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Opinion Essay

A Step-by-Step Guide to Write an Effective Opinion Essay

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Published on: Feb 28, 2023

Last updated on: Jul 23, 2024

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Are you looking to express your opinion in a clear and convincing way? Crafting an effective opinion essay is the key to making your thoughts heard.

With this simple guide, you can easily do just that.

Here, we'll take you step-by-step through the process of writing a compelling opinion essay. So you can be confident when putting your thoughts into words.

Let's get started!

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What Exactly is an Opinion Essay?

An opinion essay is a piece of writing that presents and defends an opinion or viewpoint on a particular topic. To make your argument convincing, you must back it up with facts, evidence, and logical reasoning.

What Makes an Opinion Essay Different from Other Types of Essays?

Opinion essays differ from other types of essays, such as argumentative or persuasive essays. It requires the writer to express their own opinion on a given topic.

Here's a table that compares the three types of essays:

How to Structure an Opinion Essay?

When crafting an opinion essay, it's important to follow a specific essay structure. The basic opinion essay structure is as follows:

• Introduction: An opinion essay introduction should introduce the topic and provide a clear statement of the author's opinion. It should also include any background information necessary to understand the argument.
• Body Paragraphs: Each body paragraph should present a point or argument in favor of the writer's opinion. It would be followed by evidence or examples to support it. Counter-arguments against the opinion can also be presented and discussed in this section. Although, they should not detract from the main points being made.
• Conclusion: The conclusion should summarize the main points and arguments made throughout the essay. Also, restate the author's opinion in a clear, concise way. It may also point out any potential implications of accepting or rejecting their viewpoint.

Struggling to write an opinion essay? Check out this video for some helpful pointers!

Opinion Essay Outline

An opinion essay is a formal piece of writing that presents an argument or point of view on a particular topic. An outline will help organize your thoughts and provide structure for your essay.

Here is an example of what an outline for a great essay might look like:

Here is another example for opinion essay ielts - structure:

By following this basic outline, you can ensure that your opinion essay will be well-structured and organized.

What to Include in an Opinion Essay

To craft a compelling opinion essay, it is important to include the following elements:

Logical Reasoning: Use logical reasoning to connect your evidence to your opinion. Clearly explain how the evidence supports your viewpoint and address any potential counterarguments. Ensure that your reasoning is clear, coherent, and easy for the reader to follow.

Personal Reflection: Share your personal experiences or observations that have influenced your opinion. This adds depth and authenticity to your essay and helps the reader understand the perspective from which you're approaching the topic.

Counter Arguments: Anticipate and address counterarguments to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the issue. Present counterarguments objectively and refute them with well-reasoned responses. This shows that you have considered alternative viewpoints and strengthens your position.

Clear Structure: Organize your essay with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Each paragraph should focus on a single point or supporting argument. Use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph and provide smooth transitions between ideas.

Use of Persuasive Techniques: Employ persuasive techniques such as rhetorical questions, analogies, or emotional appeals to engage and persuade your readers. However, be cautious not to rely solely on emotional appeals without logical reasoning.

Proper Citations: If you use external sources or references, ensure proper citations and adhere to the appropriate citation style (e.g., MLA, APA). This demonstrates integrity and strengthens the credibility of your essay.

What not To Include

While writing an opinion essay, it is important to be mindful of certain elements that should be avoided. Here are some things you should not include in an opinion essay:

Personal Bias: Avoid basing your arguments solely on personal beliefs or biases. Instead, support your opinion with objective evidence and logical reasoning.

Emotional Appeals without Reasoning: While it is acceptable to evoke emotions in your readers, do not rely solely on emotional appeals without providing solid reasoning and evidence. Emotions should supplement your arguments, not substitute for them.

Sweeping Generalizations: Avoid making broad generalizations without sufficient evidence or support. Ensure that your claims are backed by credible sources and specific examples.

Lack of Counterarguments: Failing to acknowledge or address opposing viewpoints weakens your essay. Engage with counterarguments and provide counter-evidence to demonstrate your ability to consider different perspectives.

Informal Language: Maintain a formal tone throughout your essay. Avoid slang, colloquialisms, or overly casual language. Use appropriate academic language and vocabulary.

How to Write an Opinion Essay?

Writing an opinion essay requires careful organization and evidence in order to make your point convincingly.

Here are the necessary steps to write an opinion essay:

Choose a Topic

The first step is to decide on a topic that appeals to you and that you can research easily. Make sure you are familiar with the subject matter. It would help you to write about it from an informed perspective.

Organize Your Thoughts

Before beginning to write, take some time to organize your thoughts and opinions on the topic. Jot down notes or draw diagrams to visualize how each of your points relates to the main argument.

Find Evidence to Support Your Point of View

After you have taken the time to organize your thoughts, it is important to find evidence that supports your opinion. Research reputable sources and collect quotes, facts, or other information relevant to each point you are making.

Write Essay Conclusion

End with a conclusion that summarizes your main points and reiterates your main argument. Give a final thought about your chosen topic. Keep in mind how it has impacted you and how it could be used to make a difference.

Be sure to reference the evidence that you have gathered throughout your essay as well.

Finally, proofread and edit your work for clarity and accuracy. Reviewing what you have written can help ensure that everything flows logically. Check grammar, punctuation, and spelling while you're at it!

Do's and Don't of Writing an Opinion Essay 

When it comes to writing an opinion essay, there are certain guidelines that should be followed.

Here are some essential do's and don'ts of writing an opinion essay:

• Evidence: In order to make a convincing argument, your essay should include evidence that supports your point of view.
• Relevant facts and statistics: Use facts and statistics from reliable sources to back up your arguments.
• Logical flow: Make sure the points you are making logically follow one another in a clear and cohesive manner.
• Counter-arguments: Address any counter-arguments against your opinion by providing evidence that disproves them.
• Clear conclusion: The conclusion should restate your opinion clearly. It summarizes the main points made throughout the essay.
• Unsupportive evidence: Make sure to avoid any irrelevant evidence in your essay that isn't valid. Do not make claims that you cannot back up with facts or examples.
• Unrelated information: Stick to the topic at hand and avoid introducing any irrelevant ideas or tangents into your essay.
• Too much opinion: Although an opinion essay is based on personal beliefs, it should still be supported by evidence-based arguments.
• Weak conclusion: Avoid summarizing the main points without restating your opinion or taking a stand on the issue you are discussing.
• Poor grammar and punctuation: Make sure to review your work for any spelling, grammar, or punctuation mistakes before submitting it.

Examples of Opinion Essays

An opinion essay can be written on any topic that has two or more sides to it.

Here are these opinion essay examples:

Learn how to write with these potential opinion essay examples:

Opinion Essay PDF Example

Opinion 3 Paragraph Essay Example

Short Opinion Essay Examples PDF

Opinion Essay IELTS Example

Opinion Essay IELTS Band 9 Example

Opinion Essay About Internet Example

Opinion Essay Topics 5th Grade

5-paragraph Opinion Essay Examples

Abortion Opinion Essay Example

Climate Change Opinion Essay Example

Opinion Essay Topics

Looking for opinion essay topics? Opinion essays are a great way to express your beliefs and thoughts on various subjects.

Here are some topics to consider when writing an opinion essay:

• Social media sites create more harm than good, Agree or Disagree?
• Should the legal drinking age be lowered?
• Is animal testing necessary?
• Should the voting age be lowered?
• Are video games beneficial or harmful to children's development?
• Should the death penalty be abolished?
• Are beauty pageants beneficial to society?
• Is it important to consume organic foods?
• Should nuclear energy be used in place of fossil fuels?
• What are the positive and negative effects of technology on our lives?

Here are some more opinion essays topics - IELTS:

• Should governments ban smoking in public places?
• Should the government fund space exploration?
• Should students be required to wear school uniforms?
• Is social media a positive or negative influence on society?
• Should the voting age be lowered to 16?

If you're looking for advice on expressing your beliefs in an opinion essay without sounding too "preachy". Read this blog for more useful tips!

Opinion Essay Template

Check out the opinion essay template below to help you get started:

Transition Words for an Opinion Essay

Transition words are an essential part of any opinion essay. These words help to link your ideas and provide a logical flow for your paper.

Here are some examples of opinion essay phrases :

• In my opinion
• On the whole
• I strongly believe
• Besides that
• To conclude
• For this reason
• Most importantly
• Nevertheless
• Accordingly
• As a result
• In conclusion
• Without doubt
• Likewise/similarly
• On the contrary

Using transition words effectively can help make your opinion essay easier to read and understand.

Tips for Writing an Effective Opinion Essay

Writing an effective opinion essay requires good research skills and an understanding of how to present your argument clearly.

Here are some tips to help you get started.

• Research: Before writing an opinion essay it is important to do research. Familiarize yourself with different arguments surrounding the topic.
• Organizing Your Thoughts: Take some time to think about your main points and organize them into a logical order.
• Gathering Evidence: Find evidence or examples to support each of your points. 
• Structuring Your Work: Organize the evidence into a clear and logical structure. Make sure each body paragraph is focused on one main point and develops this idea in detail. 
• Writing the Introduction: Provide a brief overview of the topic and state your opinion clearly. 
• Writing the Conclusion: Summarize the main points made throughout the essay and restate your opinion. 

Need help with structuring your essay conclusion? Check out this Read and learn how to write an impactful conclusion for any essay!

Follow these tips to make sure your opinion paper is well-written, organized, and persuasive!

To wrap it all up,

Writing an opinion essay is a great way to express your thoughts and opinions on any given topic. With some research, organization, and structure, you can easily convey your point of view. By following the steps outlined in this blog, you can write an effective opinion essay and make a strong argument.

Do you need help with essay writing? We provide essay writing help online for your academic writing needs. Our team of professionals ensures that every essay is written to perfection and meets the highest academic standards.

You can also trust our essay writer  to deliver quality papers to you!

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 3 parts of the opinion paragraph.

The 3 parts of the opinion paragraph includes:

• Introduction: It should provide the reader with an overview.
• Body Paragraphs: The paragraphs should present information to support your arguments.
• Conclusion: It should summarize your main points and restate your thesis statement.

What are some examples of opinion writing?

Examples of opinion writing include opinion articles, persuasive essays, editorial pieces, and reviews.

