ABE/GED, ESL: Today's Front Pages

Today's Front Pages

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

Each day, Washington D.C's Newseum museum site brings you front pages from newspapers around the world - over 400 of them. See how the same story is covered in different places or compare news from different regions. Roll over each thumbnail to see a larger image, click on it to see one large enough to read the headlines. PDFs are available if you want to read the part of an article that's on the front page (Acrobat Reader software required). This is an interesting way to get discussions on current events in the classroom. Since there are over 400 front page resources available, students can read about it from their home town or country.

GED: Algebra

http://algebrahelp.com/ A free online Algebra study aide. Includes lessons, calculators, worksheets and resources, including:
Prime NumbersGenerate custom charts and lists of prime numbers.
Perfect Squares Chart GeneratorGenerate custom charts and lists of perfect squares.
Study TipsGeneral tips and guidelines for students of algebra.

GED Mathematics Test: Contemporary/McGraw Hill

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0809222329/
Publisher's site that enhances materials from the textbooks.

Student CenterAre you preparing to take the GED Mathematics Test? If so, this section will help you review everything you have covered in your textbook. Click on the link above, and then choose a chapter from the table of contents. You’ll find Chapter Review Quizzes, Chapter Outlines, Interactive Flashcards, Web Links, a Math Handbook, and more!
Instructor CenterAre you preparing students for the GED Mathematics Test? This section will provide you with Tips and Resources from Contemporary’s GED Instructor Resource Binder, Instructional PowerPoint Presentations, Web Links, and more!

GED: Test Practice

http://www.testprepreview.com/ged_practice.htm GED practice test sites.

Take the self assessment module quizzes below (make notes of your scores and remember which revealed significant gaps in your learning)
Access the following online resources to improve your weak areas and enhance your score on a fundamental level.
Self Improvement Directory

For students with computers at home, this is a free practice site that they can use to practice prior to taking the tests.

GED Test Taking Tips

http://www.sabes.org/resources/fieldnotes/vol13/f134little2.htm GED Test Taking Tips

One page sheet that gives practical advice prior to taking the GED test. Good handout for students.

ABE/ESL: Reading: Storybooks Online

http://www.magickeys.com/books/ The title is 'Children's Storybooks Online' but some of the stories could work with low reading level adults. Some stories are read aloud, and can be read word by word. This is another site that you need to spend some time looking at to determine its best use, but there are some real gems in here.

Nutrition Information: Low Literacy Teens and Adults

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/pubs/bibs/gen/lowlit.html
This is a quick guide to articles, books, kits, videos and Web sites that discuss nutrition education for teens and adults with limited reading skills. It also lists resources that will help you create and find easy-to-read print materials. Some English as a Second Language materials are included. However, this is not a major focus of the list.
It has an amazing list of easy to read materials. The creators of the list seriously took on the challenge of providing good information to those who probably need it the most, yet have the least ability to understand what is generally available. Quite comprehensive.

ABE/GED: This Nation: US Government and Citizenship

I liked the self grading quizzes http://www.thisnation.com/quizzes/index.html ,the FAQs about the Constitution http://www.thisnation.com/facts/constitutionfaq.html and the sectionon the American Revolution http://www.thisnation.com/facts/constitutionfaq.html which also include some photographs. The site is developed to correspond with the This Nation textbook, but there are many good tools on here as well.

ABE/GED Soical Studies, Historical Collections

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ from the Library of Congress

A library of Congress on line resource of Historical Collections for the National Digital Library. Learning page includes search help, activities and lesson ideas.

ABE/GED: Library of Congress Website

http://www.lcweb.loc.gov/ Library of Congress website. A treasure trove of information, including resources for:
Kids, Families
Librarians
Publishers
Researchers
Teachers
Braille and Audio Materials
Law Library of Congress
Library Catalogs
Poetry

A great on-line reference service from the Library of Congress for instructors! A Questions and Answers link accepts online questions that are answered by the on-line librarian. A Chat Service is available during designate times. There is an A-Z index for quick information search.

