Monday, January 4, 2010

Must See Monday #1 - Larry Ferlazzo Links

Larry Ferlazzo is an English and Social Studies teacher from California.  Mr. Ferlazzo has had over 140,000 visitors to his webpage and has been nominated and received numerous awards for his work with educational technology.  His main focus is ELL, ESL, and EFL, but he has by no means limited himself to just those subject matters.

His main website linked above is so full of information that trying to describe all that is available in this blog post would be virtually impossible...but I will try my best.  First and foremost, he links to articles that he has written and that have been published in numerous publications covering a multitude of topics.  He also has a Teacher's Page which is filled with links to various resources that are broken down by topic and subject.  On this page you can also sign up for a newsletter which comes from resources he shares on his blog (more on his blog later).  On the main page are more links based on subject matter (Social Studies, English, Math Science, and ARW) and those links are broken down based on the curriculum being covered.  When you get some time, browse through the website and see what you find of interest, something tells me you won't leave not gaining something you liked...I didn't.

Mr. Ferlazzo also has a Blog that has been nominated for multiple Edublog awards, finishing in the top 3.  Over 5000 people subscribe to his Blog.  His blog has over 8000 links...yes, thats right, 8000!!!  What I like about the Blog is he has TONS of categories which makes looking through the links easy.  He also has broken them down into a "Best of Series," which include Month, Year, and Subject Specific.  The Subject Specific are then broken down into categories under each Subject making it even easier to search through the links.  He also has a "My Favorite Posts" and a "Most Popular Posts" sections which are some of the best.  They are also not all resources; they are interviews and articles as well.  As I said above, something tells me you won't leave this blog without finding something you like.

Mr. Ferlazzo has another blog about Engaging Parents in School.  I have not had a thorough opportunity to browse through it very much, but with a future in administration it will definately be one that I maintain interest and keep an eye on.  Along with that Blog, Mr. Ferlazzo has also written a book titled "Building Parent Engagement in Schools," which you can purchase from Amazon.com, but you can get more information about the book and a discount on the book here.

Are you a member of Twitter?  If so you can follow Mr. Ferlazzo on Twitter.  If you don't use Twitter, I suggest you read my previous post about why you should.

Focusing on a Focus

I decided last night that I wanted to improve the focus of my blog by creating a focus for each day.  Below is what I have decided to do for each day.

Must See Monday - Despite what you might be thinking, I did not steal the idea from NBC.  Every Monday I will post an article, resource, or Blog that I feel is a Must See.
Twitter Tuesday - Every Tuesday I will post a resource I found on Twitter, Lists to follow, People to follow, or an important Hashtag related to education.  It might also mix of all of these, depending on the mood I am in.
Wiki Wednesday - Every Wednesday I will link to a Wiki that I find interesting or helpful to educators.  It might even be something from Wikipedia that we might normally not look at unless it happened to be posted to a blog! 
Think-Twice Thursday - Every Thursday will be a resource, website, or blog that you should "think twice" and consider how to use it or reconsider why you are not using it.
Friday Focus - I will still be continuing my Friday Focus where I focus on a certain resource.  You can visit my Previous Friday Focus Post below:
Online Timelines
Social Bookmarking
Weekend Extra - With time permitting, I will post some extra stuff that I find on the weekends.

These won't be the only post of the day, but they will be the first or the last of the day.

Let me know what you think!