50 Incredibly Useful Links For Learning & Teaching The English Language - Teaching a new language to non-native speakers may be one of the most challenging educational jobs out there, so ELL teachers can use all of the help they can get! Thankfully, many excellent resources for ELL and ESL exist online, from full-service websites to reference tools and communities, all designed to make the task of educating ELL students just a little bit easier and more effective. We’ve scoured the Internet to share 50 of the best of these resources, and we hope you’ll find lots of valuable content and tools through these incredibly useful links for ELL educators. Websites Resource tools, printables, and other great stuff for ELL educators are all available on these sites. Articles & Advice Check out resource lists, journal articles, and ideas for best practices in ELL on these links. Organizations Take advantage of the great opportunities and resources available from these organizations that benefit ELL teachers. Learning Resources Teaching Resources Reference Communities & Blogs
4 Options for Improving Your Fiction We writers can be impatient—not only with the process of writing and getting published, but with ourselves for not being perfect from the get-go. We readily accept the need for intensive training and ongoing skills development for our day jobs, but when it comes to writing, we often expect to just be able to ‘do it’. I used to be a teacher. However, it took me a year or two of writing (and failing at writing) to learn that the path to becoming seriously skilled was going to be longer and more difficult than I ever imagined. But that’s okay. If you’ve ever looked at your writing and seen nothing but problems, I’m here to tell you it’s a good thing: you’re on the right track. So, you recognize the need to improve your craft. 1. I’m putting ‘self-directed study’ first in the list because I believe, in most cases, it’s the best place to start. Beginning with self-directed study requires little financial investment, and gives you a chance to decide if you truly want to be a writer. 2. 3. 4.
Anki - powerful, intelligent flashcards 46 Tools To Make Infographics In The Classroom Infographics are interesting–a mash of (hopefully) easily-consumed visuals (so, symbols, shapes, and images) and added relevant character-based data (so, numbers, words, and brief sentences). The learning application for them is clear, with many academic standards–including the Common Core standards–requiring teachers to use a variety of media forms, charts, and other data for both information reading as well as general fluency. It’s curious they haven’t really “caught on” in schools considering how well they bridge both the old-form textbook habit of cramming tons of information into a small space, while also neatly overlapping with the dynamic and digital world. So if you want to try to make infographics–or better yet have students make them–where do you start? Ed note: The original list has somehow become corrupted, so we’ve substituted the following list–only 36 tools, but the best of the bunch–visually, pikotchart, easely, etc.
11 Great YouTube Channels for Teachers September 11, 2014 YouTube is undoubtedly one of the most popular video hosting platforms in history. The stats released by its administration a few months ago are just mind blowing. With more than 1 billion monthly visitors and over 6 billion hours of video being watched each month (which equals almost an hour for every person on Earth) and an average of 100 hours of video uploaded every minute, YouTube sets a record of being the first audio visual media with the largest reach ever. As such, YouTube is definitely a treasure trove for us in education. 1- Crash Course In this channel, teachers John and Hank Green provide some excellent video explanations and tutorials on a variety of topics related to World History, Biology, Literature, Ecology, Chemistry, and US History. 2- TED Ed You are probably already familiar with this channel. 3- Shots of Awe 4- Asap Science Asap Science is a Youtube channel dedicated for everything related to science and scientific concepts. 5- SciShow 6- Keith Hughes
7 Things To Remember About Educational Feedback Infographic Teacher Infographics At the 7 Things To Remember About Educational Feedback Infographic you will find 7 Educational Feedback Tips that will help Teachers give and receive effective classroom feedback. Feedback is not advice, praise or evaluation. Feedback is information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal.If students know the classroom is a safe place to make mistakes, they are more likely to use feedback for learning.The feedback students give teachers can be more powerful than the feedback teachers give students.When we give a grade as a part of feedback, students often don’t see past the grade.Effective feedback occurs during the learning, when there is still time to act on it.Most of the feedback that students receive about their classroom work is from other students – and most of that feedback is wrong.Students need to know their learning target – the specific skill they’re supposed to learn – or else feedback is just someone telling them what to do.
6 Steps to Add Voice Comments to Google Docs Here is a step by step guide to show you how you can add " Voice Comments " within your Google Docs. This application is developed by 121 Writing. Here is how you can do it : 1- Head over to your Google Docs and click on " Create". scroll down to the bottom and click on "connect more apps " 2- Type in the word " voice " in the search panel then click on connect in front of " voice comments " 3- Go back to your Google Docs and right click on the document you want to add voice comments to then select open with voice comments 4- The document will open in a new window, click on the record button as shown in the screenshot below. 5- To share your voice feedback click on " share with collaborators ". You and your collaborators can access it Google Docs via the "Comments" button on the top-right corner beside the Share button.
