Website Reviews

Blooket is a web-based quiz game platform where teachers launch a game and students join with a code. Games can be played solo or in teams, or they can be assigned as homework, depending on the game mode.

FRANKENSTORIES is a collaborative writing website that aims to help young children improve their writing skills whilst in a friendly, fun environment. 

Anatomy.app is a web-based application that uses excellent graphics, clear information, and targeted assessment to support users in elevating their understanding and furthering their knowledge of the human body. Anatomy.app provides a thorough bank of information detailing key knowledge of the essential areas of the human body. This wealth of written content is supported by detailed 3d imagery providing a realistic insight into the human body.

Baamboozle is an online game-style learning platform that provides accessible and entertaining engagement for the classroom and beyond. Baamboozle, unlike some other quiz-based apps, is all on simplicity. As a result, it stands out as a very user-friendly platform that works on even older devices, making it extremely accessible. This online learning platform teaches through games. It comes with a variety of activities to get your pupils started, but you can also create your own. As a result, as teachers contribute their own problems to the resource pool, the library of content continues to increase.

Dochipo is a graphic design web app with an accessible workflow that makes creating all sorts of visually attractive documents easy. School staff can create impressive newsletters, school community social media posts, and lesson resources. Students can produce artistic school projects and assignments.  DocHipo is simple to try for free by creating an account on its web app. As a web app, it is compatible with most modern hardware, but it is especially suitable for Windows, Mac and Chromebooks.

Setapp is an app distribution platform rather than an app, and it gives you full and unlimited access to more than 200 high-quality apps on iOS and Mac devices for a single subscription. These apps cover categories such as art, writing, photo manipulation, security, and more.  The subscription price can be lower than you might be paying for a single app, and you can take out a seven-day free trial to the Setapp service. Teachers and students who are productive users of Apple devices should read on to see how the Setapp service and its collection of apps faired in this review.

Keybr.com is a free online typing tutorial, to give you the most advanced learning experience and let you develop your typing skills faster. Keybr.com set itself apart from most of the typing practice software by employing statistics and smart algorithms to automatically generate typing lessons matching your skills. 

GoEast Mandarin is an online Chinese language tutoring service offering one-to-one language tuition for children aged 3 to 12. Children are encouraged to develop an intuitive feeling for the Mandarin language through conversations, games, puzzles and activities, with lessons structured against the internationally recognised YCT and HSK tests.

Busy Things is a cross-subject teaching and learning resource full of activities, games, and teaching tools for kids aged between 4 and 11. All the content is mapped to English, Scottish, and Australian school curricula and covers most of the subjects taught in these schools. These include Mathematics, English, Science, and History. It also addresses learning to read with phonics and supports various phonics methods. Busy Things is a web app, ensuring it is compatible with desktop and mobile devices with modern browsers. Following a free trial which does not require payment details, Busy Things requires a subscription to access its 1,000+ activities.

AhaSlides is an interactive presentation software that allows public speakers and teachers to turn one-sided sessions and lectures into exciting, impactful, and engaging presentations.

Night Zookeeper is an easy to use, child-friendly platform based around a series of magical storybooks. This online platform is designed to inspire and help primary school children (6 to 12 years of age) with their creative writing as well as teaching them about grammar, spelling, vocabulary, writing skills and drawing through a series of lessons and games. 

VEDAMO is a web-based app for delivering lessons remotely. It includes many tools to support this, including video conferencing, screen sharing, and tools for individuals and small groups to break away from the main lesson. Teachers using VEDAMO remain in control of the lesson and have access to a robust interactive whiteboard and tools for bringing in interactive and rich media. New users can test VEDAMO with a 30-day free trial or request a live demonstration. The complete VEDAMO Virtual Classroom described in this review is available through a simple subscription structure. 

iSpring is a free quiz-creation tool designed for creating eLearning materials. Educators can create multiple-choice, multiple-response, and short-answer questions and deploy them to students in a SCORM-compliant format. iSpring's quizzes are age-neutral in appearance, making them suitable for students of all ages. The creation software requires a Windows-based computer. The output files can be viewed on any device with a browser once uploaded to a suitable location. iSpring is part of a much larger suite for creating e-Learning material, but it still produces fully usable quizzes. This review is based entirely upon iSpring, and references to the full iSpring Suite are for information and comparative purposes.                                                

Inspirit is a 3D model-based learning platform for biology, chemistry, and physics. It has precompiled lesson plans and resources, 3D simulations and illuminating 3D models to help kids grow their scientific understanding. All of this content is available through a browser. Much of inspirit is usable on mobile devices’ browsers, but the simulations require computers with hardware keyboards.  Inspirit’s lessons meet NGSS standards, and the platform is designed for students aged 13 and older. All of the content described in this review is available for free.  In future, inspirit will add premium features, but this substantial baseline of content and more will remain free.

Preceden is a timeline maker app that puts ease-of-use and visually pleasing results at the centre of its design. It is a web-based app that lets you create, customise, and share timelines in many formats. The timelines are perfect for personal organisation, communicating plans, and gaining clarity of a sequence of events. Teachers and students alike will find the app useful. Preceden has a feature-limited free trial, and a subscription fully unlocks the service. As a web app, Preceden will work on almost any modern device.

eyeZy is a powerful parental control app that gives parents a lot of information about their kid’s use of their devices. Once installed and linked to kids’ Android or iOS devices, you can monitor location, messaging, photos, social media and more using eyeZy’s web-based dashboard. eyeZy is a subscription-based service with a comprehensive supporting website and interactive examples of the app at work. Some features require rooting your Android device or Jailbreaking your iOS device.

TypeTastic! is an interactive, game-based program designed to help K–12 students learn basic typing skills.

TypingClub is web-based free typing tool. Typing Club is a fun way to learn how to type as well as to improve typing skills. Typing Club is expected to be used by students ranging from late elementary school to high school.

Lumio is a SMART Technologies' web app that lets teachers create their lesson resources and share them across students' devices rather than only to a classroom screen—although they can still do this. Lumio's functionality opens up new teaching opportunities and activities in traditional classroom settings and remote learning. Lumio is compatible with almost all relevant file formats to ensure compatibility with your existing planning and teaching resources. As web-based software, Lumio is compatible with as many devices as possible. You can try it out with a free personal account that comes with 50MB of storage or a premium plan with unlimited online space and accompanying SMART Notebook software.

Singing Carrots is a web-based tool that provides learners with the opportunity to build their skills in singing, with initial introductions around finding your own vocal range and exercises to improve pitch, tuning, tone, scale and depth of singing ability.