I often see people asking questions on Twitter or in Facebook groups about what tools are available to create "sentence scramble" or "unjumble the words" activities, and of course I tell anyone interested that you can do that, among many many other things, on Textivate.com
So let's have a quick look at the "sentence scramble" options available from one Text+Match resource (this one):
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This blog post relates to SEQUENCES (assignments based on one or more activities, which can each have a pass mark).
I get a lot of people contacting me about this sort of issue in relation to the gapfill activity: a student has scored more than the target grade, so why won't it let them move on?
Here are a couple of reasons why this happens...
"Textivate keeps asking me to do a sequence activity again because my score was too low, even though it was higher than the target..."
I get this sort of query a lot. Look at the image and you can see where the confusion arises: the student is told that the score is too low, because they only got 83%, and the target is 81%. But all isn't quite as it seems...
What is happening here is the following: textivate reduces the target score by 10% each time the student fails to reach the target score. This is so as to avoid a situation where a student is unable to pass an activity because of one little mistake.
It's actually there to help the student!! Without it, he would have to keep on trying until he got the initial target for that activity (which could be anywhere from 50% to 100%, depending on how it was set up by the teacher).
In the example in the image, the initial target was 90%. The student failed to meet the target, as he only got 83%. The target was then reduced by 10% to 81% for the next try. (If he failed to meet this target, it would be reduced again by 10%, this time to 73%, etc, etc.)
I hope this helps explain what's going on when you see this sort of thing. Remember, it's actually there to help the student.
And besides, more practice = more repetitions = better learning / acquisition :o)
This blog post explores various Sound Match options in Textivate, each with a different focus and level of support.
In the example below, the prompt is French audio (TTS), and students have to match it with the English text.
To set this up:
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Those familiar with textivate's more advanced features will be aware that you can set up image-based matching activities which match images with text items. They will also be aware that the images have to be hosted elsewhere (i.e. there's no facility to upload them to textivate...)
Until recently, our blog post / user-guide on adding images only listed 2 options for image hosting: IMGUR and DropBox.
Google Drive was never listed as an option because the share link that you typically get for files hosted on Google Drive is a link to a page containing the file rather than to the file itself. But I recently discovered (thanks to Dwight Hensler, of Haven of Peace Academy, Tanzania) that there is a way of getting a direct file link. Here's how...
This feature has been available for quite some time, but I haven't blogged about it, so here goes:
Textivate allows you to make interactive matching activities (and worksheets) matching images with text.
Here's how it's done:
Click on the "Match" tab.
Then add your image-to-text matching data in the following format:
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Just as you can add a video to your textivate resources, as explained here, or an image (see here), you can now add an audio file to a textivate resource so that students can listen to it as they complete the activities.
As with video and image embedding, there are 2 methods:
1. Via the "Extras" tab
Simply click on the Extras tab and type or paste the link to your audio in the "Audio url" box.
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(Note that this user guide will not deal with the specifics of creating resources, as there are plenty of other user guides for those sorts of things. This one is more about the mechanics of the functionality of the Textivate home page.)
Textivate is like a text editor that is used to generate interactive resources. Imagine that it's being used to create files, just like a desktop version of Word or something like that.
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We've added some simple sound effects to Textivate activities !!
These will affect keyboard and click interactions, and we feel that they add to the textivate experience.
Sound effects are enabled by default. If you look at the top right of each activity screen you'll see a musical notation symbol which representes sounds. Enabled looks like this:
If you click on the musical note, you'll disable the sound effects, and your choice will be remembered in a browser cookie. Disabled looks like this:
That's all! Hope you like this small addition to textivate :o)
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This post features a video tutorial on how teachers who follow a "parallel text knowledge organiser" approach can exploit their KOs to maximum effect in textivate.
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If you have a textivate Premium or Group subscription, your students get a shared student password which enables them to:
Enhancing "on the fly" resources with extra features
In addition to a text or a list of matching items, students can also add...
With regard to speaking controlled assessments this means that students can add notes and audio / TTS (text-to-speech) to their practice text, and it's dead easy to do.
Here's what you have to do:
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If you are logged on as a teacher on textivate, AND you have one or more classes set up (via the Classes menu), you can click on the share icon on any textivate page, fine-tune the link in whatever way you like, and share this link with one or more of your classes.
(If you are not familiar with the share icon and sharing links on textivate, see this blog post.)