321 Free Tools for Teachers - Free Educational Technology Jacob Lund/Shutterstock.com Summary: Would you be interested in the ultimate list of free tools for teachers? At the following post you will find 324 Free Tools for Teachers separated in 18 educational technology categories. Free Educational Technology for Teachers Do you support Free Technology for Teachers? I am a great supporter of Free Educational Technology. 19 Free Tools To Create Infographics For Teachers amCharts Visual Editor This editor allows you to use amCharts as a web service. 19 Free Text To Speech Tools For Teachers AnnouncifyListen to your web. Listen Text-to-Speech Voices with the Right Authoring Tool Vendor Find, choose and compare the top eLearning Authoring Tool Companies featuring Text-to Speech Voices! 21 Free Digital Storytelling Tools For Teachers AnimotoUnlimited Videos For Educators. 15 Free Podcast Tools For Teachers 28 Free Survey, Polls, and Quizzes Tools For Teachers addpollThe easiest way to create polls, surveys and html forms... on the web.
Teaching strategies If you have dropped into this Course Design Tutorial from somewhere else, you might wish to start at the introduction, overview, or table of contents. If you are working through the tutorial, you should have completed Part 2.1 before beginning this section. At this stage of the tutorial, you have set overarching goals, organized content, and developed a course plan with ideas for how to give students the practice that will make it possible for them to achieve the course goals. In this section of the tutorial, you will make choices about what you will have students do in order to learn the course content and practice the goals. Start by downloading the worksheet (Microsoft Word 22kB Jun16 05) that goes with this part, and use it as you work through the sections below. Student Learning An enormous amount has been written in the last two decades about research on how people learn. Research shows clearly that a person must be engaged to learn. What messages can we take home for course design?
Blubbr- Great Tool to Create Quizzes from YouTube Videos Blubbr is a cool web tool that allows users to create quizzes around YouTube videos. These are basically interactive video quizzes ( called Trivs ) that you can create for your students and which they can answer while they watch the selected video clip. The quizzes are also feedback supported meaning students will get feedback as they answer each question. Using Blubbr you can either create your own quizzes around YouTube videos you find using the search functionality or you can browse the categories provided by Blubbr and which have a wide range of already made video quizzes. The video quiz below is on Blended Learning , I have chosen this topic because two days ago I posted The Basics of Blended Learning here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning and the video quiz below will test your comprehension of it via a set of interactive questions. Click on the image to play it, if it does not work click HERE Thanks to The WhiteBoard Blog for The Tip
Webtools: No Registration Needed for Students Welcome to my list of webtools that don’t require student registration. This started off as a simple curation for myself and has ballooned into something that I never thought would get this big. And it is still growing. I started added comments to each link, but that is taking a long time to complete. While I do try to verify each link on a regular basis, please be aware that websites do change and some of these sites may no longer be active or may have switched to a paid version. Free. Over the next while, I will be adding labels to each of these to designate whether you can use this site without any registration at all or will need the use of a class code given by the teacher. If you find a bad link, bad site, or any other error, please let me know through the comment section. Index QR Codes Create QRickit QR Codes: Create QR codes that will perform up to 18 different tasks including add a contact, sending an email or SMS message, go to a Google map location, or even send a Tweet! Maps
What Is Blended Learning? These Videos Will Get You Started Blended learning is one of those buzz words in education and technology these days. It’s not bringing a blender to class and trying a ‘Will It Blend?’ type project. Sorry, had to include that joke. You’re better than that, though. So let’s get down to it. See Also: How Teachers Are Using Blended Learning Right Now If you’ve been curious about blended learning but don’t know where to get started, these videos are basically a boot camp in the form of video infographics. We all know the old adage: an image is worth a thousand words. Below is part II of the presentation on Blended Learning. References: - The rise of K-12 blended learning by Heather Staker - Blended Learning in Grades 4-12: Leveraging the Power of Technology to Create Student-Centered Classrooms by Catlin R.
8 Great Tools for Teachers to Add Interactive Animations to Videos Gone are the days when you would have to pay so much to buy a software to create videos. With web 2.0 tools you can get your videos up and viral within minutes and right from your browser without having to install any software and in most of the times for free. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has reviewed several video creation tools over the past couple of years and you can check this section here for more resources. Today, I am sharing with you some cool web tools that you can use to add animation to your videos and render them much more interactive. Check out the list below and don't forget to share with us your feedback. Enjoy 1- Wevideo WeVideo is a cloud-based video editing platform. 2- One True Media One True Media, simply powerful video creation. 4- WireWax This is a cool web service that allows users to tag moving people and objects in videos. 5- Stupeflix Tell a story with your digital content. 6- Go Animate 7- Vibop Vibop makes your videos shine with just a few clicks.