Nik's Edtech & ELT Updates

Wow! Encyclopedia Britannica now has a chatbot!!! https://www.britannica.com/chatbot

This is an interesting short article - Half of young people want to grow up in a world without internet. https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/insights-and-media/media-centre/press-releases/2025/may/half-of-young-people-want-to-grow-up-in-a-world-without-internet/ New research, published by BSI, shows that half (47%) of young people aged 16 to 21 would prefer to be young in a world without the internet.

Mean world syndrome is the name given to the observation that people who watch more TV seem to believe the world is a more dangerous place than people who watch less. https://sketchplanations.com/mean-world-syndrome Get students to create a questionnaire to test this theory.

This is a quick and easy tool to use to create text based activities. It can shuffle words, sentences or paragraphs and then students can try to sort them into the correct order: https://www.ufreetools.com/en/tool/word-shuffler - Lots of other free tools from https://www.ufreetools.com/

Nice Sketchplanation on Unknown Unkowns (it’s okay id you need to read that twice) - Give your students a scenario and try to get them to imagine Unknown Unknowns https://sketchplanations.com/unknown-unknowns

Preserving Learning Integrity In The Age of ChatGPT https://the-learning-agency.com/the-cutting-ed/article/preserving-learning-integrity-in-the-age-of-chatgpt/

Great source of images memes and infographics https://imgur.com/

This is a really useful PDF to download for anyone involved in teacher education and development https://www.britishcouncil.org/research-insight/exploring-principles-effective-continuing-professional-development-teachers-low-and Exploring principles of effective continuing professional development for teachers in low-and-middle-income countries

Free download from https://payhip.com/peacheypublications - Whether you’re an English language teacher seeking meaningful content or an educator integrating sustainability into your curriculum, English through Environmental Education provides the tools and inspiration needed to teach English with purpose.

Free download from https://payhip.com/peacheypublications - Whether you’re an English language teacher seeking meaningful content or an educator integrating sustainability into your curriculum, English through Environmental Education provides the tools and inspiration needed to teach English with purpose.

Interesting blog article here https://www.avallain.com/blog/from-rubrics-to-results-making-feedback-more-impactful-with-ai-in-language-teaching - Based around a recent webinar I did for TeacherMatic

This book will be available for free from tomorrow at: https://payhip.com/peacheypublications #TeachGreen #EnglishTeachers #ClimateEducation #FreeResources #EFL #PeacheyPublications

AI and Scaffolded Writing Feedback In this issue of InterCom they explore how scaffolded feedback from AI can support learning without taking over the process. With the right framing, AI can help learners slow down, notice patterns, and make intentional choices in their writing—shifting the focus from simply fixing mistakes to sparking reflection, ownership, and growth. https://mailchi.mp/uoregon.edu/v16_i1

Pano https://www.pano.news/ is a news aggregator that compares how different sources cover the same story. It pulls in coverage and perspectives from across the political spectrum. The majority of the news is US focused but there is a world news setting. Great for finding left vs Right reports of the same story and identifying bias.

This is a collection of over 100 short videos by David Attenborough by the team at TKSST https://thekidshouldseethis.com/?s=%22david+attenborough All worth showing to your students.

Link is here: https://alayna.ai/

This is another teaching assistant tool for doing a range of things - Marking students work, creating PBL materials, developing curriculum and creating presentation slides (All free for teachers apart from the slides) There’s an explainer video here: https://youtu.be/IsGmTz2kceU?si=NkI8FLXx11q8maJ5

This sounds like an impressive study tool that will convert different types of media into study notes-flashcards etc and store them for you. It’s free to download at present https://www.ainee.com/

Really useful article from The AI English Teacher - https://theaienglishteacher.wordpress.com/2025/05/20/practical-ai-in-the-classroom-mastering-differentiation-with-ai-tools-without-losing-your-teaching-soul/ Mastering Differentiation with AI Tools (Without Losing Your Teaching Soul!)