Online tools I have used

• Kahoot
• Quizlet
• TED-Ed Lessons
• Online dictionaries

How can we use these online tools in class?

Kahoot

Kahoot is an online game-based learning tool. Teachers can create multiple choice exercises, jumble-sentences and quizzes. Students play and learn using their smartphones in a motivating and engaging way. You can use it to revise before a test, to introduce a new topic and check background knowledge or to check if they understood a topic you taught at the end of the class. 

Quizlet

Quizlet is a mobile learning tool. It is very useful to study sets of vocabulary in a variety of entertaining ways. Students can create sets for different vocabulary areas to study on their own through their mobile phones. This app offers the possibility to create tests and we can make our students complete them through their mobile phones or computers in the classroom.

TED-Ed Lessons

We can choose an engaging video for our students and create a lesson. If we want our students to learn about a specific topic that will then be discussed in class, we can ask our students to work on a TED-Ed lesson we have previously prepared. Students watch a video and complete the tasks the lesson shows. This tool helps students practice their listening comprehension skills. For instance, you want to introduce the topic of 'food' so you can prepare a TED-Ed Lesson using a scene from the movie "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs".

Online dictionaries

Nowadays, everything is becoming digitalized - even dictionaries! Using big and heavy dictionary books in class may be boring and difficult for young learners. Luckily, every dictionary has its own webpage. It is important to help our students become autonomous towards their own learning. If they need the meaning of a word, we can tell them to access to an online dictionary and look that word up! Using dictionaries does not need to be boring. We can ask our students use these tools in a game-like situation! For instance, we divide them into two or more groups and write words on the whiteboard. They are supposed to look up their meanings and find an example. Then, they write the meaning and the example on the board. If they do it correctly, they win a point. The group that finishes first wins.

 

Off-line tools I have used

• Office package - Word Processor, PowerPoint
• Movie Maker (videos)
• Voice Recorder
• Paint 
• Hot Potatoes

How can we use these off-line tools in class?

Word Processor

We may want our students to write a story together so they can practice their writing skills in a collaborative way. If we have access to the Computers' Room in the schools where we work, we can ask our students to write a paragraph of a story in pairs in Word Processor. Then, they move on to the next computer and write a second paragraph after the first paragraph that other students have written. They will continue writing over their classmates' stories until they arrive at their own computer.

Finally, they can read their stories with the collaborations of their classmates! They will have a lot of fun reading them!

Movie Maker
If we are dealing with a specific topic with our students, for instance, "The Second World War" as a project, we may want them to create a video with text and pictures informing another group of students about what they have learned during the project.

Voice Recorder

Something that is important to teach in beginner levels is how to make personal questions.
An interesting activity we can do with our students to practice how to ask personal questions to each other is making an interview. Students get in pairs and one of them is the interviewer and the other is the interviewee. The interviewee is going to represent someone famous. Both students will think of personal questions and they will write them down. When the text is ready they can practice it aloud and then they will have to record the interview using a voice recorder. The recorded material can be used by the teacher to make listening comprehension activities.

Paint
This is a very simple tool but we can use it to teach our students to edit pictures. Students can cut out a part of an image that is not important (for instance, a name written on the picture). They can also add text on the image.

Hot Potatoes
Hot Potatoes is a software with which you can create different kinds of exercises such as multiple choice, gap-filling, matching, jumbled-sentence, crosswords and short-answer.
We can create an exercise for our students to practice any topic we want. For instance, if they are learning conditionals, we can make a matching exercise for them to match halves of conditional sentences.