Google has unveiled quite an extensive site today providing access to tons of exhibits and resources related to the United States 250th anniversary celebration.

Check out Making of the Nation: America at 250.

My favorite part of it are one-minute accessible displays about national parts.  The provide audio support for the text, unlike most of the other resources on the site.

I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Helping Teach About The 250th Anniversary Of The American Revolution.

As the image above says, I’ll be co-hosting a short webinar with some great people on June 1st (if you, like me, did not know what ELPS means, it’s “English Language Proficiency Standards”).

You can register -for free – here.

We’ll be talking with Allison Hand, who has co-authored a very unique book for teachers – one unlike any other I’ve ever seen.  Here’s an image of the inside:

I’m really interested in hearing from Allison how teachers of ELLs can use this book for planning.

And, for a half hour after the webinar is over, we’re all going to hang around to talk about anything ELL-related participants want to talk about!

If you can’t actually make the live webinar, sign-up anyway and you’ll get a link to the recorded version.

See you on the 1st!

Here are some recent useful posts and articles on educational policy issues (You might also be interested in seeing all my “Best” lists related to education policy here):

Reading gains in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana are often touted, but don’t show full picture of literacy is from The Conversation.

Nice overview of the challenges of moving the student loan & financial aid operations from the Ed Dept to Treasury. Quick point that staff have little experience with account rehabilitation, resolving defaults/delinquencies, & ‘They were in the business of very intense, hardcore collections.’

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— W. Carson Byrd (@wcbyrdphd.bsky.social) April 28, 2026 at 3:19 AM

I’m adding this post to The Best Resources For Learning About Homework Issues:

Should schools get rid of homework? Some educators are saying yes www.npr.org/2026/04/28/n…

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) April 28, 2026 at 3:43 AM

Sen. @ChrisMurphyCT: You resolved not a single case in Connecticut in 2025. Not a single child got a positive resolution from their discrimination claims, 70 of them had disability claims. How do you defend that? You fired half the department.

Linda McMahon: That is hindsight… pic.twitter.com/JblAdcPNlM

— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) April 28, 2026

Linda McMahon punches back at senators questioning Education Department cuts is from NPR.

As school choice expands in Iowa, one district is in a crisis from losing students is from NPR.

BALDWIN: Why are you sending programs that support elementary schools & elementary school students to the Dept of Labor?

LINDA McMAHON: Education should provide an opportunity for children once they have finished their education to enter the workforce

B: We’re talking about elementary students

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 28, 2026 at 7:35 AM

School vouchers have always been about wealth transfer (in the wrong direction) not “expanding opportunity.”

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— Marcus Luther (@marcusluther.bsky.social) April 29, 2026 at 5:18 AM

In Backlash Against Tech in Schools, Parents Are Winning Rollbacks www.nytimes.com/2026/04/29/t… gift link

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) April 29, 2026 at 2:26 AM

Anonymous tip system started in wake of Sandy Hook shooting has fielded nearly 400,000 reports
apnews.com/article/scho…

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) April 29, 2026 at 2:38 AM

Nice overview of the challenges of moving the student loan & financial aid operations from the Ed Dept to Treasury. Quick point that staff have little experience with account rehabilitation, resolving defaults/delinquencies, & ‘They were in the business of very intense, hardcore collections.’

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— W. Carson Byrd (@wcbyrdphd.bsky.social) April 28, 2026 at 3:19 AM

Yazzie/Martinez plaintiffs ask to rewrite New Mexico education reform plan themselveshttps://t.co/pqHHCchwuI

— Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) April 29, 2026

They Left for the School Bus. ICE Picked Them Up Instead. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/29/u…

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) April 30, 2026 at 9:55 AM

Two High Schoolers in Mississippi Are Released After Being Detained by ICE www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/u…

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) April 30, 2026 at 1:54 PM

And if u disagree with Morgan, which ai don’t, the last people you should be listening to are Arne Duncan and Rahm Emmanuel

