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). You can also see my all-time favorites here. Here are some of the posts I personally think are the best, and most helpful, ones I’ve written during this past month (not in any order of preference): Very Interesting: Poll Finds That Students’ Feeling Engaged & Hopeful Are Top Indicators Of Successful School New Study Finds Value In Looking At Mistakes As Positive Learning Experiences Two Good Articles - & A Student Writing Prompt - On The Importance Of Reading Video: "How Language Makes Your Brain Bigger" Our Book On Teaching English Language Learners Is Just About Done! Weekly Student Interactives For ELLs Are Coming To The N.Y. Times Learning Network Surprise, Surprise - Punishment May Not Be The Best Parenting (Or Teaching) Strategy A Great Piece On Student Boredom & The Writing Prompt I’m Using With It Growth Mindset - Don’t Throw The Baby Out With The Bathwater "Q & A Collections: Teaching Reading & Writing" "Interactive Sites For Education" Is A Nice Collection Of Learning Games New Studies Show, Unsurprisingly, That Stress Reduces Self-Control & Metacognition Video: StoryCorps & A Ton Of Partners Announce "The Great Thanksgiving Listen" BBC’s "Skillwise" Has A Great Collection Of English-Learning Games Nice Review Of My Latest Book On Student Motivation Quote Of The Day: Albert Einstein On "Flow" Harvard Business Review Publishes Nice Guide To Positive Classroom Management Guest Post: A List Of Useful Resources On Teaching Information & Digital Literacy "Playbuzz" Is A Great Place For Creating Learning Games - If It Doesn’t Blocked By Your District’s Content Filters Statistic Of The Day: How Long Does It Take To Learn English? Plotagon Is A Free & Simple Tool For Creating Animations Stop The Presses! Report Finds Most Professional Development Waste Of Time Quote Of The Day: Teaching Social Emotional Learning Skills Is Not Enough This Sounds Weird: PISA To Measure Student Ability To Collaborate By Pairing Them Up Anonymously Online Yes, Schools Should Develop Active Citizens &, No, We Don’t Need Another Test To Do It SAS Curriculum Pathways, Just About The Best Online Ed Site, Has Gotten Even Better… Statistic Of The Day: What Character Strengths Predict Well-Being? Statistic Of The Day: The Benefits Of Reading Quote Of The Day: "What Does This Experience Make Possible?" Links To The Joint Projects My ELL Geography Class Did With Classes Around The World - Want To Join Us This Year? Do You Know Of Research Showing That Writing For An "Authentic Audience" Helps Students Feel Motivated? You Can Now Create Your Own Activities With Amazing Math App Desmos Send An Ed-Related Research Question To One Of The Regional Educational Laboratories - And They’ll Answer It! This New Report May Provide The Best Overview Available On Social Emotional Learning Google Translate Announces Another Big Update Today "Zoom In!" Looks Like A Good Site For History Teachers "BrainRush" Expands Its Learning Activities To Play & Create

I normally use AUDACITY to make my recordings, however I'm aware it can be a bit challenging to newbies due to the fact that you have to download the program and then also download Lame to convert your recordings to MP3s. I was looking for something simpler to show to a group of trainees I have for the online course I facilitate and remembered AVIARY's audio editor MYNA.This is a short TUTORIAL I've created to help teachers record themselves so that later they can use the mp3 file to make a screencast at slideshare.netNext month, I'm starting a new course for ESL / EFL teachers who are familiar with the tech world but would like to learn a bit more.To view this animated banner you need to have Flash Player 9 or newer installed and JavaScript enabled. BannerSnack is a <a href="http://www.bannersnack.com/" title="BannerSnack - Free flash banner maker">banner builder</a> that allows you to create flash banners online and download them as SWF files.During CULTURA EDTECH "Moving Beyond" , teachers will be able to learn how to create their Blogger blogs, explore webtools and post mini lesson plans, try out online video editing tools, create screencasts and presentations they can share online. Interested? Just send an e-mail to anamariacult@yahoo.com.br and I can send you more information.

A colleague of mine, Claudia Melo, shared a great link with our group CULTURA EDTECH yesterday. I had already seen the site, but had completely forgotten about. The site ESL Fun Grammar Games offers a variety of flash games to practise GRAMMAR TOPICSTypes of games:HangmanSnakes and LaddersFling the teacherSpellingCatchingSequencingWalk the plankJeopardySpin the wheelThey also offer VOCABULARY and PRONUNCIATION games.

