Ying Wa Explorers Series: Exploring Digital Tools for Learning English

6/2/2018

Written by Ms Angel Leung

The advancement of new technology has reconstructed our learning process. Learning English is not confined to books and classrooms. There are a variety of educational tools which offer fun and interactive ways for you to learn English effectively. Let’s explore some of them.

1. Alphabear
(Platform: iOS, Android App)

Do you want to brush up your vocabulary while you are playing games? Alphabear will be a good choice. It is an English word-spelling game. You have to make words out of the given letters to turn them into adorable bears.

The bears next to each other could be merged into bigger bears which worth more points. Each letter has a counter and it decreases by 1 every turn. Once the counter reaches zero, the letter will turn into a rock and will be unusable. It will be an obstacle for you to create bigger bears.

You can score more points by forming a longer word. It will be a good idea to lengthen the word with a prefix, suffix or even by turning the word into plural. Another strategy is to collect different bears after you meet the score target. Each bear possesses different skills and they help you to gain greater bonuses. Let’s try out this remarkable game to see how many bears you can collect.

2. Bonza
(Platform: iOS, Android App)

If you are fond of words and crossword puzzles, you will definitely be addicted to this word puzzle. This game is also ideal for those who want to expand their vocabulary and learn new words and phrases.

Players need to rearrange the scattered letter tiles and link them together to complete the crossword puzzle. Each crossword puzzle has a specific theme and this clue gives you an idea of the possible words that might be found. After completing each level, you will be rewarded with some coins. As you progress to higher levels, you will have to connect more letter tiles. The rewarded coins will allow you to get more clues to solve these challenging puzzles. This game comes with different free themed packs. It also provides free daily puzzle. You may also use the rewarded coins to unlock the themed packs.

If you find this game engaging, you may also try the animal and nature-themed sequel, Bonza National Geographic. There are some visual jigsaw puzzles added in this sequel.

To make it more interactive, you can create your custom puzzle and send the puzzle code to your friends. Let’s take up the challenge and solve the puzzle by entering the following puzzle code.

3. StoryJumper
(Platform: PC website)
http://www.storyjumper.com/

Have you ever used any computer software to create a digital story book? This online platform has a user-friendly interface which sparks your imagination and develops your writing skills. You can bring your illustrated story to life by dragging and dropping different clipart and scenes. You can also add texts and upload your own images as backgrounds or props to personalize the story easily. To make the story more interesting, you can even record an audio and be the narrator.

Why not spend a minute to create an account to explore this platform and write a unique story? Share your story with us by posting your story book’s link in the comments. (Please note that it is free to create, share and read the story books online. You will be charged if you order your books as professionally published books.)

Watch the tutorial below to see how to create a StoryJumper book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBj_371c5o4

Hope these digital tools can boost your learning skills in a surprising way.

73 Comments

Dr H C Lee

6/2/2018 06:24:48 pm

Thanks Ms Leung for the great research and sharing. I'm particularly interested in StoryJumper. This looks really amazing! Hope more boys can be inspired to read, write and create in English!

Jayden Lee (14)

6/8/2018 04:40:24 pm

I really like the idea of letting games to help students to learn more english.These puzzle games are fun for primary students. In the process, they may learn some diffcult words that he could understand in class. In the StoryJumper, children can make their own without paper. So it is ecofriendly but also letting the children to have fun. These apps should share to each student in yingwa!

Jason Wong

6/8/2018 05:47:55 pm

Thanks Ms Leung for telling me this three digital games to help me boost my English skills better. I think "BONZA" is a very useful and interesting game because it can expand our word skills and can even make a crossword puzzle by yourself and let the others play.Thanks for your sharing!^_^

Okumura Hiroaki 6A (24)

6/8/2018 08:23:43 pm

Thanks for Ms Leung for sharing us this wonderful piece with us, personally I think that us children should use these technological games to help us learn English and other subjects, I was especially excited when I saw the website called Story Jumper because I could not find enough books at my house. So now I can read online for free thanks to you !

jason wong 6a 27

6/8/2018 08:37:47 pm

Thanks for telling me this three puzzles game,it can let me smarter.I like the story jumper the most because I played it just now online and I found it funny.Thanks for your sharing.