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) May 1, 2026 at 8:54 AM

Four states have recently passed legislation to limit teaching and assessments via screens for students. So has the United States’ second-largest school district. n.pr/4n99vMG

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— NPR (@npr.org) May 1, 2026 at 7:18 AM

Some folks are genuinely clueless https://t.co/v4lLhIjVPJ

— Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) May 1, 2026

Sigh———In a Minneapolis Public School, a Cure for Toxic Politics www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/o… gift link

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) May 3, 2026 at 3:35 AM

The New Schoolyard Fight: Shrinking Enrollments and Too Many Classrooms www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/n…

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) May 3, 2026 at 3:52 AM

I’m adding this post to The Best Resources For Learning Why School Vouchers Are A Bad Idea:

Most Voucher Students Never Attended Public School. So What?
open.substack.com/pub/curmudgu…

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— Peter Greene (@palan57.bsky.social) May 3, 2026 at 5:21 PM

From the Star Wars site:

“May the 4th be with you.” What started as pun warmly shared by fans has become a full-fledged Star Wars holiday: Star Wars Day, a special once-a-year celebration of the galaxy far, far away.

Here are five related resources:

First, awhile back I wrote a column for Education Week headlined What ‘Star Wars’ Can Teach Educators About Parent Engagement.

Secondly, here’s a video included in The Best TV/Movie Scenes Demonstrating A “Growth Mindset”:

Thirdly, Latest ‘Star Wars’ Teaches The Value Of Failure is from NPR.

Fourth, from Edutopia: A Star Wars Day Activity That Lasts All Week

Lastly, here is a Twitter thread I did last year when I had too much time on my hands:

Here is how Chat GPT sees The Mandalorian’s classroom management style…. pic.twitter.com/ch9VrRlhW1

— Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) March 4, 2023

ChatGPT, how would Boba Fett handle classroom management as a high school teacher? pic.twitter.com/qBIuuT7HtQ

— Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) March 4, 2023

And, finally, ChatGPT, tell us how Darth Vader would handle classroom management if he was a high school teacher? pic.twitter.com/tQaep6PLoB

— Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) March 4, 2023

BONUS: Create your own “Star Wars Crawl” here.

geralt / Pixabay

I thought readers might, or might not, find this new regular post useful.

Each week, I highlight several sentences, with links to their sources, that I find interesting/concerning/useful.  And they may, or may not, be directly connected to education.  I may also include my own comments or related links.

This regular post will join my other regular ones on teaching ELLs, education policy, Artificial Intelligence, infographics, and Pinterest highlights, not to mention sharing of my regular Education Week posts.

Here are this week’s sentences:

Reading is hard to teach, hard to sustain and not connected to any one policy shift.

“The interesting issue for folks to consider is not should there be more homework, but should there be better homework,” Epstein said.

Some families recently delivered to Mayor Zohran Mamdani a petition with thousands of signatures calling for a two-year moratorium on generative A.I., such as chatbots.

What I’ve learned, across every one of these close calls and near misses, is that what keeps us safe isn’t the stuff we pack or stockpile; it’s the community we build before calamity strikes.

Each time we focus on learning from failure instead of being consumed by it, we rewire our brains, building pathways that make thoughtful responses more natural than automatic reactions.

We understand the risks there, and I think that we have to understand the same risks when we talk about media and devices that aren’t inherently bad, it’s just that they need to be used in a way that’s appropriate for the person using them.

Students need explicit instruction in how algorithms shape what they see, how online communities can normalize dehumanization, and how emotions like shame, envy, and humiliation are often being deliberately activated and exploited.

“They are using generative A.I. to write before they learn how to write. They are reading ChatGPT summaries of a book before they have ever read a book,” he said. 

Fantasies of violence against political enemies are, in fact, a defining feature of Trump’s political language.

