Edtech & ELT Newsletter June 2025
Welcome to the June 2025 edition of the Edtech & ELT Newsletter.
Good Morning (or evening)
How has your month been? Have you used any of the recommendations from last month’s edition? I hope so and I hope you find some useable tools and stimulating reading in this edition too.
Before I move on to this month’s content, I’d like yu to know that each month I have to make difficult decissions about what to include in this newsletter. What I’m sharing is a small percentage of what I’m finding and exploring, so if you’d prefer to get a more complete view, then please follow me on my Edtech & ELT channel on Telegram. It’s also free. Telegram gets a lot of bad press but it’s actually a very useful, safe and secure method of communication with high levels of privacy (which is why some bad people use it). Anyway, if you download the free app and sign up to my channel you’ll get lots more content like the materials I share in this newsletter and nothing bad will happen to you.
Firstly, many thanks to EIGO.AI for sponsoring this newsletter. Please find out more about Eigo below.
AI-Powered Pronunciation Practice
Eigo.AI’s Speak activity helps students master English pronunciation through AI-driven phonetic feedback. Learners listen, repeat, and receive instant guidance on their pronunciation, boosting confidence and oral fluency in every lesson.
📣 Digital Tools
Here are some of the latest Digital Tools and Resources. Find more at Tools for Teachers & Learners.
Get in touch if you would like to get your app or resource featured here.
💡 Clipchamp for video editing and creation
Clipchamp is a really great tool for creating video and doing video projects with students.The free version has a wide range of really useful features including transcription for 80 languages, AI text to speech for creating voiceovers, resizing, silence and filler word removal for fast editing webinars and background noise removal. If you want to get really serious about creating video then you can upgrade for only $9 a month.
💡 Olex AI for marking students’ homework
There are so many AI platforms emerging that offer mark students homework for you, but this does look like a particularly well designed one that works with the teacher. What really stands out is its ability to work with hand written text which can be scanned and uploaded and converted to digital using character recognition. You can also create a rubric to mark against as you read through and check your students' work and translate your feed to their first language to ensure better understanding. Using a platform like this also helps to track your students' results across classes and even across the whole school. There's a quick start guide here.
💡JustELI5 for CLIL & EAP
This is a really useful tool for CLIL, EAL and ESP students who are struggling with complex texts and vocabulary. You or they can paste in paragraphs and get simplified versions and explanations. The text can be copied in or they can use voice and read a short text and then select the level of simplification. They can also choose to make the simplifications subject specific. Giving students access to a too like this can also help them differentiate their own learning and check that they have understood clearly.
💡Leoline for creating kids stories
This is a cute story creation tool for young kids (ages 2 - 10 years) which enables them (or you) to generate AI stories using only voice. It is optimised to identify the voices of children. There is a scary mode that you can turn on and off and you can store the stories if you create an account. The stories are then read to the children using a cute yellow rabbit character. Here's an example story:
So what do you think? Cute or really annoying?
💡Pano for exploring bias in news
Pano is a news aggregator that compares how different news 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 exploring how writers bias news towards a different set of beliefs.
💡 Ozu for finding video examples
This is a SUPER useful tool if you are looking for examples of language or behaviour to show your students. It searches through online video and takes you straight to the examples. You can then save them. Great tool for exploiting video.
🚀 Check out my Publications
I have a large collection of lesson plans and teacher resource books. You can check out the latest ones here: PeacheyPublications Ltd
📣 Edtech News and Views
Here are some of the most interesting articles from around the web. Find more at Learning & Technology News
Drop me a line if you think there’s an article other teachers would be interested in.
✍️ AI has rendered traditional writing skills obsolete. Education needs to adapt
This is an interesting and controversial article that has prompted a lot of discussion around my network with opinions like these; "Today’s young people know that when it comes to writing, the technology landscape has undergone a tectonic shift, and they have already found their new footing. Those of us involved in teaching them need to do the same."
✍️ AI isn’t replacing student writing – but it is reshaping it
This article takes on a similar theme but from a slightly different perspective - "It’s clear that students aren’t going to magically stop using AI. So I think it’s important to point out some ways in which AI can actually be a useful tool that enhances, rather than hampers, the writing process."
✍️ Kids Should Steer Clear of AI Companions
This article from CommonSense Media looks at one of the more worrying sides of AI - AI companions that target kids as their primary user; "Based on our comprehensive risk assessments, we've found that AI companion tools pose unacceptable risks to children and teens under age 18 and shouldn't be used by kids, regardless of whether the tool is intended for use by kids or not."
✍️ The Manifesto for Teaching and Learning in a Time of Generative AI: A Critical Collective Stance to Better Navigate the Future
This is a longer but more constructive attempt to take a critically balanced approach to the use of AI. "This manifesto critically examines the unfolding integration of Generative AI (GenAI), chatbots, and algorithms into higher education, using a collective and thoughtful approach to navigate the future of teaching and learning."
✍️ Two Futures: A Choice for Education in the Age of AI
This is another slightly controversial article that looks at our options for integrating AI into our students' future teaching and learning and why perhaps we may be making the wrong decisions. "If we don’t act, the first path will be the only one left to us. The tipping point approaches rapidly—when persistent absence exceeds 25%, when exclusions overwhelm system capacity, when universities question A-Level validity, when employers systematically retrain all graduates because schools have failed to prepare them."
✍️ Multimodality in English Language Teaching and Learning
Lastly, here's something different that isn't specifically about AI - It's a recording of my plenary talk on Multimodal literacy from the APPI conference in Lisbon.
Multimodality in English Language Teaching and Learning
Okay - We’re nearly to the end!
⭐ Free Webinar - Prompting for AI-Mediated Autonomous Teacher Development - June 26 (Thu) 2025 | 5-6 pm CET
I’ll be doing a free webinar later this week, please sign up if you’d like to come along.
Well that’s it for June!
⭐ The Digital Toolbox
If you’ve enjoyed all the tools and articles here, consider downloading my Digital Toolbox app. It has all the links to 250+ apps and 160+ articles from all of my previous newsletters and curation work. It cost $9.99 and that money will go a long way to help me continue to create and share more free content. Thanks
Have a great month.
Nik Peachey - Pedagogical Director - PeacheyPublications