(If you are not familiar with the concept of fine-tuning links on textivate, see this blog post.)
When you click the share icon (and presuming you are logged in as a teacher and you have one or more classes set up) you will see a "Share with class" button next to the Twitter and Facebook share buttons, as shown below:
Some activities to practise the French alphabet.
The activities use TTS to read out the French letters. Students simply have to click on the letter they hear.
Find out more about TTS in textivate
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This simple tutorial looks at a new feature (as of 18th August 2018) which allows you to access individual student scores in team challenges.
How to set this up:
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(Please scroll down to the bottom of the post to try the activity for yourself.)
This post refers to the optional text-based activity, Trapdoor, as introduced in this blog-post / user-guide:
http://textivate.posthaven.com/new-optional-text-activity-trapdoor
The end result of this blog post also requires you to include a parallel text translation in the L1 (which may or may not be divided into "chunks" by adding vertical pipes as in the example shown). See this user-guide on parallel texts and how to add them to your resource:
http://textivate.posthaven.com/parallel-texts-slash-extra-texts-along-with-a-textivate-resource
The page contains an assortment of quotes from textivate users. Please feel free to contact textivate if you'd like to know the source of any of these quotes.
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The resources in this post were created based on texts taken from old GCSE Spanish papers, and which featured in a booklet uploaded to the Secondary MFL Matters Facebook group by Kate Jones. Here they are presented in the same order that they appear in Kate's booklet.
The images below are clickable and will open the menu for each resource in a separate browser tab.
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A new feature for those with Group subscriptions (23rd Feb 2018)...
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The "textivate>>" button is where the magic happens :0)
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Today I read a blog post on the Language Teacher Toolkit blog by Steve Smith entitled "Google Translate beaters".
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At the end of December 2017 we migrated textivate to new servers, and the site is now also served via https only.
The pros
The benefits of this are:
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Somebody said it would be nice if they could make Challenges based on Textivate Plus resources. So we added that functionality :)
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If you edit an existing Challenge or click to add a new Challenge, you can now set some parameters for the activities within your Challenge.
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Just something I was playing around with today, sort of based on this idea on "Using mini dual texts to present vocab in context in MFL lessons" from the TaskMagic blog.
I thought it would be nice to make both the L2 and the L1 text available at the same time as a parallel text along with vocab activities, as a way of drawing students' attention to how the sentences break down (and, conversely, how the chunks of meaning are fitted together to make sentences).
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Just trying something out: activities based on TPRS-style "circling" questions. What do you think? The plan is to make a tool that can help teachers to generate circling questions based on their text, that can be used in the ways shown here. The image (above) includes a parallel text. The circling questions appear in a specific order.
]]>I've just been reading through chapter 10 of the excellent "The Language Teacher Toolkit" by Steve Smith and Gianfranco Conti (available here).
The chapter is called "Working with written texts" and it gives a list of 30 or so different types of activities that can be done with written texts. As I read through the list it occurred to me that many of the activities listed can be automated and can therefore be delivered via textivate. I thought I'd put together some examples :)
The sections below are: 1. Listen and read; 2. Jigsaw reading; 3. Parallel texts; 4. Find the French; 5. Synonyms; 6. Definitions; 7. Question forming; 8. Completing sentences; 9. True, false, not mentioned; 10. Matching tasks; 11. Multiple-choice questions; 12. "Wh" questions; 13. Gap-filling; 14. Changing the point of view; 15. Translation; 16. Dictation; + Other activities.
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It was suggested to me recently that it would be really good if textivate could provide text re-build activities based on chunks specified by the teacher. The rationale behind this is that it is better for students to work with words grouped in meaningful chunks rather than in isolation or in randomly generated segments.
Textivate has always had re-build activities based on letters, words, sentences and randomly split sections of text, but until now, there was no way of specifying chunks.
Follow the instructions below to set up reconstruction activities based on your own user-specified chunks:
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The post discusses the student password options in textivate and shows you how to set up classes and individual log-ins for your students. (Premium / Group subscribers only.)
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If you open a text resource or type in some text in the text tab on the textivate edit screen, you'll see a new "Trapdoor" button. Click this to add a Trapdoor activity to your resource.
A Trapdoor activity is a multiple choice activity where students click their way through the options to (re-)build the text. It is called Trapdoor because if they get a section wrong, they fall through the trapdoor and they have to start again.
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