BoscoWong6E

6/8/2018 08:37:57 pm

Thanks Miss Leung for sharing these useful apps to improve our english skills .In my opnion, I think "Alphabear" is a app for junior boys to learn spelling english words.

I think "Bonza" is a interesting game that we can challenge different level and solve word puzzles and improve our english ,it is not so boring so we can learn english in a fun and interesting way.

I love StoryJumper the most as we can make our own story book by ourselves and others can buy them.We can control the background,content and photos of the whole story and the cover of the book.We can also read the story out to improve our reading skills!I watched the video of making a story book through this app and it can help me a lot when I wanted to create a story book by StoryJumper!

Thanks for sharing!

Marco Lam 6E 9

6/8/2018 08:54:53 pm

Thank you Miss Leung for introducing us three incredible websites.For me,I personally like the StoryJumper the most,it was eco-friendly,it was very easy for you to make your own story.Besides,there are a lot pictures and stuffs for you to choose,to make your story better and more entertaining.

Nortin

6/8/2018 09:02:59 pm

I have downloaded the alphabear just now. I think it is interesting and exciting.I always can't think about any words with the "turness"words which only can use for one to two turn. Then , I can't make a bigger bear. Thanks for introducing this amazing game . I think I can learn more worlds though it.

Nortin 2.0

6/8/2018 09:07:57 pm

I like this alphabear app, too. I think our school school should have a competition for this game!!!

Nortin 3.0

6/8/2018 09:11:08 pm

I agree your suggestion. I think Ying Wa boys will like to have it and enjoy it.

Miss Leung

6/14/2018 09:05:49 pm

This is a very good idea. 😊

Billy Lam

6/8/2018 09:15:15 pm

I really agree with 'Learning English is not confined to books and classrooms.' We can learn english everywhere using these websites. Although it is a bit hard to make a book by ourselves , it is still fun ! How can we learn english better? The main point is to make english more fun ,so let us all have fun in studying english!

Johnson Cheng 6A03

6/8/2018 09:27:00 pm

Thank you Ms Leung for sharing this article. I like those apps very much, especially the StoryJumper. I can create some interesting stories and published them from the website, it should be very fun.

Geoff Wong 6A(30)

6/8/2018 10:15:01 pm

Wow! As to me, they are really great learning tools. All of them are pretty creative! As Ms Leung said, they are quite interactive and breaking the traditional thoughts of learning English like reading aloud or reciting well-written sentences and paragraphs.
Personally speaking, I had a great enjoyment in the game "Bonza" before writing this because my dear parents allowed me to download it in my I-pad! Frankly, it taught me many new words in different topics. It is a helpful one for vocabulary learners, which I recommend to every schoolmates, from the bottom of my heart.

Lin Lok Chi

6/9/2018 09:43:05 am

Hello! I think that these three apps are very good for children, and also for the teenagers.
First, I think Alphabear's cute and addicting graphics are designed for children, because just need to form words with the letters given, and this game only challenges your vocabulary skills, but not others such as thinking or reflexes. (The game's recommended age is 4+, photo: https://imgur.com/a/F9HSYaD)
Second, I think Bonza is for teenagers, because the game is really hard, in my opinion. You need to think of words according to the grouped letters or letters in the screen. This is unlike Alphabear, because Bonza will group the letters together, which makes it harder to think of a word. You also need to sue the hint to help you out at the game. If you don’t know how to finish it, there are only three ways: watch a video for a hint, cheat, or try and error. I recommend none of these methods for you guys, and I think you should really use your own vocabulary to think of words and form them.(The game’s recommended age is 12+, photo: https://imgur.com/a/mc2bF5p)
Third, I think this Story Jumper is good for people who want to become an artist when they grow up. I like the way that it is easy to learn how to sue the app and we can also read other people’s books. I’ve made a book myself, and it is about me. (This app doesn’t have a recommended age, and the link to my story book is: ( https://www.storyjumper.com/book/index/57065265/5b1b305a0ff8a )

Jacob 6A29

6/9/2018 02:23:26 pm

These games look very interesting to me, Alphabear,Bonza and Story Jumper are very useful for learning English, but my favorite game has to be Alphabear, because it looks like scrabble, it could train us to use more of our vocabulary maybe i will try to play some of these games if i have time.Thank you for sharing !

