There are now 816 categorized “The Best…” lists. That’s a lot of lists…. You can find them categorized by subject here. They are listed chronologically here. The best way to find one that you’re looking for is to go to … Continue reading → Read More...

I periodically post “most popular” lists of websites (and books) that I think educators might find useful. Of course, there are a number of ways to gauge “popularity.” I just view these lists as opportunities to check-out some new sites, … Continue reading Read More...

Several Ways Teachers Can Create A Supportive Environment For Each Other is my newest post at Education Week Teacher. It including my ideas, and ones from Bill Ferriter and others…. Read More...

This list focuses on sites that ELL students would use directly. Of course, many other sites on my other lists can also be used effectively with ELL’s. You might also be interested in: The Best Websites For English Language Learner … Continue reading Read More...

As regular readers know, I teach an International Baccalaureate “Theory of Knowledge” class. Our school structures our IB program a bit differently from many others by having a whole lot of students take individual IB classes and we have relatively … Read More...

The end-of-year lists continue…. Most of the titles are self-explanatory. You might also be interested in: The Best Reflective Posts I’ve Written About My Teaching Practice — 2010 The Best Reflective Posts I’ve Written About My Teaching Practice — 2009 Read More...

“What A Crummy Weekend This Turned Out To Be!” is the tagline of today’s Zits comic strip, and its a perfect illustration of the point Nobel Winner Daniel Kahneman has made about the value of how things end. I applied … Continue reading → Read More...

Here’s the newest addition to The Best Resources For Learning About Rube Goldberg Machines: Melvin the Machine by HEYHEYHEY from Dezeen on Vimeo. Read More...

The World Wildlife Fund created this amazing forty second video: The world is where we live from WWF on Vimeo. It publicizes another pretty impressive creation of theirs — My World. Read More...

One of the most popular resources on this blog, and a lesson plan in my book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves, that I know is one of the more popular chapters in it, is about teaching students that they physically “grow” … Continue reading → Read More...

Here are the newest additions to The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me: Forget Text, Vimessa Brings Visual Voicemail to the Masses is from Mashable. iPhone photo apps to download now is from The BBC. Read More...

The next EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival will be posted on January 1st and David Deubelbeiss from EFL Classroom 2.0 will be the host. This is how David describes the theme: The theme for this blog carnival is FUN. Submit any blog … Continue reading → Read More...

I’ve just sent-out the latest issue of my free monthly email newsletter. You can subscribe to it here. Read More...

I recently updated The Best Sites For Learning About Pearl Harbor. Additional suggestions are always welcome. Read More...

My City Lives lets you upload videos(or post the urls of already uploaded ones) which are then placed on a map. Students could create videos on field trips, or about places in their neighborhood, and post them there. I’m adding … Continue reading → Read More...

Here are even more new additions to The Best Sites To Learn & Teach About Thanksgiving: 5 myths about Thanksgiving is from The Washington Post. Here’s a video of President Obama pardoning turkeys: Free bird: Thanksgiving turkey pardons is a … Continue Read More...

I’ve previously posted in this blog, and written in my books, about how I use the concept of “gratitude” with students. With Thanksgiving coming up tomorrow, I thought I’d bring those resources together in a short “The Best…” list to … Continue reading Read More...

Here are the newest additions to The Best Posts & Articles Analyzing Charter Schools: Matthew Di Carlo at The Albert Shanker Institute has recently published — in three parts — what is probably the best and most even handed analysis … Continue reading Read More...

Today is a day of my making “collection” sites, and this one is related to art. Though I have a whole bunch of art related “The Best….” lists, I just have a few that are specifically related to students creating … Continue reading → Read More...

It’s easy to get lost in my 800 “The Best…” lists, so I thought bringing together a collection of links to good ELL video sites might be useful. Here is A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists For Online ELL Video … Continue reading → Read More...

I have a ton of “The Best…” lists related to reading, which you can find in the page where all 800 lists are categorized by subject area. However, there are four popular ones specifically related to online books accessible to … Continue reading → Read More...

