Digital Tools 4 Teacherstrainers Payhip

stallone.santino@yahoo.
com 19 Apr 2019
THE DIGITAL CLASSROOMS SERIES
DIGITAL TOOLS FOR

TEACHERS -
TRAINERS' EDITION
BY NIK PEACHEY! ! COPYRIGHT © PEACHEYPUBLICATIONS.COM
stallone.santino@yahoo.com 19 Apr 2019
Photo by Nik Peachey
INTRODUCTION
In this Trainers’ Edition of Digital Tools for Teachers I
have built on the original volume by updating and extending
many of the original chapters and also by adding seven
additional new chapters.
In this book the first four chapters are provided as a guide
for teachers who want to use the book for teacher training
and development.
Using the tools, tips and activities provided in these first
chapters a teacher with some basic experience of using
technology in the classroom should be able to create
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INTRODUCTION motivating hands-on edtech training for their peers or for

pre-service trainee teachers.
The fifth additional chapter is dedicated to providing a
range of links to ready-made computer games that can be
used for language acquisition and development.
The sixth additional chapter focuses on virtual reality and
provides links to a range of tools and resources that can
enable teachers to exploit this area of technology within
their classroom practice.
The seventh additional chapter looks at the area of
e-safety and the things that we can do to protect our
students, ourselves and our computers from some of the
potential threats that we can encounter online.
The remainder of the book, like the first edition, is a
collection of more than 100 links to tools and resources
that have been chosen and organised to enable teachers
to easily find ways of applying technology to the activities
they do with their students.
I sincerely hope you find this book useful and that it helps
you to enhance your teaching and training and helps to
make your students’ learning experience richer and more
engaging.
If you wish to use this book and the resources from it to do

training and want copies of Digital Tools for Teachers for
trainee teachers please contact me at:
nik.peachey@peacheypublications.com
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CONTENTS Contents
The sites, apps and resources within the book have been
divided into the following chapters:
1. - Introduction ........................................................ 1
2. - Conceptual Models ...........................................11
3. - Training Tips ..................................................... 25
4. - Training Activities ............................................ 31
5. - Training Tools .................................................. 52
6. - Reading Tools .................................................. 60
7. - Writing Tools ................................................... 73
8. - Listening Tools ................................................ 94
9. - Speaking Tools .............................................. 102
10. - Grammar Tools ............................................ 114
11. - Presentation Tools ...................................... 122
12. - Poll & Survey Tools ..................................... 130
13. - Infographic Tools ........................................ 137
14. - Course Creation Tools ................................ 148
15. - Games & Gamification ................................ 163
16. - Virtual Reality Tools ................................... 172
17. - e-Safety ........................................................ 179
Most of the tools and resources selected for the book are
either free or have a useable permanent freemium offering,
so you won’t be forced to pay for any of these resources in
order to sustain the work you are doing with your students.
I do recommend though that when you find any sources
particularly useful, and when you feel you would like to
continue using them on a longer term basis, that you
consider upgrading to a premium account and so give the
financial support that many of the companies need to
sustain their business and make improvements and
developments from which you and other teachers will
eventually benefit.
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KEEPING Your Contribution

UP-TO-DATE
Over the coming years it is my intention to regularly review
and expand on the contents of this book and keep them
up-to-date. If you would like to be involved and assist in
this process you can do so by:
• Suggesting tools to be included in future editions
• Writing an entry about a tool you have used and
found useful
• Reporting a dead link or a tool or resource that has
become commercially unviable for teachers
• Reporting a typo or factual error.
Anyone who contributes in any of the ways above will get
a brief mention in the next edition of the book along with a
link to their own blog or website.
Send contributions to:
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FURTHER Further Reading

READING Digital Video - A Manual for Language Teachers
• This is the first book in the Digital Classrooms series
and the winner of the 2016 British Council
Innovations award for Teacher Resources. The book
combines practical classroom activities with
resources reviews and 27 video tutorials to help
teachers develop the skills they need to effectively
exploit one of the most useful resources available
online.
Thinking Critically through Digital Media
• This book was designed to help teachers exploit a
wide range of digital tasks and resources to
encourage students to think more critically about web
based information. The book contains 12 lesson
plans, the whole of ‘Exploiting Infographics’ and more
chapters including how to exploit poll and survey
re s o u rc e s a s w e l l a s t a s k s f o r e x p l o i t i n g
presentations.
20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom
• This book was designed to provide simple examples
of how technology can be applied to common
classroom activities. The book contains seven video
tutorials to help teachers understand how to use the
tools and apps as well as step-by-step procedure to
ensure the activities go smoothly.
Exploiting Infographics
• This book was designed to help teachers understand
how to exploit Infographics both as resources for
prompting discussion and digital research. The book
contains a collection of motivating creative tasks for
the development of digital skills. There is a range of
advice and example tasks that can be used with a
wide different classes. This book is also contained
within ‘Thinking Critically through Digital Media’.
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10 Lessons in Digital Literacy

• This book contains a collection of 10 lesson plans
that are designed to develop students’ digital literacy
and critical thinking skills. All ten lessons are also
included in ‘Thinking Critically through Digital Media’.
Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers
• This is the oldest of the books and was first published
in 2009. It has since been downloaded more than
250k times. It contains reviews of ten tools along with
a range of pedagogical activities that can be used
with each one.
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LESSON PLANS Lesson Plans

Each of these lesson plans constitutes between 90 and 180
minutes of study and can be used in part as simple
conversation classes or in total for deeper research
projects. All lesson plans are included in ‘Thinking Critically
through Digital Media’ and a selection of 10 are included in
‘10 Lessons in Digital Literacy’.
• A World without Magnets
• Breakfast around the World
• Perceptions of Advertising
• Emotional Intelligence
• Careers for Introverts & Extroverts
• The Science of Happiness
• The History of Weddings
• Studying How to Study
• 50 Facts about Hair
• Body language
• Mind your Waste
• The Habits of the World’s Wealthiest People
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ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Photo By Maria Fuller
Nik Peachey is a freelance teacher trainer, writer, course

designer, conference speaker and learning technology
consultant.
He has been involved in education since 1990 and has
lived and worked all over the world.
He is a two-time British Council Innovations Award Winner
and the Co - founder of PeacheyPublications.com.
He has worked with a wide range of educational
companies, publishers and institutions including Macmillan,
CUP, OUP, British Council, International House, Bell
Educational Services, University of Westminster, The Open
University, The BBC, Google Creative Labs, EtonX and
many more.
Nik is a keen blogger and content curator. You can find his
blog at: https://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/ and his curation
sites at: http://www.scoop.it/t/tools-for-learners and
http://www.scoop.it/t/learning-technology
He also publishes a twice monthly Learning Technology and
ELT newsletter at: https://tinyletter.com/technogogy/
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COPYRIGHT AND
PIRACY
© 2017 Nik Peachey

nik.peachey@peacheypublications.com and I can arrange
a discount code so that your trainees can download a low
cost copy.
This book is an independent publication and has been
created in my own time and at my own expense.
I depend on the proceeds from the book so that I can
produce more work like this and so that I can feed my
family and send my daughters to college.
When you download or share this book illegally or without
my permission you are stealing from me and my family.
If you have downloaded this book without permission or
paying, please do the right thing and go buy a copy from:
h t t p s : / / w w w. p e a c h e y p u b l i c a t i o n s . c o m / o r
https://payhip.com/peacheypublications
If you can’t afford or don’t have the means to buy it, then
read on in peace and I hope that it helps you and your
students.
Thanks
Nik Peachey
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Photo by Celia Ortega
CONCEPTUAL MODELS
This chapter contains five models that you can use to
underpin your understanding of how to integrate technology
into education. The models are a mixture of concepts and
principles that predate digitally networked environments
and ones that have been directly developed as a result of
them. Each of the five entries also includes a presentation
with a reflection task that you can use to develop your
understanding of how the concepts apply to your own
working practice. You can also use these presentations and
tasks when training other teachers.
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MASLOW’S Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

HIERARCHY OF Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was originally developed by
NEEDS Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper ‘A Theory of Human
Motivation’. Maslow studied what he called ‘exemplary
people’ and looked at how and what motivated them to
achieve. His study included Albert Einstein, Jane Addams,
Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass. Maslow also
studied the healthiest and highest achieving 1% of the
college student population.
As a result he developed the hierarchy of needs as an
attempt to describe what people need in order to achieve
a level of fulfilment from their lives or what Maslow
describes as ‘self-actualisation’.
This hierarchy is divided into five levels usually depicted in

the form of a pyramid moving from the sections at the
bottom, providing for our basic physiological needs of food
and shelter, to the level of ‘self-actualisation’ at the top.
This paradigm is a useful one for education because it can
help us to focus on what education is really for, helping
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MASLOW’S students to realise their own potential and lead fulfilling

HIERARCHY OF lives, rather than achieving what can be rather abstract
syllabus goals.
NEEDS
The relevance to educational technology is that it can help
us decide which tools we choose to use with our students
and how we enable our students to use these tools.
It has become a mantra that pedagogy should lead
technology rather than the other way around and this is
true. Much early implementation of educational technology
did focus on using technology as a form of motivational
gimmick rather than because it was the best way to
achieve a pedagogical goal, but that is not the only truth.
Putting the technology into the hands of students and
helping them to understand how to use it in a way that
leads to their own self-actualisation can also be a perfectly
legitimate goal in itself. If we do this though, we should be
sure that the technology we teach students about has
genuine functionality for them outside of the classroom and
measuring this against Maslow’s hierarchy is a good way
to do this.
Training Presentation
Use this link to view the training presentation:
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
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SAMR Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition -
SAMR
SAMR was introduced by Dr Ruben Puentedura in 2006.
SAMR is a paradigm for describing how we integrate
technology into education, though with the proviso that if
we want to use technology in a way that is truly
transformative we should be aiming to develop tasks and
activities that are more towards what it describes as the
modification and redefinition parts of the model.
Using the paradigm can help us to analyse the way we are
using technology and to think about how we can evolve
the way we use it, from the more superficial substitution
type tasks to ones that redefine the way students interact
with content, each other and the teacher.
Here are the four ways it classifies the application of
technology along with an example of how the same task
could evolve through this process.
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SAMR
Substitution 
Technology acts as direct substitute with no functional
change. The task remains the same but a computer is
used as part of that task.
E.g. Find a text online to use in place of one of the
texts in your course book. Ask your students to read it
and answer comprehension questions.
Augmentation  
Technology acts as a direct tool substitute for an analogue
activity, but with functional improvements.
texts in your course book. Ask students to use some
digital tools to mark up the text with notes, highlight
specific areas to remember and use an online
dictionary to check new vocabulary.
Modification 
Technology allows for significant task redesign.
specific areas to remember and use an online
dictionary to check new vocabulary. Then ask
students to share their reflections about the text on a
blog which is shared within a wider educational
community. They then comment on each others’
posts. They later meet together in a virtual live forum
to discuss and debate the content.
Redefinition 
Technology allows for the creation of new tasks previously
not possible.
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SAMR specific areas to remember and use an online

dictionary to check new vocabulary. Students then
work collaboratively to research the background to the
text online and create a digital survey about it. They
share the survey through social media. They then
collect and analyse the data from the survey and work
together online to create an infographic or video
report of their analysis of their survey responses.
Getting teachers to approach technology with this kind of
awareness can certainly have its benefits and SAMR has
definitely attracted quite a following.
SAMR
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BLOOM’S Bloom’s Taxonomy

TAXONOMY Blooms Taxonomy originated in 1956 as a way of promoting
higher order forms of thinking in education rather than
memorisation and rote learning. There are three taxonomies,
Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor, though the one most
commonly referenced is the one for Cognitive Domain.
The taxonomy has more recently been appropriated by
educational technologists to understand how to better use
technology in a way that will lead to deeper levels of
learning.
The diagram below shows how the various activities can be
mapped onto a scale of thinking skills that move from lower
to higher order.
Many critics of the early use of e-learning and educational

technology tools, rightly in many cases, pointed out that the
application of new technologies had led to a regression in
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BLOOM’S the application of pedagogy and that most computer based

TAXONOMY learning systems focused on enabling of testing students’
abilities to remember or understand input and so was
restricted to the development of lower order thinking skills.
With the more recent development of platforms that support
user generated content and more social and computer
mediated human interactions, this criticism can much more
easily be rebuked. As educators we now have at our
disposal a wider range of tools and resources that enable
us to apply, analyse, evaluate and create.
In order to meaningfully apply this taxonomy to our use of
technology, I believe we have to be very careful to focus on
understanding the nature of the tasks we ask students to
accomplish with the technology. We cannot simply attribute
a technology to a higher or lower order thinking skill and
assume that by using that technology the students are
achieving that level of cognitive engagement.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
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TPACK Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge - TPACK

TPACK is an attempt to identify the knowledge and
understanding that teachers need to possess in order to
effectively use technology in an educational environment.
The paradigm looks at the individual primary knowledge
areas of content, pedagogy and technology, but also helps
us to focus on the areas where these skills need not only to
overlap, but combine into new levels and fields of
understanding. The initial primary knowledge areas are:
Content Knowledge 
“Teachers’ knowledge about the subject matter to be
learned or taught.
Pedagogical Knowledge  
“Teachers’ deep knowledge about the processes and
practices or methods of teaching and learning.
Technology Knowledge  
Knowledge about certain ways of thinking about, and
working with technology, tools and resources. Being able to
recognise when information technology can assist or
impede the achievement of a goal.
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TPACK
But discrete knowledge of these areas individually does not
presuppose that we are able to combine these fields to
achieve impactful learning with technology.
TPACK is based on an understanding that we need to have
knowledge of combinations of these primary areas and by
combining them we create new knowledge areas. These
being defined as:
Pedagogical Content Knowledge 
“Teacher interprets the subject matter, finds multiple ways to
represent it, and adapts and tailors the instructional materials
to alternative conceptions and students’ prior knowledge.
PCK covers the core business of teaching, learning,
curriculum, assessment and reporting, such as the
conditions that promote learning and the links among
curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy” (Koehler & Mishra,
2009).
Technological Content Knowledge  
“Teachers need to understand which specific technologies
are best suited for addressing subject-matter learning in their
domains and how the content dictates or perhaps even
changes the technology—or vice versa” (Koehler & Mishra,
2009).
Technological Pedagogical Knowledge  
“An understanding of how teaching and learning can change
when particular technologies are used in particular ways.
This includes knowing the pedagogical affordances and
constraints of a range of technological tools as they relate to
disciplinarily and developmentally appropriate pedagogical
designs and strategies” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).
Finally, all six of these knowledge areas can be combined to
form a seventh and ultimate field of knowledge.
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TPACK Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)  

“Underlying truly meaningful and deeply skilled teaching with
technology, TPACK is different from knowledge of all three
concepts individually. Instead, TPACK is the basis of effective
teaching with technology, requiring an understanding of the
representation of concepts using technologies; pedagogical
techniques that use technologies in constructive ways to
teach content; knowledge of what makes concepts difficult or
easy to learn and how technology can help redress some of
the problems that students face; knowledge of students’ prior
knowledge and theories of epistemology; and knowledge of
how technologies can be used to build on existing
knowledge to develop new epistemologies or strengthen old
ones” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).
We can use this framework to help focus on and assess the

knowledge areas that we need to develop as well as using it
as a guide to help us understand which fields of knowledge
our training is addressing.
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TPACK Training Presentation

TPACK
References
Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological
Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A new framework for
teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record. 108(6),
1017-1054.
Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (in press). Introducing
Technological Pedagogical Knowledge. In AACTE (Eds.).
The Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content
Knowledge for Educators. To be published by AACTE and
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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CONNECTIVISM Connectivism
Connectivism is a theory of technology integration that has
originated and is unique to the digital world. Connectivism
originated as an attempt by Steven Downes and George
Siemens to understand and define the ways in which
learning naturally occurs in the digitally connected and
socially networked world.
The theory has huge implications for the development of
autonomous learning as well as online learning and has
been used and misused to support the construction and
implementation of a generation of MOOCs (Massive Open
Online Courses) and MOOC platforms.
Connectivist learning is based on the following set of
principles:
• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.