This afternoon, I presented a session about sites to help students improve their listening skills to a group of teachers.These are the sites I selected for the talk. Webtools to Enhance Listening http://www.visualthesaurus.com/bee/playhttp://www.manythings.org/listen/http://www.audiopuzzler.com/index.htmlhttp://www.listen-and-write.com/http://michel.barbot.pagesperso-orange.fr/hotpot/movies.htmhttp://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/http://www.eslvideo.com/http://www.manythings.org/voa/stories/http://www.voki.com/http://www.meegenius.com/http://www.listenaminute.com/         

I love memorization tools.This week a colleague of mine, Geórgia, showed me a site she'd come accross. We both decided we needed to explore it and see how to use it with our sts.I was happy to see DEMOGIRL has already made one of her great tutorials about MEMORIZENOW. Watch and Learn.HOW CAN WE USE THE SITE WITH STUDENTS?Paste a dialogue you wish your students to memorize. Use the Memorize button to work with repetition in the classroom.Paste sentences with grammar structure to be memorized.Paste poems for sts to memorize.Paste minisagas for memorization.

I've always been a great fan of Russell Stannard's tutorials and loved watching this video from Joe Dale's superb blog.He talks about screencasting and student feedback. I really advise you to stop for some minutes and listen to this great talk.I have been using http://screenr.com to make screencasts for the course I facilitate but I had never thought of using it for student feedback. It saves so much time and it's so rich as the student can both see what you're marking and also hear you.

Inspired by Russell Stannard's suggestion in the video shared previously in this blog, today I created a little screencast for my Intermediate students after having worked with Past Tenses. The aim is to give my students the chance to hear the explanation as many times they see fit.

Another awesome tool to work with WRITING. http://typewith.me/HOW DOES IT WORK?You create a document and then invite others to co-edit it. Each author has a different colour and can collaborate all at the same time. There is also a chat box participants can use to exchange ideas. After the text is ready, you can save it as PDF or a word file.This is my trial with @janetbianchini . We built a story together.Another feature I liked was the TIME SLIDER button at the top. By clicking that, you can see how the text was built, word by word.Free online screen recorderAs I wanted to try it out, I sent an invitation via twitter and in less than 3 minutes, Janet Bianchini and Marisa Constantinides joined me. Check out Marisa's contributions in pink. Txs, Janet and Marisa.

Found this tool yesterday and quite like it. http://www.fliptext.org/You can type any text and they flip it for you. It's a pity they don't provide you with an embed code, therefore, you have to copy and then past the flipped text to use it.HOW CAN WE USE THIS SITE WITH STUDENTS?Type a series of questions, flip the text . Ask students to copy the text in their notebooks as fast as they can. Then students use the questions to ask each other .Type any text with target vocabulary / structure and ask students to copy it in their notebooks. Then, ask them to underline the recent words they've learned.

I've posted about http://memorizenow.com recently but hadn't had a chance to try it with my students. Yesterday, we had a great opportunity. My aim was to present new expressions of frequency and help my students memorize the chunks (once in a while, every so often, every now and again, more often than not, occasionally)Last year, while teaching the same lesson I noticed, students understood the expressions but failed in memorizing the full chunks (once + in + a + while) , as a result didn't use them very often and couldn't remember them in the written test. I first elicited from sts the adverbs of frequency they already knew (always, usually, never ...) and asked them to talk about their present habits using them (in pairs).Then, I called their attention to an exercise in the book where the new expressions of frequency were highlighted in BOLD I used a flipchart page (image on the left /promethean board) to have my students guess the degree of frequency for each expression by going to the board and dragging the expression to the right column. If they were right, an audio clip saying YEAH (sound file) played automatically, if they were wrong, the word would go back to its original position. After the expressions had been placed in the right columns (lower frequency, higher frequency) we drilled the expressions and asked sts to copy the list in their notebooks.I assigned one expression per student and asked each of them to write a sentence about their habits using them. While students were writing, I opened MEMORIZENOW Each student dictated a sentence with the adverb of frequency as I typed it in the MemorizeNow text box. After typing, I asked each student to read their sentence aloud. Then, I clicked MEMORIZE in the site and a few words from the sentences disappeared. Once again, I asked different students to read the same sentences aloud. Again and again, by clicking on the arrows, more and more words disappeared making it more challenging for students to remember all the sentences. Finally, I clicked LETTERS , and only the first letter of each word appeared. Students were then challenged to read the sentences again. (They did it beautifully)I asked students to write down all the sentences they could remember.  By clicking on the arrow, different words disappear from the sentence.  By clicking on LETTERS, only the first letter of each word appears.Instead of only drilling the expressions isolatedly, I think this memorization exercise is more successful if 1. the sentences are meaningful to sts, 2. expressions are contextualised.To learn how to use MEMORIZENOW, watch this great TUTORIAL by Demogirl .