Tool kit

There are many tools to facilitate learning in the English A: Language and Literature classroom. You may find some of these useful for preparing presentations, collaborating with classmates or organizing your ideas.

  • is a tool that allows you to build mind maps (or spider diagrams) online. It is very user friendly, so that you can build a mind map as you brainstorm in the classroom and project it for all to see.

  • Easybib allows you to build an online bibliography. Not only does it help you organize your cited works, it often helps you find missing details.

  • Free rice is a vocabulary building website that donates grains of rice to feed the hungry everytime you answer a question correctly.

  • Prezi is a free online application that allows you to make visual presentations. As opposed to PowerPoint, Prezi uses a zoom in and out technique that helps one see the physical relationship between abstract ideas.

  • Socrative is an app and website that offer a free clicker system. To understand this tool think about a how quiz show participants ask an audience for help. A survey is quickly taken when everyone clicks an answer into a clicker device. The answers appear in real time on a screen. In the classroom, mobile phones can be used as clickers. The smartboard projects the answers. The software is all online, you can set it up in minutes. 

  • Wordle is web-based software that automatically creates a 'tag-cloud' from a selection of text. In these tag clouds, words used more frequently are given larger fonts. Wordles often generate good discussion, as some words appear larger or smaller than one would expect.
