There are tons and tons of available interactive tools, curator tools, image makers, mindmaps, audio and video tools available online. Sometimes people can feel overwhelmed with the resources.
In this part we will mention those that definitely work with both SEN and mainstream students, are not time consuming and are mainly free.
Here is the list of some of the apps you can use to create interactive learning materials. These materials can help students with certain learning difficulties to revise and practice their understanding pf a certain subjects. I have used most of these tools with both my SEN students (esp. Cerebral Palsy, Cognitive Disabilities, ADHD) and mainstream students and I am sure many of you have tried some of these during our remote or distance learning.
OMOGURU. app - web and mobile software that empowers struggling readers. It is available in ENG and CRO. It is known as dyslexia friendly reader.
1. Learning Apps - (Suggested for all learners)
LearningApps.org is a Web 2.0 application, to support learning and teaching processes with small interactive modules. The website is translated to several European languages and allows creating various interactive materials: open cloze, matching activities, you can add images, audio, video, play hangman, create an online crossword etc.
If you don't have time to create your own you can explore among various public and free ready-made lesson ideas shared by teachers, esp. if you are a language teacher.
Here is one of my examples below.
Irregular Verbs -students can play it on their mobile phones or tablets, as well as their desktop computers.
2. Gabriel's Seeds (Suggested for mainly young learners and SEN)
is an interactive lesson material tool, created by a Croatian IT Developer Mr Dražen Klečina. It has really undergone many updates and allows great features. It is esp. suitable for Kindergarten, Primary and SEN students. It provides students with stimulus and a prize/award when they finish a certain tasks which is very motivating for SEN students.
3. Quizlet (Suggested for all learners and SEN)
Quizlet is a simple learning tool that allows you to create flashcards which can help students master a certain vocabulary. It also has a possiblity of adding images. If you are a language teacher, your students can practice pronunciaton, spelling and do a short quiz. Your only task is just to add words and definitions or images and the tool does everything itself. It creates the flashcards and tests students understanding of materialsindifferent ways: matching,multiple choice,writing-spelling,
This is a great tool for all my SEN and struggling students and I have used it a lot during remote teaching for mainstream classes in order to help students practice the new vocabulary.
Check out some of my examples.
4. TinyTap (Suggested for K-1 - K8 and SEN)
- is a social platform which empowers families, teachers and students to learn from each other by creating their own personalized learning apps and playing thousands of new ones shared daily by a worldwide community of educators and learners worldwide. The app needs to be installed on a mobile phone or tablet to be able to create content, but web version should be avilable soon. There are tons of materials you can use from the TinyTap market.
The site is also available in many languages. It has a special needs section with many materials. The teacher can even record his/her voice and there are many layouts to choose from which help you create your interactive lessons.
Definitely a must tool to be explored. Great for Young Learners.
5. EduCandy (Suggested for all learners esp. young learners and SEN)
Educandy- is an interactive game creater. It is still in beta version and it is more suitable for young learners. It's free and you can create 8 types of games. You can see the list on the screenshot below. Students can play these games on any device.
Screenshot 1: Educaplay
Another similar apps and tools are:
6. H5P- (Suggested for all learners)
H5P - a plugin for existing publishing systems that enables the system to create interactive content like Interactive Videos, Presentations, Games, Quizzes and more!
It can also be integrated into Moodle, Wordpress and other CMS.
7. LIVEWORKSHEETS (Suggested for all learners and SEN)
LIVEWORKSHEET transforms your traditional printable worksheets (jpg, PDFs, Doc into self-correcting interactive exercises that the students can do online and send to the teacher. This can be very useful esp. for students who have bad handwriting. You can create your classes online, and if you don't have time to create your own worksheets you can have your students to ready-made materials shared by worldwide teachers.
8. WORDWALL (Suggested for all learners and SEN)
Wordwall - a very similar tool to Learning Apps. You can make quizzes, match ups, word games, and much more. And you can even print out your materials. Unfortunately, a free version only allows you to make up to 5 different materials. The good thing is that the site is available in many languages, not just English. (Croatian, Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Serbian etc.) You can also use many shared interactive materials created by other teachers. Monthly subscription is not too expensive if you really like the tool and decide to use it more in your classes. There are also certain School plans, but to get more information you will have to visit their official website.
Screenshot 2: Wordwall template interactive elements
9. WIZER ((Suggested for all learners and SEN)
Wizzer- a digital worksheet and is very similar to Liveworksheets but you get to choose from the available worksheet layouts to add your tasks. You can use it for practice with your students, for delivering new and interesting materials, you can use it for formative and summative assessment, because the tool allows you do add points, just as you would add in your printed test.
Diffrent kind of tasks you can include in one worksheet vary from: open questions, videos, multiple choice, images, (I have seen Geography teachers adding images to test map skills) matching, text, sorting, drawing, link, embbed etc.
Screenshot 3: Wizer.me type of questions
The advantages are that you can record your instruction using audio option and have it written as well.
It is free, but you can only have one class to add students. This doesn't mean you cannot share your materials with any of your students, but if you don't have a class folder you will have to check manually.
You students need to share email to enter your materials and do the test.
If they have some school email accounts you can tell them to use those. By entering email, you get information who accessed your test and when.
Here is the example of one of my Wizer digital Worksheets.
For Croatian eTwinning colleague I also found a short tutorial in Croatian here.
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