martes, 31 de mayo de 2016

Improve your Writing (University of Bristol)

Interesting resource with explanations and exercises intended to form a comprehensive guide to using English grammar and avoiding common writing mistakes.

Each point of grammar has an explanation and a related exercise or exercises. The explanation sections contain several examples.

The website also includes a section about ways of improving your writing style.

sábado, 28 de mayo de 2016

The Academic Phrasebank

Designed primarily for academic and scientific writers who are non-native speakers of English, the Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers provided by the University of Manchester. It aims to offer examples of some useful phrases which might kick start your writing and thinking.

The phrases are mostly content neutral and generic. They are organised according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation (Referring to Sources, Describing Methods, Reporting Results, Discussing Findings, Writing Conclusions).

Other phrases are listed under the more general communicative functions of academic writing (Being Critical, Being Cautious, Classifying and Listing, Compare and Contrast, Defining Terms, Describing Trends, Describing Quantities, Explaining Causality, Giving Examples, Signalling Transition, and Writing about the Past).

jueves, 26 de mayo de 2016

Energy Kids. All about energy in English

Energy Kids is a student-friendly website hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The site includes a variety of information and activities about energy organized in several main categories: What is Energy?, Sources of Energy, Using & Saving Energy, History of Energy, Games and Activities, for Teachers, Related Links, Energy Calculators, and a Glossary.

It also includes a teacher guide which provides energy lessons that use the website as a resource. The guide provides Language, Arts, Math, Performing Arts, Science and Social Studies extension activities by age levels.

(Source: Energy Kids)

Don't miss it:

sábado, 21 de mayo de 2016

Writefull

Writefull is an app that provides feedback on your writing by checking your text against databases of correct language. The databases used are Google Books, Google Scholar, Google News, and Google Web. 

You can use Writefull in any writing tool from MS Word to Gmail. Simply select a piece of text, hit the short-key to activate the Writefull popover, and choose one of its options. 


 

Tutorial:

Writefull on Twitter: 
On Facebook: 

Blog: 

More information about Writefull in Spanish by Juan Diego Polo: 

lunes, 16 de mayo de 2016

National Geographic. Teaching Resources

The National Geographic Society, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization dedicated to exploring our planet, protecting wildlife and habitats, and helping assure that students in K-12 are geographically literate, offers teaching resources, units, lessons, activities, guides, and educational games for K-12 teachers.

Resources are grouped K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 and can be filtered to streamline searches.

Education blog:

On YouTube (Young Learners)
On Google+: https://plus.google.com/+NatGeoEdOrg/about

jueves, 12 de mayo de 2016

LitCharts

LitCharts is an online site from the creators of SparkNotes.

It provides literature guides for more or less 300 literary classics. Its charts can be viewed online and downloaded in a PDF file. Each chart presents a bulleted-list-style summary of every single plot point in the book side-by-side with analysis and color-coded themes for each point. The interactive data visualizations of books are awesome.


lunes, 9 de mayo de 2016

Gif Lingua

Interesting site based on animated GIF images as a good resource to provide visual contents for English language learning.

Images are arranged into categories: Pronunciation, News, Music, Videos and Levels 1-6. Have a look at a section called Books. You will find many extra supporting materials.


Gif Lingua on Twitter: https://twitter.com/giflingua
Gif Lingua on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/giflingua

jueves, 5 de mayo de 2016

MOOC Open eTwinning

Today, May 5 registration for this new 5-unit MOOC on eTwinning, the first offered in English by INTEF, is officially open.

The eTwinning action, launched in January 2005, is an initiative of the European Commission that promotes school collaboration in Europe through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by providing support, tools and services for schools.

The MOOC concludes on June 29. All the participants who complete it succesfully will be issued a digital badge that can be stored in EducaLAB's backpack.

Pay attention to the MOOC's hashtag on Twitter: #twinmooc

More information:

martes, 3 de mayo de 2016

ChemWiki

The ChemWiki is a collaborative approach toward chemistry education based on an open access wiki environment to supplant conventional paper-based books and an effort to supply chemistry knowledge to the community. It's development is currently directed by UC Davis Professor Delmar Larsen.

The ChemWiki provides students and teachers with an explanation of the core, textmaps, wikitexts, homework, worksheets and visualizations. The materials covered include: organic, inorganic, physical, and analytic chemistry.