“In the end, the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.” — George Orwell, “1984” https://t.co/8yFPDag2SW

— Niall Stanage (@NiallStanage) April 23, 2026

How come they never start in 1500 https://t.co/K0YmYvuBFu

— Future Thug (@aswangfan) April 23, 2026

El Papa cuando le preguntan su postura sobre la migración: “Yo cambiaría la pregunta: qué hace el norte global para ayudar al sur global en su situación que les obliga a migrar” pic.twitter.com/kloyVAlmUy

— perrito barista (@Carlitospindola) April 23, 2026

“Oh do you think he was referring to you”

BRILLIANT pic.twitter.com/47TtMsiGmX

— Chris Meloni (@Chris_Meloni) April 27, 2026

Imagine calling Renee Good and Alex Pretti “domestic terrorists” and calling immigrants “animals” then turning around and telling people they need to “tone down their rhetoric.”

— Rev. Benjamin Cremer (@Brcremer) April 27, 2026

The “reactionary colorblindess” of the right-wing justices has reached its logical conclusion in finding that it is racist NOT to let Louisiana—and any other state for that matter—discriminate on the basis of race in voting. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0…

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— Adam Serwer (@adamserwer.bsky.social) April 29, 2026 at 3:15 PM

I've thought for a while that the educational risk isn't about daily writing instruction but killing the very possibility of assigning real out-of-classroom projects.

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— Michael Pershan (@mpershan.bsky.social) April 30, 2026 at 9:46 AM

Elf-Moondance / Pixabay

As regular readers of this blog know (see How I’m Spending My Time Now That I’m Retired From Classroom Teaching), in addition to writing and playing Pickleball, I’ve been working as a volunteer tutor at our county’s Juvenile Facility, as well as being a volunteer tutor at an elementary school working with ELL Newcomers.

I thought readers might, or might not, be interested in hearing about my work at the county.

First, I need to say that I’m quite impressed with the facility itself and the quality and attitude of the officers working there.  A sense of caring for the youth is pretty obvious.

My time there is divided in half.  I spend the first hour each day working in the “pod” containing the younger youth who are working online to complete high school classes.  They primarily work on an asynchronous program which I suspect is as good and as bad as all online asynchronous programs are.  There is a teacher supervising them in the facility, and I have been impressed that they receive narrative feedback on their work from the online program relatively quickly, though I don’t know if it’s all AI-driven (I suspect it might be AI and then human-edited).  There is also off-line work available, though it seems like most of the youth prefer working on the computer.

While there, I’ll sit next to one and help them for awhile before switching to another youth.  Our conversations are sometimes about the academic work, sometimes about their lives and interests.  There are very few youth in my teaching career that I haven’t been able to develop some kind of a connection with, and that skill has served me well here.

Next, I move to the older youth.  When they have access to computers, I’m able to help them with online community college classes.  When they don’t have computer access, I’ve purchased books of their choice for them (approved by Facility staff) and we read and discuss a chapter from the book each week.  I’ve encouraged some of them to write about their lives, and that seems to have inspired a couple to start.

I’ve been pretty impressed with the titles they’ve selected: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho; The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz, Mastery by Robert Greene,  The Miracle Of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh, The Psychology Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained are a few of them.

It doesn’t take me very long to read a chapter from each one during the week and come up with some questions.  At one point, I tried asking ChatGPT to develop discussion questions, and they were absolutely terrible!

Our discussions seem to go well – the youth seem to get something out of them, and I enjoy the time.

Every other month, I come in during their PE time and we have three-point and free-throw shooting contests (I’m not allowed to actually play a basketball game).  Just like when I was teaching, interacting with students outside of a classroom setting does wonders to solidify relationships.  Playing ball here is like going to see a high school student at my old school playing in a game or acting in a play.

Hopefully, my presence helps a bit….

12019 / Pixabay

Teacher Appreciation Week on May 4th-8th in the United States this year.

You might be interested in The Best Resources To Learn About World Teachers Day

MarkThomas / Pixabay

The US Supreme Court issued a ruling this past week gutting the Voting Rights Act.