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Step-by-Step Guide on How to Write an Opinion Essay + Examples

A personal opinion essay is an essential part of an educational process. Wherever you study, you will surely come across this kind of work. And if you’re stuck with finding ideas, you have come to the right place. In this article, you will learn all the intricacies of writing and get some good opinion essay topics.

Let’s start!

🤔 What Is an Opinion Essay?

🖊️ how to write an opinion essay.

• 🔗 Linkers and Transition Words

💡 Opinion Essay Ideas

👨‍🎓 opinion essay examples.

An opinion essay is a type of work that involves the expression of one’s own opinion, which has become the product of processing facts and arguments. However, this does not mean there should be no argumentation in the essay. It will be a big plus if you have a couple of examples from your own life or the lives of historical figures, illustrating some facts in your stock. Writing an opinion essay requires the author to clearly state his thoughts on any occasion, without excessive water and long reasoning.

Among other things, it should be remembered that, technically, an opinion essay is a formal type of work that many graduates write at the end of their studies. And this means it has its structure and specific writing rules that must be adhered to. To fully understand the meaning of this type of work, try reading a couple of our free essay samples .

🎯 The Purpose of an Opinion Essay

An opinion essay is an excellent tool for teaching students how to express their position correctly. And also to test the depth of their knowledge and thinking. An opinion essay can help you to boost your skills:

• Ability to convey your thoughts . Regardless of the topic of the essay, the teacher wants to see that his wards, leaving the educational institution, will be independent individuals. Therefore, the student needs to show the ability to convey their thoughts on any occasion.
• Competent writing skills . Even in the modern world, writing skills do not lose their relevance. This type of work allows you to form it as efficiently as possible. So if you want to impress your boss, remember to pay attention to grammar and punctuation.
• Topic knowledge . Unfortunately, there is no error-free way to test a student’s ability. However, opinion essays allow the teacher to examine everyone and ensure that the topic has been mastered. This is especially true for subjects such as history and literature.

And, of course, you should understand that the purpose of any text is to be read. So just be creative, and you will have a fantastic essay!

🗝️ Key Features of an Opinion Essay

Like any other type of writing, an opinion essay has characteristics that make it unique. And, of course, to compose a competent text, you need to know about them.

• Focus on the author’s clear and well-reasoned subjective opinion . All proofs, as well as the conclusion, are based on it.
• Logical-based structure . Moreover, it entirely depends on the intentions of the writer.
• Examples and arguments come primarily from personal experience . However, an author may use history and social life quotes and examples of literary heroes to prove their position.
• Speech instruments used . As an author, you will benefit significantly from using a variety of speech constructs . They can help you influence other people. Connecting constructs and clear speech will keep the reader interested and get the most out of the reader.

You just need to get used to all the features to get a little practice. You will succeed!

⚖️ Argumentative, Opinion or Persuasive Essay: the Difference

Before proceeding directly to writing the text, it is worth learning one more important thing. Even towards the end of high school, many people confuse opinion and persuasive essays. These papers look similar.

To help you distinguish the argumentative, opinion, and persuasive essays, we prepare a table of comparisons where you can easily indicate the difference between these papers:

Now let’s move on to which sections the essay consists of and how it should be written. You can safely use this information as a synopsis when completing the assignment.

So, the first one!

📃 Opinion Essay Format

As mentioned earlier, a specific opinion essay structure must be followed. Therefore, before you prepare writing, make up a small outline, which will contain all the components of the text and your ideas for their content. So, how to start an opinion essay?

Opinion Essay Introduction

Of course, any text starts with a short opening. This section should summarize the essence of the problem you are writing about. The main task of the introduction is to entice the audience and familiarize them with the paper’s main topic. Therefore, by the first paragraph, a person will build an impression of your talents.

Moreover, remember that the introduction should be catchy. How to write a hook for an opinion essay? In simple words, this is a proposal that should interest the reader and draw his attention. It should be subject-related and relatively accurate. All you have to do is show the reader that the topic of the essay will be critical and even touch it.

Let’s take a look at some opinion essay introduction examples from our authors, in which you can see all the listed components:

• As Ronald Reagan said in one of his speeches, everyone who advocates abortion has been born. The topic of abortion is very controversial, and people still cannot come to a standard solution. That is why, in this abortion opinion essay, I will try to sort out my thoughts and answer whether abortion is a panacea or a hidden evil.
• Global warming is a global problem. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aptly put it, we cannot sit back while our planet is on fire. But can one person influence the fate of all humanity? I think so, and in this essay, I will try to explain my position

Of course, these examples are conditional, and you can change them as you need to achieve a quality result.

Opinion Essay: Thesis Statement

The thesis statement is the final sentence of an introduction . It is an integral part of the entire text. And if your essay will be evaluated, then the absence of the thesis will significantly underestimate the point. So how do you write the last sentence competently so that the reader will like it?

At its core, in the thesis, you should summarize everything that you indicated in the introduction and, in a nutshell, make it clear what will be discussed. You are expected to state your position on the issue clearly. And then, the entire text should be directed precisely to reinforce your words.

For example, take this essay topic: “ Is globalization a positive phenomenon? ” In this case, a good thesis would be “ In my opinion, globalization has many more advantages than disadvantages. ”

See how one small phrase can dramatically improve your overall performance score. Therefore, pay due attention to it!

Opinion Essay: Body Paragraphs

Finally, you come to the main body of your essay, namely the argumentation. The body paragraphs of an opinion essay are aimed at correctly explaining the author’s position to the audience. Here you are expected to have good arguments and examples that will become your assistants in proving your case.

Body paragraphs have two parts: an argument and an example supporting what you said. For example, you might say that the lack of responsibility for actions leads to the corruption of the mind and soul. And as an explanation to these words, briefly support your statement with the story of the protagonist of the novel by Jack London, “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

Moreover, no one limits the number of these same arguments, and often it depends on the maximum volume of the text itself. The standard case is two good arguments, supported by examples from life or literature. Then you can be sure that the reader will correctly understand your idea.

🔗 Linkers and Transitional Words for Opinion Essay

Connecting structures are an invisible companion for the reader throughout the entire essay. They are also called linkers or transitional words . At their core, these two concepts mean the exact phrases. Their task is to make the text more readable and smoothly translate the reader from one idea to another. Moreover, all these constructions are divided into subgroups depending on their purpose. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples of good transition words for an opinion essay:

• In my opinion…
• It is clear that…, etc.
• It is widely known that…
• It is a well-known fact that…
• Research has shown that…
• There are definitely…
• It is a fact that…, etc.

There are also brilliant linkers for opinion essays on these themes:

• In spite of…
• However, etc.
• To conclude…
• In conclusion…, etc.

Using these constructions, you will significantly increase the consistency of your text and help the reader to perceive it better.

Now that you have a basic understanding of writing an essay, let’s look at some good opinion essay topics. Feel free to use them for your creative work and get good points.

💡 30 Opinion Essay Prompts

So, our team has selected 30 excellent opinion essay topics for you. Look for what resonates in your soul and get to work!

• Opinion essay: success in life depends on being successful at school. Many of us were assured that it is impossible to reach heights without a good performance at school. What do you think about it?
• Mobile phone addiction is the scourge of the 21st century. Give arguments from your life and tell about personal experiences.
• Opinion essay about GMO : pros and cons. For many, this topic remains a secret. It’s time to dispel all inaccuracies and find out the whole truth.
• Should university study be free? What is your position?
• Opinion essay about technologies in our life . What impact do they have?
• Compulsory vaccination : pros and cons. If you have any personal experience with this topic, feel free to share it.
• Opinion on abortion essay: do people have the right to choose?
• US neutrality in World War II : what would have gone differently?
• Opinion essay about video games. Is it an addiction or just leisure ? What do you think?
• Does the motivation from famous people have an effect, or is it a dummy? Do you have an opinion on this matter?
• Essay opinion on junk food : how dangerous it is. Everyone was warned that junk food and junk food kill the body, but maybe it’s all about the quantity?
• Parenting is the foundation of a child’s success. Do you think that the parents are responsible for the future education and work of their child?
• Opinion essay: buy nothing day or Black Friday sales. What do you choose and why?
• The advantages of living in a metropolis and a small town . Which would you choose?
• Essay: opinion about global warming . Do you think this is a real threat, or is it just a panic among people?
• Homemade food or dining out in restaurants? What do you and your family prefer?
• Social media impact opinion essay. Billions of people spend their time on social media. What consequences can this have for humanity?
• Consequences of increasing the budget for road construction. How will this affect our cities?
• Opinion essay: television promotes violence through broadcasting abusive behavior. Do you agree with this thesis?
• Humanity is destroying the ecosystem and making the earth uninhabitable. What arguments can be for and against?
• Opinion essay about homework : is this system outdated? How do you feel about this from a student’s point of view?
• Artists and internet bloggers make vast amounts of money. Do you support this?
• Opinion essay about racism in modern life. What are the dangers of this behavior? Tell us about your personal experience or give an example from the community’s life.
• Some people dream of changing their place of residence. Do you think that moving to another country will help you in self-realization?
• The best profession to choose opinion essay. What are your thoughts? Where would you like to be after finishing your studies?
• People prefer online communication over live communication. How do you feel about this trend?
• Opinion essay about same-sex marriages. For some people, this is unacceptable. What do you think about it?
• How can movies and television affect human behavior ? Do you think certain viewing films should be limited for people with a weak mentality?
• Opinion essay about immigration . Should the state provide maximum assistance to everyone who wants to get into it?
• Should people be allowed to carry weapons with them? What restrictions can be used, in your opinion?

These themes are ideal for getting good results.

Now let’s look at some small sample essays from our authors. You can see all the listed components and highlight some interesting ideas for yourself!

Climate change opinion essay, truth or fiction? (250 words)

Climate change has been heading the news for decades. Almost everyone is puzzled by this problem in the modern world, but is there any reason to believe that this is just exaggerated media panic? I think not, and in this essay, I will try to explain my position. The first thing worth paying attention to is the changes that we can see every day. But nature is changing, and this is noticeable with the naked eye. For example, you can look at how the temperature regime has changed over the past decades. In my region, real winter began in the last days of November. Then the temperature dropped to zero, and there was already snow outside the window. However, I would be thrilled to see snowfall this year, at least at Christmas. This raises questions about the veracity of statements from the media and various organizations. You should also look at the publicly available facts. International organizations conduct ongoing research, which clearly shows that the climate is changing, and it is difficult to fix it. One of the most respected teams, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), regularly issues climate change reports. And in them, you can see what reasons for this and what it can lead to. This is excellent and detailed work that deserves everyone’s attention. In summary, we can say that climate change can be seen with the naked eye. This problem affects all people on the planet, and to ignore it is to expose yourself to great danger. Humanity is destroying our world, and can we deny it?