In The Minds Of Others: Reading fiction can strengthen your social ties and even change your personality is the title of a Scientific American article. It discusses the effect that empathy can have on readers. I discuss how I use … Continue reading → Read More...

I’ve previously posted about Tripline, which is an excellent application that students can use for making maps of field trips, historical events, etc. They’ve now just announced new tools that let you create maps of your Facebook friends. Now, there … Read More...

The NY Times’ Tom Friedman On Parent Involvement is a new post at my other blog, Engaging Parents In School. You might find it interesting/useful. Read More...

Loose Leaves is the newest web app that lets you write or paste images and automatically creates a webpage. You’re given two url addresses — one where you can edit it again and a second where others can view it. … Continue reading → Read More...

(As regular readers know, each month I interview people in the education world about whom I want to learn more. You can see read those past interviews here.) Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach is the author (with Lani Ritter Hall) of the just-published … Continue Read More...

Edutopia has just published another one of their excellent free guides. This one is titled “Six Tips for Brain-Based Learning.” All you have to do is quickly register on the site, and it’s yours…. I’ve previously posted about other guides … Continue reading Read More...

Words Speak Louder Than Money is the title of a study completed earlier this year. Its conclusion (at least my understanding of its conclusion) is that providing gifts can often been seen by the recipient as as sign that we … Continue reading → Read More...

Two days ago, Dean Shareski sent a tweet out about a now-closed GOOD Magazine contest inviting people to redesign the report card (I personally thought the submissions were pretty awful, except for the last one). But what really struck me … Continue reading Read More...

Here are the newest additions to The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me: Hidden iPhone Tricks: Secret Keyboard and Panoramic Photos is from TIME. Dear Apple, Please Make My iPhone 4S Battery Life Suck Less is from TechCrunch. … Continue reading Read More...

Today, I realized yet another consequence of writing late night posts — I had forgotten to include one more nominee in my nomination post for this year’s Edublog Awards. I was a subscriber to John Norton’s Middleweb email newsletter long … Continue reading Read More...

VidCaster is a new site that lets you automatically import all the videos you might have on your account at YouTube (I don’t think they use the term “import” — it may be more like “sync-up”) and create your own … Continue reading → Read More...

“Important Report On Parent Engagement Released Today” is the title of a new post at my other blog, Engaging Parents In School. If you have any interest in parent engagement, it’s a “must-read.” Read More...

Moving the Movement: Analyzing the Future of Occupy Wall Street is a very good lesson plan published by The New York Times Learning Network. Considering the removal of protestors from the New York City site, it could be a very … Continue reading → Read More...

“Several Ways To Tell The Difference Between Good & Bad Education Research” is my newest column at Education Week Teacher. It includes guest responses from The Shanker Institute’s Matthew Di Carlo and P.L. Thomas from Furman University. Read More...

Graph Words is a new very simple visual thesaurus. It’s not as fancy as some of the other similar applications out there, but I think some of them are actually pretty confusing to English Language Learners. I’m adding it to … Continue reading → Read More...

Here’s another amazing video taken from The International Space Station. I’m adding it to The Best Images Taken In Space. Read More...

Nominations for this year’s Edublog Awards are now being accepted! You can learn all about deadlines, the nominating process, and categories at Nominations Open – The 2011 Edublog Awards are on! Read More...

WingClips has organized a huge number of short clips from movies thematically — perseverance, responsibility — and then lets you show them from the site or embed them elsewhere. The important caveats are that it clearly comes from a religious, … Continue Read More...

How Does Our Brain Learn New Information? from Scientific American is a fantastic short explanation of what happens to our brain when we learn something new. It’s probably the most accessible description I’ve read anywhere, and I’ll definitely be adding Read More...

Many readers already know that I write a fairly popular weekly teacher advice column for Education Week Teacher. Readers send in questions, and typically I’ll respond, one or two invited guests will write a short answer, and other readers will … Continue Read More...