Howard LI 6A(19)

6/9/2018 02:36:36 pm

Thank you Ms Leung for telling me this three games to help me improve my English skills . I think "BONZA" is a very interesting game because it can let me make a crossword puzzle by myself and let others play.Thanks for your sharing!

Hinson Ho ( chicken head )

6/9/2018 02:49:18 pm

I used the app I thought it was great—storyjumer.Although it took me quite long time to load this app, I used and like to use this app after all：First of all ,I saw there were lot of storys in the reading area.
Second ,the books are interesting and amazed me like Mystery Island.
Third, it shows how many people read the books I wanted to select.Therefore I can depend on the number of the people who read the book to choose read which book.
At last ,I really like the app Miss Leung introduce to us.Hope you can introduce more apps to let us learn English!

Ryan Lam 6A (14)

6/9/2018 03:22:51 pm

Most of the learning English games or website (including these three games) are very cartoon or boring.They will be fun for P1-4 students, but they will not be so actractive for P5-6 students.
Actully we can learn English in another ways. We almost all love to watch movies. Most of the movies are speek in English. We can listen to what the characters say and learn new words. In the app store, there are a lot of games are in English. Although they are not for learning Engish, you can learn the words in the characters conversation, misson's meanings......
Although these apps are good for us, we shouldn't play too long time because it will hurt your own health. At last, thank you Ms Leung's sharing.

Gordon Suen

6/9/2018 03:42:51 pm

Thanks for your sharing!I tried StoryJumper,I thought it was an interesting app for writing stories.It is for someone who loves to create stories,I also recommend this app.

Lin Chun Wing 6A (20)

6/9/2018 04:05:11 pm

I never tried to use these apps to learn, quite a surprise to me. It seems that it is fun and very meaningful, what a good suggestion!
I download it and play it and find that it is quite fun and I tried Bonza the quiz and it was quite hard to solve it, the most favorite tool is that I can make a new word puzzle for my friends. Please try my new puzzle, THE CODE :G9MYAR, hope you like it.
Thanks for your suggestion!

6/14/2018 09:21:48 pm

Yay! It's fun.
I have solved the puzzle and found 8 words.
How about you?

Lam Nok Hei6A(16)

6/9/2018 04:06:18 pm

Thanks for sharing!I am very interested in StoryJumper,because it is fun to create a story by yourself!You may also share your own story too!

Vincent yin

6/9/2018 04:38:31 pm

I think Alphabear is actually quite easy for us,I rather play chicktionary.Also,the story jumper is actually fun and you can enjoy the time to make a brand new story by yourself.However among these three games I think the Bonza is the best because it is hard to solve it and it is challenging because my ENGLISH is real bad

Vincent Yin

6/9/2018 04:39:07 pm

Tim LAU

6/9/2018 07:47:39 pm

I think that the apps are very useful because I can learn English from playing games I downloaded the alphabear and it was interesting .thanks for your sharing!

Edmund LI

6/9/2018 08:58:40 pm

Wow,I think its really fun to learn English by playing video games,it really fits our learing spirits of this school.I found Bonza and the Storyjumper intresting.hanks for your sharing!

Hayden Poon 6e23

6/9/2018 10:40:55 pm

These apps are very good and I like them a lot. Thanks for sharing.
The alphabear was a bit hard to play. I played several times and found that some bears needs to nap for two to three hours. I think it was very interesting. I always failed at about 1200 pts.
I think that the story jumper is very useful to me. I always want to put my trip journals to a book and I finally can do it. However, this app only have 100 mb storage for putting the photos, which is not enough.
Bonza is the most interesting game.I can create puzzles, I like it ver much.

