๐ŸŽฌ Video Tutorials

Video guides / how-to videos to support the TextActivities website and blogย ๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡

All of the videos listed here can also be viewed via the TextActivities Info YouTube channel:ย https://www.youtube.com/@TextActivities/videos

The TextActivities resource page

A video intro to the resource page on TextActivities, looking at what all of the buttons do, the resource view and activity view tabs, the activity menu, the worksheet menu, plus a whistle stop tour of the various interactive activities. (Features the resource created in the "Creating a TextActivities Resource" video below.)

A first attempt at using AI to generate a TextActivities resource

I had a go at using the free version of ChatGPT to generate some content to form the basis of a TextActivities resource. I was pleasantly surprised by how quick and easy the whole process was. See my prompts + the responses below, as well as a link to the resource at the bottom of the page.

Text prompt:

Write me a text of about 100 words in Spanish, aimed at beginners, in the present tense, talking about what I do at the weekend

Dictation activities on TextActivities

Many of the activities available on TextActivities.com -- both text rebuild and vocab / matching -- can be seen as scaffolded dictation activities, i.e. which require students to listen to some language in the L2 (the target language) and also interact in some way with that same bit of language in its written form.

This blog takes a look at how this works and which modes to choose if your aim is to practise dictation-like activities.

Comparing TextActivities and Textivate

TextActivities is a new website which includes a lot of the functionality of Textivate. Itย is essentially Textivate 2.0, but with so many changes from the original that we had no option but to launch it as a totally separate website.

Those familiar with Textivate will recognise many of the activities and pedagogical features of Textivate, but delivered in a completely different way, with a totally new interface, a completely different approach to classes, school management, resource creation, student logins and assignments, and hopefully a much more intuitive work flow.

So what are the main differences?