I have just come across Bryan Kandel’s website and he has highlighted a few useful web tools to use in the classroom. One of them is Textivate which is Taskmagic web-based little brother. Ten years ago, when I started teaching Taskmagic was the one software we used in the classroom and language teachers just loved it! Time has fast forwarded and Taskmagic now looks a little outdated even though it can still be very useful to create multiple interactive exercises. Textivate is also a useful web tool to keep under your sleeve when you want to create quick fill in the gaps type of activities or games such as “Who wants to be a millionaire?”.

For example I entered the Spanish story script I did a few weeks ago about Pedro first day at school and Textivate created 31 activities and games in less than a minute! The only downward point is that I couldn’t save them, nor share them because I would need to pay a yearly subscription. I can still see its usefulness in the classroom with a smartboard or just a projector and a whiteboard. After reading my story, I could quickly have one textivate activity on the board for students to practice and check their understanding of the story.

What do you think? Are you using Textivate?