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Four Apps I Use and Recommend
Four Apps I Use and Recommend
These are the four tools I've been using since 2020 and everyday.
Baamboozle
Baamboozle is an online platform in which there are millions of games. From maths to English or Italian, you can find games on any topic and any level. If you don't find what you need, you can create your own games.
In this platform, classmates can play in one, two and up to eight teams. Before playing, you can turn on power-ups and choose the quantity of teams.
The games consist on a number of flashcards with numbers, and when clicking on them, the question, sentence or challenge appears.
Wordwall
Wordwall offers many different game formats, and you can either create them from scratch or copy and edit pre-existing ones. Matching activities, guessing the picture are my favourites! However, you can create spinning wheels, quizzes and more.
Canva
Canva is my favourite as you can let your imagination soar and create anything you want: games, brochures, inphographics, presentatitons, games, flashcards, documents and videos. You can use templates or create anything from scratch.
Zoom
Zoom is the tool is use to deliver lessons. And among many other conferencing apps, I have chosen it because you can share screen, write or highlight directly on the text you are showing on your screen. Moreover, it has a collaborative whiteboard and, by the end of the lesson, you can download them as PDFs of PNGs.
How Do I Use Them?
How Do I Use Them?
During my lessons use the four of them. First, my students and I meet via zoom. I usually share my screen and show them a Canva presentation on the topic of that lesson. Students get the link to the presentation so they can edit it, add comments, add examples, pictures of whatever they are requested to.
After some practising and revising, we usually play games on both gaming platforms. In Wordwall I prepare more "controlled" games, like choosing the correct option, matching items or guessing vocabulary items. Then, on Baamboozle, they play in teams and they are engaged and motivated as they want to get points to win. I always turn on power-ups, both negative and positive ones.
By the end of the lesson, and if there is some extra time, I share zoom's collaborative whiteboard and we brainstorm some ideas from the lesson: important grammar rules, relevant vocabulary, doubts if there are any and questions that haven't been made during the class. Sometimes we create summaries of novels we are reading or we simply play a closing game like pictionary or hangman.
I love these four tools are they are interactive: students chat to share ideas, to play games, to reach conclusions. They can edit everything, from presentations to games if they have an account on the websites.
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