Podcasts

Related to podcasts, we selected "ELTpodcast" which we found interesting as, besides the podcast listening itself, the correspondent transcripitons are also avaIlable, for instance, ELT Podcast - Basic Conversations for EFL and ESL. We would like to note that BBC podcasts unfortunately are not available outside the UK.

Webquests

Afer going through several websites dealing with webquests, we noticed, for instance that WebquestUK provides rather useful links related to the subject students are invited to work on. This website offers relevant explanations on how to create and develop a webquest.
Another website which called our attention was "Women of the Century". The website structure was very well organized with clear instructions with all steps and resources easily available. This feature makes it easy both for teachers and students to reach their goals.

Resources by skills

On what concerns eleventh session,  we explored the BBC Education website and we realized there are great materials on it to use in the classroom. Among these, we selected a group of activities based on an online soap opera and we chose a worksheet on missing phrases which the students were supposed to fill in with the suitable sentences and then listen to the episode to check their work. We are sure this kind of tasks is extremely useful and enjoyable for students.
As for reading skills, we chose in All Books Free a e-book about animals where students have the opportunity of listening as they are reading the text. This way, they can explore vocabulary related to the theme.

Encyclopediae

On Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, on Civil Rights Movement and The Suffragettes, we came across their definition, history and origins. We found it interesting the fact that there are links somehow related to these subjects.
On Wikipedia, we came to the conclusion that both on Civil Rights Movement and The Suffraggettes, these subjects are approached on the same way as on Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.
Finally, Encyclopedia-Online Dictionary, both on Civil Rights Movement and The Suffragettes, comparing with the two previous encyclopedias, presents the same tools and similar general characteristics, however with more detailed texts on these subjects.

Meeting Points

Dave's ESL Café is free and it doesn't require any subscripition. The activities available for students are a bit boring and repetitive.
For teachers, it has a link "Idea Cookbook" which turned out to be the only interesting thing, presenting teaching ideas.
edHelper.com is not free and it requires subscription. We tried to do a word search and we found out that it requires subscription. As a result, we weren't able to fully explore this website.
edna.edu.au is free and it requires no subscription. It's a kind of directory as it leads us to other links where we can get various information. As an information source, we consider it rather useful to do school projects, although it doesn't offer any pratical exercises.
Education world is free and it doesn't require any subscription. It gives us the possibility of doing interactive activities and these are printable. These activities are extremely varied, for instance  "the coloring calendar" which we tried to do.
enchanted learning.com requires subscription. However, some activities we went through are printable.

Mass Media Hands-on

After analysing the news on the royal wedding in Britain, we came to the conclusion that the american newspapers (Newsweek and NPR) have the news shown on the homepage. Both have a critical approach on this topic without giving it much importance, while the British BBC and The Times deal with this matter in a more serious way, giving much more details about the ceremony. With the exception of The Times, they don't focus much on relevant pictures although all of them are different and so are their captions. None of the four newspapers make use of direct speech and the stories have different lenghts and so are their beginnings. The facts reported on the homepages are not the same as they emphasize diffrerent aspects of the news.

Oxford University Press

After analysing Oxford University Press, we came to the conclusion that it's free even though it requires a free registration to use some resources. Other resources are available even without any registration, for example "Natural Grammar Online". It provides grammar, listening and writing exercises, including the final score on each of them. It's possible to use this website with students as we found it rather apealling and motivating for them.