Here are some resources for teaching about it (you might also be interested in The Best Sites To Learn About The U.S. Supreme Court and  USEFUL RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ABOUT THE REPEAL OF ROE :

Supreme Court decision weakens the Voting Rights Act is a lesson plan from PBS.

What to know about the Voting Rights Act after historic Supreme Court decision is from The Hill.

Here are two slightly older lesson that can be modified: A Documents-Based Lesson on the Voting Rights Act and Lesson Plan: Voting Rights, Then and Now

I had no idea about the important history they describe in this piece——Who Will Stand Up to the Supreme Court Justices? www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o… gift link

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) May 2, 2026 at 10:43 AM

Facing History’s The Reconstruction Era 3-Week Unit is also applicable, as are resources from The Zinn Education Project.

Eight years ago I began this regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that have caught my attention.

You might also be interested in all my Best lists on teaching ELLs.

Also, check out A Collection Of My Best Resources On Teaching English Language Learners.

In addition, look for our latest book on teaching ELLs, The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox 2.0.

Here are this week’s choices:

I’m adding this tweet to The Best Posts On Looking At Our Students Through The Lens Of Assets & Not Deficits:

In this diagram, I aim to illustrate the fundamental difference between deficit-based thinking and asset-based thinking. pic.twitter.com/jHjTna4pF0

— Ching-Ching Lin, Ed.D (林菁菁） (@ChingChingLin2) October 2, 2025

Transforming ESL Writing Fear Through Autobiography is from LRNGO.

I’m adding this video to The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons:

Check out a recent issue of my favorite language-teaching periodical, Humanising Language Teaching.

ELL students could watch this video and then talk/write about what they saw:

How to make listening actually drive acquisition: Ten staples of Listening as Modelling is from the Language Gym.

Scaffolding Text with AI: Sample Prompts is from Colorin Colorado. I’m adding it to THE BEST STRATEGIES FOR “ENGINEERING” TEXT SO THAT IT’S MORE ACCESSIBLE TO ELLS.

Five Instructional Strategies for Supporting English-Language Learners is from TechNotes.

11 surprising Truths About Grammar Acquisition — and How Long It Really Takes to Master It! is from The Language Gym.

I’m adding this video to The Best Resources For Using “If This Animal Or Image Could Talk” Lesson Idea In Class:

Cockatoo tells his dog friend about his day.. 😅 pic.twitter.com/SkNOM902O4

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) October 5, 2025

12 (Nearly) Useless Things Language Teachers Do When Teaching Grammar is from The Language Gym. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Grammar Practice.

10+1 Reasons Why you Should Read How to Write Mediation Activities is from HLT Magazine.

Here’s another video for ELLs to watch and talk/write about:

10 + 1 Halloween Songs: An Update is from On The Same Page. I’m adding it to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween.

3 Simple Formative Assessment Techniques You Can Use in Your Next Song Lesson is from The Song Activity Factory.

For a long time, some researchers claimed that teachers improved in their first few years, but then stopped.

Ridiculous, I know, but if I had a dollar for every time I heard that nonsense, I’d be a very rich man.

It’s been debunked in recent years (see Statistic Of The Day: “For Teachers, Experience Really Does Matter”).

And a new study has stabbed that theory in the heart even further.

You can read the study, Think Again: Do the returns to teacher experience fizzle out?, co-authored by Linda Darling-Hammond.

And you can check out a summary at The 74 – Yes, Teachers Keep Improving with Time.

I’m adding this info to The Best Articles For Helping To Understand Both Why Teacher Tenure Is Important & The Reasons Behind Seniority-Based Layoffs.

GDJ / Pixabay

Cinco de Mayo, May 5th, commemorates the defeat of the French by the Mexican Army in 1862. It’s a holiday in some parts of Mexico, and is celebrated by Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans in the United States.

You might be interested in The Best Sites For Teaching & Learning About Cinco de Mayo.

Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here.

You can also see all my “Best” lists on instructional strategies here.