• Learning is a process of connecting specialised nodes or
information sources.
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is
currently known
• Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to
facilitate continual learning.
• Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and
concepts is a core skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of
all connectivist learning activities.
• Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing
what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is
seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a
right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to
alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.
When thinking about our use of technology in education we
can use these principles as a guide to evaluate the
effectiveness of our tasks and activities. We can look at the
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CONNECTIVISM ways we are encouraging and guiding our students in the

use of technology to ensure we are helping to reinforce the
understanding and practice of these guiding principles.
Connectivism
Reference
George Siemens - Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the
Digital Age, Journal of Instructional Technology:
http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm
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TRAINING TIPS
This chapter has a collection of tips and advice that can
help to ensure that your training session are successful and
engaging.
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TRAINING TIPS Tips for Training

Let’s start with some general tips and advice that I have
collected over many years of training teachers around the
world to use technology.
Be sure of your ground pedagogically

• So many edtech trainers are great with technology, but
much less versed in educational theory and pedagogy.
Experienced teachers are more likely to have a stronger
theoretical understanding, so be prepared to back up your
ideas with sound pedagogical insights and try to relate
your training back to theories of learning and pedagogical
approaches.
Make sure training is hands on
• Running through a list of tools and ideas in a presentation
may have some value, but it doesn’t come anywhere close
to the impact of giving teachers hands-on experience and
the chance to actually work with the tech to create
something, so make sure you include time for independent
practice.
Give solid examples of what you have done
• Being able to speak from experience about how you have
used tech with your own students will have far more impact
than theoretical applications of “You could do blah blah
blah with your students.” Sharing anecdotes of how you
have used technology in your own classes, the challenges
you have faced and how you have overcome or even been
overcome by them can really lend credibility to your
training.
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TRAINING TIPS Manage expectations

• A positive attitude is great, but be prepared to also point
out weaknesses, potential pitfalls and talk about your own
failures. This might help your participants avoid the same
mistakes and stop them from becoming disillusioned.
Make time to experiment and explore
• Don’t be tempted to cram in as many tools, techniques
and activities as possible. Incorporate project time into
your training so that teachers have the chance to go away
and explore the things that interest them most and get
their own perspective on how they can use them with their
students.
Back up technical training
• Learning to use new tools is getting easier all the time,
especially on mobile devices, but it’s still quite easy for
teachers to forget which button to press or which link to
follow. So back up any demonstrations with either an
illustrated step-by-step guide or a video tutorial that
teachers can come back to later, or better still create a
community platform where teachers can continue to
support each other.
Make their lives easier
• Using technologies that can make what they already do a
bit easier or a bit quicker is a great way to start. For
example, I have a link to a tool that quickly creates a cloze
test activity. Sharing tools like this that start from what
teachers already do can really help to get them on your
side.
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Do things that can’t be done

TRAINING TIPS
• One of the most common remarks made by teachers about
technology is: “Well that’s fine, but you can do that without
tech by …” If you can show examples of technology use
that go beyond what is already possible in the classroom,
then you are much more likely to capture their enthusiasm.
One example of this is the use of collaborative writing tools
like PrimaryPad and its ability to track, record and show
how students constructed text.
Solve classroom problems
• Being able to spot a genuine classroom problem and show
how technology can solve it can be very persuasive. One
example of this is gist reading, which can be very
challenging to teach because students tend to ignore time
limits. I show how using a free digital cue prompter can
give teachers control of the text and push students to gist
read at the speed the teacher chooses.
Plan with long term and short term goals
• However inspiring your training session is, and however
short or long it is, you should make sure that teachers leave
it with a plan. SMART plans are great if you have time to
work on them with the teachers. If you don’t have time to
get them to create individual SMART plans, at least get
them to think about the first step or the first technology
application they will try in their classroom and what they will
do with it.
Tech can be implemented in CPD
• One of the reasons many teachers feel less confident with
tech is because they often only use it in the classroom.
Showing how technology can become part of their own
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TRAINING TIPS self-guided CPD and professional practice, and helping

them to build their PLN can really help to energise their
technology use and make their development much more
autonomous and long lasting.
Make sure everything works before the training
• I can’t emphasise this enough. Nothing puts teachers off
more quickly than seeing the trainer fail.
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Before the Training Session

TRAINING TIPS Before delivering any training session or activity there are
some basic things that you can check to try to ensure
things go smoothly.
Make sure you have all the necessary leads and

connectors to plug in your laptop or device. This includes
mains lead, connectors for the data projector and ethernet
cable for the internet if you need one.
If you are using wifi, make sure you have any access
passwords or usernames you may need and any
additional settings or plugins that you may need to access
the network at the training venue.
Make sure the computer you are using is fully updated

and any plugins such as Flash or Java are installed with
the latest version.
Make sure you are up-to-date on any sites or resources

you are showing and they haven’t redesigned the user
interface or started charging since you last looked at
them.
If you are using your own computer log in to any sites

you need to use before the sessions to save time and
avoid getting usernames or passwords wrong when you
are in front of your participants.
Make sure you have back up versions of any materials

you maybe using. Have a copy online somewhere, but
also have a copy on a USB drive or something similar.
Make sure you have plenty of water to drink. It can get

pretty hot when you have a room full of people all using
computers.
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TRAINING ACTIVITIES
The activities in this chapter have been designed to be used
independently so feel free to choose any you feel would be
suitable for the participants on your course. There are some
activities which work better as follow up tasks to previous
training and these are marked as ‘review’ tasks. Some activities
are also better suited to fit within an on-going in-service
program of development rather than as a one-off workshop
sessions.
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TRAINING Exploring a Chapter

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This is a simple task just to get participants focusing on

tools that explore a specific area. You can choose from any
of the chapters and run this activity a number of times or
choose different chapters for each group so they cover a
wider range of tools and skills.
Procedure:
• Get participants to work alone or in pairs
• Give them a specific chapter to explore.
• Ask them to look at the various tools and select the one
they think would be most useful to use with their students.
• Regroup the participants in to groups of four and ask them

to share the tool they chose and explain why they chose it
and how they would use it with their students.
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TRAINING Identifying Criteria

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This activity gets participants thinking more carefully about

what they are looking for and what they want the resources
they select to achieve. It also pushes them to think about
their criteria before looking at the various resources.
Procedure:
• Put the participants into groups of 4.
• Ask them to brainstorm a list of criteria for evaluating web

based apps or resources.
• Once they have had time to brainstorm, ask them to

reduce their list to the 6 most important criteria.
• Once each group has reduced their list to 6 criteria

regroup them with participants from other groups and ask
them to compare and explain their criteria.
• Now assign each group one of the chapters from the book
and ask them to find a tool that meets their criteria.
• Ask the group to compare what they found.
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TRAINING Ready-Made Materials

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
Many of the resources in the book have either ready-made

materials or materials that have been created by other
participants. Encouraging participants to explore these will
help them to see the potential of the resources and perhaps
even help them to find some ready made materials to use
with their students.
Procedure:
• Choose 4 - 6 tools or resource sites that you would like the

participants to explore.
• Give each teacher one of the sites.
• Ask them to explore the site and find one example of

materials that they could use with their students.
• Put the participants into groups and ask them to share

what they have found and tell the other participants why
they like it.
• At the end of the activity, ask the participants to decide

which of the sites and materials they liked the most.
• Give them some more time to explore the site they liked
most in more detail and use it to create something for their
students.
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TRAINING Funding a Resource

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This is a game type activity, but it does encourage
participants to research sites more enthusiastically and gets
them to focus on the more positive aspects and how to
present them. It’s a nice activity to do towards the end of a
longer training course when participants might be starting
to suffer from overload.
Procedure:
• Give each teacher a different site or tool to explore. If you
have a large group you can just choose 7 - 8 different
tools.
• Get each teacher to explore the site you gave them and
find as many good features as possible.
• Once they have had time to do this put the participants
into groups of 7 - 8 (Make sure that they have all
researched different sites).
• Now tell them that they need to get funding for their site
but only five of the sites can be funded. They should tell
the other participants about the site they researched and
try to make sure that theirs is one of the five sites that gets
the funding.
• Once they have all described their sites they can vote on
which sites to fund and which to drop.
• You could then tell them that the budget has been cut and
they now only have funding for three of the sites.
• Once they decide on three you could get them to reduce it
to one.
• After this give them some time to look at all the sites and
decide whether they made a good choice.
34
TRAINING Revision Presentation

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This is a review activity to refresh participants’ memories of

what they have already covered. This is particularly useful if
you are covering a lot of resources. The activity is quick to
prepare and is a great way to start a new day by reviewing
previous day’s learning.
Procedure:
• Create a presentation deck with a screen grab of each site

and tools you have presented on each slide.
• Ask the participants to watch silently and try to remember

what the site or tool is called and how it is used.
• Allow around 30 seconds to 1 minute for each slide.
• At the end of the presentation go back to the beginning of

the presentation and show the first slide.
• Put the participants into groups to share what they

remember about the site.
• Repeat this with each slide allowing about 2 - 5 minutes for

each one.
35
TRAINING Visualisation Review

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This is a very simple visualisation activity but great to get

participants thinking about what they have learned and
internalising it.
Procedure:
• Ask the participants to close their eyes.
• Once their eyes are closed ask them to try to remember

how many websites or resources they have looked at in
the session.
• Ask them to count silently on their fingers.
• As they count ask them to try to visualise what the site

looks like in their mind.
• With their eyes still closed ask them to hold up the number
of fingers to indicate how many sites they can remember.
• Then ask them to open their eyes and compare the

number of fingers they are holding up with the people
around them.
• Put the participants into small groups and ask them to

share the sites they can remember and whatever they can
remember about how the site can be used.
36
TRAINING Your Classroom Visualisation

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This activity works well as a follow-up to the previous one. It

is a visualisation activity, but it gets participants thinking
about how they will start to apply what they are learning and
encourages them to share their ideas with other
participants.
Procedure:
• Ask the participants to close their eyes.
• Once their eyes are closed ask them to think about the
sites you have presented and think about the one they
liked the most.
• Then with their eyes still closed ask them to visualise

themselves using the site with their students and think
about what they will do with it.
• Now ask them to open their eyes and share with a partner
or in small groups the site they were visualising and how
they were using it.
37
TRAINING App Auction

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This is a way of getting participants to quickly take a
superficial look at a number of different resources. It can be
used before activities that look in more depth at some of the
resources or as a final activity to see what resources
participants most value from the ones they have been
working with.
Procedure:
• Select a collection of tools or sites that you would like your
training group to explore.
• Create a presentation with a slide for each site and
include a screenshot, the name, and the chapter and
page of the book it comes from.
• Give each of your participants a fictional budget and tell
them they can spend it in the auction to buy sites.
• They must buy at least one.
• Now show them each slide in the presentation. Give a
very brief description of the site and start to take bids.
• Run this like an auction but try to keep it quick. After each
site is sold to the highest bidder make a note of their
name (or group name) and make sure they make a note of
the page number from the book.
• At the end of the auction tell the participants that they now
have to explore the sites they bought and decide whether
they have spent their money well.
• They should decide this based on the usefulness of the
site for their particular students.
• Once they have done this you can put them in groups to
share what they found out about the sites they bought.
38
TRAINING Digitise the Course-book

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This is a great activity for inservice training courses. It

encourages participants to really think about how they can
integrate the technology into their day to day teaching. This
kind of activity is best done after participants have built up
some knowledge of a number of different tools.
Procedure:
• Ask participants to bring along a unit from one of the

course books they use. Ask them to break down the
activities in each unit into skills, grammar, input, etc.
• Get the participants to select one of the skills and look for
tools in the relevant chapters of the book that they could
use to supplement, replace or enhance the course book
content.
• Give them time to actually create a digital variation on one

of the activities from their course book.
• Then put the participants into pairs or small groups and

ask them to share their activity and explain how the
technology they have chosen enhances it.
• They can then take one of the tools that another teacher
has used and see if they can also use the tool to enhance
an activity from their own chapter.
39
Wire-framing
Rationale:
Creating a wireframe of a website structure is a great way to

ensure that participants understand and can conceptualise
the navigation and contents of a site. A wireframe is a
simple flow diagram which represents the structure of the
site. This forces the participants to explore the various
areas of the site and identify the content in each section.
Procedure:
• Give participants a specific site to look at (They could all

look at the same one or different ones).
• Ask them to explore the site and create a wireframe

diagram of the different parts.
• Ask them to include brief notes about what each part of

the site is for.
• Once they have completed the wireframe put them into

pairs and ask them to exchange the wireframes.They
should then use the new wireframe to explore the site and
check to see if there is anything their partner has missed.
• They can then change back or you can put them into
groups to share what they have found.
40
TRAINING Presenting a Resource

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This activity move participants from exploring resources into

being able to present and inform others about them.
Creating the presentation pushes them to formulate their
ideas in a clear concise way. You could tell them how many
slides they should use and what each slide should cover if
the participants are less experienced.
Procedure:
• Give participants a site to explore and ask them to create

a presentation about it.
• Tell them they can only use images of the site in the
presentation and a title for each slide, no bullet points or
text.
• One they have prepared their presentation you can put

them into small groups to deliver the presentation to the
other participants in their group.
• The groups should then choose the site they liked the best
and that person should deliver their presentation for the
whole class.
41
TRAINING Creating a Video Tutorial

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This is a useful activity which encourages participants to

learn about tools in order to create their own video tutorials.
This will be a useful skill to help them build online instruction
for their students and help them move into training. It works
well as an extension of the previous two activities.
Procedure:
• Choose one of the screen capture tools from the training

tools chapter of the book.
• Make sure the participants know how to use it.
• Now give them each a website or tool to explore and tell

them to make a video tutorial showing how to use the site.
• Once they have done this you can upload the tutorials to a
site, blog, LMS or video sharing channel and the
participants can then watch each other’s tutorials.
42
TRAINING Interview a CEO

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This activity is useful as a warmer type activity. It’s a lighter

way of getting participants to think about criteria and which
issues related to the use and design of technology they feel
are important.
Procedure:
• Show the participants an image of a site or tool that you

would like them to research.
• Now tell them to think about the creator of the resource.
• Put the participants in pairs or small groups and ask them

to produce a list of 10 questions they could ask the creator
about the resource.
• Now give them a link to the resource and ask them to

research the site and try to find the answers to their
questions.
• You can ask the participants to exchange their questions

so that they research the answers for another group’s
questions and then share the answers back with them.
• Once they have done their research you can ask them
whether they would use the site with their students and get
them to explain.
• You can also use their list of questions to create a list of

criteria for evaluating digital resources.
43
TRAINING Create a Lesson Plan

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This activity gets participants to work collaboratively on

lesson plans that they can use with their students. This
activity works better for participants who have a bit more
experience with technology or as a later activity in a course.
Procedure:
• Choose a selection of tools that you think will be useful for

the participants.
• Put the participants into small groups and give each

group one of the tools.
• Ask them to explore the tool and then create a lesson plan
and an activity that they can use with their students.
• Give them a lesson plan template to use for this.
• Ask them to complete the template.
• Now ask them to exchange the lesson plan with another

group.
• They should now look through the new plan and see if
they can understand and improve on the plan in any way.
• Next put the participants into pairs with one teacher from
each group and they should share their suggestions for
improvements and adapt and edit the plans.
• Finally, the participants can share all of their plans

together and choose the ones they would like to use.
• These can also be stored and shared online.
44
TRAINING Find a New Tool

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This activity gets participants working more independently

to search outside of the book and find new sites. They also
have the chance to create an entry for the next version of
the book and get published.
Procedure:
• Put participants into groups and give each group the title
of one of the chapters from the book.
• Now give the participants a link to my Tools for Learners

and Teachers site at:
http://www.scoop.it/t/tools-for-learners
• Ask the groups to use the site to find a new tool to add to
their chapter of the book.
• Once they have found something they like they should

write a short entry like the ones in the book.
• They can then share their entries as a group and create

their own short ebook.
• They could also send the entries to me at:

