FOUR DIGITAL TOOLS

In this post I will present four interesting digital apps that I have used. I will give a short description of them, present their main uses and outline possible activities to be done with them.

Venngage is a great app to create multiple products that include posters, graphics, diagrams and infographics in an interactive way. The app offers a user-friendly and complete interface with which it is possible to produce visually attractive and organized content. Among its characterisitics, it is worth highlighting the fact that it is free and it has a lot of pre-designed and editable templates.

• Using this app, teachers may ask students to create a timeline of the topic they are studying. By doing so, learners will have a summary of the topic in a visual and easy-to-remember way.

Another possibility is for teachers to ask their students to create posters on a relevant topic, for example ciberbullying. Those posters can then be placed on the school walls to raise awareness among others.

Padlet it an interesting app to promote collaborative work. It is very useful for sharing notes with others in the form of links, images, videos and different documents. Padlet offers different options for organizing the material, including a map and a timeline. Also, there are lots of colours and themes for the background. Among its characteristics, one worth mentioning is that you can have three free Padlet walls.

• Padlet is a great tool for organizing digital student projects. Teachers may create a Padlet wall and students post links to their projects.

Another possiblity is for teachers to create a Padlet wall with different topic coloumns and students upload vocabulary related to them. At the end of the term, students will have a wall with all the vocabulary they have learned classified.

Everyone loves memes so, why not using them for teaching and learning English? A meme can be defined as a virally transmitted image that carries cultural-bound meaning and represents a particular topic. IMGFLIP Meme Generator is a funny app that offers a lot of editable templates to create your own memes in a super easy way.

• In order to include memes in the English class, teachers may ask students to respond to literature. For example, learners may have to create a meme to summarize a section of the class novel (or a set of chapters from the class novel)

StoryBoardThat is a user-friendly app for creating comics. It offers a great opportunity for students to develop their creativity and have fun at the same time that they use English. The free version of the app has a lot of options for setting and it allows you to customize the look of your avatar.

• Instead of a doing a simple and boring writing, teachers may offer learners an incomplete story. Then, using this app, students will have to finish it in a logical and coherent way.