Learning Chocolate

Learning Chocolate ★★★★
http://www.learningchocolate.com/

Learning Chocolate makes the comparison that learning can be as fun as eating chocolate. The website is certainly the most accessible and comprehensive I have yet encountered. In addition to the exercises focusing on language, they also touch on content. The visual, written, and listening components of literacy are addressed specifically and scaffolding is provided through the use of pictures and interactive features. The site is split into two main areas, content and links. The links portion provides leads to about forty websites that fall into three categories, general resources, website directories, and sites for teachers. The content area has about 170 lessons divided in to six categories, animals, basic, body, clothing, food, home, nature, and others. The lesson themselves are flash driven (no downloads) and are further divided into seven categories. The first is review where a diagram or picture is shown with area labeled with a word and a link to hear the word. Then there are three different match up sections that allow the user to match by sound to word association, word to picture association, and sound to picture association. There is a fill-in section that matches word to picture, where the user has to recall the word independently. Finally, there is a dictation section that matches sound to word. All sections have a timer, score, and provide correct and incorrect answers when the student is finished. A help section is available as a resource.

I really enjoyed the design of this website, although content does need to be reviewed for relevance. While the cow exercise that divides the anatomy of the cow into sections in a way a butcher might find useful, may not be correct but more importantly might not be useful to a second grader. “Mommy, that is the brisket of the cow.” Other sections were problematic in other way, for instance a croissant was labeled a roll, which may not technically be wrong, but is certainly not the best label. Sections like shoe and continents were spot on. This is a tremendous resource for ELL students and may serve to be a great introduction to units and reward for early completion of work. The site provides data for charting progress over time. The audio files are presented in a clear and well-pronounced manner.

Room Maker

Room Maker ★★
http://elouai.com/new-room-maker/index.php

This is a website that allows the user to create a themed room of their choice that they may then talk about the scene using descriptive language. Users may choose from the following themes: Christmas party, Halloween scene, fairy garden, sayclub room, candy world, pokemon play, barbie room, city creator, rpg maker, hompy room, teddy bear room, one click room, or doll house. Many of the graphics have a brief animation sequence that repeats. The vignettes created may get very intricate and options to save, email, or print are available.

This is a great way to get students involved in a creative project of their own choosing. During or after the creation of a room, students may describe their creations orally or in writing, focusing on prepositions, such as “my pet is above my skyscraper” or “my panda suit is below my tree.” The graphics are novel and allow students who may find themselves artistically challenged to get creative with arrangement of pre-drawn images rather than drawing from a blank canvas. The fact that students may save and share their work is another bonus and a way to continue the learning offline. This site does have heavy advertising and a questionable comments section that would require close supervision--a teacher would not want to let students use this site unsupervised.

English Tenses with Cartoons

English Tenses with Cartoons ★
http://www.englishtenseswithcartoons.com/

This is another site that makes English grammar more enjoyable. This site focuses on verb tense, a higher-level skill that requires a certain level of language comprehension, either in a native language that also has verb tenses to differentiate between past, present, and future, or in English. The site is divided into two main parts, exercises and basic subjects. Exercises are subset by sixteen lesson headings, such as past perfect or future continuous. Another section aims for experts of these subjects including a version of the popular video game Asteroids. Every game employs an animated cartoon illustration of some kind, many interactive and many utilizing a thought or conversation bubble. The basic subjects section is a compilation of lessons explaining over ten lessons, providing reference materials for the games.

This site is a little rough. After navigating around the advertisements, some of which are very difficult to discern, some of the animations are difficult to figure out. The material is advanced and the site may serve best as a review rather than an introduction. I expect even self-directing students would have a tough time. While the animations are detailed and professionally made, their purpose is not always clear. The asteroids game for example is disconnected from learning material. The game itself is an exercise in hand eye coordination solely. The sentences that describe actions taking place may be easily disregarded. Other examples are quite successful, such as the quiz about the boy who “goes around Egypt.” An animation lasting only seconds is displayed and the user must choose from sentences describing what was just seen. This is an example of an activity that promotes engagement. While this site is great for direct instruction, spelling it out for English language learners or any learner, it will need to be balanced with more than a novel animation.

Grammar Gorillas

Grammar Gorillas ★★
http://www.funbrain.com/grammar/index.html

The website uses a gorilla theme to teach grammar. Divided into two parts, nouns/verbs and all parts of speech, this site uses the scenario of get the answer right and the gorilla gets a banana. It is a great intrinsic take on an extrinsic concept for rewards. The game itself is a progressive, a or b game where the player accumulates bananas. If the answer is wrong, the number under incorrect increases by one and an explanation of the right answer is then provided including the question itself. It is flash based as well, so no downloads are required. Beneath each game is a help section. Here all the parts of speech are listed and defined so the user has a quick reference.

