SmartyReader

SmartyReader is an eReader platform that aims to improve student’s critical reading skills. It cultivates reading and independent critical thinking.

SmartyReader has multiple tools:

Smarticles (Modular reading comprehension exercises. Articles from real times news so a student can improve his reading and grammar skills).

Flashcard Stack (It allows you to go back to words that you did not understand while reading a Smarticle).

VocabCompanion (It allows you to improve your vocabulary by providing preselected words that you have to match with their correct definitions).

SmartyReader is functional on any device that has a web browser. It offers a monthly suscription to a limitless supply of Smarticles.

https://smartyreader.com/

Ian Siegel (SmartyReader founder) on SmartyReader:

http://www.baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/how-we-came-up-with-smartyreader/

(Source https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-smartyreader-daniel-ahmed)

On Facebook: https://es-es.facebook.com/SmartyReader/

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/smartyreaders

#Brexit and #Bregret

On June 23rd a referendum was held to decide whether the UK should leave or remain in the European Union. As you probably know, leave won by 52% to 48%.

This Padlet summarizes some significant reactions on Brexit in social media, and gives you an opportunity to learn about this subject and to practice your reading in a real-life context.

Created with Padlet

More information on Brexit:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887

ENABLE (European Network Against Bullying in Learning and Leisure Environments)

ENABLE (European Network Against Bullying in Learning and Leisure Environments) is an EU-funded project (supported by a Think Tank of 12 international experts and implemented by 6 core partners in five countries) whose aim is to combat bullying and contribute to the well-being of young people aged 11-14 through social and emotional development and peer education.

Their resources are designed to support the development of social-emotional learning skills and promote peer advocacy.

Booklet: http://enable.eun.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=c4b70018-6680-4d6a-b69b-662d4b41dc1a&groupId=4467490

Resources: http://enable.eun.org/implementing_enable

VocabSushi

VocabSushi is an online vocabulary building service that helps you learn new vocabulary words through the context of real-world sentences from recent news articles.

Conceived and created by Jeff Novich, an SAT tutor in New York City, it is interesting for students studying for standardized tests, and is also perfect for anyone looking to expand his or her vocabulary to communicate more precisely.

You can sign up for free. A pro (paid) service for teachers is also available (video).

http://www.vocabsushi.com/

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/vocab_sushi

Teach-This.com

Created in 2012 by Paul Adams, Teach-This.com is an interesting ESL & EFL teaching resources website. 

Teachers can download many teaching materials for use in the classroom: activities, lessons, worksheets, articles, games and ideas to help students improve their language skills.

Some resources are free. You can also purchase it and get the entire collection.

http://www.teach-this.com/

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeachThis/

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulteachthis

On Pinterest: https://es.pinterest.com/teachthiscom/

Storynory

Audio books have become increasingly popular in recent years, as there are many benefits to listening to literature. Storynory can be a good resource to develop listening and reading skills. In case of ESL students, they will also benefit from hearing clear pronunciation and native speech patterns.

Storynory is a free website with a collection of stories sorted in categories such as fairytales, educational stories, junior stories, myths and world stories, classic audio books, and music and poems. It was founded in 1995 by Hugh Fraser and Matthew Lynn.

All their stories come with an HTML5 audio player that should work on most devices in use today. Users can read the text and/ or listen to the story.

http://www.storynory.com/

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/storynory

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Storynory

On Google+: https://plus.google.com/117579767918946827158/posts

Teach Your Monster to Read

Teach Your Monster to Read is a free (the computer version), award-winning series of games. The game has been funded by the Usborne Foundation, a charity set up to support initiatives to develop early literacy.

The game is for children in the first stages of learning to read, or for older children who need a bit more practice. There are three Teach Your Monster to Read games to play, covering 2 years of the reading journey.

All of the games will run on any normal laptop or desktop computer (including Apple Macs). Additionally for tablet users, our first game Teach Your Monster to Read: First Steps is now available on iPad.

(Source: http://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/about-the-game)

Visit: http://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/

eTwinning ESL Group

If you would like to get involved in projects to improve your students’ English language skills, or get advice on teaching ESL from teachers from across Europe, visit the English as a Second Language (ESL) group on eTwinning. This group provides English teachers with a space for inspiration, collaboration, professional development and modernising ESL education through the use of ICT.

English on the Rocks

Si tienes interés por trabajar recursos y ejercicios prácticos en inglés relacionados con la gramática, el léxico (vocabulario, falsos amigos, diferencias entre inglés americano y británico, slang...), curiosidades sobre la lengua y hasta un repertorio de canciones esta página podría responder a tus necesidades a través de sus muy diversos materiales, especialmente orientados al público de habla castellana.

En Twitter: https://twitter.com/EnglishOTR

En Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/englishontherocks

En Google+: https://plus.google.com/+EnglishOTR/posts

Canal en YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/EnglishOTR

Visita: http://www.englishontherocks.com/

The Origins of the English Language

The following TED-Ed Lesson by Claire Bowern, a linguistics professor at Yale, explores the origins of the English language in a very visual way.

Additional resources for classroom use (guided discussions, multiple choice and open answer questions) are available on http://ed.ted.com/lessons/where-did-english-come-from-claire-bowern

Timeglo.be

Developed by Misha Wagner, with the help of Joe Groocock and based on an idea by Hoagy Cunningham, Timeglo.be uses data from Wikipedia and Dbpedia to show the location of over 20,000 historical events on an interactive 3D globe. 

You can search for events by date and by key words. More detailed information on Wikipedia is also provided, 

This resource lets you explore the history of the world in a very visual way. Very interesting tool for History teachers in CLIL programmes. 

https://timeglo.be/

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.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/index.htm

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).

http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/

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:

http://www.eia.gov/kids/index.cfm

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. 

http://writefullapp.com/

 

Tutorial:

http://writefullapp.com/tutorial.html 

Writefull on Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/writefullapp 

On Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/writefullapp/ 

Blog: 

https://medium.com/@Writefullapp 

More information about Writefull in Spanish by Juan Diego Polo: 

http://wwwhatsnew.com/2016/05/19/nuevo-writefull-aplicacion-gratuita-que-te-ayuda-a-escribir-bien-en-ingles/

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.

http://nationalgeographic.org/education/teaching-resources/

Education blog:

https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.com/

On YouTube (Young Learners)

https://www.youtube.com/user/NGLYoungLearners 

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/NatGeoEducation

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natgeoeducation

On Google+: https://plus.google.com/+NatGeoEdOrg/about

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.

http://www.litcharts.com/

Blog: http://www.litcharts.com/blog

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/litcharts

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/litcharts

App on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/litcharts/id867311750?mt=8

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.

http://giflingua.com/

Gif Lingua on Twitter: https://twitter.com/giflingua

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

Gif Lingua on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJyfx_kTGYbw-JMt-bwULOA

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

MOOC's group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/openetwinning/

More information:

http://mooc.educalab.es/courses/INTEF/INTEF166/2016_ED1/about

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.

http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/