• If I use the entry in the next edition of the book I will credit
them as the writers.
45
TRAINING Report Back

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This activity pushes participants to actively use what they

are learning in the classroom and to report back. This
activity is better suited to in-service or online courses that
give participants longer to actively try things with their
students. It could even be used weekly or monthly for
on-going teacher development.
Procedure:
• Give each teacher one tool or resource to use with their

students.
• Give them one week to try to use it successfully.
• At the end of the week get the participants together and

ask them to report back on how they used the tool and
how well it worked.
• They can then exchange tools and try a different one for
the week.
• You can keep repeating this process over a number of

months if you feel the participants are motivated enough.
• Be sure to track all their success stories and any materials

they use so that they can all share them.
46
TRAINING Pros and Cons

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
Often participants tend to be either overly idealistic or

negative about edtech. This activity encourages a more
balanced view. It’s important when using any resource that
you are aware of both the benefits, as well as any potential
pitfalls, and that you balance these in how you apply it
within your classroom.
Procedure:
• Put participants into two groups - A and B.
• Give all of the participants in group A a resource to

explore (This could be the same one or different ones).
• Ask them to try to compile a list of 10 ‘Pros’ or reasons why

they should use it.
• Give all the participants in group B the same resources to

explore and ask them to create a list of 10 ‘Cons’ or
reasons not to use it.
• Once they have had time to explore and compile their list,
put them into pairs with one A and one B and ask them to
compare their lists and decide together whether the
resource is useful for them.
• Get the pairs to feedback to the group on the site they

explored and their decision.
47
TRAINING Plan a Training Session

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
As we all know, one of the best ways to learn something is

to teach it. In this activity participants create their own
training session based around one of the tools or resources
from the book. You ask them to design this for classroom or
online delivery. This is also a great way to get them actually
using some of the tools from the book to create the training.
Procedure:
• Give or let participants choose one of the resources from

the book.
• Ask them to prepare their own training session to train

other participants how to use the site.
• Ask them to include some of these features in their training

session:
• A video tutorials showing how to use the resource
• A list of pros and cons about the resource
• Some example activities that participants could try
• An activity that gives trainees hands on practice using

the resource
• A short presentation to introduce the site
• If there is time you could get the participants to deliver

their presentations to each other and give each other
feedback and suggestions for improvement.
48
TRAINING Create an Infographic

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This is a review activity that gets participants thinking about

the tools they have been looking at. It also helps them to
learn how to disseminate information and create
infographics, so it’s good for hands on skills development
too.
You can choose or let the participants choose which

infographic tools they use or you could suggest they use
this Genially template.
Procedure:
• Put the participants into small groups and ask them to

share what they feel are the most useful resources they
have discovered.
• Ask them to work together and produce a list of the best.

This could be 5 - 10 resources.
• Once they have their list, ask them to create an

infographic to share their list of favourites. They can create
this using one of the infographic tools from chapter 11 of
the book.
49
TRAINING Create a Training Manual

ACTIVITIES
Rationale:
This activity gets participants thinking in much more detail

about the resources they are exploring and developing the
skills to share them with their students and other
participants. It’s also a good activity to get participants
working and collaborating together.
This could be used as a project activity as part of in-service

training or at the end of a longer training course so that
participants have a takeaway that they can share.
Procedure:
• Show participants one of the free manuals I’ve produced.

You can download these from:
https://www.peacheypublications.com/free-stuff
• Get them to analyse the structure of the manual and think

about which parts are most useful and what tools they
would be needed to create a manual like this.
• Now ask them to think of one of the tools they have

studied and like and then structure their own training
manual for it.
• They can work in groups and divide up the workload.
• Give them plenty of time to do this.
• Once they have completed the manuals they can share

them together.
50
TRAINING TOOLS
This chapter contains a number of tools that are useful for
delivering teacher training and development sessions. The
tools can be used to enable a paperless approach to the
delivery of training sessions. These are all tools that I
frequently use during my own training courses and
workshops.
51
TRAINING TodaysMeet - https://todaysmeet.com/

TOOLS This is a great tool for creating a backchannel. A
backchannel is similar to a chat room. This enables all your
participants to connect up their devices to the room and you
“The use of a backchannel can then share links to sites and worksheets and they can
enables you to work without share comments and information together.
any paper materials during
you session.”
The use of a backchannel enables you to work without any

paper materials during you session.
Todaysmeet can be used without registration or login so it’s

really quick and easy to set up. You can also limit how long
the room stays live. If you register you get more control over
the room and password protect it.
This is a great tool to use with both students and teachers.
52
TRAINING The QR Code Generator -

TOOLS http://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/
This is a very easy to use tool for creating QR codes. These
codes can be scanned by mobile devices with a code
scanner and any links or text coded into them are instantly
“This is a great way to get
delivered to the users’ device.
links to sites, images, videos,
worksheets and any other
materials onto mobile
devices in just seconds.”
This is a great way to get links to sites, images, videos,

worksheets and any other materials onto mobile devices in
just seconds.
To create a code, just go to the site and paste in either a text

or a link. Then save the code to your hard drive and add it to
worksheets and presentations or show it on a data projector.
This makes running paperless mobile workshops with

teachers or students really easy.
53
TRAINING Project Jing - https://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

TOOLS This is a great tool for creating annotated images or short
video tutorials.
“This is a really useful tool

for quick and easy screen
capture video, but there are
no edit functions so the
videos it produces can be a
bit rough around the
edges.”
You have to download and instal the software and create a

free account. Then when you open the software a round sun
like interface opens on your screen.
You can then click and drag a field around a part of your
screen and click an icon to grab an image of the screen.
Once you have the image you can use the tools to annotate
it.
Once your image is annotated you click another icon to

upload it to your Jing account. The link to the image is
instantly copied to your clipboard and you can then copy
past the image into worksheets or presentations or just
share the link with your participants.
It works in a very similar way when recording video tutorials.

The video files tend to get quite large, so try to make them
less the 2 - 3 minutes. You can save them as Flash files on
your hard drive. This is a really useful tool for quick and
easy screen capture video, but there are no edit functions
so the videos it produces can be a bit rough around the
edges.
54
TRAINING Loom - https://www.useloom.com/

TOOLS This is a great tool to make screen-capture videos directly
from within your Chrome browser. Once you have registered
“This is a great tool for and installed the browser plugin, you just go to the page or
teacher training and site and click on the Loom button.
development and also great
to get students speaking and
doing website reviews and
sharing them together. You
can get teachers or students
to create their own resource
library of useful tools and
websites.”
You’ll need to give the plugin permission to use your

microphone and webcam, then just click on ‘Start
Recording’. You can choose to record whole screen or just
an application window.
Click the plugin button again and your video is instantly

uploaded to your profile on the Loom site and the link is
copied. You’ll see the website you recorded, a webcam
image of yourself talking in the lower left corner and a
number of fields to type in information and add comments.
You can share a link to the recording through social media,

get an iframe embed code or just get a direct link. Once
you share it, users can watch and leave comments.
55
TRAINING DropBox - https://dropbox.com/

TOOLS When doing any kind of training it’s great to have some
cloud based space where you can share files and materials
with participants or just access the work from any computer.
“DropBox is a really useful

tool for storing files online
and you can have private
files and well as ones that
you share publicly with
participants.”
DropBox is a really useful tool for storing files online and

you can have private files as well as ones that you share
publicly with participants.
There are a number of access levels you can set with your
files, so you can allow other users to edit and download
them or you can make the files read only.
You can also edit a number of MS Office file types within the
browser.
56
TRAINING Google Drive - https://www.google.com/drive/

TOOLS
If you and your participants are a Google apps users then
Google Drive might be a better alternative than DropBox.
“You can then store and edit
all of your training materials
from one place online and
use any computer to do it.
This also really helps you
enable a paperless
approach to your training.”
It works in a similar way and allows you to store, access,

edit and share files online. It also integrates with a large
number of other approved third party services, so if you
trust Google or are just careful about the information you
store online then this is a really powerful alternative to
DropBox and enables you to dispense entirely with other
MS Office type applications.
You can then store and edit and share all of your training
materials from one place online and use any computer to do
it. This also really helps you enable a paperless approach to
your training.
57
TRAINING SlideShare - http://www.slideshare.net/

TOOLS
Whether you are doing training workshops, conference
sessions or plenaries it’s always really helpful to share your
presentations with your participants.
“It’s really easy to upload
your presentations to
SlideShare then share the
through social media or add
them to your profile on
LinkedIn.”
It’s really easy to upload your presentations to SlideShare

then share them through social media or add them to your
profile on LinkedIn.
This is also a great way of building up kudos for your

training work and building your professional profile as a
trainer.
58
Photo by Isabell Winter on Unsplash

6
READING TOOLS
Despite the proliferation and popularity of video and audio on the internet, the vast
majority of what is published and consumed online is still text. Reading from
screens, websites and digital communication tools present students with some
unique challenges that the more linear, homogeneously sealed environment of
paper-based communication doesn’t. In contrast to the challenges of reading from
screen, digital tools also offer a range of functionality to support the reading process
and make it more engaging and enriching.
It can also be argued that we now consume text in a very different way on digital
devices. We are much more likely to explore background information, take tangental
journeys away from the original topic and read across multiple texts and genres
during our searches and researches. Developing the skills necessary to read
effectively in this new digital environment can only be done using the tools and
devices that are native to that environment, so as teachers we need to ensure that
we are using a range of digital texts and tools that help students to develop the skills
they need to navigate this digital world with confidence.
This chapter contains a range of tools and resources to help you develop your
students’ reading skills. These range from tools to assist with vocabulary whilst
reading to resources with a wide range of ready-made graded authentic and semi
authentic content to help engage and motivate your students both at home and in
the classroom.
59
READING Lumio - https://www.lumioapp.com/

TOOLS This is a really useful Google Chrome plugin and iOS app
that students can use to save quotes, links, screenshots or
images from websites as they do online research.
Once the plugin has been installed, they just highlight parts
of the webpage they want to save and click on the yellow
“This is a great study tool for
icon.
doing digital research and a
great way to build students’
digital literacy skills.”
The information is saved into their account. The 'notes' are

saved as cards and these can then be added to
collections, known as ‘Storylines’.
All information that is saved is linked back to the original

source and students can add notes about the information
and why they saved it. They can also organise and
re-arrange the information they save to make it more
accessible.
60
READING ReadLang - http://readlang.com

TOOLS This is a useful tool to assist students’ reading and to build
vocabulary. They just add the browser plugin and then click
on words to get translations of any words they highlight in
an online text. The words they translate are saved into their
profile and they can then use them to generate flashcard
revision activities.
“This is a good sound way to
use translation to support
reading and vocabulary
building.”
Students can also edit the flashcards and add additional

information to them.
This is a good sound way to use translation to support

reading and vocabulary building. It is a freemium product
so students can use it to learn 10 new words each day. If
they want unlimited use then there is a charge of around $5
for a year.
61
READING News in Levels - http://www.newsinlevels.com/

TOOLS This is a useful site to find semi-authentic content for lower
levels. The content is based around current news items and
each article is available at three different levels.
students at lower levels
engaged with current
topics.”
The texts also have a recording of someone reading the

news. Level 1 is a very simplified version of the text with
quite a slow clear reading.
The top level texts can be as long as 3000 words and

normal speed. There is also an app version for both iOS
and Android. This is a great way to get students at lower
levels engaged with current topics in English.
62
READING Newsela - https://newsela.com/

TOOLS This is another site that uses news stories as the basis for
language learning. Each story can be accessed at different
levels and if students register they can also access
interactive quizzes and open text comprehension questions
that have been set by their teacher.
“This is a really marvellous

tool for structuring students’
reading development in an
engaging way.”
If you register as a teacher the site also offers you some

LMS type management tools that enable you to track
learners’ scores and set questions. This makes it ideal for
setting and checking reading homework. This is a really
marvellous tool for structuring students’ reading
development in an engaging way.
63
READING Rewordify - http://rewordify.com/index.php

TOOLS This is a useful tool for creating a reading activity based
around any text. Just copy and paste text into the yellow
field and click on ‘Rewordify text’ and the text will be
simplified to make it easier to read.
“This is a great tool for

helping students develop
reading skills and helping
teachers to produce
motivating reading activities
based around authentic
content.”
The site will also help you create vocabulary activities

based around synonyms and you can print a number of
activity types based around the text including a cloze test.
There is also an interesting feature which analyses and
highlights all the parts of speech in different colours.
This is a great tool for helping students develop reading

skills and helping teachers to produce motivating reading
activities based around up-to-date content.
64
READING CommonLit - https://www.commonlit.org/themes.html

TOOLS This site was designed to help grade K5 - K12 first
language speaker students develop their reading and
comprehension skills, but can also be really useful for
second language development.
“This is great for getting
students to work more
autonomously on their
reading skills.”
Students can choose from a range of graded texts and get

a wide range of interactive activities and reading support.
Teachers can also register on the site and assign specific
texts to their students.
The reading support tools combine text-dependent

comprehension questions and discussion type questions to
focus students’ attention as well as text-to-speech and
dictionary / glossary type vocabulary support. Students and
teachers can also download the text as a pdf file.
This is great for getting students to work more autonomously

on their reading skills.
65
READING ReadWorks Digital - http://digital.readworks.org/

TOOLS Like many of the other tools this site helps teachers find
ready made reading activities that they can assign to
students. The site has ready prepared questions for the
texts as well as vocabulary support.
“The site looks like it will be

better for higher level
readers rather than
beginners as many of the
articles are quite complex.”
ReadWorks also makes it very easy to print the articles for

use in classrooms where there is limited internet
connectivity.
The site looks like it will be better for higher level readers
rather than beginners as many of the articles are quite
complex.
66
READING DreamReader - http://dreamreader.net/

TOOLS This site was designed specifically for English language
learners and has a range of reading texts at different levels.
Each text also has an interactive online quiz and an audio
recording of the text.
“This is a really useful free

resource which is constantly
growing.”
The materials can also be downloaded as pdf and printed

for use in the classroom. Each one also has a
downloadable version of the audio file.
These materials are great for homework, reading

assignments or for use in the classroom. This is a really
useful free resource which is constantly being up-dated.
67
READING Lingro - http://lingro.com/

TOOLS This is a tool that can be used to assist students with the
reading of more challenging web based texts.
“Used over time this can be

a really powerful tool to
help students develop their
reading skills and
vocabulary.”
They simply add the URL of the text to Lingro and it

overlays an interactive dictionary on the text. Students can
then click on any word to get a dictionary definition or
translation. The words they click on are collected in the
Lingro ‘history’ and students can then add them to wordlists
in the ‘Learn’ section of the site. The wordlists they create
can then be converted into interactive flashcards for
vocabulary revision.
The ‘Sentence History’ part of the site also stores a link to

the original text where the student found the word and the
sentence that it appeared in, so students also have an
example sentence and information about context.
Used over time this can be a really powerful tool to help

students develop their reading skills and vocabulary.
68
READING Scrible - https://www.scrible.com/

TOOLS To use Scrible you need to instal a browser plugin. Scrible
can be installed on most browsers including mobile
versions.
“This is a powerful tool for
developing students
collaborative digital study
and research skills.”
Once installed it can be used while students read online.

