10 Free Apps to Enhance your Students' Learning

In this post I'd like to take a quick look back at ten of the most popular posts I wrote from last month. These posts cover a host of free apps, games and resources sites that you can use to create engaging digital learning for your students.

Create Vocabulary Activities from Authentic Text in Minutes

WordBooster is a real time saver for anyone creating courses using authentic materials.

 The site generates word lists and vocabulary quizzes from authentic texts and includes definitions of the words and a range of activities to help students understand and remember the word.

http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/create-vocabulary-activities-from.html

Get Teens Writing with Gamified Writing Activities

Story Wars is a great gamified way to make writing creative and competitive.

Students read short chapters of the beginnings of stories and then have to submit the next chapter for the story.

http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/get-teens-writing-with-gamified-writing.html

Give Young Learners Structured Writing Practice with WritingSparks

WritingSparks is a great site for giving structure and adding an element of fun to writing activities, especially if you have a data projector so that students can see the prompts on the screen.

http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/give-young-learners-structured-writing.html

Create Texting Fiction to Keep Your Teens Engaged

Texting fiction is a new emergent genre of fiction writing that is becoming very popular among teens and I have to say when I started reading a few of these creations I can see why.

Basically the narrative is structured as a phone based text conversation and can include images and videos as well as text and audio message

http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/create-texting-fiction-to-keep-your.html

6 Useful Resources for Exploiting the News in the English Language Classroom

In this article I'm sharing a collection of resources that you can use with your students to help them understand news stories in English.

http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/6-useful-resources-for-exploiting-news.html

Create Animated Speaking Activities with Toontastic

Toontastic provides the kind of activity that could be used to get younger students speaking and it gives them the opportunity to play out different roles and to listen and reflect on their own speaking before they save and share.

http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/create-animated-speaking-activities.html

Build Your 3D Virtual Reality Classroom Today

This is a great tool for running online group classes or social events for online students.

There is also now the capability to build course materials and launch commercial courses through: . You can also take free courses that can help you use the platform.

http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/build-your-3d-virtual-reality-classroom.html

Using Computer Games to Raise Awareness of Global Issues

In this post I'd like to introduce a few games that you can use with students as a springboard for discussion on what can be some difficult issues for teachers to address in the classroom.

http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/using-computer-games-to-raise-global.html

Get Students Creating Video Summaries with Lumen5

This is a great tool for quickly creating video summaries. You can use it to write a short summary or just put in the URL of an online article or blog posting and then pick the parts of the text you want to include in the video.

http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/get-students-creating-video-summaries.html

 

I hope you enjoy these resources and make good use of them with your students over the coming year.

You can find more tools and activities like these in my ebook 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom.

The book is available on iOS or as PDF for other devices.

Sign up for my twice monthly free newsletter and get a free copy of Digital Tools for Teachers at: https://tinyletter.com/technogogy/ 

My Books:

• 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom
• Digital Tools for Teachers
• Thinking Critically through Digital Media
• Exploiting Infographics
• 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy
• Digital Video – A Manual for Language Teachers 

 Best

Nik Peachey

Learn English While Saving the Planet with this Great Online Game

Tyto is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) based around the scenario of a team of students and scientists trying to save humanity by setting up life on a new planet.

The game is still in the early beta stages at the moment, but it is free to download and play.

It's designed around developing critical thinking and science skills but there is a lot of language use in the game, especially in the early stages. There's also quite a lot of background information on the site which would make for useful and motivating reading before the students play.

The game itself is really nicely designed. Students enter a basic training simulator where two game characters take them through the basics of creating their avatar and learning how to move around.

They are then launched into the alien world which they can explore using a map to guide them. They have a number of tasks to complete as they explore the world and meet other students.

The interface is nicely designed and easy to use and students start to collect a number of tools and samples to help with the tasks.

The software is being updated very regularly at present so if you get students to do this it's probably better for them to work on it at home on their own computer. You can use elements of the website in the classroom and get them students sharing experiences and impressions in the classroom as speaking activities.

Tyto is a great gaming tool to get students actively using their English. It's rated as being suitable for ages 9 years + and  students will need a low intermediate level (B2) or better to understand what's happening.

I hope you and your students enjoy this great free online game. You can find more tools and activities like these in my ebook 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom.

The book is available on iOS or as PDF for other devices.

Sign up for my twice monthly free newsletter and get a free copy of Digital Tools for Teachers at: https://tinyletter.com/technogogy/ 

My Books:

• 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom
• Digital Tools for Teachers
• Thinking Critically through Digital Media
• Exploiting Infographics
• 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy
• Digital Video – A Manual for Language Teachers 

 Best

Nik Peachey

Using Computer Games to Raise Global Issues

Computer games are increasingly making their way into the field of education these days and for good reason.

• They are part of our students' lives
• They can be deeply engaging to the point of addiction
• They can be a creative genre of communication through narrative

So in this post I'd like to introduce a few games that you can use with students as a springboard for discussion on what can be some difficult issues for teachers to address in the classroom.

The Coming Out Simulator
This is an interactive story type game that is played on a simulation of a phone screen. The students watch SMS messages appear and follow the story. Students can work through the story and gain some valuable insights into what it’s like to be a gay teenager and to ‘come out’.

This could be really useful content to get students talking, thinking and writing about a topic that many teachers find difficult to deal with in the classroom.

We Become What We Behold
This is a short game that attempts to raise awareness of how the media highlights certain behaviours and attitudes that reinforce prejudices that can then lead to violence. The students play the role of a photographer, taking photograph and trying to spot things that are interesting. As they snap the pictures they see people’s reaction and gradually manipulate the reactions of the people they are photographing.

This is a great game to lead in to discussion or writing tasks on the topic of media manipulation and prejudice.

Lilya - The Shadows of War
This is a free game built for iOS or Android around the experience of a Palestinian family during the 2014 war in Gaza. It has won multiple awards from around the world. It does a lot to counteract the usual glamour attached to war related games and is a mixture of game play, digital narrative and art experience. It tells the story of a small family and their struggle for day to day survival.

 The game contains a strong emotional message, so you should be careful about using it with particularly young learners.

Read more

Games for Change
You can find lots more free and commercial games like this on the Games for Change website. They have helpful reviews and in many cases short video clips of the games.

I hope you find these games useful. You can find links to many more tools like these and activities for the digital classroom in my ebooks at: http://peacheypublications.com/. All my ebooks are available for iOS and as PDF.

Related links:

• 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom
• Digital Tools for Teachers
• Thinking Critically through Digital Media
• Exploiting Infographics
• 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy
• Digital Video – A Manual for Language Teachers

Best

Nik Peachey