Opinion on death penalty essay, is it moral? (300 words)

Many international treaties have long banned the death penalty, but this does not prevent several countries from regularly using it against criminals. I think this is a terrible practice that has no place in our civilized world. The argument for this may be the simple idea that every creature has a right to life. And this right cannot be taken away under any condition because you can take a dangerous path by creating an incident. One Russian scientist Andrei Sakharov spoke very accurately about this: “The existence of the institution of the death penalty dehumanizes society. I spoke out and am opposed to the death penalty also because this punishment provides for the presence of a constantly terrible apparatus of executors, the whole institution of the death penalty ”. I fully support his words because there is no reason not to kill the second after killing once. It should also be understood that people sentenced to death are not always, in fact, guilty. There is a miscarriage of justice, and no one can be insured against it. The most resonant was the story from 1949. Timothy Evans was hanged on charges of murdering his pregnant wife and two-year-old daughter. Four years later, it wasn’t until serial killer John Christie, who had testified in court against Evans, confessed to the murder. He was hanged, and Timothy Evans was posthumously rehabilitated. The Timothy Evans case is one of the most remarkable stories in the death penalty dispute. To summarize, I can say that there are many reasons for the absolute ban on the death penalty in the world. This is not only inhuman but can lead to unnecessary deaths. Fighting crime in this way, the people who defend the law themselves break it.

Opinion essay on smoking: should the state intervene? (300 words)

Smoking is a global problem. Experts predict that in the coming decades, the number of smokers will reach one billion people worldwide. In my opinion, governments should take strict measures to limit nicotine use among the population. Firstly, smoking poses enormous hardships for addicts. All this can increase the number of cancer patients and people suffering from heart and lung diseases. At the same time, it can be tough to give up cigarettes on your own. We all understand that nicotine in quantities that a person receives from cigarettes is not characteristic of the body. Therefore, our body can react in an extraordinary way to its appearance. An example may well be my family, suffering from heart problems for several generations. All men, from my great-grandfather to my father, visit doctors all the time. And they all have one reason – excessive smoking. At the same time, they cannot quit smoking on their own due to a banal addiction. Secondly, smokers can damage the health of other people nearby. It is a well-known fact that secondhand smoke is no less harmful than the regular use of nicotine. And unfortunately, non-smokers, in most cases, have no choice. You can see it yourself in everyday life. People who are forced to breathe smoke while sitting at bus stops or in public places simply cannot do anything about it. The only way to help them is to introduce more and more restrictions from the state. So, in conclusion, we can say that smoking is not only a problem for the person addicted to cigarettes. Everyone suffers from this, from his family to strangers around him. Unfortunately, these difficulties cannot be resolved on their own. But is the state and society doing enough to help people with addiction?

❓ What Are the Characteristics of an Opinion?

The opinion is an entirely subjective position formed due to the influence of certain factors on the mind. It can be characterized as a personal judgment, point of view, and not an exact fact. However, an opinion can be valid only if it is supported by actual knowledge. Otherwise, it can be called more of a guess.

❓ How Many Paragraphs is an Opinion Essay?

The standard structure consists of four main parts: an introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Nevertheless, if it is not specified in the assignment, it can deviate slightly from such a system. It is pretty standard practice to write three or more body paragraphs. Conversely, if one section fully covers the topic, then the need for other explanations may disappear.

❓ What Is the Structure of an Opinion Essay?

An essay structure is a precise sequence of your thoughts, which will help the reader to understand the topic better. The standard system consists of an introduction, two arguments, and a conclusion. In addition, there are less visible components like a hook, thesis statement, and linkers words. You can expand the structure by adding more argument parts. However, the sequence must remain the same.

❓ What Is a Supported Opinion Essay?

An essay based on a person’s personal opinion implies a clear statement of the author’s thoughts on a specific topic. However, to show understanding of the problem, one should rely on facts, research, or examples from life. A supported opinion essay is precisely when the author’s opinion is based on objective factors.

📎 References

• Basic Essay Structure. Port. Ac
• An opinion essay. British Council
• How to Write an Opinion Based Essay. UCT Language Centre
• Recognizing Transitions. MPC.Edu
• Writing Your Paper: Transitions. EWU.Edu
• Transition Sentences. The College of Saint Rose
• Writing Effective Conclusions. Richmond University
• Conclusion – How to write an essay. University of Newcastle
• Writing a thesis statement. IELTS Buddy
• CCSS Argument versus Opinion Writing
• Essay Structure. Harvard College Writing Centre

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Opinion Writing: a Guide to Writing a Successful Essay Easily

An opinion essay requires students to write their thoughts regarding a subject matter. Relevant examples and explanations back their point of view. Before starting an opinion paper, it is important to study the definition, topics, requirements, and structure. Referring to examples is also highly useful. Perhaps you need help with our admission essay writing service ? Take a look at this guide from our dissertation writing service to learn how to write an opinion essay like an expert.

What Is an Opinion Essay

A common question among students is: ‘What is an Opinion Essay?' It is an assignment that contains questions that allow students to share their point-of-view on a subject matter. Students should express their thoughts precisely while providing opinions on the issue related to the field within reasonable logic. Some opinion essays type require references to back the writer's claims.

Opinion writing involves using a student's personal point-of-view, which is segregated into a point. It is backed by examples and explanations. The paper addresses the audience directly by stating ‘Dear Readers' or the equivalent. The introduction involves a reference to a speech, book, or play. This is normally followed by a rhetorical question like ‘is the pope Catholic?' or something along those lines.

What Kind of Student Faces an Opinion Essay

Non-native English-speaking students enrolled in the International English Language Testing System by the British Council & Cambridge Assessment English are tasked with learning how to write the opinion essays. This can be high-school or college students. It is designed to enhance the level of English among students. It enables them to express their thoughts and opinions while writing good opinion essay in English.

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What Are the Requirements of an Opinion Essay?

Avoid Going Off-Topic: Always write an opinion essay within relevance to answer the assigned question. This is also known as ‘beating around the bush' and should not be included in any opinion paragraph as it may lower your grade.

Indent the First Paragraph: With most academic papers, opinion writing is not different. Therefore, it contains the rule of indenting the first line of the introduction.

A Well-Thought Thesis: The full thesis statement is a brief description of the opinion essay. It determines the rest of the paper. Include all the information that you wish to include in the body paragraphs

The Use of Formal Languages: Although it is okay to write informally, keep a wide range of professional and formal words. This includes: ‘Furthermore,' ‘As Stated By,' ‘However', & ‘Thus'.

Avoid Internet Slang: In the opinion paper, avoid writing using slang words. Don'tDon't include words like ‘LOL', ‘OMG', ‘LMAO', etc.

The Use of First Person Language (Optional): For the reason of providing personal thought, it is acceptable to write your personal opinion essay in the first person.

Avoid Informal Punctuation: Although the requirements allow custom essay for the first-person language, they do not permit informal punctuation. This includes dashes, exclamation marks, and emojis.

Avoid Including Contradictions: Always make sure all spelling and grammar is correct.

We also recommend reading about types of sentences with examples .

Opinion Essay Topics

Before learning about the structure, choosing from a wide range of opinion essay topics is important. Picking an essay theme is something that can be done very simply. Choosing an excellent opinion essay topic that you are interested in or have a passion for is advisable. Otherwise, you may find the writing process boring. This also ensures that your paper will be both effective and well-written.

• Do sports differ from ordinary board games?
• Is using animals in circus performances immoral?
• Why should we be honest with our peers?
• Should all humans be entitled to a 4-day workweek?
• Should all humans become vegetarians?
• Does a CEO earn too much?
• Should teens be barred from having sleepovers?
• Should everyone vote for their leader?
• The Pros & Cons of Day-Light Saving Hours.
• What are the most energy-efficient and safest cars of X year?

Opinion Essay Structure

When it comes to opinion paragraphs, students may struggle with the opinion essay format. The standard five-paragraph-essay structure usually works well for opinion essays. Figuring out what one is supposed to include in each section may be difficult for beginners. This is why following the opinion essay structure is something all beginners should do, for their own revision before writing the entire essay.

You might also be interested in getting more information about: 5 PARAGRAPH ESSAY

Opinion essay introduction

• Address the audience directly, and state the subject matter.
• Reference a speech, poem, book, or play.
• Include the author's name and date of publication in brackets.
• 1 or 2 sentences to make up a short description.
• 1 or 2 summarizing sentences of the entire paper.
• 1 sentence that links to the first body paragraph.

Body Paragraph 1

• Supporting arguments
• Explanation
• A linking sentence to the second body paragraph.

Body Paragraph 2

• Supporting argument
• A linking sentence to the third body paragraph.

Body Paragraph 3

• A linking sentence to the conclusion.

Conclusion paragraph

• Summary of the entire paper
• A conclusive sentence (the bigger picture in conclusion)

If you need some help, leave us a message ' write my essay cheap ' and we'll help.

Opinion Essay Examples

Do you need something for reference? Reading opinion essay examples can expand your knowledge of this style of writing, as you get to see exactly how this form of an essay is written. Take a look at our samples to get an insight into this form of academic writing.

Over the past, American popular culture has been strong in creating racial stereotypes. Images displayed through television, music, and the internet have an impact on how individuals behave and what individuals believe. People find their identities and belief systems from popular culture. Evidently, I believe that American pop culture has created racial stereotypes that predominantly affect other ethnic minorities. Analyzing the history of America reveals that African Americans have always had a problem defining themselves as Americans ever since the era of slavery. AfricanAmericans have always had a hard time being integrated into American culture. The result is that African Americans have been subjected to ridicule and shame. American pop culture has compounded the problem by enhancing the negative stereotypes ofAfrican American. In theatre, film, and music, African Americans have been associated with vices such as murder, theft, and violence.