Here are this week’s picks:

Meaningful feedback is by Jo Castelino. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning How To Best Give Feedback To Students.

How and Why to Use Concept Maps is from Cult of Pedagogy.

What a great idea! Teachers can approach local museums and suggest it——-One Way to Shake Up Museum Curation? Hand the Keys to the Kids. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/a…

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 6:29 AM

The poverty of Explicit Instruction is from The Education Contrarian.

Copier is broken

Internet is down

Cockroach in classroom

Textbook publisher training

Assembly schedule today https://t.co/At28340Iyv

— Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) October 15, 2025

What it’s all about. 💜🥹

Prof. Joel Mokyr, winner of the @NobelPrize in Economic Sciences, shares a lovely message from a former student. pic.twitter.com/yXB3Btn2tz

— Northwestern (@NorthwesternU) October 14, 2025

Visual, engaging and evidence-informed, our posters make complex teaching strategies easy to implement in your classroom. https://t.co/N00xGDRLLZ pic.twitter.com/5uzon5OBPd

— InnerDrive (@Inner_Drive) October 16, 2025

Mohamed_hassan / Pixabay

I agree with calls to reduce screentime in class for students and, if I was still in the classroom, I would have done so already (see Was This The Biggest Teaching Mistake I Made This Year?).

But, as I said in this BlueSky post, an overlooked issue in this discussion is that reducing student screentime will result in more work for teachers:

I think tons of teachers don’t think the tech is the greatest for student learning, either. But it also can save them A LOT of time – no making copies, much easier to grade. Assuming that a transition off of tech happens, it would be nice if some concessions to that were made….1/2

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) April 29, 2026 at 7:12 AM

I never had students spend much time on laptops in my ELL classes, though pushed them to use it in their homes (see The Role Of Tech IN My ELL Classroom? Not Much, But That’s Not The Whole Story).

And, since my ELL classes were pretty small, it was easy to handle grading and I was able to print-out any needed paper copies off my printer.

Three periods of over 30 students each in my IB Theory of Knowledge classes were a different story. If I was teaching this year, I’m pretty sure that making copies and hand-grading would have added at least five-to-eight hours each week to my workload. I could have handled that since my kids are grown and I don’t have a life, but that’s a pretty big “ask” for most teachers.

And please don’t quote that BS statistic about how Artificial Intelligence is saving teachers 5.9 hours each week. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge I want to sell you.

It would be nice if this campaign against screentime didn’t become just another in the endless efforts to squeeze blood out of a rock (the rock being teachers).

Some ways schools could mitigate this problem could be:

* Providing teachers with high-quality fast printers so they can print out class materials instead of having to wait in the teacher copier room and hope the machines don’t break down.

* Create district or school-wide grading policies “codifying” that teachers should not actually grade every assignment, so that individual teachers don’t get pushback if they don’t.

* Bring back student teaching assistants (TA’s) if you work in a district like ours that banned their use. TA’s can help make copies.

* Create a school program like ours did for several years where TA’s worked in the school office and teachers could submit materials for copying. They would then deliver them the following day.

I’m all for schools making changes to benefit students.  But those changes don’t have to hurt teachers, too.

ADDENDUM: Several states — and the LA public schools — are setting limits on screen time is from NPR

I’ve begun this weekly post where I’ll be sharing resources I’m adding to The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources or other related “Best” lists.

Also, check out “Best” Lists Of The Week: Social Emotional Learning Resources.

Here are this week’s picks:

Building and Sustaining a Sense of Belonging During the Transition to High School is from Stanford. I’m adding it to THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING HOW TO PROMOTE A SENSE OF “BELONGING” AT SCHOOL.

I’m adding this video to The Best Posts, Articles & Videos About Learning From Mistakes & Failures:

The 4 Seasons Organizations Go Through—and How to Lead in Each is from The Harvard Business Review, and I think is worth administrators and superintendents reading, and even teachers when thinking about their classrooms. I’m adding it to A BEGINNING LIST OF THE BEST RESOURCES ON LEARNING ABOUT LEADERSHIP – SHARE YOUR OWN.

