THE DIGITAL CLASSROOMS SERIES

DIGITAL TOOLS FOR

TEACHERS
BY NIK PEACHEY

© PEACHEYPUBLICATIONS.COM
1

INTRODUCTION
This book has been written and designed primarily with
English language teachers in mind though the majority of
the resources and tools contained in the book will have
much wider use than just language teaching.
The book contains more than 70 tools and resources and
these have been hand picked because they represent a
broad cross-section of what is at present available.

1
INTRODUCTION
Whilst many teachers and educationalists continue to
argue about the distracting influence of digital devices in
the classroom and their impact on students’ attention
spans, there can be few who still argue that teachers
should not be using web based digital resources and tools
in education.

There has been a shift over the last two decades from
whether we should use them to how we should use them
and which tools and resources we should be using and
when. Most teachers have accepted and are willing to
engage with the process of sifting through the available
resources and looking for ways that these can support and
augment their students’ learning.

This task can at times seem daunting with a constant

plethora of new sites, apps and resources constantly
emerging whilst many of the trusted resources we have
used in the past can quickly seem outdated or disappear
altogether. It is for his reason that I have developed this
ebook. The book is designed to help teachers by providing
them with up-to-date information about new and existing
resources and by simply classifying them to make it easier
to find tools and resources that match their aims and
purpose.

The chapters of the book are divided into simple

pedagogical tasks that most teachers need to carry out or
help their students with and the descriptions of the
resources are suitably concise to make the book easy for a
stressed teacher to access and browse in a few spare
moments between classes.

2
CONTENTS
The sites, apps and resources within the book have been
divided into the following chapters:
• Reading Tools
• Writing Tools
• Speaking Tools
• Listening Tools
• Grammar Tools
• Presentation Tools
• Poll & Survey Tools
• Infographic Tools
• Course Creation Tools
At present each chapter contains between 5 - 10 different
sites that have been selected to help you make a quick
choice of the tools you need.
All of the tools and resources selected for the book are
either free or have a useable permanent freemium offering,
so you will never 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 do find any
resources 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.

3
KEEPING
UP-TO-DATE Over the coming years it is my intention to regularly review
and expand on the contents of this book. 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:
nik.peachey@peacheypublications.com

4
FURTHER
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 media. The book contains 12 lesson plans, the
whole of ‘Exploiting Infographics’ and more chapters
including how to exploit poll and survey resources as
well as tasks for exploiting presentations.
Exploiting Infographics
• This book was designed to help teachers understand
how to exploit Infographics both as resources for
prompting discussion and digital research but also
as motivating creative tasks for the development of
digital skills. The book contains a range of advice
and example tasks that can be used with a wide
range of classes. This book is also contained within
‘Thinking Critically through Digital Media’.
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’.

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Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers
• This is the oldest of the books and was first published
in 2009 on Scribd. 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
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

Nik Peachey is a freelance teacher trainer, writer,

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 and many more.
Nik is a keen blogger and content curator. You can find his
blogs at: https://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/ and
https://nikpeachey.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/

8
COPYRIGHT AND
PIRACY

© 2017 Nik Peachey

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:
http://www.peacheypublications.com/ or
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

9
2

READING TOOLS
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.

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 READING
TOOLS
“This is a great study tool for
doing digital research and a
great way to build students’
digital literacy skills.”
Candy - https://www.candybank.com/
This is a really useful Google Chrome plugin that students
can use to save quotes or images from websites as they do
online research. They just highlight parts of the webpage
they want to save and click on the ‘Candy’ icon. The
information is saved into their ‘Bank’.
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
rearranging the information they save to make it more
accessible. This is a great study tool for doing digital
research and a great way to build students’ digital literacy
skills.
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 READING
TOOLS
“This is a good sound way to
use translation to support
reading and vocabulary
building.”
ReadLang - http://readlang.com
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.
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.
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 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.
“This is a great way to get
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. 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.

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 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.

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 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 also 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 the moment content.

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 READING CommonLit - https://www.commonlit.org/themes.html
TOOLS This site was designed to help grade K5 - K12 native
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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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, highlighting, underlining and a range of
other features. All of the annotated texts are stored in the
student’s library so they can them 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.

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3

WRITING TOOLS
This chapter of the book 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 fictional
narrative.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 WRITING WriteAbout - https://www.writeabout.com/
TOOLS This site is built around the concept of using 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.”

As a teacher you 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/

25
 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 story 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 also 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

26
 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.