The toolbar enables student to annotate web based texts
with sticky notes, highlight, underline and strike out words
as wellas a range of other features. All of the annotated
texts are stored in the student’s library so they can then
come back to the text and find and review their annotations.
The texts can also be shared privately or through social
media with a tutor or peer.
This is a powerful tool for developing students’ collaborative

digital study and research skills.
69
READING WordBooster - https://www.word-booster.com/

TOOLS This is a real timesaver for anyone creating courses using
authentic materials. The site generates word lists from
authentic texts and includes definitions of the words and a
“This is a real timesaver for range of activities to help students understand and
anyone creating courses remember the words. All you have to do is choose the text
using authentic materials.” and download the worksheets ready for printing.
You just copy and paste the URL of the page you want to
use with your students and after about 1 minute the process
will be complete. You can then see the text of the page with
the key words underlined and download three separate
documents; reformatted text, word list with definitions and
vocabulary building activities, as PDF.
The word list also contains example sentences of the words

used in context as well as a QR code that links back to the
original article or webpage online.
70
READING VocabReminder - http://www.vocabreminder.com/

TOOLS This is an iOS dictionary app that has been designed to
help you revise and remember your new vocabulary.
When you find a word you want to learn, add it to your list of
“VocabReminder is a useful
words by tapping on the bell icon next to each word.
tool to recommend to any of
your students who have
Apple devices.”
The app will then setup a schedule of reminders to help you

remember to check the meanings of the words you've
chosen and give you a small test of your understanding of
the word.The app is particularly useful because it will work
without an internet connection, but it's only available for
Apple devices at present.
You can check out the quality and suitability of the

definitions by going to the site and using the ‘Word Search’
feature.
71
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

7
WRITING TOOLS
With the vast majority of written discourse being created on digital devices it would
seem only natural that we look to digital tools to assist in both the production of a
wide range of text based genre and also in the teaching of the sub-skills of writing.
In addition to this the move to digital text production has enabled the creation of a
number of tools that can assist students in the production of better quality writing
and supply them with feedback, guidance and suggestions for improving the quality
of their output. Many of these kinds of tools don’t exist in the analogue world of
paper-based production, so it is imperative that we as teachers help to educate our
students to enable them to get the best from these tools and resources.
Another significant change that digital text production has ushered in is the ability to
produce text collaboratively, both asynchronously and synchronously. The skills
involved in working collaboratively to produce and refine text are becoming
increasingly important in todays modern workplace, so again this reinforces the
importance of developing students writing skills within the digital realm.
This chapter contains a range of resources to help you develop your students’
digital writing skills. These range from tools to help students develop collaborative
writing and peer editing skills to more creative tools to help students exploit poetry
and develop stories and digital narrative.
72
WRITING PrimaryPad - http://primarypad.com/

TOOLS This is a fantastic tool for getting students to write
collaboratively and / or peer edit each others’ work.
PrimaryPad is a little like a web-based word processor. Just
go to the site and click on ‘Create Pad’ and the site creates
a unique webpage for your text. Then just start writing.
Share the link to the page with more people and you can all
write into the same page at the same time.
“This is a fantastic tool for

getting students to write
collaboratively and / or
peer edit each others’
work.”
You can also use the chat window at the side of the page to
give advice or comment about the text. If you click on the
‘Timeslider’ (the little clock icon next to the star) you can
watch a recording of the text being created and see how
the text was constructed and how students edited and
changed each others’ work. Any work created on the free
version of the site will remain there for up to 30 days.
73
WRITING Telescopic Text - http://www.telescopictext.com/

TOOLS This is a simple web page that starts with the sentence “I
made tea.” but as you click on the grey highlighted words in
the sentence it starts to extend and become a complex
paragraph about making tea.
“This is like a lesson in

creative writing and it’s
great for showing students
how you can start with a
very simple idea and add
more detail to make the idea
more interesting.”
This is a lesson in creative writing and it’s great for showing

students how you can start with a very simple idea and add
more detail to make the idea more interesting. It also
demonstrates the use of different clauses and relative
clauses in sentences as well as the impact of using more
adverbs and adjective. The second version of Telescopic
Text http://www.telescopictext.org/ (.org not .com) allows
you to register and create your own telescopic sentences.
This is great if you want to create materials that
demonstrate specific grammar or writing style points to your
students. You can even personalise them and include
students’ names and build them into the example
sentences.
74
WRITING Hemingway App - http://www.hemingwayapp.com/

TOOLS The Hemingway app is a tool for style checking your
writing.
“The app will identify areas

where your text is difficult to
read and suggest ways that
you can make it clearer.”
You can copy & paste or write directly into it and then click
on ‘Edit’ to get your writing evaluated for level and clarity.
The app will identify areas where your text is difficult to read
and suggest ways that you can make it clearer.
This is a good tool for less formal writing, as a lot of the

suggestions focus on making sentences shorter and
removing passive voice.
75
WRITING WriteAbout - https://www.writeabout.com/

TOOLS This site uses image prompts to inspire digital writing
activities for students.
“This site is built around the

concept of using image
prompts to inspire digital
writing activities for
students.”
Teachers can create classes and assign writing tasks to

students. The students do their writing tasks within the
platform and can publish and share them there. This is a
little like posting to a blog, but within a safe environment.
Students can comment on each others’ postings and

collect them into a gallery. The site also has an interesting
tool to add voice recordings so you can use this for
speaking activities too. The site is free to use with up to 40
students and they can produce up to 5 postings each. After
that you have to have a premium account, but it is very
reasonably priced, especially if you choose the whole
school solution. You can also access the writing prompts
without signing up by going to:
https://www.writeabout.com/ideas/
76
WRITING Write the World - https://writetheworld.com/

TOOLS This site is a little bit like WriteAbout, but it is targeted at 13 -
18 year old native speakers. Students can register and then
access writing groups or just write about specific image
based prompts. There are some interesting writing tasks
that can be as simple as summarising your weekend in ten
words or could be much longer creative writing activities.
“There are some interesting

writing tasks that can be as
simple as summarising your
weekend in ten words or
could be much longer.”
There are also some set writing competitions that students

can enter. Their writing is collected into a portfolio so they
can look back and see how they have progressed. You can
see some of the writing prompts here:
https://writetheworld.com/start_writing
77
WRITING The Politeness Checker - https://foxtype.com/politeness

TOOLS This is an interesting tool that theoretically allows you to
check how polite your written communication is. You just
type in a sentence and then the site will give you a
percentage rating for politeness. You can then make
changes to the sentence to try to improve the politeness
score.
“This is an interesting tool

that theoretically allows you
to check how polite your
written communication is.”
The site also gives you some analysis of the words or

phrases which change your score. It’s questionable how
accurate this is, but it’s a good tool to use with students to
draw their attention to register and levels of politeness. You
can make this into a game by getting students to try to
produce the most polite text by altering various words.
78
WRITING Inklewriter - http://www.inklestudios.com/inklewriter/

TOOLS Inklewriter is a tool for creating interactive narrative or what I
used to call reading mazes. These are stories that present
the reader with various options through the story and allow
the reader to choose how the plot progresses as they read
through.
creating branching stories.
These are stories that allow
the reader to choose how
the plot progresses as they
read through the story.”
To start writing your own story just click on ‘Start Writing’,

then give your story a title and add the first paragraph. You
can then add the options for your reader.
The site tracks your options as you build the story and you
can also see an overview map of the different connections
as you write.
Students can work collaboratively and take it in turns to add

the different options at the end of each paragraph.
79
WRITING My StoryBook - https://www.mystorybook.com/

TOOLS This is a great free web based app that allows students to
create digital story books. It’s very simple to use, they just
add backgrounds and characters to the pages of the book
and then type in their text.
“The app works in the

browser on tablets or
laptops, so it’s ideal for the
BYOD classroom.”
They can save the books they create into their own library.
This is a great way to get younger learners writing. The app
works in the browser on tablets or laptops so it’s ideal for
the BYOD classroom. You can see some examples here:
https://www.mystorybook.com/categories/featured-stories
80
WRITING Plot Generator - http://www.plot-generator.org.uk/

TOOLS Plot Generator is a great tool for students who can’t think
what to write about. They can just fill in blank spaces with
different aspects of the plot and the site will generate a story
plot for them.
“This is great for students

who need a little help with
the imaginative part of the
writing.”
The student can then use this plot to write the story. There is
quite a wide range of story types to choose from and they
can even use it to generate song lyrics and a range of
letters. This is great for students who need a little help
getting started with the imaginative part of the writing.
81
WRITING Steller - https://steller.co/

TOOLS Steller is a great way to get your students creating short
books on their mobile phones. You can download the free
app for Android or iOS.
“This is a nice tool to use
with older teens and ideal
for class trips or
documenting out of the
classroom projects.”
The students can then take photographs or videos on their

phone and use the app to add text and make them into very
professional looking short digital books.
The site has a lot of social media wrap around and students
can comment on each others’ books and share them on
social media platforms.
This is a nice tool to use with older teens and ideal for class
trips or documenting out of the classroom projects. You can
see some example books here:
https://steller.co/most-viewed/
82
WRITING FoldPass - http://www.foldpass.com/

TOOLS This is an iOS app that enables students to collaboratively
create short texts such as poems or haiku. Each student
adds a line and passes it on through the app.
“This is a nice way to get

students working
collaboratively with poetry.”
The texts can be overlaid onto images and posted through

social media when they are finished. This is a nice way to
get students working collaboratively with poetry.
83
WRITING TextAdventures - http://textadventures.co.uk/

TOOLS Text adventure games are a great way of really engaging
students in reading. They get the chance to take some
control of the narrative and find their own way through the
story by making choices at various points in the narrative.
students working
On the ‘TextAdventures’ site you can find lots of examples

for your students to read, but if you log in you can also get
your students to create an adventure themselves. You can
give them an image and an introductory text to get started
and tell them how many different stages the story should
have. Then get them working together exploring the
different branches and possibilities at each turn. This is
great for collaborative writing projects and great to get
students thinking about the potential consequences of
different actions.
84
WRITING Lumen5 - http://lumen5.com/

TOOLS 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.
students working
Once you’ve structured the text, the site will automatically

find images and clips to go with each section of the text.
You can then edit these manually or add your own images.
Once you have the look and feel of the video right, you just
select music and add your branding. The video renders
online and you can then download a copy to your hard drive
and uploaded to any online sharing sites and embed it into
a course or blog.
This is a great tool to use to encourage students to produce

short summaries. It forces them to keep the amount of text
to a minimum so they focus on key points. Selecting and
matching images to the text can also help make the points
more memorable.
85
WRITING Story Wars - https://www.storywars.net/

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

students working
Students read short chapters of the beginnings of stories

and then have to submit the next chapter of the story. The
readers of the story can then vote for which new chapter
they feel is the best continuation of the story. The one with
the most votes becomes part of the story. There are lots of
stories in progress that students can add to or they can start
their own. Each story has a fantastic image to help prompt
the imagination. The site is free, but there is a ‘classroom’
version for $15 a month which makes all the stories your
students create private and gives you the teacher the ability
to give your students feedback on their submissions. There
is also a free iOS version for mobile devices.
The site is an ideal way to get teens enthusiastic about

reading and writing fiction.
86
WRITING Commaful - https://commaful.com/

TOOLS This is an interesting web based tool for combining text and
images into beautiful visual short stories or poems. Once
you have signed in you can start to create your narrative by
typing in text and searching for and selecting images to
“This is a useful tool to
combine with the text.
illustrate and publish any
short fiction writing your
students produce.”
There are lots of artistic images, gifs and video clips to

choose from and you can choose how to position the text
over the images. Once your narrative is complete it plays
like a presentation that users can click through to read or
you can set it to auto-play.
The app seems to be particularly popular with teens and

there’s a lot of teen type fiction on the themes of romance
and or horror stories. Some of the themes can be a bit
strong so it’s best to use this only with more mature
students. The app is also social so users can comment on,
follow and like each others creations.
87
WRITING SAS Writing Reviser -

TOOLS https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sas-writing-re
viser/fhjdkpmenphkpeogpeljncfmbkknmkje?hl=en
This is a really cleverly designed Chrome add-on to get
your students self-assessing and improving their own
“Particularly good for
writing.
anyone working on EAP or
studying for an IELTS or
similar exam.”
The add-on opens in the sidebar of the document and you

can select from a number of aspects that you would like to
work on. Select from the menu and you will see a submenu
that has more specific features to choose from.
When you click on one of the features, you will see the
places in your document where improvements could be
made and get a list of them in the side bar. You can then
decide which sentences are okay and which you would like
to improve.
It doesn't do the work for the students like a grammar or

spell-checker but it does push them to think about their
writing at a more stylistic level.
88
WRITING TaleShip - https://taleship.me/

TOOLS This is a really interesting app for developing reading and
writing skills in a collaborative and creative way.

students working
collaboratively with story
telling.”
The app is based around a common classroom activity in

which students write stories together by adding a sentence
and passing it on to another writer. The next writer then
adds a sentence and either passes it back or passes it to
another student. The process continues until the story is
finished.
The app works both synchronously and asynchronously and

has a text chat window on the side of the interface so
students can interact with each other as they build the story.
This is a great way to get students writing collaboratively

and you can follow it up with some peer correction or get
the students to take the stories and enhance and improve
them by adding more description and detail.
89
WRITING PenPal Schools -

TOOLS https://www.penpalschools.com/index.html
This is a fantastic site for creating intercultural exchange
projects with students from different schools around the
world.
“All the materials are
provided and the students
just need a device (the
service works on most
devices) and an internet
connection.”
The site has a wide variety of interesting projects that you

can choose from and they are well designed and structured
with learning goals, levels and age appropriacy clearly
sign-posted.
In order to register on the site as a teacher you have to be

located at a physical school which you identify when you
sign up. Once this is done you can select your project and
get your students registered using a class code that you
find on your dashboard.
The site automatically matches your class up to another

class somewhere around the world. Then your students will
need to commit 30 - 45 mins each week for the length of the
project (usually about 6 weeks)
90
WRITING Newspaper Generator -

TOOLS https://newspaper.jaguarpaw.co.uk/
This is a useful tool that enables you to create what looks
like a newspaper front page.

students writing news type
texts and then publishing
them.”
To do this you upload an image, select a title and a

headline and then write in the details of the story. Then just
click on 'Make it' and the site will produce a PDF that you
can download.
You can use it to get them thinking about fake news by

creating a selection of news articles, some based on real
news stories and others that you invent. You can then ask
them to research the articles and find out which ones are
real and which are invented.
You could use the headlines and articles to generate

discussion over which are real and which are fake or work
on how to spot fake news.
Newspaper Generator can be used in an enjoyable way to

raise awareness of issues regarding the credibility of news
and to promote more critical thinking.
91
Peergrade - https://www.peergrade.io/
Peergrade is a great tool to get students assessing each
others’ work and giving each other feedback.
“Peergrade looks like a
really excellent tool to
encourage a process
approach to writing and to
encourage students to think
more deeply about how their
work is evaluated and what
they should be aiming to
achieve.”
You can create classes and then assign digital assignments

that can include a range of different media. The students
then complete and submit their tasks online. Once they have
submitted their assignment they then grade the assignments
of their peers.
After they have graded their peers they are able to find the
feedback from their peers on their own work.
As the teacher you can set up rubrics for the students to use
when they grade each others' work.
The platform also has a live session mode that enables you
to do writing work in the live connected classroom.
The basic account is free and unlimited. If you want to use

this regularly and especially if you want to implement the
use of it across your school then it's well worth checking out
the subscription models.
92
Photo by Alice Moore on Unsplash

8
LISTENING TOOLS
Much like speaking, the digital communications revolution has expanded access to
a huge variety of digital genres and with that a range of voices and accents that
students would never experience in the analogue classroom. These digital
communication tools coupled with the proliferation of mobile devices offer students
the opportunity to work more autonomously to develop their listening skills both
inside and outside the classroom. Helping students to negotiate the huge range of
available tools and use them in a way that enables them to develop their listening
and communication skills more effectively should be among the top priorities of
language teachers.
This chapter contains a range of tools and resources to help you develop your
students’ listening skills. These range from a wide variety of authentic ready-made
content based around news or songs to tools that can be used to support and assist
with listening skills whilst watching video clips from YouTube.
93
LISTENING Listenwise - https://listenwise.com/

TOOLS This is an amazingly rich resource for developing listening
skills using texts about current events. The site has a huge
collection of ready made listening materials on a really wide
range of international topics.
“Listenwise is a really
powerful tool for developing
students listening skills and
for saving teachers planning
time.”
Once you register on the site, you can access listenings

and scripts and well as a range of interactive and
classroom activities.
Once you select a lesson you can easily get a link to share
with your students. Any teacher can register for free, use
the classroom materials and share links to the resources
with their students. To use the interactive online materials
and get access to the LMS you need to have a premium
account. This will enable you to use and track the materials
for homework assignments. The premium membership will
also allow you to customise, adapt and assign the content
to specific students or classes.
You can see some examples of the materials here:

https://listenwise.com/current_events
94
LISTENING Lyricstraining - http://lyricstraining.com/