Ian wing

6/9/2018 11:14:41 pm

Thank you for sharing a lot of fun games for us to play and learn English.I enjoyed using the story jumper as I always want to publish the stories that I wrote.Now I have the opportunity to do it.Thanks for sharing!

Desmond Lam 6E 8

6/10/2018 08:57:03 am

Miss Leung, thanks for your wonderful sharing and I think These three apps could really improve our English by your sharing.
These three apps could improve our different skills in English as spelling, the use of great vocabulary and writing skills. But, I am looking some apps that could improve our speaking skills that is kind of communication scenes by talking to another person and I hope that really have because I think the real purpose of learning English is for communication.
In these three apps, I think the third app StoryJumper is the most interesting one, it is because we could write a story and record our voice like an audio book. This could not only improve our writing skills, but also build our creativity and this is why I like this app the most among the three apps.
Thanks for your wonderful sharing and I think the three apps can really improve our English.

ZACH

6/10/2018 10:19:33 am

Thanks for this great sharing ! I have watched some videos of these three apps and all of them are really good.I think the best one is ALPHABEAR. It’s easy to play and the bears are so cute which can be a thing that attracts people to play.
BONZA is quite fun too. There are different fun themes and you can make your own word puzzle and give others to play.
STORY JUMPER is quite new and interesting to me.It is a platform that lets you to make your own imaginary stories come true. I think these three apps are really interesting and fun, most important it’s educational.

Adrian the alien from 6A

6/10/2018 12:49:48 pm

Thank for sharing Ms Leung!Because most of the kids like games,so most of the people should like it.

Shawn Wong 6E28

6/10/2018 12:52:36 pm

Thank you for Miss Leung's sharing. I like Story Jumper the most, because this app is quite interesting and fun. These apps can not only improve your English, but also your IT skills too!

Joseph Lu 6A21

6/10/2018 02:49:04 pm

Thanks Ms Leung for sharing these interesting platforms to improve English.
Alphabear looks like a fun game, the bears are so cute!
I think that Bonza is also a very fun game to improve our English, you can even make your own puzzle!
Most of us like games, so thanks for sharing some platforms tht we can play and improve our English at the same time.

Theodore Kwan 6A 13

6/10/2018 06:24:01 pm

I think Miss Leung is good at computer ,it is because she can make websites and games.

Hayes Pang 6E(22)

6/10/2018 09:17:54 pm

After I read you article ,it makes me a bit wanted to download them.
I wanted to introduce you an app ,it called Epic. It is full of e-books in there and you can download the books you want to read when you go out without using internet.I have download Epic and I think it was very useful.
But the apps you introduce are not bad at all, we can learn English with them too!

Ching Lam Kam

6/10/2018 09:38:42 pm

Thanks to Miss Leung for three interesting apps for us!
I personally likes to play word games such as Scramble, board games etc , so I would love to play these games in Internet. I think Alphabear is a great game to play as we can make different words, create bears and increase our levels like other games.
Bonza is also a interesting game. It can let us learn more and solve problems more better. Maybe I will try to play these games later.

Hansel 6e 11

6/10/2018 10:27:46 pm

I have played story jumper. It is no fun and so boring. I think all the games is more suitable for P.1 toP.3 students.

kurtis chui

6/10/2018 10:28:52 pm

Thanks for sharing those useful games, I think 'story jumper' can help my English improve the most, because we can have fun while writing your own story, and you can create your own story background, it will be fun. If there were a lot of viewers, you will enjoy more while you are writing, and then your English will improve a lot !!!!! Or maybe, you can be a successful writers in the future !!!!!!

Alex Chan

6/10/2018 10:32:10 pm

Thanks Ms leung for introducing these three interesting games.I think that the storyjumper is the best.Because it is quick and easy using this a

Alex Chabn

6/10/2018 10:33:40 pm

pp to make a book

James Lui 6E 19

6/10/2018 10:49:16 pm

Thank you for Miss Leung’s sharing! These games can improve our English.They were interesting and fun! These games can improve our spelling skills and vocabulary and writing skills.But do you know some game that can improve our speaking skills?