The family systems theory has a significant revelation on family relations. I firmly agree that to understand a particular family or a member, they should be around other family members. The emotional connection among different family members may create functional or dysfunctional coexistence, which is not easy to identify when an individual is further from the other members. Taking an example of the extended family, the relationship between the mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law may be tense, but once they are outside the family, they can pretend to have a good relationship. Therefore, I agree with the theory that the existing emotional attachment and developed culture in the family is distinctively understood when the family is together.

Opinion writing is a form of academic paper that asks students to include their thoughts on a particular topic. This is then backed by a logical explanation and examples. Becoming more knowledgeable is a practical way to successfully learn how to write an opinion paper. Before writing anything, it is essential to refer to important information. That includes the definition, topics, opinion writing examples, and requirements. This is what turns amateur writers into master writers.

Feeling like you need some assistance with your essay? No matter what kind of writer you need, opinion or persuasive essay writing service online , our team consists of experts in all fields. Our college essay writing service helps those students who need an extra push when it comes to their assignments.

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is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

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Digital tools and ideas to transform education.

“ If you are not willing to learn, nobody can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you” – unknown author.

• Timesaver: Repository of writing prompts for every essay type
• Six amazing websites that make your writing stronger
• Grammar and vocabulary checklist
• EOI Oviedo writing bank
• Video: writing tips from the British Council
• The writing process and 13 tips to raise your essay score
• The Writing Process
• 200 prompts for argumentative writing
• 101 topics to write about in your articles
• A website with 346 writing prompts to ignite your creativity
• Questions for writing and discussion
• 100 IELTS essay questions
• Creative writing prompts
• 301 Prompts for Argumentative Writing
• Error Awareness Chart
• Spice up your lessons with the Russian Roulette
• While and whereas
• Connectors of contrast – Exercise One , Exercise Two, 
• Clauses of purpose. Exercise One , Exercise two, Exercise 3
• Linking words: and, but, also, however
• Discourse Makers: 1

ELEMENTARY  A1, A2

• Stretching a Sentence
• Capital Letters
• Physical Description

INTERMEDIATE B1

• Writing a Summary

OPINION ESSAYS

• 5 steps to writing an excellent opinion essay
• Writing an Opinion Essay PDF
• Useful Expressions and Linkers
• An Opinion Essay . Presentation
• An Opinion Essay: Students’ Essays
• Opinion Essays: Topics to choose from
• An opinion essay about fast food: Example (British Council)

INFORMAL EMAILS

• An Informal Email
• An informal email pdf
• An informal  email to a friend: sample
• Informal email. Invitation: sample
• You have an email: an interactive writing activity

BOOK AND FILM REVIEWS

• A Book Review.
• Nice stuff to use for evaluating compulsory reading
• A Film Review
• Six Steps to Writing a Good Book Review . Pdf

NARRATIVE AND STORYTELLING

• Working with Adjectives: Moving Up from ” I Made Tea” to” I made myself a nice, hot sandwich of low-fat blue cheese because I was starving”
• Writing Activity with relative sentences
• Collaborative  Writing activity with Simple Past/Past Continuous/Past Perfect
• Game: storytelling to practise narrative tenses
• Telling Stories: sequencing your ideas
• Task: Writing a Narrative
• Task: Dressed to Kill
• Improving your Writing Skills
• Spice up your writing with the Noun Roulette

UPPER-INTERMEDIATE B2

FORMAL EMAILS

• A Formal Email : asking for information about a course
• A formal letter  (ppt).   Layout and guided application letter
• Formal Letters. > Tips >Exercise 1
• Formal and Informal language Exercise
• Formal/semi-formal pdf
• CV templates
• 6 steps to getting a job: How to write a cover letter and a résumé
• Complaint letter: Paragraphs and examples
• Complaint letter: Opening lines
• Complaint letter: Fill in the gaps
• Complaint letter: Fill in the gaps with the right tense
• Complaint Letter: model
• Some  Common Mistakes 1
• Creative Writing: using Wordle
• Writing a report template

FOR AND AGAINST ESSAY

• 5 steps to writing a good For and Against essay
• A For and Against Essay
• A for and against task. Example
• Collaborative Writing: Tourism
• Collaborative Writing Activity: Writing an Article

ADVANCED – C1

• A short writing descriptive activity using pasta 
• How to write an article: some visual help
• Improving writing  with the noun roulette
• Fi lm review example
• Writing a report
• Graphs and Charts (by María Fernández). Saying Numbers Quiz (by Paula G. Cernadas)
• How to describe a bar chart with model answer
• How to write a C1 Opinion Essay
• Formal language: Exercise 1, Exercise 2 , Exercise 3 ,
• Formal and informal language Quizlet
• Indirect questions in formal letters/emails: Exercise 1
• Formal Email/letter: Cover Letter

              – How to send an email with a cover letter    – How to format a cover letter    

              – Useful   expressions in a cover letter

• Write an informal email giving advice Write a formal letter/email applying for a job
• 100 Essay Questions

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Genially For Teachers: Pro Tips From An Insider

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Wondering what Genially for teachers is all about? Or are you interested in finding out what Genially is? You’re in the right place!

In this article, we highlight the best features of our podcast on this very topic as well as offer the podcast links for your listening enjoyment. So let’s jump in!

Listen on iTunes and Spotify , or watch on YouTube . The Global Classroom Podcast Season 1, episode [#7]!

Podcast: The Global Classroom Season : 1 Episode: #7 “Genially For Teachers: Pro Tips From An Insider” Guest: Aili Olichney Host : David Cole

Aili Olichney is an experienced professional and a passionate advocate for innovative digital tools in education.

With a background in educational technology, Aili has dedicated her career to empowering learners and educators alike through the integration of modern technologies in the classroom setting.

As a prominent member of the Genially team, she plays an integral role in the development and implementation of the platform. Aili’s focus lies in ensuring that Genially remains accessible, engaging, and efficient for its users.

Her expertise in user experience and educational needs has significantly contributed to Genially’s success as a leading digital tool for interactive presentations.

David Cole, a seasoned education professional with over 15 years of experience in coaching, curriculum development, and public speaking, brings his wealth of knowledge to “The Global Classroom” podcast. With a track record of successfully designing over 170 ESL lessons and directing large-scale events like the 2023 Global Teaching Summit, he skillfully interviews online educators, sharing valuable tips, tools, and resources. David’s passion for fostering collaborative engagement and driving educational success shines through as he inspires online educators to reach their full potential for themselves and their students.

Executive Summary

In the 7th episode of The Global Classroom Podcast, Meet Aili Olichney, a former English teacher turned Genially team member, sharing her experiences and insights about incorporating creativity in education and how Genially can aid this process.

As we navigate the evolving landscape of online education, it’s crucial to stay updated with the latest tools and strategies that can enhance learning experiences.

Today, we’re excited to share insights from an enlightening conversation with David and Aili Olichney. Aili, a former English teacher in Spain and now a dedicated member of the Genially team, brings a unique perspective to our discussion.

With her hands-on experience in teaching and deep understanding of Genially, she provides valuable insights into how this tool can revolutionize your digital classroom.

Through this post, we aim to provide you with practical tips and insider knowledge that can help you make the most of Genially for your teaching needs . So, let’s dive in and explore!

Listen to Season 1, episode [#7] of The Global Classroom! Listen on iTunes and Spotify , or watch on YouTube .

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Aili’s Journey into Creativity and Genially

Our conversation with Aili Olichney, from Genially, takes us on a fascinating journey that begins in the vibrant classrooms of Southern Spain and leads us to the innovative world of immersive gamification.

Aili’s story is not your typical career path. With about five years of experience teaching English as a foreign language to various age groups, her life took an exciting turn when she received a message from the CEO of Genially.

Joining the then-small team of just 14 people, she started off translating part-time. As Genially expanded, particularly during the pandemic, so did Aili’s role within the company.

She transitioned into a community builder, an ideal fit for her creative spirit.

Aili’s creativity, nurtured since childhood, has been instrumental in her journey. She firmly believes that everyone is inherently creative, and embracing this creativity can bring immense joy and freedom.

Her belief echoes in her work at Genially where she encourages educators to tap into their creativity to enhance their lessons and student engagement.

It’s clear that Aili’s journey is a testament to the power of creativity in education and the potential of Genially for teachers .

Genially for Online Educators

Genially for teachers is a powerful tool that offers a wide spectrum of possibilities for online educators.

In essence, it’s a platform for creating interactive and animated learning materials, transforming traditional presentations into engaging, interactive experiences.

Whether you’re looking to create choice boards, gamified materials, infographics, or even entire courses, Genially provides the tools to make it happen.

Imagine your students navigating through a virtual hallway, clicking on doors to open up different courses — the immersion and engagement are unparalleled.

One of the standout features of Genially for teachers is its ability to convert old PowerPoint presentations into dynamic, interactive formats.

With a straightforward upload process, educators can breathe new life into their existing content.

Adding interactivity and animation to text and images, incorporating buttons, pop-up windows, and even embedding external elements like Google Maps or Quizlet flashcards becomes a breeze.

This opens up a world of creative possibilities, making lessons more engaging and memorable.

Please note, this feature requires at least the lowest premium plan, but the enhanced learning experience it offers is well worth the investment. Genially truly is a game-changer for online educators.

Genially’s Templates and Limitations

In the world of Aili, templates offer an excellent starting point for educators. They provide a structure that can be easily modified to suit different teaching needs.

As Aili and David discuss, using templates may feel less intimidating for beginners. However, they also advocate for starting from scratch, allowing teachers to explore the full extent of Genially’s features.

Aili praises Genially’s extensive free account version, which imposes no limits on the complexity or length of creations.

However, one limitation is that not all templates are available for free. While there are plenty of free templates, access to all templates requires an upgrade to the basic Premium plan. Genially pricing various by tye type of plan you choose.

Genially for teachers small but mighty team of designers consistently adds new templates every two weeks and continually revises older ones.

This ensures that the templates stay relevant and easy to use. Feedback from users is also taken into account when creating or revising templates.

David highlights Genially’s template gallery as one of his favorite features. He advises signing up for Genially’s monthly newsletter to stay updated on new template designs and other updates.

The newsletter can help teachers navigate through the extensive range of templates available on Genially for teachers.