TOOLS This site features music videos in a range of different
languages. Students can choose a video and then select
their level of challenge. The site then generates cloze
activities based around the song lyrics.

students working on their
listening skills at home.”
At the advanced level all the words are deleted and it

becomes a dictation type activity, but at lower levels just a
few words are extracted. Students then listen, line-by-line,
and type in the missing words.
There is also some gamification to add to the motivation

level. Students can score more point if they type in the
words more quickly. There is a time limit and if they are too
slow they have to restart of the activity. If there’s a song you
particularly want to use you can register on the site and
create your own activity. You will need the lyrics and a link to
the video on YouTube. This is a great way to get students
working on their listening skills at home.
95
LISTENING Listen and Write - http://listenandwrite.com

TOOLS This site is a little like Lyricstraining but with a greater
variety of content and exercise types.
“This is a really great way

for students to practice and
improve their listening skills
and get instant feedback.”
Students can select listening activities at various levels and

then choose the type of activity they want to do. These
range from typing in a complete sentence then getting it
corrected to just typing in letters or words.
If students want to save their scores they need to register,

but registration is free. This is a really great way for students
to practice and improve their listening skills and get instant
feedback. Teachers can also register and create activities.
You will need an audio file and a transcript. It can take a
little time to create your first activity, but once you have
created one it shouldn’t take longer than 15 - 20 mins to do
another.
96
LISTENING CNN Student - http://edition.cnn.com/studentnews

TOOLS The site is updated with a news summary every week.
Produced by CNN this is a excellent site for higher level
students. The site includes transcripts as well as
downloadable podcasts and videos.
“Produced by CNN this is a

excellent site for higher level
students.”
There are no ready made materials, but it does provide

easy to use authentic content that you can create short
lessons around.
97
LISTENING Breaking News English -

TOOLS http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/
This site has a vast collection of lesson materials designed
around current news stories. The stories have been
rewritten to be accessible for lower level English language
learners. As well as the stories and multiple activities that
accompany each one, there are audio recordings of the
stories that students can listen to.
“This is a great source of

classroom materials for
teachers.”
Multiple audio files are provided for each story so that

students can listen to the story at slower speeds.
This is a great source of classroom materials for teachers.
98
LISTENING YouTube Kids - https://kids.youtube.com/

TOOLS This app is from YouTube. It is designed to be family / child
friendly. The app works on android or iOS and enables you
to allow kids to use and browse videos on YouTube without
having to worry about them finding anything inappropriate.

younger students using
YouTube whilst ensuring that
they won’t find disturbing or
inappropriate materials.”
There is a very comprehensive parental guide which helps

teachers and parents to understand how to use the app.
The guide also has some useful advice on screen time and
other related issues.
See: https://support.google.com/youtubekids/
This is a great way to get younger students using YouTube

whilst ensuring that they won’t find disturbing or
inappropriate materials or comments.
99
LISTENING SwiftScribe - https://swiftscribe.ai/

TOOLS SwiftScribe is a great tool for making audio to text
transcription much easier. The tool only works in the Chrome
browser so you'll need to download it.
“This is a great tool if you

have a lot of transcription
work to do, but also a great
tool to develop students'
listening.”
Once you have registered you can upload any audio file
and SwiftScribe's speech to text engine will attempt to
transcribe it into English text. Once it has done this you or
your students can listen to the audio file whilst reading
through the text in the browser. When you spot errors in the
transcription you can just click on the space bar to pause
the audio and then edit the text in the browser window. The
site has tools which will help slow down or repeat sections
of the text and there are keyboard short cuts to make all this
faster.
This is a great tool if you have a lot of transcription work to

do, but also a great tool to develop students' listening. You
can give them and audio file to transcribe and they can
upload it and then check and correct the transcription.
Once it's complete they can download and send it to you or
peer check each others work.
100
Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

9
SPEAKING TOOLS
Digital connectivity has brought about a revolution in the way we use voice to
communicate both with each other and with the digital devices that accompany us
wherever we go. Face-to-face synchronous communication across continents has
become a day-to-day experience for many people and the use of voice to control
various aspects of our computers and indeed our homes is becoming normalised.
With the falling cost, increased accessibility and use of voice communication tools
across continents and cultures it seems only natural that we should be helping our
students to access and make use of these tools effectively both inside and outside
the classroom. These tools don’t just offer our students the opportunity for genuine
language use both inside and outside of the classroom but they also offer them the
opportunity to record and reflect on their own abilities and take a more autonomous
and self-aware approach to the development of speaking skills.
This chapter contains tools to help you develop your students’ speaking skills.
These range from tools to help with specific areas of pronunciation to tools you can
use to get students recording their own voices. These tools can help you to create
engaging multimedia activities that get your students speaking.
101
SPEAKING Toontastic - https://toontastic.withgoogle.com/

TOOLS This is a creative tool for encouraging students to practice
speaking and developing dialogues in a really enjoyable
way.
“This is the kind of tool that
can be used to get younger
students speaking. It gives
them the opportunity to play
out different roles and to
listen and reflect on their
own speaking before they
save and share.”
It is available on mobile for iOS and Android users. Once

downloaded you can use it to create short 3D animated
videos with your own voiceovers.
Just open the app, choose the type of storyboard structure

you need then select the background and characters for
each scene.
When you open the first scene you then click on record and
touch the character you want to attach the voice to. You can
hold your finger down on the character to move it around as
you speak, then do the same with the other characters.
Once you have recorded the scene you can select the
background music you want for it and review it. Move on
through the scenes until the story is created. You can then
download the finished video to your phone and share it on a
site or through social media.
102
SPEAKING Flipgrid - https://flipgrid.com/

TOOLS This is a great tool for adding a blended learning element to
your face-to-face courses or even for building 100% online
learning.
“This is a great tool to set up
speaking homework tasks
and get students exploring a
wide range of issues whilst
developing their digital skills
and confidence in front of
their webcam.”
Using Flipgrid you can create a number of ‘grids’ based

around top level themes and then build 'topics' into these.
When you build a topic you can add various video based
resources and questions, then students can respond by
recording short video clips giving their opinion on the topic.
The free version gives you one grid that you can use to
create any number of discussion topics. The paid version
which is $65 a year has a lot of additional features including
the ability to connect up with other Flipgrid classrooms
around the world.
It's well worth looking through the existing grids that have
been created on the platform to see how it works and look
at some of the really great work that's being done with the
platform.
103
SPEAKING Fluency Tutor -

TOOLS https://www.texthelp.com/en-gb/products/fluencytutor
Fluency Tutor is a really interesting concept. It is a
Chrome plugin that converts a computer into a kind of
language lab. If you sign up as a teacher you can then
assign texts to students and they can record themselves
“This is a great way to make
reading the text and send it to you for feedback. You see
reading aloud less stressful
all your students’ submissions in the LMS and you can
and more productive for
students.”
the listen to them and send them feedback.
They will have the time to read and understand the text
before recording it and they have the opportunity to listen to
themselves and improve their recording. This a great way to
give students speaking practice for homework and it give
you the opportunity to listen to each individual student and
analyse their pronunciation problems. You do both need to
have Google Chrome though and they will need to register
with an email address.
104
SPEAKING Dictation - https://dictation.io/

TOOLS This is a very simple to use web-based app that works in
the Google Chrome browser. It looks like a simple sheet of
lined paper, but it enables students to use their computer
microphone to dictate text into the page. The text can then
be copied and pasted into any document.
“This is a nice simple tool to
get students speaking and
working on their
pronunciation.”
This is a nice simple tool to get students speaking and

working on their pronunciation, though they will need a quiet
space to do it and a good microphone, so better for
autonomous study at home.
105
SPEAKING iTalk Recorder -

TOOLS https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/italk-recorder/id2936733
04
This is a great app for iOS users. It enables you to quickly
record and share example audio recordings of sentences,
words or texts for your students to listen to. Better still get
your students speaking, recording and sharing with you
and each other.
“It enables you to quickly

record and share example
audios of sentences, words
or texts for your students to
listen to.”
Just record and share directly from your iPhone or iPad. You
can also save the recordings into DropBox to save space
on your device.
There is also a premium version with a greater range of

features available for a very small one off fee.
106
SPEAKING Vocaroo - http://vocaroo.com/

TOOLS This is a very simple to use browser based tool for creating
and sharing short audio clips. Simply enable Flash in your
browser and start recording. Once you have recorded your
clip you can save it to your hard-drive or share through
email, a range of social media or embed code.
“Once you have recorded

your clip you can save it to
your hard-drive or share
through email, a range of
social media or embed
code.”
The recording quality isn’t outstanding, but this is a good

way to get students recording speaking activities, sharing
them, or collecting them into a speaking portfolio.
107
SPEAKING Clarisketch - http://www.clarisketch.com/

TOOLS This is a great app to get students talking about or
describing images they create or upload. The app works in
either the Google Chrome browser or on Android phones.
Students simply add an image and then record themselves
talking about it.
“This is a great way to

combine the use of edtech
with image based speaking
activities.”
The ‘sketches’ can then be posted online and embedded

into websites and shared on social media. You can see
some examples here:
http://www.clarisketch.com/#useCases
This is a great way to combine the use of edtech with image

based speaking activities.
108
SPEAKING Shadow Puppet - http://get-puppet.co/

TOOLS This app takes enables teachers or students to create
sequences of images and videos and record a monologue
about each one.
“Shadow Puppet is a great

tool for creating digital
narrative, doing reports or
homework assignments or
creating more personalised
speaking activities.”
The images can be ones they have created themselves or

they can find images by using the apps search function.
The image search draws on Creative Commons images
from a wide range of source.
Students can also add annotations, emojis and other

ornaments to the images. The app then exports the
sequence and monologue as a video file that can be shared
through social media, email or embedded into a blog or
website.
The site also includes lesson ideas for a range of topics

across the curriculum as well as some useful printable
resources for the classroom. At present it is only available
for iOS.
109
SPEAKING Phonetizer - http://www.phonetizer.com/ui

TOOLS This is a really useful tool for working with text and
phonemic script. You can copy paste large chunks of text
and then with the click of a button it will be transcribed into
phonemic script. You can also use the speak button to get
the site to read the text to you using text-to-speech
technology. You can then copy and paste the phonemic
script into documents to create student activities.
“You can copy and paste

large chunks of text and then
with the click of a button it
will be transcribed into
phonemic script.”
You can choose from a UK or US phonemic transcription of

the text.
Phonetizer will also work on mobile platforms but can be

tricky to use on the smaller screen size.
110
SPEAKING PhoTransEdit -
TOOLS http://www.photransedit.com/Online/Text2Phonetics.aspx
This app offers a very simple quick way to convert up to
300 characters of text into phonemic symbols. Just type or
copy paste your text into the upper field, click on transcribe
and your text will appear as phonemes in the window
below.
“This app offers a very
simple quick way to convert
up to 300 characters of text
into phonemic symbols.”
You can them copy and paste the text into any document or
presentation. There is also a free desktop version that you
can download from the site for use offline.
111
SPEAKING YouGlish - http://youglish.com/

TOOLS This is a marvellous tool that enables you to use YouTube as
a form of pronunciation corpus. You can type in a word or
phrase to the search engine and it will find a series of
videos where that word or phrase appears along with
subtitles.

students comparing different
accents, as well as finding
pronunciation models for
words they want to learn
and showing the word in
context.”
You can choose between US, UK and AUS sources and

also get a direct link to the part of the video where the word
occurred and share it with students.There's even a small
tool to slow things down if you feel that helps.
You can use the green buttons to skip forward to the next
clip or back to the last one.
This makes it easy to hear lots of examples in context quite

quickly. You can even click on the words in the subtitles to
get a dictionary definition.
The site works in the browser so should work across

platforms and on most mobile phones and tablets too.
112
Photo by Amador Loureiro on

10
GRAMMAR TOOLS
Whilst digital communication has become the scapegoat for what is perceived to be a
decline in the standards of grammatical accuracy in English, it also offers us
unparalleled access to sources, resources and tools that can enable us to carry out
simple empirical studies into how language is genuinely used by its speakers. The
internet now gives us access to the kind of corpora that was once exclusively limited to
university research departments and every student can now access the tools to mine
that data for genuine and geographically specific examples of language use. As
teachers we need to be able to understand how the use of these tools can underpin
what we teach and the production of the learning materials we produce.
This chapter contains a range of tools to enable you to develop your students’
understanding of English grammar and syntax. These range from tools that analyse
grammar to those that enable you to instantly create grammar activities or create
corpus based materials that exploit authentic online content.
113
GRAMMAR TubeQuizard - http://tubequizard.com/

TOOLS This is a marvellous site that creates interactive grammar and
vocabulary activities based on the subtitles and transcriptions
from YouTube videos. Students can either browse the
available quizzes by level or by type of video. They then click
on the video to do the activity. Most are gap fill type activities
and students can listen and type in the answers or click
‘Check’ to find the answer.
“This is a wonderful tool to

enable teachers and
students to create hours of
language practice.”
You can also search for specific words or phrases and

TubeQuizard will find you a video that contains the words or
phrases you are looking for and enable you to create your own
quiz.
This is a wonderful tool to enable teachers and students to

create hours of language practice.
114
GRAMMAR Ludwig - https://ludwig.guru/

TOOLS Ludwig is an interesting concept. You can type in a sentence
and then match it against similar texts found online. You can
also add a * in the sentence instead of a word and Ludwig will
show you possible words to replace the *.

getting students to check
their own sentence structure
and vocabulary.”
Unlike some similar sites like GoogleBattle

(http://googlebattle.com/) or GoogleFight
http://www.googlefight.co.uk/ Ludwig only draws on well
written sources, so is more representative of a better level of
English.
This is a great tool for getting students to check their own

sentence structure and vocabulary.
115
GRAMMAR Sentence Tree - https://foxtype.com/sentence-tree

TOOLS This is a great site for anyone who likes to analyse the
grammatical structure of sentences. Just type in any sentence
and the site will produce a diagram of the sentence with all of
the parts of speech and word forms labeled and colour
coded.
“Just type in any sentence
and the site will produce a
diagram of the sentence with
all of the parts of speech
and word forms labeled.”
This is great for introducing students or trainee teachers to

form analysis. Students can look for sentences in a text that
have the same or similar structure. They can also use the form
diagrams and replace parts of the sentence with new words of
the same word class to create new meanings within the same
structure. This should illustrate the generative nature of
grammatical structures.
116
GRAMMAR Grammar Gamble - http://www.grammargamble.com/

TOOLS This site reminds me of the grammar auction game I used to
play with students. Grammar Gamble is a competitive quiz
game that anyone can join.

students engaging with,
enjoying and thinking about
grammar.”
The player starts with $100 and can gamble as much or as

little of that sum on their answer to a multiple choice question.
If they are sure they are right they can gamble all of it, but if
they are unsure they can reduce the amount. If they get the
answer correct they win more money and can increase their
bet next time. You can use this as a competition among
students to see who can make the most money in ten
minutes.
This is a great way to get students engaging with, enjoying

and thinking about grammar.
117
GRAMMAR Now Corpus - http://corpus.byu.edu/now/

TOOLS This site give you access to a corpus of more than 3.7 billion
words collected from web news sources (News On the Web).
The corpus is constantly being renewed as new web news
appears so this is a great way to make sure that your
searches are drawing on up-to-date sources of English. You
can type in any word or ‘string’ of words and then find
examples of use from within the corpus.
“This is a great way to
create materials and
exercises that draw on
authentic language or for
students to collect examples
of new words or phrases
they are learning.”
This is a great way to create materials and exercises that draw

on authentic language or for students to collect examples of
new words or phrases they are learning.
118
GRAMMAR Verb conjugation tool - http://www.prologo.net/english/