This is a great game that can bring some levity to a subject that some students find very dry. The gorillas are novel but not distracting. The game duration is ten questions and students do not lose any bananas they have accumulated. This is aligned with a philosophy of behavior management in a token economy--that tokens awarded are never taken away. The scaffolding provided by the help section promotes learning through mastery. My only criticism of this site is the fifty-fifty odds. For the unmotivated student, this game has the potential to be a click-through exercise with a lack of engagement. However, as student progress from noun/verb to all parts of speech, progress may be charted to show change over time. Also, this is a great template for students to create their own questions and tests.

ESL Letter Writer

ESL Letter Writer ★★
http://www.eslgame.com/activities/letterWriter.php

This website offers support for learning letters of the alphabet. In addition to visual representation of the letters, this website provided verbal information including the name of the letter, the sound the letter makes, and a word that begins with the letter. When the user clicks on an uppercase or lowercase letter, music starts, the verbal information plays, and an animated pen demonstrates the traditional way of writing the letter. With the capital letter A, the peak of the letter is the starting point; the left side is drawn first. Then returning to the peak the right side is drawn, and then the cross line. Additionally, template worksheets for student use are provided in four groupings of alphabet letters. These practice sheets provide lines on which to write, a model letter with sequential, directional steps to draw, and subsequent faded model letters on which to trace. This is a comprehensive resource for letter writing.

Although the music does become tedious after the third or fourth letter, I think the younger students will respond well to it. It provides an unspoken time limit in drawing a letter--I think students will work match the animated model before the music ends. The worksheets are a great starter exercise or take home assignment. The audio file voice clips are in a slightly robotic, tinny voice that is sometimes difficult to discern. It appears not all of the links on this website are working properly. When I click on the lowercase z for instance I am redirected to another page that contains other games.

Genkie English

Genkie English ★★★★
http://www.genkienglish.net/games.htm

This is a high energy website. With roots in Japan, this is a thematic resource that could be the basis of a core program. It provides lesson plans, games, songs, ideas, materials, and approaches to learning English across broad age groups, preschool to high school. Genkie means fun, lively, or energetic in Japanese, and the founder of the program, Richard Graham is as genkie an instructor as I have seen. The site offers free materials as well as materials to purchase, a newsletter, curriculum, games, songs, talking pages, articles, and even live seminars. Mr. Graham started as a teacher and has now moved on to be an educational consultant. The site is also available in Japanese.

It is inspirational just to watch some of his clips. His energy and enthusiasm is contagious. This will be a great site to visit to get re-energized and fresh ideas. I applaud this site for offering so much material for free. If it works and the resources are there, this would be a great place to purchase curriculum materials and professional development materials. Games here are not online, flashed based, rather, they are described in detail in terms of steps of preparation and steps of the game itself. I looked at a game involving numbers and “bargaining.” Students role-play being buyers and sellers by negotiating a price for an object. As each side concedes reductions in price or increase in offering, they are acknowledging value differences in addition to number pronunciation and recognition. Users get to leave feedback on this site as well.

Digital Dialects

Digital Dialects ★★
http://www.digitaldialects.com/English.htm


Divided into three main pages, this website is dedicated to English language learners. The first and most robust page contains games. Subjects and themes for games are: numbers 1-12, numbers 13-20, numbers 10-100, colors, fruit & vegetables, vocabulary, food, animals, verbs, and clothing. All of the games, except for the numbers, have audio file examples for students to hear pronunciation. The games are flash based, so they do no require a download to access. Games provide mini-lessons of material, a silent version of the game, and then a version with audio. This website has versions in Japanese and French. The second page of the website is a “bookshop” with links to buy six different texts aimed at teachers of English language learners. The last page is a simple alphabet visual resource that gives an audio example of pronunciation when a user clicks on a letter.

The flash component of this site is great. As long as you have flash loaded on the computer, this site will work. This is a great online resource and a way for students to interact with a game to make learning fun. Some of the games flash a big “WRONG” however if an incorrect answer is chosen--which could be accomplished with a little more tact. The math games provide the correct answer and the logic behind it, although it would be better if it provided a second chance first. This site appears to be British influenced as the bookshop refers to an amazon.uk site for purchases and some of the pronunciations appear to have a British/Australian/Irish lilt to them. The alphabet page is a little basic; however, it would serve to be a great smart board backdrop for students learning the alphabet.