Brad Patterson is famous for his “blog challenges,” where he chooses a topic or idea, contributes one, and then invites other ESL/EFL teachers to contribute, too.

A tweet by Voxy, today, has prompted me to make my own “blog challenge.” They sent out this tweet:

When you see a photo like this, it really makes you wish that animals could speak. What would this Koala be saying? ow.ly/i/wvI1

— Voxy (@voxy) March 22, 2012

 

I thought that was a great idea for ESL/EFL classes and, in fact, any class! I’d like to invite other teachers (ESL or non-ESL) to either post other suitable pictures on their blog and leave a link in the comments on this post or, if you don’t have a blog, just leave a link to a good photo. I’ll compile all the links into a single post in a few weeks. All they need to be are photos that would provoke a good response to the question:

What would this animal be saying or thinking?

Here are my two contributions — images of both of our dogs:

I look forward to seeing lots of great photos for use as verbal/writing/thinking prompts!

I’m also adding this info to The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons.

Next week, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments about the constitutionality of the health care reform bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama two years ago.

I have a very extensive list of resources on the law itself — The Best Online Resources For Learning About Health Care Reform (that list also includes information on health care around the world and the history of health care reform efforts). But now I thought it would be useful to share resources on the debate that will be unfolding before the Court.

Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About the Health Care Debate:

The Health-Care Debate is a Wall Street Journal interactive.

A Guide to the Supreme Court Challenges to Obama’s Health Care Law is from The New York Times.

C-Span Classroom has an interactive called Is The Health Care Reform Law Constitutional?

Health care overhaul: Law faces high court review is an Associated Press interactive.

The Health Reform Law’s Wild Ride: A Timeline is from The PBS News Hour.

Here’s a CNN video:

A Viewer’s Guide to Supreme Court Arguments on Health Care Law is from The PBS News Hour.

Feedback is always welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.

You might also want to explore the 900 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.

A Conversation About Building Trust Between Parents & Teachers is Part Two in my three part series on parent engagement over at Education Week Teacher.

It’s a “conversation” between two leaders in the parent engagement field, Steve Constantino and Joe Mazza.

“It’s amazing how much it’s possible to figure out by analyzing the various kinds of data I’ve kept,” Stephen Wolfram says. To which I say, “I’m looking at your data, and you know what’s amazing to me? How much of you is missing.”

This is the last paragraph of Robert Krulwich’s new article at NPR, titled Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Does The Data Tell It All?

In it, he compares authors of books, one by Stephen Wolfram, creator of a the Wolfram search engine, and Bill Bryson, author of a biographical account of growing up in Iowa.

The column, though not specifically about schools, hits a “bulls-eye” on our current data-driven madness.

I’m adding it to The Best Resources Showing Why We Need To Be “Data-Informed” & Not “Data-Driven.”

As regular readers know, I don’t spend a whole lot of time on direct grammar instruction (you can read more at The Best Sites For Grammar Practice). Sometimes, though, it can be useful and/or students can want grammar reinforcement opportunities, which is why I created that “The Best…” list.

Noredink is a new site created by a teacher for students to practice grammar using interactive exercises. It’s a nicely designed site, and students can pick choose the topics that they are most interested in — the NFL, NBA, specific TV shows, etc.

I think there are plenty of other sites on “The Best…” list I mentioned earlier in this post that are more expansive and don’t require registration, so I’m not going to add Noredink to that list.

However, since teachers can create virtual classrooms of their students there, I will add it to The Best Sites That Students Can Use Independently And Let Teachers Check On Progress.

Note that the site says that it’s free now. If and when they start charging, though, I’ll remove it from that list.

Thanks to Mashable for the tip.

Every year, people throughout the world are encouraged to turn-off their lights in recognition of Earth Hour. This year, it takes places on Saturday, March 31st, 8:30 PM.

I’ve updated The Best Sites To Learn About “Earth Hour.”