In conclusion, whether you’re modifying a template or starting from scratch, Genially offers a plethora of options to create engaging, interactive lessons.

Features and Gamification Options in Genially

For teachers navigating the digital landscape, Genially for teachers stands out among popular presentation tools like Google Classroom, PowerPoint, and Canva.

Unlike other platforms, Genially is designed to minimize workarounds and enhance usability, offering features such as clickable elements, drag-and-drop functionality, and direct slide annotations.

A standout feature of Genially is its immersive gamification options. As a community builder at Genially, Aili, expresses her fondness for the breakout virtual escape rooms.

These intricate, interactive templates make learning fun and encourage student engagement .

Another exciting feature is the new ‘Interactive Questions’, allowing teachers to embed open-ended or multiple choice questions directly into their presentations.

As an enthusiastic Genially user, David, highlights the versatility of the ‘Click to Reveal’ and ‘Click to Hide’ functions, enabling teachers to create dynamic and interactive learning for education.

He also emphasizes the potential of escape rooms to leverage Genially’s full suite of features, creating an immersive learning experience.

Beyond these, Genially for teachers offers a plethora of other creation types, including timelines and subject-specific presentations.

The platform’s visual interface and extensive range of Genially templates make it a versatile tool for teaching various subjects .

In summary, Genially provides teachers with an array of features and gamification options, making it one of the go-to resources for creative, engaging, and interactive education.

Exploring Genially’s Template Gallery and Editor

The Genially For Teachers free platform offers a broad range of features to help educators create engaging, educational interactive content.

As David and Aili discuss, starting with templates or modifying existing designs can be a great way for beginners to familiarize themselves with the tool.

Aili is an advocate for starting with a blank canvas and building from there, while David suggests leveraging templates to maintain consistency and personal branding. Both approaches have their merits, demonstrating the versatility of the Genially app.

The extensive template gallery is one of Genially’s standout features. It houses thousands of designs that educators can modify and adapt to their needs, with new templates added every two weeks.

The Genially for teachers team is also responsive to user feedback, constantly revising and improving templates to enhance usability and relevance.

While Genially’s free version offers unlimited creation of teaching materials and no restrictions on complexity, upgrading to the basic Premium plan unlocks access to all templates.

This could be a worthwhile investment for teachers seeking to fully leverage the platform’s capabilities.

In conclusion, whether you’re starting from scratch or using a template, Genially provides a plethora of tools and features to facilitate engaging, interactive learning experiences.

Creating a Genially Interactive Image

Interactive images are a powerful tool within the Genially for teachers suite, allowing educators to create dynamic and engaging learning materials.

As Aili explains, interactive images offer ‘the biggest bang for your buck,’ with the ability to design intricate, interactive content in as little as five to ten minutes.

David shares his recent exploration of this feature, highlighting its potential for course marketing and lesson summaries.

By embedding interactivity within an image, teachers can link to preview lessons, provide unit summaries, or direct students to sign up pages, enhancing user engagement and facilitating seamless navigation.

Aili also emphasizes the ease with which one can create interactive images, making them an ideal starting point for educators new to Genially.

These images can be used to transform traditional worksheets or presentations into interactive experiences, thereby elevating the learning process.

In addition to interactive images, Aili mentions the use of gamified breakout rooms in Genially for teachers, further enriching the platform’s educational offerings.

Whether it’s creating an interactive course, a gamified quiz, or an immersive escape room, Genially For Teachers provides a range of tools for educators to enhance their online teaching experience.

Interactivity Options in Genially

Genially for teachers provides a suite of interactivity options to create engaging and dynamic learning materials.

Once you’ve selected an element, you’ll see an icon with a little hand – this is your pathway to interactivity. The platform offers a variety of options from simple tooltips to complex windows.

Tooltips are ideal for short text or GIFs, appearing as a chat bubble when the mouse hovers over them.

On the other hand, windows can accommodate longer text, videos, video tags, images, and even embeds from external tools like Google Maps or Twitter (aka: X) feeds.

Adding interactivity is straightforward. Just select the element, delete any pre-filled content, and click ‘Add Interactivity’.

For instance, if you want to add a video, simply paste the YouTube link into the ‘Insert Video’ field within the window. Similarly, you can insert images from your computer, keeping in mind the 5MB size limit.

The beauty of Genially for teachers lies in its live feature. Any content you add, like maps or social media posts, is live and fully interactive for your students.

By experimenting with these features, educators can transform traditional lessons into immersive and interactive experiences, enriching the learning process and keeping students engaged.

Creating an Escape Room with Genially

Escape rooms are an engaging and fun way to make learning interactive. Using Genially for teachers, you can bring this concept to your digital classroom. Aili provides a step-by-step guide on how to create an ‘Escape Room Library’ using the tool.

To start, she selects an intricate image of a library from Pixabay to serve as the backdrop for the escape room.

She then locks the image in place and begins to add invisible interactive areas. These areas will house the clues or tasks that students must find and complete.

In her demonstration, Aili uses math problems as an example, but any content can be used.

She then adds a visible button with directions for the students – in this case, they are to search the shelves for three math problems, solve them, and write the numbers in order from smallest to largest to create a three-digit number. This number will then unlock the next room.

The final step is to password protect the next page with the solution to the task. In the preview, the students will see the library and their directions.

They must then search for the math problems, solve them, and use the resulting three-digit number to progress to the next stage of the escape room.

This exciting, gamified approach to learning can be adapted to any subject matter, making Genially for teachers a versatile tool for educators.

Discussion on Interactive Elements in Genially

The power of Genially for teachers lies in its ability to transform static content into an interactive learning experience. The platform’s ‘invisible interactive areas’ are a game-changer.

These are hidden spots on your Genially project that, when hovered over or clicked, can reveal clues, questions, or additional information – perfect for creating engaging activities like digital escape rooms.

You can easily add these areas to any part of your project and populate them with any type of content.

For instance, math problems can be hidden within an image of a library, challenging students to find and solve them to progress.

This not only enhances student engagement but also encourages critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

What’s more, you can add a sense of progression by password-protecting the next page, using the solutions to the problems as the password. This feature adds another layer of interactivity, making learning even more exciting and immersive.

In essence, Genially for teachers provides educators with an array of tools to create dynamic, interactive lessons, revolutionizing the way we teach and learn.

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Conclusion: Genially for Teachers

In this comprehensive discussion, we have explored the importance of creativity in education, the role of Genially in creating interactive learning experiences, and how its diverse features can be utilized effectively.

We hope these insights from Aili inspire you to explore Genially and leverage its potential for your teaching needs.

Stay tuned for more such enlightening discussions and pro tips from insiders in the field of online education!

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Key takeaways & timestamps.

00:06 David Cole Hello, everybody, and welcome to Aili Olichney from Genially. She’s here to talk to us a little bit about this Immersive Gamification style of lessons, of schooling, of just everything. And I thought we’d get started here by saying hello and getting to know her a little bit better.

01:56 Aili Hey, everyone. So excited to be here. Thanks so much for inviting me.

02:00 David Cole Definitely. So, for those who are not familiar with you and your work at all, can you tell us a little bit about your background, how you got started?

02:11 Aili I have an interesting sort of atypical background for getting into this kind of work. I taught English as a foreign language in southern Spain in pretty different capacities. For about five years, I was in the classroom and out of the classroom working with different age groups, and I got a message from the CEO of Genially, which was very small at the time. I think there were, like, 14 other people to get on board. And so I started working for Genially part time. I was translating, and as the company’s grown, it’s grown a lot, especially in the last I don’t like naming the pandemic and everything, but pandemic forward, it’s grown a lot. And I’ve been able to sort of inch my way into this job as a community builder. And it’s perfect.

02:58 David Cole You’ve had your hand in building lessons and moving up in that route. Have you always been a creative person?

03:09 Aili So I like this question. I feel like it’s almost like a trick question. Yes. I’m glad you’ve asked. I think it’s really easy for me to say yes because I got a lot of positive feedback around being a creative kid growing up. And I think you have kids, right? Like, all kids are so creative. And so I think that at some point, some of us learn that maybe we’re not as creative or we’re more creative. And I live with a ten year old, so I’ve seen this process happen. He’s decided he’s not creative, so I am creative, but I think everyone’s creative, and hopefully we can all connect to that part of ourselves. I think it brings a lot of joy and freedom.

03:47 David Cole My ten year old is the same way. Sometimes he is creative, make this cool game, but then sometimes when you put him on the screen no, I’m not.

03:56 Aili Yeah. And it’s like we think that being creative means that we’re good at art or something. Like, you’re technically good at singing or a lot of kids think they have to be like, a good dancer or a good singer. And it’s really just about letting yourself not be so censored.

04:12 David Cole I think it really is. I feel like I’m a free spirit. I can do most things and not get too embarrassed about it anymore.

04:19 Aili Cool.

04:21 David Cole Yeah.

04:22 Aili That’s something I’m working on, not getting too embarrassed.

04:26 David Cole Yes. I’ll put myself out there and this is what happens. That kind of thing. People don’t like it, that’s fine. But usually what I’ve found in being in the creative side of things is that out there, you express more, you’re able to develop more, and some people will be drawn to that. Usually people aren’t put off by it as much, so you might be put off by it if you’re embarrassed for yourself.

04:55 Aili No, I’m not put off by it. I admire it. I’m working on it. I think that showing up is the way to go.

05:05 David Cole Cool. So for our viewers who are not at all familiar with Genially right now, can you give us a rundown of what it is and how you see online educators using it the most?

05:21 Aili Okay. Yeah. So Genially in a nutshell, is a tool for creating interactive and animated learning materials. And the scope of what online educators and in classroom will add, but online educators can do with it is pretty wide. I know you use it yourself, David, so, you know, but we have everything from centering student choice, so with choice boards, playlists, to gamified materials, which I hope we get a chance to talk about later, and then the ability to create better, more engaging versions of what most online teachers are already creating. So, presentations, infographics, interactive images, guides, and even full courses. Some people will use Genially to create their courses within the tool itself only, and other people will integrate Genially creations into other tools for course creation.

06:09 David Cole Yeah, and those of you watching this, watch all the days, because there is another presenter who does talk completely about how to create an entire course within it. So the students will go through a hallway, they click on a door and it opens up the course, and they can go back out of that door for the next day that they have class go into another room. It’s so cool how in depth and how big you can make these.

