Berni Wall has developed an excellent site for language learners.
Gapfillers: Learn English Online has a number of free resources on its site including:
Worth investigating if you know English language learners.
The MeeGenius library enables users to read children’s books, personalise and share them for free.
A range of classic children’s books are available including versions of:
The stories have been recorded and are read aloud. As the story progresses, words are highlighted for readers to follow and learn. This makes the MeeGenius library perfect for young children learning to read and young language learners. Users can personalise stories for specific audiences, however if users wish to save these stories for use later on, they must register and login. Some stories appear to be abridged, others are not.
A MeeGenius app is available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch as well (A$2.49).
Thanks to Kelly Tenkely from i Learn technology for the heads up on this great tool!
A great tool that converts text to speech is iSpeech.
Personal (non commercial) use is free and is great for visually impaired students. You can either use the demo at the front of the site for quick text to speech, or you can sign up for a free personal account that lets you do much more such as embed text to speech in your website.
iSpeech could also be good for language and literacy learners.
The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction brings you and your students the Stop Disasters game.
The aim of the game is for students to learn how they can stop disasters from occurring. The FAQ page explains more:
Who can play the Stop Disasters game?
Anyone with internet access can download and play the Stop Disasters game from this web site. The game will not be ‘downloadable’ as an exe file on your hard drive. Instead it will load into a browser window.Do I need a special computer?
No, any computer built within the last few years will be sufficient – Mac, PC or Linux based, with a screen resolution of 800×600 pixels.You’ll need an up to date browser, with Flash Player version 7 or higher. You can download the latest Flash plugin from here:
http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash/How long does it take?
Each scenario takes between 10 and 20 minutes to play, depending on the disaster you are trying to prevent and your skill level. There are five scenarios to play, and each can be played on easy, medium or hard difficulty levels.What age do you need to be to play?
The core audience is 9-16 year old children, but anyone can play and enjoy the game, and everyone will learn more about preventing disasters.
The game is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, French and Russian, which makes it excellent for language classes.
A series of fact sheets for teachers have been developed and include:
There are also videos and links to other resources.
A fun way to teach students about natural disasters, but also to demonstrate that they have the power to help minimise or stop them occurring.
Any school studying forensic science will probably be interested in this site.
Funded by the US National Science Foundation in conjunction with other organisations, CSI: The Experience Web Adventures provides three adventures, one each for beginner, intermediate and advanced. Registration is free and players can either sign up or play as a guest with no login (this means you won’t be able to save your game to resume playing at a later date). CSI characters help guide you through the adventure and offer help when needed.
This could be a good site for language learners as adventures are available in German and Spanish as well as English.
There are a number of resources for educators for students at different levels, a family guide, as well as links and other activities. Please check the site out before using with students as the nature of crimes involved may not be appropriate for everyone.
Thanks to Richard Byrne from Free Technology for Teachers for supplying the evidence!
Shahi is a fantastic tool for ESL students, language and literacy learners. “Shahi is a visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images, and more!”
A number of definitions are provided and are categorised into nouns and verbs. Visuals from Flickr, Google Image and Yahoo assist users in grasping the meaning. Hover over a photo and the photo is enlarged. Click on a photo and that takes you to the photographer’s site.
Even words or phrases that are not recognised by the dictionary section are recognised by the photo section:
Thanks to the wonderful Audrey Nay for alerting Bright Ideas to Shahi!