TOOLS This is a great tool to quickly create verb conjugation charts.
Simply click on the verbs that you want to include in your
chart and the site will instantly generate the chart for you.
“This is a really useful tool

for quickly creating
reference materials for
students.”
You can choose between having a simple table of the

conjugations or having a flow chart showing the use of each
verb within a sentence structure.
This is a really useful tool for quickly creating reference

materials for students.
119
GRAMMAR Close Test Creator -

TOOLS http://l.georges.online.fr/tools/cloze.html
This is a very simple tool that enables you to instantly create
interactive cloze test activities based around any text. Just
copy and paste a text from any site or document into the
main field and click on submit. You can produce either plain
text cloze tests or interactive ones.
“This is a very simple tool

that enables you to instantly
create cloze test activities
based around any text.”
The site will also allow you to choose the types of words that
are extracted from the text, so you can for example just
remove articles or prepositions. When an interactive cloze
has been created you can type in the missing words and
the site will highlight the words in red if they are incorrect.
The activities this tool creates can’t be saved, so there is no
copyright infringement, but that also means that you can’t
create and distribute the activities to multiple students. You
can show students how to use the tool to create their own
revision tests though, so it’s still very useful and works well
on an interactive whiteboard.
120
Photo by Daniel Cheung on Unsplash

11
PRESENTATION TOOLS
The ability to produce and deliver convincing presentations is becoming a common
feature of both the business and academic world, so for many of our students the
development of this ability is a high priority. Creating and delivering presentations
presents a number of challenges for native and non-native speakers alike. Virtual
presentations, either synchronous or asynchronous, are also becoming increasingly
popular. As teachers, the digital realm offers us a range of tools and resources to
help students develop the skills they need, both to create dynamic visually engaging
slide decks, as well as to work on the oral delivery of this genre of communication.
This chapter contains a range of tools and resources to enable you to create and
share presentations. These range from tools to help you share presentations for the
classroom to tools which enable you to add talking head narration and embed
presentations into online courses. There are also tools to help you create simple
animated presentations or more unusual types of presentation like web based
posters or single page websites.
121
PRESENTATION SlideShare - http://www.slideshare.net/

TOOLS SlideShare is a free online platform for sharing your
presentation slides. This can make your slides much more
accessible to others after the presentation.
“The site makes it very easy

to share your presentation
through a range of social
media and you can also
easily add them to your
LinkedIn profile.”
The best way to add your slides to SlideShare is to save

them to PDF first and then just upload them. The site makes
it very easy to share your presentation through a range of
social media and you can also easily add them to your
LinkedIn profile.
122
PRESENTATION Simpleshow - https://www.mysimpleshow.com

TOOLS This is a great alternative to getting students to stand up
and do a presentation. Instead it allows students to create a
narrated video presentation. This could be used as a great
first step towards delivering their own physical presentation.
It also offers the students the choice between recording
their own narration or using a text to speech generated
narration.
“This is a great alternative to

getting students to stand up
and do a presentation.”
The site is free and simple to use. Once students register

they just need to type their script for each slide and stage in
the presentation and then the site will automatically
generate images to go with the script.
Students can then go through and edit each slide, change

the images or add their own narration. At each step their are
video guides so there shouldn’t be too many technical
challenges. There are also plenty of examples here:
https://www.mysimpleshow.com/examples/ so it would be
good to choose a couple for students to look at first so they
understand what they are going to create.
123
PRESENTATION QwikSlides - http://www.classtools.net/qwikslides/

TOOLS QwikSlides is a very simple browser-based tool for creating
online presentations.
“To get started just click on
the edit icon and you can
simply type in your text and
the links to the media you
want to include.”
Basically you can add text, links to online images and

videos and customise the look of the presentation a little. It’s
not nearly as powerful in terms of design as something like
Keynote or PowerPoint, but it does get the job done and the
presentation online very quickly and it is free.
To get started just click on the edit icon and you can simply
type in your text and the links to the media you want to
include. Each line in the editor creates a new slide.
124
PRESENTATION AuthorStream - http://www.authorstream.com/

TOOLS AuthorStream is similar to SlideShare. It’s a tool for hosting
your presentations online. You can also add audio narration
and the site will then convert them to videos which you can
download, though this is a paid feature so you will have to
upgrade from the free version to do that.
“The site does have a couple

of advantages over
SlideShare though,
especially for Apple users. It
accepts KeyNote
presentations and will retain
any animations used in the
presentation too.”
The site does have a couple of advantages over SlideShare

though, especially for Apple users. It accepts KeyNote
presentations and will retain any animations used in the
presentation too. The site does look a bit out of date though
and isn’t as well designed as SlideShare.
125
PRESENTATION Tackk - https://tackk.com

TOOLS Tackk is another alternative to doing presentations in the
classroom. It allows students to create a single webpage
and add different kinds of media and text to the page.
“Students can use the single

page to share and display
the results of their research
and add explainer text.”
The pages are social so other students can either contribute

to the page or comment, etc. The pages are also easily
shared through social media. The designs look very modern
and professional so this is a very motivating way for
students to share their work.
Students can use the single page to share and display the
results of their research and add explainer text.
126
PRESENTATION Buncee - https://www.edu.buncee.com/

TOOLS Buncee is a cross between presentation tool and digital
canvas. You can use it to create either a sequence of slides
or just use one slide as a kind of digital poster.
“There is a really wide range

of digital assets that students
can search through and use
in their pages and this
includes images, video 360
images as well as designs,
animations shapes and text.”
There is a really wide range of digital assets that students

can search through and use in their pages and this includes
images, video, 360 degree images as well as icon designs,
animations shapes and text. Buncee also works a little like a
social network so that students can follow each other and
like and comment on each other’s work.
Buncee is a freemium product so there are some features

which are locked without payment (audio recording being
the most useful one) but the tool is still very useful even if
you just work with the free features. There is also an
educational version of Buncee.
127
PRESENTATION Prezi - https://prezi.com/

TOOLS Prezi is very popular among the edtech community at
present and claims to represent a shift away from the
traditional linear form of presentation.
“It provides a kind canvas on
which you can layout a
mixture of assets that you
wish to present, such as
video clips text and images.”
It provides a kind canvas on which you can layout a mixture

of assets that you wish to present, such as video clips text
and images. You then chart a course around the various
assets zooming in and out as you talk through them.
Prezi is very mobile friendly too and has a dedicated app

for iOS.
128
Photo by Olu Eletu on Unsplash

12
POLL & SURVEY TOOLS

The ability to create surveys for the collection and analysis of data is useful for
teachers and students alike. Data collected through the creation of action research
projects can help us as teachers to evaluate our own effectiveness. Surveys can
also be used to provide motivating, realistic and meaningful classroom and online
learning tasks. Most usefully we can also get our students to create surveys to carry
out their own research and help them to find answers and conclusions in their data.
This ability to collect, analyse and interpret data is a key digital literacy skill and one
that can help to inform students critical thinking when dealing with data based
information.
This chapter contains a range of tools to help you create polls and surveys. These
range from complex multiple question type polls with embedded multimedia, to
simpler single response, brainstorming and collaborative type polls that can be
used for crowdsourcing and sharing information.
129
POLL & SURVEY SurveyMonkey – https://www.surveymonkey.com/

TOOLS SurveyMonkey is a freemium product and one of the online
survey tools that has been around for the longest. Using a
free subscription you can produce surveys with up to 10
questions and collect up to 400 hundred responses. This is
likely to be enough for the vast majority of student created
surveys. It’s pretty easy to use, you just drag and drop the
types of question you want to use and then edit the
parameters to add the text for the questions and possible
answer alternatives.
“It’s pretty easy to use, you

just drag and drop the types
of question you want to use
and then edit the
parameters to add the text
for the questions and
possible answer
alternatives.”
It’s also very easy to export the data you collect from the
surveys and analyse the answers. It does look a bit dated
though compared to many of the newer survey tools and it
doesn’t have very attractive design templates.
130
POLL & SURVEY Google Forms – https://docs.google.com/forms

TOOLS If you are a Google user Google Forms is a great and very
simple to use free tool for creating surveys. You can choose
a simple template or start from a blank. You can also
choose from a reasonable selection of question types
including text input.
Google have made it very simple to integrate video from

YouTube and search for and add images. The surveys can
be customised quite simply by adding background images
and different designs and there doesn’t seem to be any limit
to the number of response you can collect.
“The surveys can be
customised quite simply by
adding background images
and different designs and
there doesn’t seem to be any
limit to the number of
response you can collect.”
Google Forms are mobile adaptive so you don’t have to

worry if you are working in classes where students use a
range of different devices.
131
POLL & SURVEY Typeform – https://www.typeform.com/

TOOLS This is a really powerful survey creator and one of the most
user friendly ones I’ve tried. It works on a freemium model
which limits the number of templates you can use on a free
subscription, but if you are happy with limited design
options that won’t be a problem. Some of the question types
are only available for premium users, but again, the
“This is a really powerful
available ones enable you to cover most situations.
survey creator and one of
the most user friendly ones
I’ve tried.”
There is a really wide range of questions types to choose

from and you can just drag and drop these onto your survey
template.
Typeform offers good support for images and media, so if

you want to add videos from YouTube or upload images
Typeform is a good option.
132
POLL & SURVEY Survmetrics - https://survmetrics.com/

TOOLS This is yet another freemium survey creation tool, but unlike
the vast majority of these tools, this one is easy to use and
has some really attractive template designs.
“This is a great tool to use

with students to create online
engagement and easy
enough so that students can
use it to create surveys too.”
This is a great tool to use with students to create online

engagement and easy enough so that students can use it
to create surveys too. You can find some useful examples
at: https://survmetrics.com/examples/
133
POLL & SURVEY Tricider – http://www.tricider.com/

TOOLS This is one of the survey tools I use most and it’s a great tool
for exploring the pros and cons around a particular problem
and really pulling in ideas from the students. You simply add
a single question or problem and then users can add ideas
for solving the problem.
“You simply add a single

question or problem and
then users can add ideas for
solving the problem.”
They can also add the pros and cons of each idea and then
vote for the ones they like the best. The data the survey
produces can be hard to analyse, though the voting part is
quite straight forward. It’s a great tool to use in class,
because it’s very simple and quick to create the survey and
students can exchange surveys easily and get instant
results.
To find out more about how to use Tricider read my article –

Crowdsourcing Knowledge with Students.
134
POLL & SURVEY AnswerGarden – https://answergarden.ch/

TOOLS This is a great tool for very simple surveys that just require a
simple text input. It’s great for brainstorming words related
to a topic or how students feel about a topic.
“This is a great tool for very
simple surveys that just
require a simple text input.”
The answers can also be exported to Wordle which creates

a colourful word cloud showing the most popular options in
larger sizes. It’s also a great tool for use in the classroom
because the site automatically generates a QR code for
each survey so students can quickly scan the survey onto
their phones and answer immediately.
To find out more about how to use AnswerGarden read my

article – Brainstorming and polling with AnswerGarden.
135
Photo by Cris DiNoto on Unsplash

13
INFOGRAPHIC TOOLS
The visual display of data and information in the form of infographics has become a
regular feature of digital publishing. Infographics are both a much more accessible
format for conveying dense information on screens and also offer a range of
animated and graphic features that can help to convey the information in a more
colourful way.
Infographics make information much more accessible for students and can also
form the basis of motivating digital literacy and critical thinking tasks. The growth in
the popularity of infographics has also spawned a whole generation of infographic
creation apps that teachers and students can use freely to create and share their
own understanding and perspective. These tools open up a wide realm of creative
tasks that can develop students’ digital literacy skills and show the results of
research and comprehension tasks.
This chapter contains a range of tools to help you create various kinds of visual
representations of information. The tools in this chapter vary from those that can be
used to create standard graphs and infographics, to ones that can be used to
quickly transform text into to visual displays.
136
INFOGRAPHIC Draw.io - https://www.draw.io/

TOOLS This is a free tool and one of my favorites. It provides an
open canvas that you can drag shapes and images onto
and create your own designs. You can add text to any of the
shapes and use the search engine to find icons and
graphics to make the designs look more professional.
You can also search for photographic images from the

Creative Commons section of Google Images and drag
these on to your design.
“It provides an open canvas

that you can drag shapes
and images onto and create
your own designs.”
The finished or partially finished designs you create can be

stored in Google Drive, DropBox or on your hard drive as
xml and then shared an edited by other Draw.io users. You
can also download the finished designs as pdf or png
images.
137
INFOGRAPHIC Adioma - https://adioma.com/

TOOLS This is one of the simplest and quickest ways to create an
infographic. Simply log in, select a design structure and
copy and paste in short statements or bullet points.
The site will automatically select an image icon to go with

each statement. You can then click on the image to reselect
or search for a better one. Once you have added all your
text you can choose from different colour schemes and then
publish you infographic.
“The site will automatically
select an image icon to go
with each statement.”
The free version of the site only offers quite a narrow variety
of styles, but this is a great tool for introducing your
students to the infographic concept and enabling them to
create one in just a few minutes.
138
INFOGRAPHIC Genial.ly - https://www.genial.ly/

TOOLS This may become one of my new favourite tools for creating
infographics. It’s freemium, but without restrictions on what
or how many infographics you can create.
“This is a great tool because

it enables you not only to
create infographics but also
to make them interactive
with various types of
hotspots and animations so
that users can click on the
graphics and get pop up
windows with video or play
audio files or link through to
various other websites.”
This is a great tool because it enables you not only to create

infographics but also to make them interactive with various
types of hotspots and animations so that users can click on
the graphics and get pop up windows with video or play
audio files or link through to various other websites.
There is quite a range of ready-made templates many of

which are really good ideas for use with a class, such as a
weekly interactive schedule linked to the planets or an
infographic to share favourite music and songs. So this
would be an easy tool to get students started making their
own graphics. You can also start from a blank template.
139
INFOGRAPHIC Visme - http://www.visme.co/

TOOLS This is a freemium tool that allows you to create
infographics or presentations based on templates. It has a
huge range of features and allows you to add animations
and videos to your designs so you achieve a really
professional result.
“It has a huge range of
features and allows you to
add animations and videos
to your designs so you
achieve a really professional
result.”
There is a learning curve to getting really good results from

the tool and some of the best features are linked to the
subscription version, but if you want to take making
infographics to the next level, this tool is well worth
exploring.
140
INFOGRAPHIC Creately - http://creately.com/

TOOLS This is a more sophisticated version of draw.io with a nicer
looking interface. The free plan allows you to create a wide
range of designs but these must be shared publicly.
“This is a more sophisticated

version of draw.io with a
nicer looking interface.”
You can also create one project, which enables you to store
digital assets in your account to use on other infographics.
If you use a paid subscription you can also add
collaborators so that you can work on the designs and
graphics together.
141
INFOGRAPHIC VisualizeMe - http://vizualize.me/

TOOLS This is a free tool that creates an infographic design that
can be used as a CV.
“This can be a useful tool to

use with adult business
students to help them
network and get to know
each other, especially if they
are studying online.”
The design is generated from a LinkedIn profile so to use

this your students will need to be adults with LinkedIn
accounts. Once the infographic has been created, they can
edit the design and content in a number of ways.
This can be a useful tool to use with adult business students

to help them network and get to know each other, especially
if they are studying online.
142
INFOGRAPHIC Easel.ly - http://www.easel.ly/

TOOLS This is another freemium tool for creating template based
infographics. It has a very wide range of templates that you
can edit and add images and icons to.
“This is another freemium

tool for creating template
based infographics. It has a
very wide range of
templates that you can edit
and add images and icons
to.”
There are a good range of high quality download options as

well as the ability to share through links or embed codes.
Many of the templates would make ideal classroom
research activities and should provide some good ideas for
lessons.
The premium features are additional templates and images,

but you don’t have to purchase these to get good results.
143
INFOGRAPHIC Canva - https://www.canva.com/

TOOLS This is a really useful template based tool for creating
infographics. They have a great range of templates and
some of the examples are great ideas for classroom
research projects. Students just edit the templates and add
their own information. Original designs can also be created
by editing a grid and adding images and icons.
“They have a great range of

templates and some of the
examples are great ideas for
classroom research
projects.”
Canva isn’t completely free, the revenue is generated

through sales of premium images and icons, but it’s easy
enough to create a great infographic without using any of
the commercial imagery.
144
INFOGRAPHIC Wordle - http://www.wordle.net/