Jason Leung 6A 18

6/10/2018 11:19:09 pm

Thank you for sharing this article . My favourite app is "storyjumper" as I can create some stories and publish them.

Ryan Kwan 6A(12)

6/10/2018 11:22:22 pm

Ms Leung, thank you for sharing with us.

From my own perspective, these learning tools are really useful. By playing Alphabear and Bonza, we could gain more vocab and simultaneously have fun.

However, my favourite on is StoryJumper. I have wanted to publish stories for a long time, and now, my dream has come true. I wrote a story about a silly panda, but it's quite childish.

I also have a learning app to share with you, it is called Wordbrain2. Basically, there are some alphabets and you have to make some words with those alphabets.

Although these learning tools are very helpful, we should also pay attention in class. It is because we can't learn everything by using these learning tools.

Ms Leung, thank you for sharing these useful learning tools with us.

Ivan Ng 6E (21)

6/10/2018 11:25:11 pm

Thanks for the sharing ! I enjoyed the storyjumper most . It is because you can create a book which author is you . You can choose different types of book such as 'adventure' , 'science' , 'narrative' and more . I've created a account for myself , and I started to make a book about STAR WARS , and it's great ! I think after it is done , I'll share it with you guys later .

Oliver ng

6/11/2018 04:01:08 pm

I like alphabear the most because it is fun and educational. I like the fact that there are different kinds of bears for you to unlock

Haydon Sun

6/11/2018 04:25:39 pm

I think Miss Leung"s game improve my vocabulary a lot,Thank you Miss Leung for posing it here and let us try it on computer and phone, these game let me learn English in a funner way .

jeremy ma

6/11/2018 05:05:39 pm

Thanks Miss Leung's sharing! I love the games very much. I like the Bonza and STORY JUMPER the most.I have written a story about me!

Lucas Wong

6/11/2018 06:44:17 pm

Thank you Miss Leung's sharing. These digital tools are really helpful to our English learning process. I like Story Jumper the most because this function can let us create our own story book.

Hardywan(jeff)5E27

6/11/2018 06:56:10 pm

Thank you Miss Leung , l made a puzzle in BONZA , if any clasamate want to try , MKSB8E , AWPBXC and M86938 are the code of my puzzles , they are about cloths , viscera and materials, please enjoy

Poko Lam

6/11/2018 07:08:32 pm

Thank you Miss Leung for sharing these digital tools with us ! Personally , I like Bonza the most , because I can learn a range of different vocabs under different topics

Hardywan

6/11/2018 07:11:54 pm

Miss leung , after the students' reply ,l will try to use Story Jumper , thank you for let me know there is such a good app for us to learn or improve our English

Jonathan Ford link

6/11/2018 07:16:19 pm

Thank you Ms Leung for sharing these magnificent and educational digital tools with us! Myself, I like Alphabear the most; this is because I can have fun learning and I love collecting the cute and adorable bears. What do you like the most? Can you share with me, please?

Matthew Yu

6/11/2018 07:27:35 pm

Thank you for the wonderful sharing.

Really, there are a lot of apps that can help us learn English well.
The two apps and the website are some of the tools that can help children learn English in a fun way.
I think these materials may let children be interested to learn English,especially the Storyjumper. When I was small, I always wanted to make my own book. Now, I can finally make it with the Story jumper!

Aaron Liu 6E18

6/11/2018 07:27:48 pm

Thank you for sharing these useful apps for learning English. I think using apps to learn English is more useful then using books to teach, because students will be more attentive in learning English.
I like 'Story Jumper' the most because I could use computer to draw pictures and we don't need to use crayons to draw, so it is very useful. I hope that Ying Wa teacher could use these apps to teach next year students .

Yacob Chan (5E07)

6/11/2018 07:42:54 pm

Thank you Miss Leung for the tools. I think I like the "Story Jumper" most. It is because I can use that tool to make stories such as adventures, detective, tragic. I can use that to improve my English writing skills and get higher marks in the assessments too.