27
 WRITING Inklewriter - http://www.inklestudios.com/inklewriter/
TOOLS This is a great tool for creating branching stories or reading
mazes. These are stories that allow the reader to choose
how the plot progresses as they read through the story.
There are lots of example stories on the site and a very
clear tutorial.
“This is a great tool for
creating branching stories.
These are stories that allow
the reader to choose how
the plot progresses as they
read through the story.”

Before using this with students it’s a good idea to get them
to read one of the stories so they understand the concept.
You could create a story yourself or choose one of the
stories featured on their blog. This might be a useful one to
get your students started - ‘The Sand and the Scarab’ by
Cian Gill : https://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/mw8q

You can also get your students to write the story

collaboratively and take it in turns to add the different
options at the end of each paragraph.

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 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

29
 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 with
the imaginative part of the writing.

30
 WRITING Steller - https://steller.co/
TOOLS Steller is a great way to get your students creating short
books on their mobile phone. 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/

31
 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.

32
4

LISTENING TOOLS
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.

33
 LISTENING Listenwise - https://listenwise.com/
TOOLS This is a great site that has lesson plans as well as listening
activities for audio on a range of news related content. You
have to register to get access to the teaching and learning
resources.

“This is a great site that has

lesson plans as well as
listening activities for audios
on a range of news related
content.”

You can also pay for a premium membership which will give
you some LMS type learner tracking and class creation
tools and allow you to customise, adapt and assign the
content to specific students or classes. You can see some
examples here: https://listenwise.com/current_events

34
 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.

“This is a great way to get

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 also 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.

35
 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 or 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.

36
 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.

37
 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.

38
 LISTENING YouTube Kids - https://kids.youtube.com/
TOOLS This is an app 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.

“This is a great way to get

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 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.

39
 LISTENING BriefTube - http://brieftube.net/
TOOLS This is a Google Chrome plugin that captures information
from the closed captions of YouTube videos and then
creates a summary and/or word cloud of the script from the
video.

“This is a really helpful study

tool to support students
understanding and note
taking related to video
input.”

This is a really helpful study tool to support students

understanding and note taking related to video input.

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5

SPEAKING TOOLS
This chapter of the book contains a range of 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.

41
 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 copy 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.

42
 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.

43
 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.

44
 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.

45
 SPEAKING Shadow Puppet - http://get-puppet.co/
TOOLS This app takes the concept of Clarisketch a step further and
enables students to create sequences of images and
videos and record a monologue about each one.

“This is a great tool for

creating digital narrative,
reporting on homework
assignments or creating
more personalised speaking
activities.”

Students can also search for images to add to their

composition and overlay text or drawings on them.

This is a great tool for creating digital narrative, reporting on

homework assignments or creating more personalised
speaking activities.

The site also includes lesson ideas for a range of topics

across the curriculum. At present it is only available for iOS.

46
 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.

47
 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.

48
 SPEAKING
TOOLS
“This is a great way to find
examples of words on
context and to hear the
pronunciation of those
words.”
YouGlish - http://youglish.com/
This is a marvellous tool that enables you to use YouTube as
a form of corpus. You can type in a word or phrase to the
search engine and it will find a video where that word or
phrase appears along with subtitles. This is a great way to
find examples of words in context and to hear the
pronunciation of those words. 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.
The site also works in the browser across platforms so
should work on most mobile phones and tablets too.
49
6

GRAMMAR TOOLS
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.

50
 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.

51
 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 *.

“This is a great tool for

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.

52
 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.

53
 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.

“This is a great way to get

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.

54
 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.

55
 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.

56
 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.

57
7

PRESENTATION TOOLS
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.

58
 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.

59
 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.

60
 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.

61
 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.

62
 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.

63
 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.

64
 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.

65
8

POLL & SURVEY TOOLS

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.

66
 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.

67
 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.

68
 POLL & SURVEY
TOOLS
“This is a really powerful
survey creator and one of
the most user friendly ones
I’ve tried.”
Typeform – https://www.typeform.com/
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
available ones enable you to cover most situations.
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.
69
 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/

70
 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.

71
 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.

72
9

INFOGRAPHIC TOOLS
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.

73
 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.

74
 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.

75
 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.

76
 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.

77
 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.

78
 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.

79
 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.

80
 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.

81
 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.

82
 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.

83
10

COURSE CREATION TOOLS

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.

84
 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.
“This is a great tool if you
want to start making money
by training or mentoring
online.”

It’s also free, but if you do start selling courses or training

sessions then the site keeps a small percentage of what you
make.

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

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