ALL Levels: Basics of Internet Navigating & Mouse Use

http://www2.gol.com/users/billp/course/contents.html This is a link from the Florida Community College at Jacksonville site. It includes everything from clicking (this is a mouse) to using links and email. The level is great for low level readers, and there are excellent illustrations and lessons for each chapter. It is written for Netscape (both PC and Mac) but most of the areas have universal applications. The mouse clicking lesson is interactive, and students can learn a lot quite quickly.

ABE/GED: Social Studies: CNN StudentNews

http://www.az-aall.org/AALL/Pages/Lessons/Support/ACAT%20Social%20Studies.htm ACAT Curriculum from pre-literacy and up. This gives standards and indicators for many social science levels, along with hot links to additional sites that can be used in class.

Summer Musings: Sotir: Vlogging

I know, you thought that since it is summer, you are safe from my threats of new technologies...well, wrong. While checking my RSS feeds (oh you do TOO know what they are, and if not, read all about it a few posts down), I came across an interesting article on blogging and videos=vlogging (of course). Vlogs feature video shorts instead of text. Too bad the name is even worse than blog, not to mention more difficult to pronounce. Sort of a very local cable access channel. If only they had this in Wayne's World.

Vlogs post things like cooking lessons and family events. Politicians are not far behind. Sen. John Edwards is receiving and responding to questions using video. Vlogs, in infant formulations, have been around for a couple of years, but are now toddling out into the mainstream. For those of you who have just become accustomed to blogs...too late...the train is leaving the station...

Vlogger numbers are still pretty small, in comparison to the size of the blogosphere, but they are catching up. The downside is that it takes longer to put together a vlog. You need to shoot the video, edit the video, upload the video...which takes a lot longer than posting to a blog. But just as uploading photos to the blog was made infinitely easier by web sites like HELLO, soon there will be similar tools for video postings. I can post a photo on the blog in less than a minute. I see the same applications for video as well, as soon as more people start using it.

Yes, this is a rapidly changing world. As one of my Luddite (non-techie) friends says...'that blog thing you always babble about...I am hearing it now from normal people too...' He deserves to be vlogged.

ESL: Vocabulary

http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Vocabulary/ Another compendium. This is a sub-page ofThe Internet TESL Journal'sTESL/TEFL/TESOL/ESL/EFL/ESOL Links and includes sites such as
Arabic Number to English Convertor (Requires JavaScript.)
Enter a number up to 999,999,999 and see it spelled out in English.
BBC News English - Words in the News
Read, listen and learn the English in this week's stories.
Common Errors in English (Paul Brians)
Words that native English speakers frequently find confusing.
Common Usage Problems (Vicki Jones and Ann Bertoldie)
Words that native English speakers frequently find confusing.
English for You - Visual Fruit (Donald Hennessey)
Pictures of fruit and their names in English
English for You - Visual Veggies (Donald Hennessey)
Pictures of vegetables and their names in English
Expanding your Vocabulary (La Trobe University)
Brief hints for advanced students.
Language Adventure - Picture Quiz
Easy. Click on the picture of the word you hear. (WAV files)
Megellan's Log - Pronunciation Pairs (Sentences Using Heteronyms) (Douglas Milburn)
We polish the Polish furniture every day. I did not object to the object. etc.
Nick Miller's EFL/ESL Resource Material - Street & Map Terms (Nicholas E. Miller)
A list of words with definitions.
QuiaCom - Matching Quiz - Countries and Nationalities [FRAME] (AH Syed)
Quia.com activity -Columns
specialist.hu - ESL Topics and Vocabulary [FRAME] (English Specialist)
True/false and multiple choice quizzes on basic exam topics and vocabulary
Testing Vocabulary
By S. Kathleen Kitao & Kenji Kitao
The Compleat Lexical Tutor (Tom Cobb)
Test your word knowledge, Learn words at your level, Read & Listen, ...
Vocabulary - Extended Family Chart
A detailed family tree chart: paternal uncle's wife, maternal cousin, ....
Vocabulary Self-Study Quizzes (The Internet TESL Journal)
See the answers right away. Produced by teachers around the world.
Vocabulary Vulcanizer [FRAME] (Paige Jaeger)
Study 'roots' to improve vocabulary: Phobia (=Fear) claustrophobia, xenophobia
Word Safari: vocabulary expeditions (Ruth Pettis)
For native speakers and advanced students. Expand your English vocabulary while surfing the Web
WordOrigins.org's List of Words and Phrases (David Wilton)
baker's dozen, kick the bucket, left wing, Kilroy was here, ...
www.antimoon.com - Don't worry about your active vocabulary (Tomasz P. Szynalski)
Why it is normal to understand more English words than you can use
www.EnglishClub.Com - Informal Contractions (Reductions) (Josef Essberger)
Gonna, Ain't, Gimme, Gotta, Kinda, Wanna, Whatcha, ...
www.EnglishClub.Com - Interjections (Josef Essberger)
Charts with meanings and examples: Ah, Alas, Dear, Eh, ...
www.EnglishClub.Com - Say or Tell? (Josef Essberger)
How to use say and tell.
www.EnglishClub.Com - Telling the Time (Josef Essberger)
UK English: 'just gone three o'clock'; Others: 'a quarter past three' etc.
www.forumeducation.net - Building vocabulary: Word formation (Sven Cederberg)
300+ word formation exercises
www.forumeducation.net - Diagnostic Vocabulary Test (Sven Cederberg)
Example of random generated test from huge database
www.GoogleFight.com - Compare Word & Phrase Use on the Web (Create Your Own Vocabulary Study)
The love of money is the root of all evil. VS Money is the root of all evil.
www.LearnEnglish.de - Buildings
See pictures of vocabulary, a dialogue, crossword puzzles, dictation/spelling, .
www.LearnEnglish.de - Rooms
See pictures of vocabulary, a dialogue, crossword puzzle and jumbled words