“Call Me Hope” is a fun music video of Paul Simon’s “Call Me Al” song. It’s sponsored by a development organization called “Mama Hope.” I plan on using it in my Beginning ELL class, and have them sing along with … Continue reading → Read More...

Roxanna Elden has hit another homerun with her post “Five School Reform Sound Bites That Hurt Teacher Buy-In.” I’m adding it to The Best Articles Providing An “Overall” Perspective On Education Policy. Read More...

I posted this week’s “Round-Up” earlier this week, but there have been so many good ones I’m publishing an Extra Edition: What Ohio vote means for teachers nationwide is by Valerie Strauss at The Washington Post. Education and Poverty:Confronting the Read More...

Here are the newest additions to The Best Websites To Learn About Veterans Day: The National World War II Museum has set-up a neat website where people can thank veterans. You can read more about it here. MSNBC has a … Continue reading → Read More...

Several Ways To Teach Critical Thinking Skills is my newest post at Education Week Teacher. It includes my thoughts and responses from several guests, including Ron Ritchhart from Harvard’s Ground Zero. Read More...

The Relationship Status of Teachers and Educational Technology: It’s Complicated by Roxanna Elden is hands-down the wittiest, and certainly one of the most insightful, pieces I’ve read about the use of ed tech. After you’re done reading and digesting Read More...

Poverty is not an “excuse,” as some school reformers charge, but it is a challenge and a reality facing many of our students that has a huge effect on their learning (and our teaching). I thought it might be useful … Continue reading → Read More...

The New York Times has published an editorial about Alabama’s attack on immigrants. Here are its last two paragraphs: Alabama has seized from the federal government the job of controlling immigration within its borders. The law’s architects and supporters Read More...

November is Native American Heritage Month in the United States. Though I don’t have a “The Best…” list solely devoted to Native American resources, I do have tons of related materials at The Best Sites For International Day Of The … Continue reading Read More...

I’ve been regularly posting updates on the state of Alabama’s attack on immigrants and its impact on schools, and it keeps getting crazier. Here are the newest additions to The Best Resources To Learn About Alabama’s Awful Immigration Law (& … Continue Read More...

I’ve written quite a few posts about parent engagement in countries other than the United States, and decided to bring together the best resources into one list.You can see all my parent engagement-related “The Best” lists here. Here are my … Continue Read More...

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 … Continue reading Read More...

From The Los Angeles Times: “Life in a Day” is a groundbreaking film produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald that solicited user-generated content from around the world that was shot on July 24, 2010. With more than … Continue reading Read More...

How Can We Teach Critical Thinking Skills? is the new “question of the week” at my Education Week Teacher column. Please considering leaving your ideas in the comments there or on this post. Read More...

The U.S. Justice Department has requested information from all Alabama schools. As Ed Week reports: Among other things, the letter requests records of enrollment by race and lists of students who have withdrawn since the beginning of the school year, Read More...

In September, WIDA released a draft version of the English Language Development Standards, 2012 Edition, Kindergarten through Grade Twelve. Their comment period ends on November 11th. I’ve never paid much attention to WIDA’s standards in the past since Read More...

This is certainly one of the most fun school-related videos I’ve seen in awhile: Read More...

Berni Wall has just published the 25th Edition of EFL/ESL/ELL Blog Carnival! She asked for teachers to contribute the most popular posts from their blogs and, boy, did she get them. This edition is filled with gems! Great job, Berni! … Continue reading Read More...

Response: Can Teachers Be Friends With Students Using Social Media? is my newest post Education Week Teacher. It’s the concluding installment of a three-part series I’ve published there wondering if teachers can be friends with students. This particular Read More...

Here are the newest additions to The Best Resources For Learning About Our World’s Population Of 7 Billion: Well, Hello There, Seven Billion is a Wall Street Journal slideshow. The World’s Top 50, Over Time is an interactive chart from … Continue reading Read More...