Create Instant Interactive Text Based Activities

Creating computer based materials can be incredibly time consuming and also very frustrating as websites and web based content can change so quickly, that's why it is always so nice to discover tools like Textivate which can enable you to create instant interactivity using almost any text you find from around the web.

All you need to do is copy and paste your text into the Textivate window and then click on 'textivate now'.

Here you can see some text I have copied from the Goldilocks story which I found on the Project Gutenberg site.


Now I get a range of different exercise types to choose from. All I have to do to generate the exercise is to click on one of the square and I instantly have an interactive activity.

There are quite a few to choose from. Most of the first row divides the text into 'tiles' each of which have a portion of the text on. The students then have to put the text in the correct order by dragging and dropping them (NB: the columns work horizontally rather than vertically.)

You can also have the text arranged vertically so that students drag and drop the parts into position.

Some of my favourite task types it creates are the instant gapfill activity.

And the text reconstruction activity ( you can choose how many letters from each word are missing and even have all of them deleted if you want to.)

If you sign up and register (for free) you can save the texts that you use in the activity and have access to texts that other users have uploaded.

These activity types aren't new or revolutionary, but they do enable you to create instantly what a few years ago would have taken an experienced programmer hours to create. This means that you can change authentic web based reading texts into interactive texts and get them into your classroom on a projector or IWB in seconds.

You can make this tool available to your students and get them testing and developing their own reading and syntactical skills on their own computer for homework.

Best of all, if you register and log in, you can find a 'Share' button on your activities and get either a URL or an embed code to  add these to blogs, Moodle sites or other online materials. (My thanks to Martin Lapworth from Textivate for pointing this out as I completely missed it)

As I said, the activities aren't revolutionary or new, but they are useful ways of getting students to review texts and to look in more depth and the syntactical relationships between the words.

Why not try this one out for yourself and see how you get on:

Click below to access the activity. (Opens in a new window on touch devices.)

Click here to open the above activity in a new window.

I hope you find Textivate useful and try out the full range of activities with your students.

Related links:

• CreateAuthentic Text Based Lessons
• Create EFL / ESL Lesson Plans in Mins
• Creating Texting Dialogues for Students
• Teaching Grammar Through Songs
• Find Easy to Read Text for Lower Levels
• Translate Shakespeare 2 Text Lingo 4 Twitter??
• Cloze Test Creation Tool

Best

Nik Peachey

A Tool for Helping Students Develop More Complex Sentences

A couple of years ago I wrote an activity for students called Extending a Sentence which used a Flash animated website to show how a simple sentence could be elaborated to become rich in detail. The site called Telescopictext had a marvelous sentence which started with 'I made tea' and developed into a full paragraph, just click on the grey words.
I'm glad to say that this site has now been developed so that everyone can create and save their own sentences. Here's my first one and it starts,"Telescopic text is great."

Creating your own text is really easy and if you register you can save the text and get a hyperlink to it. The first thing to do is to go to http://www.telescopictext.org/ and register. Then once you have logged in, click on 'Write'.


You can then start by adding a very short sentence. Then click the 'Start' button.
You can then add more words by slicking on a word, adding more detail and then clicking 'Insert'.
You can keep clicking on words and adding more parts to the sentence. If you click on the small magnifying icon at the bottom right of the screen you will also be able to see the structure of the sentence as it has been developed.


If you click on 'Fold' you'll be able to close the phrase up and then try it out by clicking on the word to expand it again.
When you think the sentence is finished, you just need to click on 'Publish' and after a few quick checks you'll be able to get a URL to share with your students.
Here's the one I just made: I went to class.

I think this is a great tool to use with students.

• You can put students in pairs with a starter sentence and get them to keep taking it in turns to add parts.
• You can see which students can create the longest single sentence without any grammar mistakes.
• You can put in short texts your students have created then get them to edit and make them more interesting.
• You can create a text with mistakes in and the corrections hidden, then just click to show what the mistakes are. Students can try to predict what the correction will be before you show it.
• You could create also a create a version with some errors hidden and some visible and students have to decide which one are genuine errors and which are actually correct.
• You can give students a starter sentence and get them to create short story around it by gradually building up the sentences.
• You can use 'View Structure' feature to highlight the way the sentence is formed and the different parts of speech etc.

I think Telescopictext is a wonderful tool to use with students either on a data projector / IWB in class or to get them creating sentences at home. I hope you find it useful.

Related links:

• More than 120 web based activities for students
• Technology in the classroom
• 5 Tasks to Teach Yourself to Teach with Technology
• Revising Short Texts and Syntax on IWB

Best

Nik Peachey