The Top 100
These "Top" lists have always called my attention. The Top 100 films of all times, The Top 100 books you should read, The Top 10 beaches in the world, and so on, represent the favourites of a group of people big enough to be taken seriously. With the proliferation of technology, a similar list of web-based tops was bound to appear sooner or later.
PC Magazine people have compiled the Top 100 Classic Web Sites list. They say it is their "definitive list of the best that the Internet has to offer in 2007." This list is the result of the magazine staff's 2007 bookmarks and comprises well-established websites that are "generally best-of-breed in their respective categories." You can download the full list directly to your bookmarks if you click here.
Some of the categories in this list comprise:
You'll see a large collection of Web applications and tech sites, excellent blogs, offbeat social networks, and, as always, a handful of addictive Flash games for those slow days at work.
Some of the categories for the Undiscovered Websites list:
These two are oriented to the general public, but teachers might find the following list more useful. The TOP 100 TOOLS FOR LEARNING 2007 was compiled by the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies. This center was created by Jane Hart to research about e-learning trends, technologies and tools and share resources on learning technologies.
109 education professionals responded to an invitation to share their 10 favourite tools for teaching and learning. Some names ring a bell: Andreas Büsing and Ramona Dietrich (Webheads), Stephen Downes, Larry Ferlazzo and Ana Maria Menezes (Learning with Computers) and James Farmer (Edublogs).
They have used these lists of personal Top 10 Tools to compile:
TOP 100 TOOLS - a list of the most popular tools for personal learning as well as creating learning 
THE LEARNING TOOLBOX- the Top 100 tools categorised by type of tool. This list is particularly useful because teachers can take advantage of others teachers' recommendations when starting with a new web application. The categories are grouped under the big titles of "Personal" and "Producer" tools.
If you have unlimited time and curiosity you can also check the ever-growing Directory of Learning Tools, which has reached the number of 1,705 tools so far. These range "from traditional course development tools through 21st century (E-Learning 2.0) collaboration and sharing tools as well as tools for personal learning". The good news is that two thirds of them are free. This list is based around three big categories:- Content Development & Management Tools
- Communication, Collaboration and Sharing Tools
- Personal Learning Tools
To get a daily taste of the newest on the web, Jane keeps her personal blog Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day, A daily item of e-learning interest selected by Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies.
If I had to choose the 10 favourite websites found or used extensively this year, I'd mention (in a aleatory order):
What are your favourite websites of 2007? Any discoveries worth sharing?
2 comments:
Maria,
I'm writing to all the ESL-related blogs that are on my blogroll. I'd like to invite you to consider sending in a post from your blog that has appeared within the past few months, or that you will be writing in September, for inclusion in an ESL "Carnival" that I'm hosting.
A Carnival is basically a collection of posts from various blogs on a selected topic. All you have to do is pick a post you've written sometime over the past few months or one that you will write in September that you think is particularly insightul or helpful and that's related to teaching English Language Learners. Send the link to me by Sept. 30th and I'll post the collection shortly thereafter.
If there's interest, we could continue this monthly or quarterly, each time hosted by a different blog.
Here's a post I've written announcing it:
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2007/09/06/lets-start-an-esl-carnival/
And here's a link to a recent "Carnival of Education" to give you an idea of what a Carnival might look like:
http://educationwonk.blogspot.com/2007/09/carnival-of-education-week-135.html
Larry Ferlazzo
Thanks, Larry for visiting my humble blog and inviting me to participate in the ESL Carnival. I'll contact you soon to send you the URL of one of my posts.
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