Let’s share! – Post 1
There are many apps and websites that support us in offering an engaging learning experience for our students. We use these tools for different purposes such as creating collobarative platforms, preparing interactive presentations and videos, giving online tutorials, testing comprehension, creating mindmaps and posters and so on.
It’s quite normal that we may not be familiar with all of them or we may be using them in different ways with different purposes. So, why don’t we share our ideas and experiences to learn from each other?
With this in mind, each week we will be posting different apps or websites with a specific focus and invite you to share your ideas with each other.
This week our focus is collaborative platforms. Below you can find our favorite ones.
| Collaborative platforms |
| Padlet: https://padlet.com/
It’s an interactive bulletin board where our students can work collaboratively to create boards. It can be used for different purposes. For instance, we can ask students to do some research about the topic of the reading text and post their findings on the wall before the lesson and/or we can ask them to react to the text and post their paragraphs as a post activity. Students can post links, videos, documents, and pictures. Flipgrid: https://info.flipgrid.com/ We can create grids, which act as communities for students to work in. Within each grid we can ask discussion questions and students can post video responses to the prompts and/or comment on each other’s videos. For instance, at the end of each week, we can post a prompt about the theme of the week to create the opportunity to review the content and the language items. Nowcomment: https://nowcomment.com/ We can use this website to conduct engaging discussions of online documents no matter how large our class. We can use it for different purposes. For instance, it can be used to activate students’ schemata by uploading some photos or short texts about the unit and ask students to comment on them. Kapwing: https://www.kapwing.com/ It is a collaborative platform for creating images, videos, and GIFs. We can use this website for post activities where we want our students to use the content and the language in an engaging and creative way. Etherpad: https://etherpad.org/ This website allows students and teachers to edit documents collaboratively in real-time. We can use it in our writing lessons so that students can give peer feedback.
Now, it’s your turn 🙂 It would be great to hear from you. What are your favorite tools and how do you use them with your students? Please leave a reply below. |
MoocNote: https://www.moocnote.com
By this website, users can exploit Youtube videos thoroughly. They can take notes onto the videos while streaming. Also, they can get screen captures, and grab texts from videos for educational purposes.
Dear Elmas,
thank you for sharing this resource. I hadn’t heard about it before and gave it a try once I saw it from your comment. It is easy to use and could be used with different purposes depending on the need of our students.
Thanks again 🙂
I like using google docs, google forms and google sheets to design lessons, share instructions, practice writing (individual+ collaborative), ask learners to provide oral feedback on google docs through an add-on (Kaizena) which allows an up-to 60 seconds of feedback, peer feedback, share ideas and opinions. On the other hand, I use google forms to practice, revise vocabulary and grammar objectives as it allows for creating different types of questions ranging from open-ended to multiple-choice. The answers (particularly open-ended) provided by learners can be used for writing feedback or error correction activities. I love google docs as it allows for millions of possibilities to try out both on the side of learners and teachers.
Asto brainstorming and outlining tools, MIRO is a great collaborative tool (https://miro.com/app/). It can be integrated into MICROSOFT TEAMS and be used synchronously/asychrnously on that platofrm.
Another tool I have practiced using is LINOIT, which is a great branstorming and content-sharing tool before speaking/ writing tasks (www.linoit.com).
VOCAROO is also a good tool for practicing speaking as it permits the user to share the audio file immediately through multiple means such as whatsapp and microsoft teams. However, microsoft teams allows users to integrate mindmapping tools to its interface,so the learners and teacher have simultaneous access to the document created and can see activity on the spot.
For practicing reading, I strongly recommend ACTIVELY LEARN (https://www.activelylearn.com/) which serves as an open-source platform which contains videos, reading texts (articles). It is possible to create a class and assign homework to learners. It is also possible to create your own content or use ready-made content to practice reading, vocabulary or listening skills.
In addition, rewordify (KUDOS to Tuğba)/ LINGRO (www.lingro.com) are two other tools I advised students to make use of (They have used it mostly for simplifying instructions:) or difficult reading texts online). It allows you to save the words (both simplified and complex) when you open an account, which then makes it easy to have access to your saved items.
For listening, I strongly recommend VOICETUBE (which is available as an app and website) for listening practice as it is possible to save words, have access to the audioscript, adjust speed, transfer the saved words to your quizlet account (after bridging your voicetube to quizlet). It is perfect for listening and vocab practice, and is filled with enough content adjusted according to levels.
There is also another great Google Chrome extension called ”Learning English with Netflix” on google webstore. After integrating it into your web browser, you will be able to click on the unknown words to see their definitions (in English) while watching your favourite series. With the paid option, you can save those words and have your personal vocabulary list.
For creating cloze tests, there is a very practical tool I benefit from: http://l.georges.online.fr/tools/cloze.html.
There is also a great visual dictionary which shows the connections and parts of speech of words on the spot in a web-like environment: VISUWORDS (https://visuwords.com).
Another excellent dictionary is SKELL which is the best collocation and chunk dictionary I have ever encountered (https://skell.sketchengine.co.uk/run.cgi/skell).
FRAZE.IT is also a great dictionary which allows learners to see the pronunciation (in videos), word-related images, translation of words etc
For organizing content:
POCKET is a free service that makes it easy to discover great content that’s personalized to your interests, and save this content so you can return to it later – on any device, at any time
ADOBE SPARK is a great tool to create visual content (videos, infographics, instagram posts) and motivate learners to create their own posters or projects there. Speaking of posters and infographics, CANVA is another invaluable tool that I benefited from to introduce a writing content/ vocabulary etc.It can be used by learners to create their own learning materials (grammar subjects, vocab maps, text-maps etc)
Last but not least, answergarden is a great brainstorming, assessment tool which allows you to have wordclouds based on the input provided by learners. These wordclouds can then be used to revise topic, grammar, vocab or even practice writing. (https://answergarden.ch/)
Thank you very much Ozan for sharing these useful tools. I liked all of them but linoit the most 🙂 I also use answergarden in my classes. As you mentioned, it’s a great collborative platform that can be used for different purposes. I will try the ones that I have’t used before with my students in the project classes. Once again thanks for sharing 🙂
Very good insight in this topic. https://clariti.app/