I like to see specific categories of words (buildings, rooms, time, fruits and vegetables), and also idioms and informal contractions, which always confound students. There are a few that have online quizzes and pictures to help students understand better. Students who learned English the British way can find translations into American English, and even specific tools such as the Arabic Number to English convertor have a real value for students. Some of the sites are better than others, so if you find one particularly useful (or not at all useful), share it with your fellow bloggers.

General Information: Sotir: Super Searching

I know this may come as a surprise to many of you, but I spend a lot of time on the Internet. For legitimate reasons of course, but I thought some of my shortcuts for getting into sites might be helpful tools for others as well. For example...did you know that when you look at the address box on Explorer, there is a small 'e' icon in front of the address? (Netscape users will have an icon that looks like a bookmark.) If you click and drag that box into another document, such as a blog post, you don't have to spend the energy copying and pasting the address. Yes, this is a minor aid, but when you post as many Websites as I do, every little bit helps.

Many of you already use your 'Favorites' button to save sites. Try creating folders for like Favorites. This will help you organize your list and use it more effectively. You can also rename the title of the site to one that fits a category first. Simply right-click on the bookmark and choose 'rename' from the options. You can save an entire page, not just a link, if you use 'Add Favorites' and choose the box that says "Make Available Offline". Even if you are not connected, you can still view a page of interest, or if the page disappears, you still have the information it contained.

Portals (see other articles with the term RSS in them) are Websites that pre-select and organize links to other information on other sites. You choose the information you want and let the portals search the Web for those sites for you. If you wanted to (and why wouldn't you?) you could set up a portal to keep up on the new posts to this blog. You need to have sites with RSS addresses The RSS address for this blog, for example, is
http://wccniuesl.blogspot.com/atom.xml '. Add this /atom.xml address to a portal, and you will be automatically notified when the blog posts new articles, as well as other posts to similar topics. I have a portal entitled 'educational technology' and get a list of new sites that might pique my interest daily. The portals also tell you if nothing new has posted to the site in whatever timeframe you wish. I have mine set for 3 days. If a new post comes on, the title and when it was posted appear on my portal list. I like having technology do my work for me.

One of the other tools I like is the 'Advanced Search' option. Often I get requests for very specific kinds of Websites. I could put in just a regular Boolean search (using AND, BUT or even OR), but sometimes I want more specific information. Since a lot of information on the Web stays on in perpetuity, some of it goes out of date. If I want information that appears on the new GED test, for example, I can ask for sites published more recently. Sometimes I do searches for information on wider topics like 'blogs'. If I want general information,just typing in 'blogs' might be enough. However, blogs have really come into their own in the past two or three years, and the newer posts are more relevant to what I am looking to find. Use the tools to find more relevant data, or at least lessen the amount of data offered. I don't know about you, but 5,279, 345 hits is more information than I care to peruse.

