Following is a great blog on ELA resources. Work your way through the site and pick TWO sites you think are the most helpful when it comes to learning English.

http://larryferlazzo.com/englishthemes.html

animoto.com in the ELA classroom

Animoto.com is a great place to create energetic videos to capture your students' attention. You can make 30 second videos for free; if you would like to create longer videos and you are an educator then you need to set up an education account with animoto. This is a fun way to get students excited about learning in only 30 seconds!

Here are some examples from our classroom:
http://animoto.com/play/fExX7ZJvFYQKA4OTdFQubQ

http://animoto.com/play/7Z0bWWBRMskKbniTMxi8Yg

http://animoto.com/play/o06uwUWiliQxHLoRj1L9ZA

http://animoto.com/play/C38P7a7I4pWHvFW315TPdg

The Daily Brain Teaser & Puzzle For 10/18/11

The Daily Brain Teaser & Puzzle For 10/18/11

Everyone needs a brain break from learning, why not take a break and do a brain teaser!

Examples of Tell Tales in the ELA classroom

Photographs from Tell Tale used to create a story

Student photographs created using a story.

The story created from these photographs and used 

to make the student created photographs. 

Once upon a time in a precious castle lived a beautiful girl. She was in love with a young attractive man. One day an angel appeared and told her that she should always fight for this relationship. As a symbol of her love she was to bake the boy a gingerbread man cookie and if he accepted the gingerbread man they would live happily-ever-after. 

- Jenly

Tell Tale Storytelling and English Language Learners

English Language Learners begin to develop language through photographs, so why do we teach them with words? Close your eyes and think of the word pink. Did you see the letters "p," "i," "n," "k"? No, you saw a photograph of something pink. Your brain does not learn in words it learns in images. If you want to teach American History to Language Learners teach it in stories, act it out, or show video clips. Don't have them read a book, that won't bring American History to life for them.

 To help my language learners practice their written and oral English I have them play Tell Tale, a game created by Blue Orange. The game provides them with four photographs that they have to use to create a story. I have my newcomers create the story, write it in their native language, translate it to English and share it both orally and in written form. Then I give those stories to students who have been in the United States longer and have them create photographs for the story they have been given. Then we compare the original photographs to the ones they created. This allows the upper level students to see if they missed any details, or if they interpreted a word incorrectly. The newcomers get to see if their word choice was correct and delivered the message they intended their reader to receive.

If you aren't familiar with Tell Tale, you can learn more about it at blueorangegames.com

Tell Tale

Tell Tale storytelling cards

ePals and English Language Learners

I want to know how many teachers are using ePals.com, if you're not you need to consider making it a part of your classroom. What is ePals? It is the largest K-12 Social Learning Network. You can set up School blogs, school email accounts, and connect with another school close by or far away to establish learning partners outside of the classroom. You can also partner with the Smithsonian to create educational projects, or you can participate in one of the other projects set up through ePals.

ePals "offers K-12 students and teachers around the world a safe environment for building and exchanging knowledge based on protected connectivity tools, evidence-based curriculum and authentic, collaborative learning experiences" (ePals.com). Their mission is to support lifelong learning through collaborative experiences that empower and inspire.

My students have found ePals to be one of the most important parts of their learning experiences. They like to share their cultures and interests with their ePals, they enjoy working on the same projects as students from other countries and seeing how different their final projects turn out, and they enjoy being able to share their work with their families at home.

I would like to know how ePals plays a part in your classroom. What are your success stories?

If you aren't using ePals.com in your classroom, I strongly encourage you to sign up today and change the way your students learn.

goanimate and English Language Learners

English Language Teachers are always trying to figure out what technology to use in the classroom to make learning a new language easier. What resources help English Language Learners? One of the resources that motivates my students is goanimate.com this site allows them to write dialogue, but it also has them creating facial expressions, and actions for each frame. This allows my students to start out with dialogue and get an idea of how word choice affects how others reply. As they get more advanced at using the tools available on the site they start to select actions, facial expressions, scenes, and music for each frame of their video. Since the computer can only say and do what the student programs it to do, they quickly learn the importance of details both in oral and visual communication.

Try out goanimate.com and let me know how it worked for your students!