2 things you can do to make experiences less painful, according to experts is from The Washington Post. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A “Growth Mindset.”

Mohamed_hassan / Pixabay

I often write about research studies from various fields and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that it’s hard to keep up. So I’ve started writing a “round-up” of some of them each week or every other week as a regular feature.

You can see all my “Best” lists related to education research here.

Here are some new useful studies (and related resources):

Research Bite #41: Secondary School Mathematics Teachers’ Accuracy at Predicting Student Errors is from Tips For Teachers.

The more girls in a class, the merrier.

Data on 87k students: In cohorts with more girls, boys and girls have better mental health. More female peers predicts closer friendships for boys—and better body image & STEM grades for girls.

Girls build cultures of competence and care. pic.twitter.com/mNmlMnsZOM

— Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant) October 14, 2025

“Send Them Home?” Rethinking What Public Education Owes to Flourishing Children

“These findings suggest that COVID-19 may have created a new year-round baseline for work absences that is similar to influenza season conditions before the pandemic”

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam…

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— Maxwell Smith, PhD (@maxwellsmith.bsky.social) October 14, 2025 at 6:04 AM

I’m adding this info to The Best Resources On Student Absenteeism:

Really useful piece from AEI on how we can use existing data to create early warning systems for chronic absenteeism www.aei.org/research-pro…

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— Morgan Polikoff (@mpolikoff.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 9:27 AM

4 tchers who want “1-stop” site 2 review what strategies work/don’t work,which r best sites? Some go 2 Hattie, tho I know there r ?’s about meta-analyses.I’ve liked Ed Endowment Found educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-ev… @carajackson.bsky.social @paul-bruno.com @mpolikoff.bsky.social

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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 9:39 AM

Practice-Based Teacher Education Pedagogies Improve Responsiveness: Evidence from a Lab Experiment is a paper I’m adding to The Best Resources On Professional Development For Teachers — Help Me Find More.

Kids’ Social Media Use Linked to Lower Reading and Memory Scores, Study Suggests is from Ed Week.

Prawny / Pixabay

Here’s my regular round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted this month (you can see all 2,578 of them categorized here – you might also want to check out THREE ACCESSIBLE WAYS TO SEARCH FOR & FIND MY “BEST” LISTS).

Here are the lists from this month:

The Best Resources Highlighting What English Language Learner Students Want From Their Teachers

The Best Resources For Using The “Spot The Difference” Strategy With English Language Learners

The Best Resources For Helping Students Understand The Impact Their Behavior Has On Classmates

Instructing multilingual learners effectively requires a balancing act from teachers.

Here are some excerpts:

Last August, I published Google Unveils Two Language Tools – One Can Be Very Helpful, The Other Not So Much.

In it, I first shared about the Google Translate “Live Translate” feature, which is an incredibly useful simultaneous translation ability.

The second new feature was a “Practice” tool using AI to teach any language of your choice. That was okay but, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why they didn’t include assessing your pronunciation.

Well, the finally added that ability today.

You can read about it at Tech Crunch’s post, Google Translate now lets you practice pronunciation, and at Google’s tweet below:

Celebrating 20 years of Google Translate and… the launch of a top-requested feature! 🎂

One of the toughest things about speaking a new language is getting the nuances of pronunciation just right. Now, you can get instant feedback with “pronunciation practice,” which uses AI… pic.twitter.com/DdMfiMB9dz

— Nick Fox (@thefox) April 28, 2026

It didn’t work for me exactly like Google’s video shows. I had to click on the sound icon next to the phrase in the language I was translating the words into, and then a “Say It” bubble appeared (as in the photo at the top if this post).  Then I said it, and received this feedback:

This is a huge win for English Language Learners.  For now, at least, a site like Speakable works better for the classroom since you can assign pronunciation and get student feedback.  I’d bet dollars to donuts that kind of set-up will eventually be available in Google Classroom.

