Week 10

Personal Learning Environment Website reviews:

https://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/node/428297

This website is in many different languages. I had to translate it in order to figure it out. It was an interesting site that stresses how creating a PLE can also assist students get employment. Students share what they have learned to future employers so that they know what they are getting. There are many topics to search through to help create your own PLE.

https://www.districtadministration.com/content/journal-readers-recognize-lexia-learning-most-valuable-ed-tech-provider

This journal article reviews a program that I never heard of. It is called Lexia reader. It is a division of Rosetta Stone. The program is driven by the teacher, and allows for personalized reading curriculums for each student. I then went to look into the Lexia reader program (http://www.lexialearning.com/products/core5) to see what it is all about. It is an independent reading curriculum that is online for students to learn reading strategies, take assessments, and provide practice.

These are the 2 websites that came in my google alerts for this week. I found them both interesting, and it shows how technology can be used to assist students take control of their learning.

Week 9: Google Alerts

The following is a brief list of new resources to use for ESL planning for the classroom.

English Club
https://www.englishclub.com/ref/idiom-of-the-day.php

This website is an awesome collection of resources for both students and teachers. One of the resources is an idiom of the day. Not only is a new idiom given, but there are also multiple choice questions that accompany it. There are also writing and speaking tips, slang of the day, spelling and pronunciation rules, and plans with games for the teacher.

Teaching English
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/

This resource has plans and materials that are broken into age group categories. The resources seem to be high interest for the grade level it is targeted towards. The resources are in PDF files that can be downloaded easily to use. I looked through the elementary resources for awhile and I love the many different subjects and topics covered from this site.

Busy Teacher
http://busyteacher.org/

This website is a collection of recent research and articles geared to assist ESL teachers. There are also a ton of resources on this site that could be used to teach ESL students. The one thing I found different from other sites is that they have a ton of articles that discuss the trends in the ESL classroom.

Week 8 Google Alerts

ESL Yes
http://eslyes.com/

I was so excited coming across this resource this week in my google alerts. This is a website that provides over 1,600 free short stories for English learners. Not only do you have access to the short stories, but the stories are sorted by grade level, have exercises and audio files with them. The activities include vocabulary practice for the stories, a cloze reading practice, crossword, sentence comprehension, and a dictation piece. They also have a direct link to google translate. I do not have any ESL students in my classroom, but I do have low students who could benefit from some of the practice skills that are in the different stories. The speak to text is a little slow sometimes, but the stories are high interests and there are a lot of them. I'm excited to explore this site more.