06:35 Aili I would love to see that. And it sounds like a good example of sort of our immersive learning options too, whether that’s through sort of a breakout escape room type thing or just putting students in C two. So cool.

06:49 David Cole Yeah, it’s really cool. I’ll share it with you. It’s going to be shared on her page as well, on this now, myself included, a lot of our viewers started being a presenter using like PowerPoint, that kind of thing.

07:09 Aili Yeah.

07:11 David Cole Gina Lee now offers a way for people to convert those old lessons into this interactive format. Can you tell us about how that is, how easy it is to use?

07:26 Aili Yeah, absolutely. So you can upload your PowerPoint directly into Genially. It does require this is a small caveat. It does require at least the lowest kind of premium plan. So I think our pro plan is about $8 a month. And the process for that is once teachers have uploaded their PowerPoint, you click on Upload your PowerPoint, you choose it from your device, it goes into Genially. And then they can add interactivity and animation to all elements, whether that’s text, images, they can add buttons and pop up windows. They can create things that are a lot more interesting. They can embed external elements. So Google Maps, forms, videos like Quizlet, Flashcards, anything with an embed code. The sky’s sort of the limit. But that’s how they’d start.

08:08 David Cole Yeah, that’s and I find that’s a good way for people who are just getting nerd mentally to start either that or templates. Because you already created some of your own stuff and you can kind of play around with the tools by modifying things. Then I usually recommend people go towards the template afterwards.

08:26 Aili I do the same thing. I think a lot of people think that we should always start our teachers with the templates, which some do prefer, because I think mentally it feels less intimidating sometimes. But I’m a big advocate for starting with a from scratch creation, whether that’s a simple image and then building from there. And this would be a good way to do that too, right? To bring in your PowerPoint and just add a few buttons and tinker around that way?

08:50 David Cole Definitely. So then that kind of brings me to your favorite type of presentation. What kind of presentation do you like?

09:03 Aili Oh, my God.

09:03 David Cole Or like creating? Creating?

09:05 Aili Do I like creating?

09:07 David Cole Yes.

09:10 Aili Favorite presentation types to create. I can think of like, favorite templates right off the bat. That kind of got me really inspired. I know we have one called an elevator pitch template. So that has you going through elevator doors when you’re starting out. But I guess when I sit down to make a presentation, what I’m thinking about is the journey that I’m taking my when I was teaching my students on right so I was looking at like we’re going to have some kind of overview. Sometimes I would bring in some flashcards right away, then I would embed like Quizlet flashcards back in the day and I’d have students start that way and then maybe we’d go into a history lesson where they could play around and move. There’s a lot of draggable elements available in Genially you can also draw on the slides. So I’d have students sort of move around different historical events, watch videos on them that would be in sort of the second portion and then I would have a wrap up like review section at the end.

10:03 Aili I don’t know if this is where you were going with the question but that’s sort of how I build my presentations.

10:08 David Cole Yeah, that’s an interesting way to do it. I try to have a format as well. Your intro, your meat and potatoes saying that you wrap up kind of like the I do, we do, they do type situation perfect.

10:23 Aili Yeah. And have you found any tricks for that when you’re finding things you like to do?

10:31 David Cole I try to stick with the same template now. Now that I’m doing it over and over again, I’ll change this color scheme up if I need to and I’ll add in other features. So I like to hide some slides so that when I finish my lesson, I’ll just duplicate that lesson and I’ll just replace pictures and replace wording might bring one of those hidden slides back into it and hide it to something else. That way I can keep the same template going and use it over and over again to keep that consistency going into the student.

11:05 Aili That’s great. I think that’s good. Both on just a practical learning level, you know that students are going to be hitting these same points or the same structure every time and they get familiar with that. And then even from a personal branding perspective for educators who are looking to become better known, whether it’s on your platform or on social media, I think it’s helpful for them to have their sort of branded template this is who I am, this is what my lessons look like. And pull from there and then it saves time.

11:31 David Cole I just recently started messing around with the interactive images as well that you can do with Genially, my favorite, which is really cool. It’s so cool. Especially for marketing and advertising yourself or your lessons.

11:46 Aili Oh really?

11:47 David Cole Yeah, you put the interactivity pieces in there. You can link to a preview lesson that you might have created. You can do your bio, you can say these are like maybe you have twelve units or ten units. You can say these are the units and this is the summary. They can click on it to reveal summaries. It’s so cool. And then you can even have a link to your sign up page if you’re on outschool all school, you can have people log right into your sign up page and things like that. So it’s really nifty perfect.

12:17 Aili Yeah, I would love to see that. Also, I’m always looking for examples of what different teachers, educators, entrepreneurs are making. So please do send that over if you can.

12:27 David Cole Definitely. So, hands down, my favorite part of Genially is the template gallery. There are so many different things there’s the ability to find, modify, use so many different creative designs. How are those templates changed or added to? Are there any limitations on using templates or anything for people?

12:53 Aili Yeah. So we have a small I like to say we have a small but mighty team of designers growing all the time, but still small, especially for how many. We have thousands of templates up, and I don’t know how they’ve done it, but they add new templates, like completely brand new templates, every two weeks, and then they’re constantly revising older templates to make them better, basically to make them easier to use, and then sort of updating their designs a little bit to keep them relevant. That’s what we have on the like, how often are they created, reviewed, revised? It’s also nice sometimes we get feedback about templates that people want created or revised so that comes in and also gets filtered through their process. And in terms of limitations, how do I want to say this? So I think on the one hand, Genially’s free version is really extensive.

13:38 Aili It’s one of the reasons I’m work for Genially. It has one of the most extensive free versions I’ve seen among sort of other creation tools. And that means there’s no limit to the number of learning materials that a teacher can make with Genially for free. There’s also no limit to how complex a creation can be, how long it is, how many layers it has, how many interactive elements there are. So you can really create almost anything for free. And that said, one of the main reasons that teachers will upgrade, if they can, to sort of the basic Premium plan is to get access to all of our templates. So there are free templates and there are premium templates, and you can work absolutely just from scratch and off of free templates, but teachers who are looking for access to all of those will want to upgrade for that.

14:20 Aili So that’s a limitation.

14:24 David Cole I love the monthly newsletter because it always gives out a new template or a couple of new template designs and lets people know what’s coming, what’s new out there. So I definitely recommend people sign up for the newsletter just so they can get the access and seeing what’s new. Because Daunting looking through all of the templates that are on there.

14:47 Aili Yeah, and I think if you don’t know what’s new, they tend to be filtered up towards the top. But if you haven’t been in for a while and you’re getting back into it, I think they’re a fun way to keep up to date on what’s out there.

15:01 David Cole Now, personally, as a teacher and a creator, I’ve already got Google Slides, PowerPoint, canva you got Prezi? I mean, there’s so many different things that people can do, and I’ve even dabbled with making Adobe type lessons. But then when I realized that all these tools always seem to lack some things or really require me to do some kind of work around them to make them do what I wanted clickable Elements or the drag and drop or drawing on the slides directly. There’s so many cool animations I like to add. I love animations. But when I discovered Genially, I found that all of these facts are built in to make it easy to use. What would you say is your favorite fact or feature that Genially has?

15:56 Aili My favorite creation type, my favorite feature. Overall, I’m a big fan of our breakout rooms, so breakout virtual escape rooms. It’s a gamified option. We have quite a few pretty intricate, impressive templates. Some are simpler than others, of course, and I like creating them, even from scratch. I think it’s one of the most fun things you can make in Genially. And then I guess I’d highlight. A new feature that came out recently was Interactive Questions. I think that’s out of beta testing now, but either way it can be live, so hopefully not top secret. Here we are. But Interactive Questions is a newer feature and that allows teachers to ask an open ended question or multiple choice question within their Genially pretty easily. So that’s kind of fun. I would check that out if you.

16:45 David Cole Haven’T yet fun looking, I would have to check that one out. I have not seen that one or used that one yet. I was really excited when the Click to Reveal section came out, but then even more so in the last couple of weeks when I noticed that you can now click to hide. Also that little feature on there. Notice it? You can click a little toggle we’ll hide it.

17:16 Aili Yes, it’s great.

17:18 David Cole I don’t think that wasn’t there, I don’t think when they first came out with the Reveal. So I was really excited when that one came out.

17:25 Aili Yeah, our product team is improving all the time and Reveal is something that we’ve been asked for a while. So it was really exciting to be able to give that to our community.

17:38 David Cole Gamification side. Let’s kind of move into there because there’s so many different things. Escape rooms are amazing and so many teachers want to use escape room. I think they, more than anything, use all the features of Gmail because you can do basically everything. Ask your question to go here, be able to go there, unhide something to find a secret room, that kind of thing. It’s really cool what you can do with that. What are some of the other things that you can do with Genially? What are some other kinds of creations besides just like target style lessons.

18:16 Aili Yeah, excellent question. Can I share my screen and show off a little piece of our teacher kit? Because that shows different creation types, and I think sometimes it’s better to see them than just hear about them, especially because this is a visual tool. Can you see my screen?

18:35 David Cole Yes.

18:36 Aili Okay, perfect. So this is what I show a lot of the teachers that I work with, and we’re talking now about gamification, but since you’ve asked about other things we can do, let’s look at our teach options . See, there we go. We have options to teach a subject like our standard presentations. I can also send this through if you want to share it with your community, David, of different examples and templates that can be used. Also, timelines are something that I really enjoy sharing with students in classes. I found a lot of teachers used to ask about creating timelines with Genially, and we have more templates than ever before. So I definitely recommend checking these out because they’re simple, they’re fast, they’re highly applicable for a lot of different contexts. You can make a timeline for history , but you can also make a timeline for science, for language.

19:29 Aili There’s a lot you can do.

19:30 David Cole I used it once to make a book review, to review what happened in the process of the book.

19:36 Aili Perfect. Like I said, interactive images. I said my favorite. Why is it my favorite? Because it’s kind of like the biggest bang for your buck, right? You can make an interactive image in five minutes, ten minutes, and of course you can always add to it, but you can get some pretty incredible things in very little time when you’re working with an interactive image creation. I don’t know if you’re hearing my time. Also here we have our.

20:15 David Cole You can read about.

