CTAP Region 3

Larry Ferlazzo has had tremendous success utilizing technology to teach his English Language Learners at Luther Burbank High in south Sacramento.  His students are involved with the International Sister Project, which connects teenage ESL/EFL classes in fifteen countries. They share audio slideshows, generally using Voice Thread (thought not exclusively) on Student Showcase blog.  Students can also leave comments for one another about the projects they view from other students.  

Luther Burbank High hosts the largest population of ELL students in Sacramento.  Larry has developed a website for his students to access quite a variety of links to audio stories, online lessons in most subject areas, and quite a few sites with free multimedia creation tools.  Besides utilizing free ELL life skill lessons for his students, such as USA Learns, developed by the Sacramento County Office of Education, he has written a grant for the families and community to access the same activities.  The program entitled the Family Literacy Project, has enabled more than 40 families at Burbank (as well as other programs) to check out computers each year and provide Internet connectivity.  Parents and family members must commit to spending an hour each day working on lessons together to help with their acquisition of English.  Families keep a journal of their activities.  Pre and post tests in preliminary studies concluded with the assistance of technology, parents along with their students, showed great improvement than those who did not have home access.  Partnering with the Sacramento Mutual Housing Association (SMHA), Larry Ferlazzo's program expanded to housing developments, in which computer stations are set up for residents to access the same learning sites as his students and their families.  This fall, Larry and his students will be creating videos using flip video cameras, which were supplied by SMHA for all his efforts in helping them create the community learning labs.

Larry Ferlazzo's website was named TechLearning's School Site of the Week in 2006. He also has received many accolades for his integration of technology with English Language Learners. Larry was the grand prize winner of the 2007 International Reading Association Presidential Award for Reading and Technology and Technology Horizons in Education Journal  (T.H.E. Journal) 2006 Innovator.  Not only is he an accomplished author of two books, he continues to write articles for online publications and maintains an educational blog to help build the community of learners for educators.  When visiting his web site, be prepared to spend hours perusing the thousands of invaluable links made available for students, their families and teachers alike.