TOOLS This is a really simple to use free tool for creating word
clouds. It is a useful tool to use if you are collecting text
based data, as you can copy and paste in the text and
Wordle will analyse word frequency and show you the more
frequently used words in larger sizes.
“It is a useful tool to use if

you are collecting text based
data, as you can copy and
paste in the text and Wordle
will analyse word
frequency.”
The tool is limited to creating word clouds and can’t create

more complex designs but the word clouds can be added
to presentations or other infographics to enhance them.
145
INFOGRAPHIC KnightLab Timeline - http://timeline.knightlab.com/

TOOLS This tool is great for creating timeline type infographics that
are linear and based around historical or narrative events or
processes. It’s very easy to add internet based images or
media to the designs.
“It’s much easier to use than

it sounds and it does
produce very professional
results and is used by many
major news outlets.”
The timelines are created by adding links, text and data to a

spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is then uploaded to the site
which generates the design. This tool is free but you will
need a Google account to use it. It’s much easier to use
than it sounds and it does produce very professional results
and is used by many major news outlets.
146
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

14
COURSE CREATION TOOLS

Online materials design and course creation were for some time specialist areas
only accessible to trained technicians capable of scripting complex code, but since
the advent of Web 2.0, tools and applications have been appearing online that
enable teachers with very basic skills to create complex interactive multimedia
materials for their learners.
These tools are increasingly easy to use and enable teachers to create engaging
digital homework assignments that have been specifically designed with an
understanding of the needs and interests of their students. Many of these tools are
also capable of tracking our students’ learning and providing us with valuable
data-based insights into how our students are progressing and where they are
struggling.
A basic understanding and ability to use these tools can empower teachers and
enable them to develop and broaden their instructional design skills as well as
enhance their students learning.
This chapter contains a range of tools to help create web based courses and course
materials. The tools included vary from LMS type tools that enable to create
complete structured courses to those that support live synchronous learning and
face-to-face online teaching. There are also tools that can help you create and sell
your own lessons and courses.
147
COURSE Sutori - https://www.sutori.com/

CREATION This is a wonderful tool for creating content rich interactive
TOOLS digital narrative. The narrative timeline is displayed in a
vertical single webpage and students can just scroll down
through the elements of the story.
“Stories can include a wide

range of media including
video, audio, text, and quiz
type objects as well as
forums.”
Stories can include a wide range of media including video,

audio, text, and quiz type objects as well as forums.
Creating your own narrative is very easy. Just register and
go to your dashboard. Then click the cross to add a story.
You can then add a title and introduction and start adding
various interactive learning objects and media.
Once your narrative is started you can also invite others to

collaborate and build the timeline with you.
You can use Sutori to create interactive reading tasks for

students, or better still get your students to use it to create
their own project or research presentations or as task
outputs as a means of assessing how much they have
learned.
148
COURSE H5P - https://h5p.org/

CREATION This is a tool for building complete courses with a wide
TOOLS variety of interactions. The tool works as a plugin with
Moodle, Drupal and Wordpress. It’s very easy to install the
plugin and once this is done you can choose any of the
interactive elements to add to your pages.
“There are great tools for

creating interactive video
based quizzes,
presentations, audio
responses, a variety of
games and text manipulation
activities.”
The activities the plugin produces are html5 so they will run
equally well on both desktop and mobile platforms. Many of
the activity types are also ideal for language learning and
the exploitation of multimedia content. There are great tools
for creating interactive video based quizzes, presentations,
audio responses, a variety of games and text manipulation
activities.
For such a powerful tool, the learning curve on creating the

activities is quite gentle and you should be able to start
producing content quite quickly. H5P is open source and
there is a good community of developers sharing expertise
on the support forums if you get stuck.
149
COURSE Edorble - https://www.edorble.com/

CREATION This is a fantastic tool for creating your own 3D virtual
TOOLS classroom. Just download the software and claim your room
code. You can then share the code with your students and
they can join you for virtual tutorials, social events or film
and video viewings. The standard classroom is a theatre
space on an island. Students can move around the island
running online group classes
using a 3D virtual avatar and meet up in groups away from
or social events for online the main class.
students.”
Students communicate using a headset and are able to

chat and socialise. Sound is location sensitive so avatars
that are closer together can hear each other clearly,
whereas those on other parts of the island can’t be heard at
all. This makes group work much easier and more
meaningful. There is also a screen in the main auditorium
and this can be used for browsing the internet or showing
videos. You can also open and operate an online
whiteboard from within the browser.
There is also now the capability to build course materials

and launch commercial courses through
https://www.edorbleacademy.com/. You can also take free
courses that can help you use the platform.
150
COURSE Wizer - http://app.wizer.me/

CREATION This is a great site for building digital interactive worksheets
TOOLS with a whole range of different interactions. You can embed
video, images, text or audio into the worksheets and then
build a wide range of interactions around them. Students
have the option to write or use voice input in the worksheets
and the results are all collected in the simple LMS where
“Wizer is great for teachers
who want to take their first
teachers can see the students’ results and type in feedback
steps into developing to send to the student.
interactive online content.”
Wizer is great for teachers who want to take their first steps
into developing interactive online content. It’s very simple
and quick to use and isn’t too big a conceptual leap from
the sorts of activities and worksheets that many teachers
already design for their classroom.
You can get a lot of inspiration and possibly some ready

made materials by looking through the Gallery
http://app.wizer.me/gallery.
151
COURSE Telegra.ph - http://telegra.ph/

CREATION This is a simple to use tool that can enable you to turn your
TOOLS Word worksheets into online multimedia documents in just a
few moments.
“This is a simple to use tool

that can enable you to turn
your Word worksheets into
online multimedia documents
in just a few moments.”
Go to the site and add a title, your name and the text of your
worksheet. Highlight text to get formatting options for
making the text more attractive or adding links.
Click on a new line and look for the icons to add a video or
an image to the worksheet. You can either upload an image
from your hard-drive or add a link to a video and then click
on ‘Enter’ and the video will appear in the worksheet.
Then just click on ‘Publish’ and you have your worksheet

online. Be sure to save the link to the document. You can
then either go back and edit it later or just share it with your
students. There is no login or registration required. The
worksheet can only be edited in the same browser you
created it in.
152
COURSE Teachable - https://teachable.com

CREATION You can use Teachable to create and sell your own online
TOOLS courses. There isn’t much in the way of interactive exercise
types available, but you can add videos text and allow
comments. There is a built in payment system so this takes
a lot of the headaches out of getting started.
“This is a great way to start

becoming an independent
course designer.”
Teachable take 10% if you are working with a free account.

If you find that you are selling a lot of courses you can
switch to a paid account with a fixed fee to reduce the
charges.
This is a great way to start becoming an independent

course designer.
153
COURSE CourseLab - http://www.courselab.com/view_doc.html

CREATION CourseLab has been around for a while now and is a free
TOOLS tool for authoring your own interactive digital content. You
don’t need any coding skills, just use the drag and drop
editor to create a wide range of multimedia interactive
activities.
This really is quite a powerful tool capable of designing a

wide range of quite complex interactive activity types that
include context specific feedback and a number of other
features like scoring and timing, but there is quite a steep
learning curve when you first start using it. If you want to get
serious about building complex online courses then it is
worth putting in the time.
“You don’t need any coding

skills, just use the drag and
drop editor to create a wide
range of multimedia
interactive activities.”
The activities it generates comply to the SCORM standard

so you can import them into Moodle or any other standard
compliant LMS.
154
COURSE DocentEdu - http://docentedu.com/

CREATION This is a great tool to start creating web based materials.
TOOLS You need to have a Google account and use it to sign up.
Then you can use the Chrome extension to build
interactions around webpages or documents.
“You can add videos from

YouTube to enhance content
or you can add discussion,
questions or insights.”
You can add videos from YouTube to enhance content or

you can add discussion, questions or insights. You can
make up to 5 activities for free, after that you have to sign
up for an account, but it is reasonably cheap. There is also
a schools option.
155
COURSE Ed - http://www.edapp.com/
CREATION Ed is a really impressive course creation and LMS tool for
TOOLS creating highly interactive and touch responsive learning
content for mobile devices. It has been designed to work on
both iOS and Android devices and produces media rich
learning activities. You can drop in video, images, text or
audio and create a really wide range of interactions around
them.
“Ed is a really impressive

course creation and LMS
tool for creating highly
interactive and touch
responsive learning content
for mobile devices.”
Many of the activity types are ideal for developing

communication skills.
On the free trial account you can create up to 10 lessons.

After that you have to pay per user per month, so this is a
great tool to create commercial learning materials, but you
have to make sure you will be generating some income.
156
COURSE Kotobee - https://www.kotobee.com

CREATION This is a completely free authoring tool you can download to
TOOLS create interactive ebooks for delivery on either Android or
iOS tablets. The tool goes beyond just creating a ebook,
you can add quite a range of interactions to your books as
well as video and audio files, so this is a great tool for
creating a genuinely digital e-textbook.
“This is a completely free
authoring tool you can
download to create
interactive ebooks for
delivery on either Android
or iOS tablets.”
As well as running on tablets the ebooks the activities you

create can also be exported to the computer desktop or
exported as native apps for Android or iOS (You’ll need to
have Apple or Google developer accounts to do this.)
This is a great tool for the truly digital classroom.
157
COURSE Perusall - https://perusall.com/

CREATION This tool enables teachers to build onto more traditional
TOOLS course book based courses and add a blended element.
Once you have created an account you can upload PDF
documents and add them to courses. You then give your
students a code to register on the course and they can
access the texts, make notes and annotate the text and
build discussions around them.
“This tool enables teachers

to build onto more
traditional course book
based courses and add a
blended element.”
The site also generates a ‘confusion report’ which can

show you where the students are struggling or having
problems with the text, then you can deal with the problems
in the next class.
When you register as a teacher you need to tell the site

which school you teach at. You can try a live demo of a
course to see how it works at:
https://app.perusall.com/demo
158
COURSE NowComment - https://nowcomment.com/

CREATION This is a very similar tool to Perusall, but it’s completely free
TOOLS and works around any web based text. You can create
classes and groups and add students to them and then
create and assign texts from the internet as reading
activities.
“You can create classes and

groups and add students to
them and then create and
assign texts from the internet
as reading activities.”
You then create questions and comments linked to specific

parts of the text which your students engage with as they
read.
This tool enables you to create an online dialogue around

the text and get your students sharing and exploring their
views.
159
COURSE Gnomio - https://www.gnomio.com/

CREATION This is a free hosting service that enables you to create your
TOOLS own free Moodle installation.
Once you have created your platform you can build multiple
classes and courses with a really wide range of interactions
including a plugin for the http://bigbluebutton.org/
synchronous webinar platform. This is a great service that
could enable you to create your own online school to deliver
lessons or training.
“This is a free hosting service

that enables you to create
your own free Moodle
installation.”
The free version of the site does carry some advertising, but
for a small monthly or yearly payment you can get the ads
removed.
160
COURSE Expertise.TV - https://expertise.tv/

CREATION This is a great tool if you want to start making money by
TOOLS training or mentoring online. It has everything you need to
set up, sell and deliver a complete mentoring service
including lead capture and a video conferencing and
webinar platform. It’s also free, but if you do start selling
“This is a great tool if you courses or training sessions then the site keeps a small
want to start making money percentage of what you make.
by training or mentoring
online.”
Unlike many webinar type platforms there’s no whiteboard

or presentation space so it’s more like an enhanced version
of Skype, but you can build you own landing page and
develop a community on the site. There are lots of video
tutorials to tell you more at:
https://expertise.tv/content/Quick-Start-Videos
161
COURSE Apps 4 EFL - https://www.apps4efl.com/

CREATION This is a really useful collection of activities, assignments
TOOLS and tools for teachers and students.
“There are lots of ready

made interactive activities
designed for learners. You
can search through these
and find something
appropriate for our
students.”
There are lots of ready made interactive activities designed

for learners. You can search through these and find
something appropriate for our students. There are also tools
you can use to create customised content for your students’
specific needs.
For most of the assignments you need to register on the site

and create a class. You can then create assignments for
students to do and track their progress. Some of the
activities are translation dependent, so registering (which is
free) will also help set the language used.
Some of the activities I liked most are The Manga Maker,

Vocalyzer, Essay Rank and Error Spotter. For the ones that
involve voice you'll need to make sure students are working
on Google Chrome.
162
Photo by Jippe Joosten on Unsplash

15
GAMES & GAMIFICATION

Digital gaming is not only a multibillion dollar industry but it has also been one of the
driving forces behind the development of more powerful digital devices that can
deliver increasingly more impressive and lifelike digital experiences. Digital gaming
has also enabled the kinds of variable and immersive narrative experience that was
once impossible outside of the human imagination.
The tools, products and understanding of human motivation and its relationship to
challenge and learning gained from this industry offer incredible potential for
integration in education both through an implementation of gamification features and
techniques and the application and utilisation of games. Many games offer users
unique insights and opportunities to empathise with the experiences of others that
are more real and engaging than any form of fiction. As teachers these games offer
us new opportunities to engage our learners and deepen their learning experience.
This chapter contains a range of games and gamified learning activities that can be
exploited for language learning purposes. In many cases these are games that
haven’t been specifically developed for language instruction but they do however
provide opportunities for the kind of genuine language use which students should
benefit from.
163
GAMES & Quiz Your English -

GAMIFICATION http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/learning-english/games
-social/quiz-your-english/
“This is a really simple but

This is a great free app available for both iOS and Android
very well designed app that that has been designed to make English learning and
will keep students at a lower revision into an engaging, enjoyable and addictive game.
intermediate + level
Students can
engaged with and
reviewing language on a
challenge other
regular basis.” users in
competitive
language quizzes.
They do this by
clicking on ‘Play’
and then choosing
a topic.
The students have

ten-seconds to
answer each of
five questions.
The student that
answers correctly
first scores more
points.
The whole quiz is

finished in less
than 1 minute and
then the students
can ask for a
rematch or challenge someone else.
164
GAMES & The Coming Out Simulator -

GAMIFICATION https://ncase.itch.io/coming-out-simulator-2014
This is an interactive story type game that is played on a

“This is useful content to get simulation of a phone screen.
students talking, thinking
and writing about a topic The students watch SMS messages appear and follow the
that many teachers find story. Students
difficult to deal with in the can work
classroom.” 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.
165
GAMES & We Become What We Behold -

GAMIFICATION https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb
This is a short game that attempts to raise awareness of
“This is a great game to lead how the media highlights certain behaviours and attitudes
in to discussion or writing that reinforce prejudices and how this can then lead to
tasks on the topic of media
violence.
manipulation and
prejudice.”
The students play the role of a photographer, taking

photographs 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.
166
GAMES & Lilya - The Shadows of War - http://liyla.org/

GAMIFICATION This is a free game built for iOS or Android around the
experience of a Palestinian family during the 2014 war in
“It does a lot to counteract
Gaza. It has won multiple awards from around the world.
the usual glamour attached
to war related games.”
It does a lot to counteract the usual glamour attached to

war related games. It 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 in Gaza.
The game contains a strong emotional message, so you

should be careful about using it with particularly young
learners.
167
GAMES & Writing Sparks - https://writingsparks.com/

GAMIFICATION This is a really useful tool to encourage younger learners to
brainstorm and plan before they write.
“This is great for giving
structure and adding an
element of fun to writing
activities.”
You or they can choose the kind of text to write and how
long the activity should last. `They then get a prompt to
brainstorm and an on-screen timer.
The timer takes the students through the stages of the

writing process and even gives them a reward at the end.
This is great for giving structure and adding an element of

fun to writing activities.
The site has been created by the makers of Night

Zookeeper and can be used in conjunction with that site or
without any login.
168
GAMES & Tyto - https://www.tytoonline.com/game/

