Check out my New York Times post for English Language Learners is on protest movements and using historical photos for language development. It includes a student interactive I Explain The Picture Word Inductive Model In My Latest British Council Post There are obviously plenty of ways to use photos effectively with English Language Learners and other students. I’m going to share some ideas here, and hope that others will chime in with comments. Of course, photos from the Web can have some use restrictions. Online “virtual” corkboards are great tools to use with online images. And check out The Best Online Tools For Using Photos In Lessons. Using Freire & Fotobabble With English Language Learners Also, The Best Ways To Modify The Picture Word Inductive Model For ELLs. Here are my choices for The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons:
ToonDoo - World's fastest way to create cartoons! Digital Humanities Resources, Part 1: Organizations and Coding Back in 2011 (you know, last month), I stated that I wanted to become a digital humanist (if that’s what it can be called). Over the past month, I’ve collected a number of resources in order to try and make this a reality. As just about everything I do professionally now, I’m sharing them with you. The first place to start would be the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (digitalhumanities.org). You can find a great deal of information and resources, as well as an open access book, The Digital Humanities and Humanities Computing: An Introduction. Another great resource hosted over at ADHO is DH Answers. The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education ( is another good place to find resources for aspiring and established digital humanists. Also useful is the Office of Digital Humanities over at the National Endowment for the Humanities. This is starting to look like an awful lot of travel, isn’t it?
Classroom Authors - Student Publishing The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures I’ve compiled several “The Best…” lists that sites where you can learn about the geography, data, languages, and holidays of different countries around the world. Those resources are important, but I think it’s like learning the words, but not the music, of a song. So I thought I’d develop a separate list just focused on helping students learn about the cultures of different countries, and would love to hear additional suggestions. You might also be interested in The Best Travel Photographs Of The Year. Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures (and are accessible to English Language Learners): Culture Crossing is a unique resource for information about different countries. What The World Eats is a TIME Magazine slideshow with family photos from around the world and the food they eat. Food Photos is a similar slideshow from NPR. Learn about Celebrations Around The World. EL Civics has a nice lesson on Clothes Around The World. U.S. via Pimsleur
QuizBean | Quickly Create Online Quizzes For Free The Best Resources On Teaching & Learning Critical Thinking In The Classroom Teaching and learning critical thinking in the classroom will be the topic of my next Education Week Teacher column (contribute your ideas there, please), so I wanted to develop a “The Best…” list with supporting materials. I put out a call on Twitter and Google Plus for people to make suggestions, but unfortunately didn’t do a great job of keeping track who made the suggestions. I apologize if I did not credit you for your suggestion. I hope readers will contribute additional suggestions. You might also be interested in: The Best Sites For Cooperative Learning Ideas The Best Resources For Helping Teachers Use Bloom’s Taxonomy In The Classroom The Best Sites For Students To Create & Participate In Online Debates The Best Tools To Help Develop Global Media Literacy I also included a chapter and several lesson plans related to critical thinking in my book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Challenges. The Critical Thinking Community What Is Critical Thinking?
blubbr - Play & create video trivia games English Resources - list of online tools Zunal WebQuest Maker 8 Ways to Create Online Test | Training & E-Learning Zone for Quizzes Online test brings a lot of benefits to assessment: time-saving, flexibility and economical. For test-takers, they can take the online test at their own preferred time – great flexibility. For trainers/teachers, it spares the time to mark the test because the test is graded automatically – big time-saving. Create online test with desktop Flash quiz maker Desktop Flash quiz makers let users create Flash quizzes in minutes without programming skills. Create online test with Google DocsGoogle Docs is a totally free online tool to conduct online multiple choice test and surveys. Create online test with Adobe Flash If you are sophisticated with Adobe Flash Script, using Adobe Flash to make test for online use is the most flexible way. Create online test with Microsoft Excel As we all know, Excel is a great program for creating spreadsheets and tracking information, but it is also useful for creating quizzes for online testing.
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