20:16 Aili This is a more complex looking version of an interactive image. And this is sort of the standard what we think of when we think of an interactive image, right? Which is an image with pins. And this is the first thing I usually like to show people how to create because it’s so fast and easy and it’s really easy to flip worksheets also, or presentations and turn them into interactive images. What else can we show you in terms of gamification? We talked about our breakout. Definitely show off a few of those, at least. This is one of my favorites. I don’t know if you’re getting my computer audio. I hope it’s not too loud.

20:54 David Cole I’m not hearing the audio.

20:57 Aili Oh, that’s actually probably better because I’m not trying full control over how you’re hearing it. So I’m hearing audio, but I didn’t set up my computer so that you would hear the audio. So you could imagine audio here. But here’s an example of the first stage of an escape room. This is a close the hatch activity. What is a relationship between electricity and magnetism called electromagnetism. And as we continue through, it would close the hatch to move to the next room of the escape room. So this would be a quick way to get in your quiz at the start or the end of a lesson, right?

21:31 David Cole Yeah. I like that it closes the hatch a little bit by a little bit.

21:35 Aili Yeah. I am a big fan of the designer who made that one too. And then board games. I talked to a lot of teachers who were using these interactive board games in their class. Somebody who used a broken link here I spoke to a teacher who used a board game template that’s similar to the Game of Life and they were teaching students about health. You could also embed I’m showing you these little windows. So here’s where I would embed different challenges, questions that students would need to ask to advance. They can roll their die here. So these are how these games work. These can be fun. Also for online group calls or if you’re using any kind of what are those called when you divide your zoom into smaller rooms? Are those breakout rooms?

22:26 David Cole Breakout rooms. I like using those types as well for vocabulary review. Each level has a vocabulary word on it. They would roll the dice and they have to say the word or define the word. It’s really cool.

22:38 Aili Perfect. We can also find quizzes that will be in give students practice in games. We have a lot of kind of random games. I would say all the games that you liked in your childhood. We have templates for some of them or that will feel similar to some of them. Here’s the Wheel of Fortune. You could use this for math. Again, this is essentially a way to get your quiz into a more interesting format for your students. And I’ll send this over so that people can go through it with more time. I don’t want to take up too much of our time going all the way through. Perfect. And we have extension activities. These are things like flashcard activities. They can also be used as warm ups, which can be nice. I don’t know if you’re using warm ups in your classes if you were, but I was big into our warm up.

23:34 David Cole Warm ups are big and I like how they flip. So you can see both sides and see the answer side.

23:40 Aili Exactly. And one of the things I like best about Genially is that you can also bring in a lot of the things you’re creating with other tools into your creation. So if I didn’t want to use these cards and I wanted to use my Quizlet deck or something somebody else has already created, I could also just embed that directly into my presentation. Then we have things for planning and scheduling. I’ve had teachers also use this for their newsletters. They’ll send out an image, they’ll link to the Genially and that’ll become like an interactive newsletter format. So I’ve seen that a lot, kind of under communication. This is one of the templates that’s used for that quite a bit.

24:17 David Cole Because.

24:17 Aili Of its little newspaper format. Yeah. So those are a few of the creation types that I like the best.

24:27 David Cole Lots of different ways, it looks like, to use your Genially to make it you need for your type of education. A lot of the viewers are probably ESL teachers , and we’re branching out into other areas on the site as well. And so there’s so many different types of ways you can make it, whether you’re using the games to add to a classroom or whether you’re making a whole history lesson about a topic and then add declares in there as well. There’s some very comprehensive templates that you can get started with. Just make your own.

25:01 Aili Perfect.

25:02 David Cole I really like that. So that’s really interesting. So gamification is like the biggest thing out there right now. Can you kind of like the teachers who have never done gamification before, never spurt of it, but they’re a little daunted by it? Can you kind of tell us how you sign it, how you use it, how you see it use the most?

25:31 Aili Yeah, absolutely. So in case anybody doesn’t know what gamification is, it’s essentially using elements from usually video games or even board games. But I think we mostly think of video games now and bringing those elements into our learning materials. So elements like points scored, collecting jewels, badges, prizes, teamwork competition rankings. It’s really trying to get into the mindset of what motivates. Like a gamer, right? Somebody’s on their Nintendo Play all day, for example, and getting students motivated with that same idea in their learning. And I’d say when you get started, I think the easiest way is to take a worksheet or a presentation or a quiz. I’d say a worksheet or a quiz, and I would turn it into a game, and I can show you how I would do that. Maybe if we demo in a bit. And then from there, once they’ve created sort of a basic game out of something, they can start flipping the way they work on these things.

26:41 Aili I found that when I was first creating gamified activities, I was like, okay, I have a worksheet. How can this become a game? And now my way of thinking is a little bit more like, here’s the game I want, here’s what I think is motivating. Here’s the universe we can create for our students. And now how does this align with what I’m teaching in terms of content or in terms of language? But I would start with an easy flip so we can look at that.

27:09 David Cole Yeah, because I think my first ones were with workbook. Go to the Dollar store or whatever. I found a workbook and I was like, Looks really cool, and turned it into a game of my lesson for my students, just converting what I see on there into something that I can use them because it’s kind of hard. Here’s my workbook. Let’s look at it together. Scanning a whole book. And so it’s difficult, but it makes it easier when you are able to put it in.

27:41 Aili Yeah. In terms of games that are really successful off the bat, I would suggest, like, hidden elements are really great because then you’re just taking whatever you have in your worksheet and you’re hiding it in an image or something and having students find those questions, solving them to move on. That’s sort of like an escape game format. Also, board games work really well just because they’re easy to put together, they’re easy to follow, and you can work in teams . And David, I don’t know if there’s a certain kind of format that you found that works really well or certain kind of game that’s been more successful for you.

28:12 David Cole Not that it’s been more successful. It depends on the situation because I’ve used a weird Waldo style game for teaching animals in a zoo and showing kids how to find the right animal. I’ve used, like I said, the Snakes and ladders type games to have fun going through vocabulary reviews or phonics reviews, using something similar type that it all depends on the student and that level. But yeah, I’ve never had a student say, no, I don’t want to play a game.

28:49 Aili Yeah, well, and especially when you give them the alternative, right? It’s like, do you want to try it in a game or do you want to try it in a workbook? I have also never had a student.

28:57 David Cole Choose a workbook again. Tic TAC Toe is another huge favorite, mine and some of my students.

29:05 Aili Yeah, cool.

29:06 David Cole Yeah. Now, I learned some of this stuff I’ve learned some of this stuff through the Genially Academy, which is really cool.

29:15 Aili Yeah. I would love to send in the link for that.

29:18 David Cole Yeah. Because there’s a lot of really cool things that people can figure out in there as well. And now there’s new things that you can do as a creator, like you and I talked about once before, which is so they can add more features into it, right? I think it’s called scape.

29:37 Aili Yes. There’s scape extensions. There’s also sandbox extensions. Those are groups of I can talk more about Scape because I know more about them. It’s a group of French teachers. I don’t know what age group they are. I don’t know if they’re teachers or professors, but that know how to code. And they’ve created extensions for Genially to be able to do more like self correcting activities or drop down menus. I’ve used it for creating a panoramic shot that you can rotate through. So there’s some cool things you can do if you’re looking for sort of higher level stuff.

30:12 David Cole Many more ways that you can expand on these lessons that’s really. Cool. Can you show us a little bit about the template gallery so people can see a little bit of what’s there?

30:23 Aili Sure, yeah. Let’s head on your screen now. When I change my window, are you seeing the window? I’m seeing now?

30:32 David Cole Create Genially.

30:33 Aili I’m inside the panel. Right? Good. Okay, so we’re going to head into Create Genially. Thanks for being my eyes, because I can only see my screen now. And so as soon as you create an account, this is what you’re going to see. You would click that button. Create Genially. And we have a few different sections that are useful within the platform. I hope they’re all useful, but here we go. We have presentations, infographics. These are the creation types, right? So if I wanted to look for a game, I would definitely click on Gamification to get started. Here’s that import PowerPoint option that you were talking about and as you can see, has a star on it. So as I mentioned, you would need at least the most basic paid plan. And you can see that all of the templates that don’t have a star on them are free, which is a lot of templates.

31:15 David Cole Right.

31:16 Aili And the ones that are the most of them here, for example. Yeah, I would say most of them are free. And then we have some premium templates that are, I will admit, really cool. Like, this is a witchcraft and wizardry quiz. So I have seen teachers really want this in their arsenal and they’ll pay for it. So this is how I would start with something like Gamification. I would go to the Gamification section here on the left bar. You’re going to be able to see what’s in each category. So I have quizzes games and escape games. Games is kind of the catch all for things that look like any of the board games you’re used to playing. Some of the old TV network games also that we used to get. We have some things that are familiar to those of you who watched games on the TV or still do Dungeons and Dragons.

32:12 Aili Here. We’re in our escape room section. So just to give you an idea, I really like the video game one. I also really like the horror escape room. Highly recommend this one for teachers looking for something fun. So what would happen here? You would start on in, we get our introduction and they’re taken to this room. What I don’t remember is where you need to start you’re exploring the house takes us to a quiz. There are other sections where you need to move a flashlight around to find the clues. And then you fill in a code using the piano keys. It’s really complex and cool, but not that hard to put together once you’re on the inside. So you can find things that are as sort of elaborate as this. Then you can also find simpler. I’m trying to think of where I would go for something really simple.

32:58 Aili Maybe interactive images, videos, training materials. Has I believe some simple. Here we have like basic learning units. So these would be good for building online courses. Simple unit plans for your students. This might be a good thing to build your personal template with. I would look here.

33:16 David Cole I like the Ela unit plan. I used that as a base for mine.

33:21 Aili Cool. Yeah, I like that one too. I like that one too. And I’ve used it also quite a bit. I also like some of these graphic organizers. I know that a lot of teachers are using these kinds of creations to make choice boards even though they’re not like anything with a list, anything with different icons. This would be a great choice board or playlist. And then we have also allocated choice board templates like this one. So I’ve made a Tequila Mockingbird choice board with this template before and you could either have students go to an individual page for each block or I could also just have a little pop up window for each of these rectangles. And then let’s take a quick look at more because most people then don’t know what’s in more, right? So in more we have things for phones, personal branding, which again is big I think increasingly important in the world we live in now.

