Readlee – Know How Your Students Read Online Assignments

Every once in a while a new edtech service comes along that as soon as I try it I know that it’s going to be a hit. That’s exactly how I felt when I tried Readlee for the first time last month. Readlee is a new service that lets you create online reading assignments for […]
Coming Soon to PowerPoint – Real-time Captions and Translations

Earlier this year Google added automatic captioning to Google Slides. This week, via The Verge, I learned that Microsoft is adding automatic captioning and translation to PowerPoint starting in January. The automatic captioning will work when you are displaying your slides in presentation mode. You will have a choice of languages in which to display […]
LinguaPracticaVR – Learn English in Virtual Reality

Update August 2019: This app is no longer available. As I walked around the BETT Show last week there seemed to be a vendor selling a virtual reality product at every turn. LinguaPracticaVR is one of those VR products that I tested. LinguaPracticaVR offers free English lessons in a virtual reality context. LinguaPracticaVR builds short […]
The Coolest Thing I Saw at BETT Today!

Today at the BETT Show in London I met with Mike Tholfsen to learn about some of the free products that Microsoft is making for schools. He shared some more details on the announcements that Microsoft made earlier in the week, but I was absolutely blown away when he demonstrated Microsoft Translator! Microsoft Translator does […]
Phrasal Verbs Friends – Fun Phrasal Verb Videos

One of the challenges that ELL students face is understanding the meanings of phrasal verbs. In the past I have featured a couple of apps that are designed to help students understand phrasal verbs. A newer resource worth bookmarking is the YouTube channel Phrasal Verbs Friends. Phrasal Verbs Friends videos are cartoons featuring cats explaining […]
Next Vista Launches New Selection of ELL Videos

Next Vista for Learning is a video sharing that I’ve featured dozens of times over the years. Next Vista for Learning is different from other educational video sharing sites because all videos are reviewed before publication and all videos have to teach some kind of short lesson. Students and teachers can submit videos for publication […]
ABCD Wordie Analyzes Text and Creates Vocabulary Lists

ABCD Wordie is a handy tool for evaluating the level of the vocabulary in a passage of text. To use ABCD Wordie you simply paste a chunk of text into the ABCD Wordie site and then choose one of nine levels that describe the reading skills of your students. Once that selection is made ABCD […]