Bryan Choy 5E (9)

6/11/2018 07:49:54 pm

Thank you Miss Leung for sharing these educational games with us! This highly increases our learning efficiency as students could learn outside the classroom with ease . Learning different vocabularies is a must for students .Many thanks for sending us this fantastic learning tool !

Justin Chan 5E(3)

6/11/2018 08:19:10 pm

Many thanks for Miss Leung to post out these educational and entertaining games for us to enjoy! These games not only have a tremendous help for us to improve our English and will enhance our knowledge, but the games can also let us kill time and have fun too! Thank you for sharing us this extremely awesome and amazing digital learning tool for us!!!

Eddie Lee 6A 17

6/11/2018 08:51:58 pm

Learning English by playing fun games is a good idea. It is both fun and entertaining. I am particularly interested in Alphabear. It doesn't take you a lot of time and it lets you build up your vocabulary in a fun way.

Joshua Lam 5E(14)

6/11/2018 09:00:52 pm

Thank you Miss Leung for sharing these games to us.The games are all so fun, especially Alphabear the game's character are so cute. I can play this game all day long. It is really a fun way to learn English.

Alan Au 5E 1

6/11/2018 09:40:33 pm

Thanks for these three games,Miss Leung.I like the Alphabear the most,because when the bear became bigger and bigger ,the words will be harder and harder

ClementCheung

6/11/2018 09:45:57 pm

The Bonza is very cool,and I like to find that word to solve question and I like the characters,they are cute and funny.Thank you for sharing these games to 5E class,I think it is better thank playing PUP G,it is a way to play games and learn English .

Zac Chan

6/11/2018 09:53:00 pm

I think the games were not too good. I like the story jumper more, cause it is very helpful .The news that we can buy our own book and we can hold it makes me very happy.Thanks for sharing, Miss Leung.

6/11/2018 09:54:29 pm

5E 6

keithlee 5E 16

6/11/2018 10:45:32 pm

I think the Bonza is interesting that let me know more words that I don't know

Dickson Tam 5E 23

6/12/2018 08:18:52 pm

Thank you Miss Leung for sharing these games, these games can make us enjoy learning English .Personally ,I like Bonza the most , it is because I can learn words from different topics .

Joshua Chan

6/12/2018 08:54:25 pm

I think Bonza and Alphabear help me very much and it is very interesting ! It can help me to learn different English words from different topics

Kaiser Wong 5E 28

6/12/2018 09:00:59 pm

They are fun ,and thanks Miss Leung

Hui Tsz Long 6A09

6/12/2018 09:43:48 pm

Thanks to introduce this wonderful games to us, those game are no only for entainment ,but also can improve our English.Thank you ！

Michael Leung 5E 17

6/14/2018 03:35:01 pm

Thank you Miss Leung for sharing these fun and helpful digital tools.I enjoyed them very much.My favorite is Storyjumper because it allows us to create our own story.The best part of it is that you can actually publish your book so you can share it with your friends without calling a publisher.

Ryan Woo

6/16/2018 11:15:04 am

I actually started writing stories in storyjumper ,and its very useful . I like the part that we can paste photos in our story .It is easy for beginners and starters. But too sad that my mum don’t let me play the　other English games ):

Simon Lun [5e][19]

6/16/2018 02:42:38 pm

It is good!We can improve our English while playing interesting games!

Colin Tong 5E (25)

6/16/2018 09:45:00 pm

Thank you Ms.Leung for your sharing about those educational learning tools! Up until now, I have discovered that learning is not just confined to literature and blackboards, but can be also conducive in using attractive games to help improve our English. My favourite educational tool is the Storyjumper. Not only may it improve our writing skills (well, much better than immense amount of writing homework), it is far more than writing your story in a user-friendly platform as you can add your own background and furthermore, even be your own narrator by recording your own audio (I haven't tried that out). So I will highly recommend those games above. Hope that your English will improve significantly!
P.S. I'm looking forward to making my own Storyjumper!

Ying Wa Explorers Series: Exploring Digital Tools for Learning English

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