Any other hints for making technology work for you? Post them...right here.

GED/ESL: Historic Maps

http://www3.newberry.org/k12maps/

This resource for K-12 teachers and students developed by the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library is designed to bring historically significant map documents into your classroom. Inside are high quality images of historic map documents that illustrate the geographical dimensions of American history.
Each map is accompanied by lesson plans written for four grade levels and designed to support a variety of social studies, history, and geography curricula. Add your own ideas for using these maps to this blog post.

GED/ESL: Chicago History

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/

Here's an interesting site to bring history closer to home...the Chicago Historical Society site; the Encyclopedia of Chicago. There are maps, advertisements, photos and other entries to make the history of this area come alive. Special Features include:
Special Features
Interpretive Digital Essays
Plan of Chicago
Water in Chicago
Rich Maps
Labor Unrest in Chicago, April 25-May 4, 1886
Worlds of Prairie Avenue
Galleries
Governing Space
The Grid
How Chicagoans Remember Their History
The Public Faces of Religion
Video Gallery : Chicago on Screen
Indices
Biographical Dictionary
Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses (1820-2000)
Timeline and Year Pages
Timeline
Year Pages
Tables
Chicago Homicide Rates per 100,000 residents, 1870-2000
Chicago Mayors, 1837-2003
Chicago's Tallest Buildings Since 1854
Chicago's Weather Extremes
Development of Railroad Lines from Chicago
Foreign-Language Broadcasting in the Chicago Area, 1956-1995
National Historic Landmarks in the Chicago Metropolitan Area
Selected Chicago Daily Newspapers, English Language
Selected Chicago Daily Newspapers, Foreign Language
Selected Chicago Daily Newspapers, Outside Chicago

GED/ABE: Graphing: Create a Graph

http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/Graphing/ Create a Graph

Although created for kids, this is a great tool for creating various types of graphs including bar, line, area and pie. It gives students an opportunity to choose the graph type and input the information they choose, and then view the final product. Good for students who do not have access to tools like Microsoft Office.

General Information: Adult Education Blogs/Research

http://oregonstate.edu/~hirschn/resources.htm

This is another compendium site that gives some good virtual resources for educators, and also lists some educationally related blogs compiled by Naomi R Hirsch, who gives as a bio:
'I currently support educational outreach and curriculum development with the Community Education and Outreach Programs for both the Environmental Health Sciences Center and the Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Center.' I like to visit other educational blogs, and find them a great resource for the AELC.

Among her blog listings:
All About Blogs
The Art of Blogging 1 and 2
9 Tips for Capturing Critical Knowledge in a Changing Workplace
K-logging
Thinking Page, your source for information on improving organizational and individual thinking.
How’s Your Climate for Learning? quiz
Learning & Technology Blogs
Innovation Wizard on Your Intranet
Blogs in the Workplace
BLOGS IN BUSINESS: THE WEBLOG AS FILING CABINET
Extension Specialist blog example
Weblogs, CMS, and dynamic Webpublishing for learning and education :: blogged by Sebastian Fiedler
Weblog Comments....

General Information: Adult Education Blog Listing

http://weblogs.about.com/od/educationblogs/

This is an About.com site that lists some published adult education blogs for review. Blogs include:
Blinger: A linguistics & ESL BlogLots of interesting resources, including podcasting/audio blogging on linguistics and ESL. It is maintained by a Canadian teaching EFL in Korea.
BlahBlahBlogNancy Peralta, an educator, uses this blog to educate and learn.
Educational Bloggers NetworkA professional, well-designed community weblog that contains various useful resources on education and blogging. It files blog entries in to departments such as: Cool tools, Student work, K-5 and more. This blog is sponsored by the Bay Area Writing Project and Weblogger.com.
Edu-Tech NewsJessica Millstone's blog on educational technology news and resources.