For now, it’s a great tool for the most motivated students who want to practice on their own.

I’m adding this info to THE BEST SITES FOR ONLINE PRONUNCIATION FEEDBACK – DO YOU KNOW OTHERS? and The Most Useful Free Or VERY Low Cost AI Tools For Supporting English Language Learners.

I regularly highlight my picks for the most useful posts for each month — not including “The Best…” lists. I also use some of them in a more extensive monthly newsletter I send-out. You can see older Best Posts of the Month at Websites Of The Month (more recent lists can be found here).

You can also see my all-time favorites here. I’ve also been doing “A Look Back” series reviewing old favorites, too.

Here are some of the posts I personally think are the best, and most helpful, ones I’ve written during this past month (not in any order of preference) – also note that I group many updates on the Trump administration’s current attack on education and democracy in weekly posts you can find here):

What Do You Think Of These Two Questions For Helping Guide School AI Use?

The Advantages Of Not Having A Zero-Sum Mindset

Here’s A List Of “Interactive Teaching Methods” A New Study Has Found Effective In Social Studies Classes

This Is Pretty Interesting: Meta-Analyses Ranking Instructional Math Strategies

Every ELL Teacher In The U.S. Will Want To Read These Results From An Ed Week Survey On Teaching English Learners

Infographic On ELLs In California – Here’s The Prompt I Used If You Want To Create One For Your Own State

I Really Like This Game Called “Ripple” Where You Have To Connect Historical Events With Their Consequences

This Idea Of Beginning Lessons With A “Micro-Inquiry” Is A Good One, & I Like This Free AI Tool Designed To Create Them

Yet Another Study Finds This Program Is Successful For Ninth-Graders – I’m Not Really Sure Why Most Schools Don’t Implement It

How Did I Not Know That The PBS NewsHour Publishes A “Daily News Lesson” …Daily?

New Study Finds That Peer & Self Assessment Helps Create The Conditions For Student Motivation

Researchers Suggest That New AI Text Detectors Work

Big New Analysis Of What Works In Reading Instruction For Older Readers – Here’s What It Says

“The Claim Auditor” Uses AI To Verify…Claims That People Say Are Research-Based

U.S. Dept. Of Ed Announces It Plans To Shut Down Its Office Supporting English Language Learners

If You’ve Wondered How Many New Words To Teach In One Lesson (& What ELL Teacher Hasn’t?), Then You Want To Read This!

New Study Confirms What Most Teachers Know – Having A Sense Of Humor Helps Big-Time In The Classroom

Even MORE Research Finding That Reclassifying ELLs Isn’t The Preferred Goal That It’s Cracked Up To Be

This Is A VERY Interesting & Useful Study On The Use Of Collaborative Writing In An ELL Classroom AND I Think It’s Findings Can Be Applicable With English-Proficient Students, Too

“What If History” Is A Fun AI Tool & Also Makes Me Feel Sad About What AI Has Done To Classrooms

“What Drains Teachers’ Energy and How to Stop It? ‘It Was Never the Kids’”

“A Little Shift in Teaching Can Go a Long Way in the Classroom”

“Many Teachers Have Novels Living Inside. Here’s How to Write Them”

“An Iranian American Educator Speaks From a Broken Heart”

I’ve begun this weekly post where I’ll be sharing resources I’m adding to The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources or other related “Best” lists.

Also, check out “Best” Lists Of The Week: Social Emotional Learning Resources.

Here are this week’s picks:

I’m adding this video to THE BEST RESOURCES FOR HELPING STUDENTS – & US – DEVELOP GOOD HABITS:

How to Be a Great Coach—Even When You’re Busy is from The Harvard Business Review. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On “Instructional Coaching”

4 Ways to Use the Fresh Start Effect to Motivate Students is from Edutopia. I’m adding it to Best Posts On “Motivating” Students.

Why the strongest academic gains start with student mindset is from District Administration.

The Impact Of SEL On Academic and Social Development