An overview of some good online tools to promote pupil autonomy in MFL. Motivating Able Gifted and Talented learners.

1. Using New Technologies to
encourage Able, Gifted & Talented
Pupil Autonomy

2. Fotobabble
Upload a photo and add your audio
commentary
Here ’s an example (year 8 German)
Ideal for topic work at any level

3. Go Animate / Domo Animate
www.verulamvle.typepad.com/7french
www.verulamvle.typepad.com/y8german
http://domo.goanimate.com/movie/
0yTbSeR6_qf4/1
Google: Go Animate
Website:
http://domo.goanimate.com/
What it does:
Pupils can create animations and add
speech bubbles; select from a range of
characters, add props and backgrounds
plus all sorts of effects to animate the
character. Free sign up required.
Ideas for use in the classroom
Illustrate a lesson point
Topic revision
A joke/ story/ dialogue etc
Examples

4. Domo Animate Or Dvolver
• http://domo.goanimate.com/
• free sign up. Animation creator
• http://www.dvolver.com/moviemaker
• Dvolver is similar; less complex
• Both allow you to input text but not speech
• Pupils create short animations to teach/ show
understanding of a topic
• Ideal for dialogues and language topic work. They can email
the link to you (or to a proxy set up by your netsupport )
• Domo Animate samples here
• and here’s a Dvolver movie just for you

5. Voki – talking avatar creator
• Click the Borat sample. Text to speech, lots of
characters, voices and languages.
Pupils write their own Voki to help them with
their GCSE Speaking
1 voki per question but an extended answer

6. Toondoo
Instead of a boring old writing task, the pupils could make a comic strip –
Toondoo is one of the best with a large choice of objects props, characters and
backgrounds. It also allows multiple pages so pupils can make real comic books.
Common Topics:
School
Town
Holidays
Leisure
TV, Internet, gaming and film

7. Star Wars text
Crawl creator
• http://www.starwars.com/play/online-
activities/crawl-creator/
• input text & it turns into Star Wars titles +
music
Pure fun? Play and see how much they can
remember;
http://www.starwars.com/play/online-activities/crawl-
creator/index.jsp?cs=33zbpsqmr4

8. Tagxedo / Wordle
Google: Tagxedo or Wordle
Website: http://www.wordle.net /
Or http://www.tagxedo.com
What it does: you paste text into a box
and it turns into a ‘word cloud’
Tagxedo highlights the word when you
hover the cursor over it
Ideas for use in the classroom
Pupils could: guess the topic
Spot words in a category e.g. verbs
Use selected words
WORDLE
TAGXEDO

9. Popplet
http://popplet.com/app/index.php#/460907
Easy
diagram
creator
You can
include
youtube
videos

10. Easy prompter
http://www.easyprompter.com/
Paste text into the box and it turns into a
broadcast-style autocue
Obama’s 2nd inaugural
speech starts like this:
Each time we gather to
inaugurate a President
we bear witness to the
enduring strength of
our Constitution. We
affirm the promise of
our democracy. We
recall that what binds
this nation together is
not the colors of our
skin or the tenets of our
faith or the origins of
our names. What
makes us exceptional --
what makes us
American -- is our
allegiance to an idea
articulated in a
declaration made more
than two centuries ago:
“We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that
all men are created
equal; that they are
endowed by their
Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that
among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness.”

11. Zap reader
Here’s some text to try:
“We hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.” www.zapreader.com
Select ‘Reader’
Paste a bunch of text in to the box
Hit ‘zap it’
The page will display one word at a time
You can adjust the speed and the number of words
displayed at any one time (up to 5)
Good for reading practice (phonics)
Information recall
Translation / comprehension
Predict next word
Repeat/ recall last word

13. Text to speech IM Translator
http://imtranslator.net/translate-and-speak/
A clever site. Surrounded by adverts. A bit fiddly to use but good
once you get used to it. You can input text, translate text, get it to
speak it back and adjust the playback speed.

14. Lingro
• Import a foreign language webpage address
• each word becomes clickable
• You can click on the word for the meaning and store it
in a word list
• It will generate a set of flashcards of the words clicked

15. Flipcams etc
i-pad and Smartphone cameras
Pupils Film themselves & each other
Create model Q & A’s for Speaking
prep

16. Quizlet.com
• Make your own flashcards
• Or use existing sets – will generate games &
tests from flashcards
• Also classtools.net will generate vocab games

17. Prezi
An alternative to Powerpoint.
Here’s my Presentation on ‘AG&T - beyond GCSE’ imported from Powerpoint to Prezi
http://prezi.com/qhl63qmrlb6n/motivating-able-linguists-at-gcse/
http://prezi.com/qhl63qmrlb6n/motivating-able-linguists-at-
gcse/?kw=view-qhl63qmrlb6n&rc=ref-777613
If the link above doesn’t work, try this one:

18. Online voice recorders
• Audioboo
Easy Audio clip recorder- just click, record and send.
Click the icon above to hear my sample. Get pupils to
do a quick audio message and send it to your email
address (your network techies can set one up a
shadow (proxy) one for you)
• VocarooEasy audio recorder
There’s a more flexible one called Audiopal
Soundcloudlets you store longer bits of audio
Audacity and filelab (Windows only) are good free audio editors.

19. Gap fill generator
http://random-idea-english.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/tools-gapfill-generator.html
Google: random idea + English + Gapfill generator

20. Mylo
Worth a look. Makes a change from BBC Bitesize, Kerboodle, Sam Learning etc
etc
Some free content.
Some good self-access material

21. Learn French TV5
“7 jourssur la planète”
http://www.tv5.org/TV5Site/7-jours/

22. Video scribe
• Turns ordinary text into a visible hand writing
the text
• The PC version is expensive but the i-pad App
is cheaper
http://verulamvle.typepad.com/mflteachingpl
us/2013/06/videoscribe.html

23. Zondle
Use sites like this
To create vocab games
Also
www.classtools.net
Classtools also contains
Fakebook and Twister

24. Fakebook
Google:classtools.net
Website: www.classtools.net
What it does:
You can make a fake Facebook page
for a celebrity
Ideas for use in the classroom?
Homework: create a Fakebook page
for
Historical personalities
Theorists, Writers or characters
Places, regions

25. Discovery Education - Puzzlemaker
A great resource for making
various puzzles
Useful for vocab& keyword
reinforcement
Lesson fillers
Cover work
Pairwork
thinking skills
‘pub’ quiz

26. funny.pho.tophotobox
fodeyimagechef
Caption generators

27. Graffiti creator
http://www.graffiticreator.net/
use ‘wall texture’ backgrounds on the
whiteboard or from google images

28. One motion drum machine
http://www.onemotion.com/flash/drum-
machine/