Useful Digital Tools for ELT - 21st century Skills Training and Project Based Learning

    RING RING! It is time to learn some multimedia tools for language teaching in the classroom today. In this productive session; we focused on media literacy which, basically, means the ability to use digital media tools and we, later shared some useful multimedia tools as groups. I will explain you how each works and here is the list: 

- edpuzzle.com : This one is one of my favorites. When we assign our students to watch a video and ask them some questions before the class, we cannot be sure if they really watch and understand the content. However, Edpuzzle enables learners to engage with the video and content. You can check their comprehension and provide them practice critical thinking skills by adding either open-ended or multiple choice questions and adding notes in the video. You can block skipping in the video so that you can be sure if they watch the full video. It will help your students interact with the content. You can add videos from websites and crop them if you wish, in addition, you can record your voice to give instructions or explain something. It can be used to apply flipped classroom teaching, students can watch the video and you can have a discussion in the classroom or it might be used to assign learners to get familiar with the content as asynchronous learning.

- seesaw : It is a great online portfolio tool and a classroom journal. I highly recommend you to use it. I have a detailed analysis of Seesaw. You can CLICK HERE to check it out.

- animoto.com : It helps you visualise your content. You can create videos by collecting pictures and add subtitles on the videos if you wish. It is so easy-to-use that you do not need to have any experience. There are ready made templates and all you are going to do is to drag and drop some pictures. You can ask your students to create videos by using animoto, thus, they would create the material for the class ;)

- renderforest.com : It is a great tool to create videos up to 3 minutes. What I love about this website is that it allows you to create 3D videos so the visual looks more real. You can ask your students to create their own videos, to introduce themselves and to create presentations.

- thinglink.com : One of my favorites again. It is a very time-saving and practical website. You can create interactive pictures and videos. It allows you to insert any information which can be some notes, a link to another website and so on. You can create an engaging story or you can cover your lesson just by using the same website as it includes all the material you need.

- tiki-toki.com : It is an online timeline maker. If you teach history or anything chronically, then this online timelines will help your students to arrange their information in order. The only drawback is that you have only one chance to create a timeline for free but there is a solution. You can delete your previous work and create new one.

- weebly.com : It is a great opportunity to create a website with your own gig. To get your gig, you need to pay. There are ready templates, domains so, all you have to do is to drag and drop pictures and create galleries. You can also create yourown blog.

- voscreen.com : It is a wonderful tool for you to create content with students' interests. The website offers short video clips from movies or animations which is quite authentic and asks learners questions such as 'What did the character say?' to check their comrehension in L1. We should not accept the use of L1 as a sin in our classroom. So, we can have such activities to gather our students' attention or just to have fun. I think this one would work great with young learners or elementary level students. You can see the scoreboard at the end of the activity.

- ispring : This one is amazing, believe me! I would rate the highest for this website among all we learned in this session. It allows you to create presentations, videos, quizzes and simulations. Yes, that's right! You can create SIMULATIONS! Imagine how engaging it is when you create game-based stories and students keep the plot as they wish. You personalize the tteaching process and give your students the right to choose. You can also create simulations for ordering food in a restaurant or the process in an airport and so on. It is totally up to your imagination. The only disadvantage is that you have only 14 days of trial. I would create hundreds of accounts to be able to use this website or even pay for it.

- venngage.com : It is just like Canva. The mentality is the same but venngage is more useful and structured as I observed. You can CLICK HERE to check my post about Canva.

    

    That was all for this session. Next week will be our first session of the first module. I am shocked about how fast it lasted. It has been 5 weeks since we started and we learned and shared a lot! I believe I am not the same as me before starting this program. I feel more competent as a prospective teacher who has 21st century skills and confident in this field. I can't wait to have the next session and the second module. Don't worry, I will be posting all my experience in my blog.