GAMIFICATION Tyto is a MMORPG based around the scenario of a team of
students and scientists trying to save humanity by setting
“Tyto is a great gaming tool up life on a new planet.
to get students actively using
their English.”
The game is designed to develop 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.
When they start the game they are 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. They start to collect a
number of tools and samples to help with the tasks.
You can use elements of the website and get the students
sharing experiences and impressions in the classroom for
speaking practice.
169
GAMES & Factitious - http://factitious.augamestudio.com/

GAMIFICATION This is a great game to get students reading and thinking
about the integrity of news stories. The students are shown
“This is a great game to get
a number of short news stories and headlines and they
students reading and have to decide whether they are genuine or fake news
thinking about the stories.
authenticity of news stories.”
They work through
the articles and
collect points. At
present their are 2
levels.
This would be
great content to
use while
developing web
based research
tasks. You could
give students
some time to
research the
stories and try to
authenticate them.
You could also get
students writing
their own fake and
genuine news
headlines or
stories to test
each other.
170
GAMES & Draw a Stickman - http://www.drawastickman.com/

GAMIFICATION This site has a collection of short narratives about a
Stickman that you can draw with your mouse. Once you
“This site can be used for have drawn the man you click a button and he comes to
lots of activities including life.
retelling the story, writing
the next chapter of the story
or just predicting what will
happen as the adventure
unfolds.”
You then follow him through a short adventure and draw in

various elements as he needs them and discover what
happens to him.
There are three free adventures that students can work

through alone or you can use them in class with a data
projector.
These are really imaginative adventures that can stimulate

students’ imagination and creativity.
This site can be used for lots of activities including retelling

the story, writing the next chapter of the story or just
predicting what will happen as the adventure unfolds.
171
Photo by Billetto Editorial on Unsplash

16
VIRTUAL REALITY TOOLS

Virtual reality is fast becoming the darling of the educational technology world with
edtech investors rushing to fund potentially exciting new resources and tools for the
creation of immersive learning experiences. This rapidly developing area is
becoming increasing accessible to teachers wishing to do some basic skilling up.
With the free resources available it is now possible for the digitally literate teacher
to use free software and apps to create plausible virtual reality learning
experiences that students can access using a basic VR viewer such as Google
Cardboard.
These virtual reality tools can enable us to add a valuable element of experiential
learning to our classrooms that can have a deep and significant impact on student
learning and motivation.
This chapter contains a range of virtual reality resources ranging from those that
provide ready made VR learning experiences to those that enable teachers to
create and launch their own VR worlds.
172
VIRTUAL Rumii - https://www.rumii.net/landing

REALITY TOOLS Rummi is a 3D virtual meeting space for meetings of
various sizes. You need to create an account and download
“Great for larger scale panel
the free software. You can then create your avatar and
debates and for small create various size rooms depending on how big your
meetings.” meeting is.
These rooms vary from small meeting rooms to larger

auditoriums that can host panel type debates with a group
of speakers and a larger audience watching. The rooms
have interactive whiteboards and a screen for sharing
various types of presentation and media.
You can use this with an ordinary laptop or desktop screen

or with a VR headset and controller.
173
VIRTUAL Mirra - https://mirra.co/home/overview

REALITY TOOLS This is a wonderful tool for constructing interactive 3D virtual
reality spaces. You can register and then either customise a
“This is a great tool for pre-constructed template environment or create your own
creating VR learning from scratch. You can add a range of interactive features to
experiences and
the environments such as hot spots that link to other
environments that learners
materials or content, video screens, interactive 3D models,
can interact with.”
2D texts.
Once you have finished building you can publish your

environment and allow people to visit and interact with it.
This is a great way to build VR experiences that can be
viewed in the web browser either with a standard screen or
VR headset. You can view and build in the browser so there
is no need for downloading specialist software.
174
VIRTUAL CoSpaces - https://cospaces.io/

REALITY TOOLS This is a great resources for getting kids to create their own
interactive 3D spaces and creations. If you register as a
“Great for creating VR
teacher you can create classes and assignments then add
assignments for younger your students to the class and set them the assignments.
learners and tracking them Students get a code to enter your class and can then create
through the LMS.” virtual spaces and objects. Check out some of the
examples to get some idea of what is possible.
Pirate ship:
https://maker.cospaces.io/Universe/Space/GMbbXZ0LZ33C
a7aw9p3VjW
Students can browse or create these using a standard

screen or VR headset.
175
VIRTUAL Sansar - https://sansar.com/

REALITY TOOLS Sansar is only recommended for those who want to
dedicate really serious time into developing their VR
building skills. It was created by the Second Life company,
building complex virtual Linden Lab, and is still in beta. It enables you to build a
environments.” complete 3D virtual world that multiple users can join using
either VR headsets or computer screen. You’ll need a PC to
download the software to do this, but it is free. They have
also provided a large amount of training material and
resources for anyone who wants to skill up at creating
virtual reality worlds in Sansar: https://atlas.sansar.com/
You can also see some great examples of the worlds

people are creating (To visit them you’ll also need to
download the software though). Here are two examples:
Floating Temple:
https://atlas.sansar.com/experiences/c3rb3rus/floating-temp
le-wip
Ink: https://atlas.sansar.com/experiences/johnbaic/ink
176
VIRTUAL Engage Immersive Education -

REALITY TOOLS http://immersivevreducation.com/engage-education-platf
orm/
“This is a fantastic tool for

Engage is also for those who want to take their VR pretty
creating interactive, seriously and create virtual reality educational experiences.
collaborative learning The Engage platform is a free to use social education and
experiences.” presentation platform.
Engage allows you to hold meetings, classes, private

lessons and presentations with people from all around the
world in a safe virtual multi-user environment. Like Sansar
the software is free to download (You’ll need a high spec PC
though) and with it you get all the tools you need to build
virtual world experiences. Engage was really designed for
the virtual delivery of live and recorded presentations and
experiential distance learning for up to 30 students in a
class.
To see the Titanic VR experience check out:

http://immersivevreducation.com/titanic-vr-early-look-game-i
mages/
177
Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash

17
E-SAFETY
Increasingly, as teachers use and guide students to use web-based and mobile
applications we are faced with the responsibility of ensuring our students’ safety
online. In this chapter I’d like to look briefly at some of the issues involved and
attempt to put these into realistic perspective.
Please bear in mind though that these are my opinions based on my perspective
and experience as someone who has spent two decades working in online
education. These are not the views of a cyber security expert.
178
E-SAFETY Online Privacy

To be honest I don’t really believe there is any such thing as
100% online privacy. Even the FBI has been hacked. This
isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as you use the internet
with an awareness that anything you do, see, create or
store online could potentially be seen by others.
You wouldn’t walk through a crowded market place in your

underwear shouting out your secrets and sharing your
address, bank details and pictures of the people you love,
and expect it to remain a secret, so don’t expect to do it
online.
If you want to keep something private, keep it in your head,

never write it down, don’t tell anyone about it and make sure
you don’t talk in your sleep.
If you and your students enter the online domain with an

awareness of this and only post things that you are
comfortable having in the public domain then you should
really be fine.
Having said that, most web-based social media platforms

and educational platforms do have some form of privacy
control that limits who can see what, within and from outside
the platform, and processes for reporting abuse, so do
make sure you and your students are aware of how these
work and put them to good use.
179
E-SAFETY The Dangers

There are a number of dangers associated with being
online. The main ones that we need to consider are:
Viruses and malware
• These are among the most common of online problems,

especially in places such as schools, libraries and internet
cafes, where access to a computer is shared and people
are using things like USB drives to store information.
• These problems are also reasonably easy to avoid, if you

make sure that you have antivirus software installed and
keep it regularly updated. Also, make sure that you have a
firewall on your computer and it’s turned on.
Inappropriate materials
• It’s undeniable that the potential for students to find

inappropriate content, either deliberately or accidentally, is
ever present. There are a number of ways of dealing with
this including filtering and monitoring software of various
kinds. None of these are 100% foolproof, so don’t rely too
heavily on them especially if you are working with younger
learners.
• The best way to deal with this problem is to design

purposeful tasks with clear instructions and then monitor
carefully to make sure students stay on task. Having some
form of device or network monitoring software can help
with this, but if you do so, it’s wise to make students aware
that you can see what they are doing, as it’s better to
discourage a problem before it occurs rather than have to
deal with it after it has happened.
180
E-SAFETY Harassment and bullying
• Make sure that your school has a policy regarding

cyberbullying and a process for reporting and dealing with
it. Also make sure that your students know what this policy
is, both in terms of how to report it and what the
consequences will be for the students who do it.
• Make sure students know what does and does not

constitute harassment. In many cases, students just aren’t
aware of the harm they are causing and think that they are
being witty or funny.
• It’s actually much easier to track, prove and trace back

online behaviour to the person responsible in the virtual
world than it is in the physical world. It’s extremely difficult
to carry out any online action without leaving some form of
digital footprint. Make sure students know how easy it is to
get caught if they are bullying or harassing someone. This
is likely to reduce the chances that anyone will do
anything irresponsible and greatly increase the chances
that anyone being harassed will have the confidence to
report it.
Reputation
• Make students aware that, as soon as they log in to the

internet, they are creating a trail of behaviour for which
they can be held responsible for the rest of their lives.
Every word and image that they share online can
potentially be stored and reproduced infinitely and
indefinitely. They should be aware of the implications of
this in terms of future jobs, college entrance and future
relationships. They can use this to their advantage and
create a creditable footprint that can help them to build a
181
E-SAFETY great reputation and enhance future career prospects, but

one single act of poor judgement can also follow them
around for the rest of their lives.
Taking Responsibility
• In all of these instances it is better to educate students
about the safe use of digital devices and resources than
to ban them. Banning the use of these devices is a denial
of our obligations as educators. We may be protecting our
school and ourselves from any consequences in this way,
but we aren’t helping to protect our students. They have
access to all of these resources outside of the school and
usually inside it, through their own device, so we must
take responsibility for their safety and help to educate
them and their parents in a well informed and logical way
to the realistic dangers that exist and how to protect
themselves and their friends from those dangers.
• Make sure your students know how to use any reporting or

red-flagging features of any site you suggest. Even the
most genuine of sites can have comments from users that
are inappropriate. Showing students how to flag up or
block comments from people that are offensive is a
valuable lesson as well as a good way to help protect
them.
Checking Sites
• We should take responsibility for the sites that we
recommend to our students. Of course we should check
the appropriacy of the content and any advertising they
may be carrying, but there are a range of other things that
could also alert us to potential dangers. It’s important to
stress the word ‘potential’ here though. The internet is a
182
E-SAFETY resource that was initially developed by enthusiasts, so

many perfectly legitimate and valuable sites that were put
together by people working in their own time might throw
up one or more of these warning signs, conversely all of
these could be present and correct, but that doesn’t 100%
guarantee that the site is ‘safe’.
Here are some things you could check:
Encryption
• Check the URL of the site and see if it begins with ‘http’ or
‘https’. The ’s’ on the end stands for secure and means the
site has been registered with a security certificate to
confirm that all information that travels between your
browser and the site is encrypted . This is a good
indication that the site is legitimately registered and less
likely to pose a security threat. Never make financial
transactions on a site that doesn’t have https.
• Google provides a useful tool for checking whether sites

have been flagged up as potentially insecure. Just go to:
https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/sear
ch paste in the URL and Google will share what it knows
about the site.
Address
• Look for the physical address of the company creating the

site. If it is a legitimate company and involved in any kind
of business transactions the physical address should be
visible, usually on the ‘about us’ page. Bear in mind
though that many sites are put together by enthusiasts and
they might not want this level of exposure, especially if
they work from home.
183
E-SAFETY Contact info
• As with the address, most companies will offer some form

of contact information for their customers, whether this is a
phone number, email address or contact form. It may be
worth checking to see of this does actually work if you
have any suspicions about the legitimacy of the site. Again
you are likely to find this on the ‘about us’ or ‘contact us’
page. If the email address is a generic, like Yahoo,
Hotmail, Gmail, etc. you might want to look more closely at
the site, whereas a dedicated company email address is a
more positive sign.
About us
• Check out the ‘’about us page to see if the site offers

information about the people who produce it. See if this
looks legitimate and authentic and whether the profiles
look like genuine people.
Registration
• If a site requires registration, check to see the terms and

conditions. Important things to check for are:
• How do the site owners use and protect your personal

information (email address, etc.)?
• What information do they store and why?
• What ownership, if any do they claim / retain over the
information or content you or your students create?
• If they require registration through a social media
platform, what access does it give to them to the
information about your profile and the profiles of your
friends and connections?
184
Summary
If reading through all of this information starts to make you

nervous, then please keep in mind that the vast majority of
websites and applications created are absolutely legitimate. I
have been using the internet for educational purposes for
more than 20 years now, without any great sense of caution,
and have yet to encounter any situation that couldn’t be dealt
with through either simple blocking of individuals or good
antivirus software.
185
18
COPYRIGHT
© 2017 Nik Peachey
nik.peachey@peacheypublications.com and I can arrange
a discount code so that your trainees can download a low
cost copy.
This book is an independent publication and has been
created in my own time and at my own expense.
I depend on the proceeds from the book so that I can
produce more work like this and so that I can feed my
family and send my daughters to college.
When you download or share this book illegally or without
my permission you are stealing from me and my family.
If you have downloaded this book without permission or
paying, please do the right thing and go buy a copy from:
h t t p s : / / w w w. p e a c h e y p u b l i c a t i o n s . c o m / o r
https://payhip.com/peacheypublications
If you can’t afford or don’t have the means to buy it, then
read on in peace and I hope that it helps you and your
students.
Thanks
Nik Peachey
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com 19 Apr 2019

THE DIGITAL CLASSROOMS SERIES

DIGITAL TOOLS FOR

Photo by Nik Peachey

INTRODUCTION motivating hands-on edtech training for their peers or for

If you wish to use this book and the resources from it to do

KEEPING Your Contribution

FURTHER Further Reading

10 Lessons in Digital Literacy

LESSON PLANS Lesson Plans

Photo By Maria Fuller

Nik Peachey is a freelance teacher trainer, writer, course

© 2017 Nik Peachey

Photo by Celia Ortega

MASLOW’S Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

This hierarchy is divided into five levels usually depicted in

MASLOW’S students to realise their own potential and lead fulfilling

SAMR specific areas to remember and use an online

BLOOM’S Bloom’s Taxonomy

Many critics of the early use of e-learning and educational

BLOOM’S the application of pedagogy and that most computer based

TPACK Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge - TPACK

TPACK Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)

We can use this framework to help focus on and assess the

TPACK Training Presentation

• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.

CONNECTIVISM ways we are encouraging and guiding our students in the

Photo by Nik Peachey

TRAINING TIPS Tips for Training

Be sure of your ground pedagogically

TRAINING TIPS Manage expectations

Do things that can’t be done

TRAINING TIPS self-guided CPD and professional practice, and helping

Before the Training Session

Make sure you have all the necessary leads and

Make sure the computer you are using is fully updated

Make sure you are up-to-date on any sites or resources

If you are using your own computer log in to any sites

Make sure you have back up versions of any materials

Make sure you have plenty of water to drink. It can get

Photo by Nik Peachey

TRAINING Exploring a Chapter

This is a simple task just to get participants focusing on

• Get participants to work alone or in pairs

• Give them a specific chapter to explore.

• Regroup the participants in to groups of four and ask them

TRAINING Identifying Criteria

This activity gets participants thinking more carefully about

• Put the participants into groups of 4.

• Ask them to brainstorm a list of criteria for evaluating web

• Once they have had time to brainstorm, ask them to

• Once each group has reduced their list to 6 criteria

• Ask the group to compare what they found.

TRAINING Ready-Made Materials

Many of the resources in the book have either ready-made

• Choose 4 - 6 tools or resource sites that you would like the

• Give each teacher one of the sites.

• Ask them to explore the site and find one example of

• Put the participants into groups and ask them to share

• At the end of the activity, ask the participants to decide

TRAINING Funding a Resource

TRAINING Revision Presentation

This is a review activity to refresh participants’ memories of

TPACK Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)  