34:18 Aili Even for educators, actually even especially maybe for online educators . We have our cards, we have social media posts and then blank creation. This is where I’m going to go if I want to start anything off from scratch. I can choose the proportions of my canvas to start out. I can also change that once I’m inside the creation. So if I change my mind, that’s possible. And here are sort of the basic could also start with one of these basic blank presentation templates for example. And while we’re here, I will just quickly mention you can also head to the inspiration section and you can find examples like here’s Manny. This is his profile. Manny from Edpuzzle. Love him. You can see some of his Genially’s here and get some inspiration, see what other educators are creating.

35:08 David Cole I saw your face on that list over there too a second ago. Right now?

35:12 Aili Yeah, I’m there also you can check out my stuff. You can see some of the different escape rooms, quizzes, all sorts of creative creations or even like creation types that I would have never thought of. People are really creative. So find recipe books, all sorts of interactive images and yeah, definitely check out the inspiration section if you want ideas .

35:33 David Cole There are a lot of things on carry out. If somebody creates something of their own and they’re really proud of it, are they able to get it onto the template gallery somehow? Or is it only for those that are employed by Gmail for the template galleries?

35:49 Aili You mean for the inspiration who’s highlighted? Yes, this is something we’re working on right now. So excellent question. If you or any of your viewers are interested, I would love to hear from them personally because I have gotten a few requests already. We don’t currently have a formal process for that, but hopefully we will in the future. So right now it’s sort of like who caught the attention of who chose in the moment when our team was smaller than it is now. And now we have more processes and hopefully we’ll have a formal process for that soon.

36:21 David Cole Sense. There are so many different people out there that are so creative of mind. You can see some of them being like and I really want others to know how to do it or use it too.

36:33 Aili Yeah. Oh, you know what I will say though, is that right once things are inspiration, you can see all of the Genially that have these two recycle arrows here. These are reusable. So if I were to click one of these, I could use it as a template and then I would be inside the editor of this Genially. I would have my own version of this. So that is one reason. That’s another reason to look for other education examples is you can actually use a lot of them as templates for yourself. And I hear what you’re saying about especially motivated educators wanting to be a part of this section for that reason.

37:08 David Cole Oh yeah, I’m sure because I get people all the time wanting to put things on. I created this and I don’t want it to go to waste. I used it one time. That’s why a lot of people know that’s one of the reasons why the tutor resource exists in the first place, so you don’t have to let it collect that digital dust. One of the things that’s great about the Genially is perfect embed code. You can embed it into the tutor resource and rent it or sell it or make it free for more teachers to have access to.

37:40 Aili Perfect.

37:41 David Cole And I believe you can also share your own personal area on here if you make them public.

37:47 Aili You can that’s correct. Even if it’s not highlighted here. You would have your own social profile which you can then send to people, share it on social media, put it on your website, sort of whatever format is most stable for you.

38:00 David Cole I love it. Options. That’s awesome.

38:04 Aili Yeah. Hey David, how are we doing on time? Can we pop into the editor?

38:10 David Cole Let’s do that because I was just looking at that. You’ve given out so much information so far, they’re probably feeling that creative itch already so let’s look at the editor. Let’s try to create something cool.

38:23 Aili Okay, I’m going to start with my favorite, which is an interactive image, which as I said, is fast and it’s a lot of output, I guess, for very little input. And I can choose one of these as a starting point, which I’d then edit. Or I can start from a basic interactive image. I think just for today, I’ve done both at this point. Let’s start with I like this croissant recipe layout. And I’m going to use this to turn a worksheet that I have on New Orleans. I used to use this with English learners, actually at one point.

39:00 David Cole Video for the background, or is it a GIF?

39:03 Aili It depends. Some of them have oh, this must be a GIF. This must be a GIF. Unfortunately, I’m going to get rid of this GIF so that we can put something else behind it. First thing we see when we get into the editor is that some items may be locked. Here’s a little lock or unlock button. This is important. So, for example, I can see before I click on this, that it’s blue around the edges of the item, the image here. And that means that it’s locked and I’m going to need to unlock it if I want to move it. I think also to delete it. This is really important because sometimes if I’m, like, say, I want to select all these buttons and I want to drag my cursor around them, but I don’t want to be moving the background around, then I would want to lock the background.

39:49 Aili So that’s why sometimes they come locked. So we’re going to delete that. We’re going to title this New Orleans, and I’m going to call it Call New Orleans a lot of different things because it has a lot to offer. We’re going to call it the City of Jazz Simplification. And here is the worksheet that I’m pulling from. This is just a doc, okay? And this is sort of a standard tiny worksheet layout, right? We have an image. I have a little paragraph of text. I’ve got a YouTube video. I’ve got a little bit more text and an image. So really standard, simple thing. We’re going to be flipping here and let’s see how we would do that. So first I’m going to start by changing the background. And I’m going to bring one in from my computer and we’re going to search. Let’s see, I think this is on my desktop, new Orleans background.

40:48 Aili I’m going to open that up and that should pop into place. And then we’ll be deciding how many pins or hotspots we want to keep. Here we go. All right, so I don’t want quite this many. I’ve got text on music. I’ve got a video, which I’ll stick over here. And maybe I’ll leave this star and I’m going to get rid of everything else. I don’t want good backgrounds locked into place, which allows me to select all of these things at once with no issue. And let’s see how I would start to put things inside of my pins. So whenever I click on an element, whether it’s text, an image, a button, I’m going to see a few different icons above it. I know this is a lot of information, so hopefully people who are seeing this for the first time can kind of start to take it in.

41:38 Aili But we’re going to have an option with a little hand on it. Here’s what an empty one looks like. So it’s just a little hand interactivity option. And then we have the comet. This is for animations. Let’s focus on interactivity for now. So this one already has an interactivity applied. It’s a window. And I’m going to use this window. But actually here, let’s delete it and start from scratch so you can see what this would look like. Add interactivity. And we’ve got a lot of options. We used to only have four, but our team has been developing so many new options. We have the reveal one you were talking about, David. We’ve got an option to expand what we’re seeing into a full screen. You can add an audio. We could link out to another page. This would allow me to navigate to other pages for buttons that take me around the creation.

42:24 Aili I’m going to just focus on Tooltips and windows for now. So there’s our traditional window and our Tooltip. The tooltip is, as it says, a short label or description that appears when you hover the mouse. So it’s going to be like a little chat bubble. It’s good for really short amounts of text, a GIF, something small, anything bigger than that. I want a window. So I’m going to go with a window here. This is a better place to stick video, longer pieces of text, et cetera. Okay, let’s see what we have. The Civil War and Reconstruction. I’m going to stick this directly into my window, and I’m going to take this title, and instead of putting it there, I’m going to put it on the element name, and we’ll look at what happens when we do that. And I like my windows to be medium sized.

43:10 Aili Generally speaking, it’s an aesthetic personal choice. Okay, next window. I’m going to, again, delete what’s already in this window. But here we have an example of what the videos are going to look like inside deleting. I’m going to add interactivity. I’m going to choose another window, and we’re going to stick our video in here. So medium here’s, what would normally be just the window. Sorry, just the video link from YouTube. And this time I’m going to start closing all these extra windows, getting lost in them. I’m going to go. I can insert images here and I can insert videos here. So I’ll go to insert video, I can paste in the URL, click Insert, and there it appears. And I’m going to call this V Ferguson and see what else did I have. Finally, I have an image and some more text. This is the city of Music.

44:09 Aili Okay, so I’ll put this in here. Again, we’re going to delete what’s already in here. And if I started from scratch, obviously these would all be empty anyways. Add our interactivity. We’re going to choose a window I’m going to stick in my text, call it the City of Music. And let’s add our image down here. So, again, insert image. I’m going to insert it from my computer this time. New Orleans musicians. And there it is. Once it’s loaded, it’ll just take a few seconds. I will sorry.

44:54 David Cole There’s size requirements for uploading images.

44:57 Aili There are size requirements I think they can’t exceed. I believe the limit is five. There it is. Five megabytes. Five MB max is the limit for uploading images. Okay, so here’s our first quick little example. I’m going to preview it so you can see what we’ve just made and the little titles I was adding. That’s what’s showing up in my chat bubble. And then when I click on the button itself, I get the text that I put inside. Same here. Plus EV ferguson. When I click, I get the video that I have embedded inside that I can watch here. And this would also work with Google Forms, Google Maps, a lot of other external tools. And what’s great, you can add things from Twitter feeds, you can add an Instagram post, and everything that you add is live. So if I were to stick a map into here, my students would be able to navigate through the map in.

45:55 David Cole The window in there as well. So you could embed your puzzle or something?

46:02 Aili Absolutely. And to do that, I would go to insert others. And this is where I could either paste in, like, an iframe code, or I could go to some of these providers. They have easy ways to link in things from Drive or Twitter video. Drive is a good thing to connect if you’re using Google Drive, because then all of your content will also link through Genially. And you don’t have to go individually into Drive and bring it in. You can also add audios this way, but this is where you’d go for your embeds. And if I can really quickly, I’d like to show how I would take the same concept. We have another five minutes.

46:39 David Cole Yeah, we have some time. Yeah.

46:40 Aili Okay. I want to show how I would take the same concept that we just learned in terms of the technical stuff. And I could create more of a game or kind of an escape room feel from this. So I’m going to add a page over here, have it be blank. And this isn’t really relevant to what I want to be making, so well, try and decide whether or not it’s worth no, we’ll leave it alone. Okay, never mind. Erase that. Rewind for this. Let’s see. I’m going to use an escape room. I’ve done this once before, create an escape room library. So all we need for that is an image. And for the background here, different ways we could do this. Let’s just do it from an image. I’m going to go down to Pixabay, click Show More, and I’m going to search for a library, and I’m going to choose something that looks really complicated or like it would be fun to search through.

47:41 Aili Right like this. And David and or audience, I’m going to need you to really pay attention to where we put our hidden questions and clues because then I’m going to forget where they are. It happens every single time. So pay attention. There’s a lot going on which is going to make it fun for students on the other end. And I’m going to lock this into place. Okay. And let’s see. So now, Interactive Elements is where I would have all of my buttons normally. So if I wanted to add a new button, I would go here. Luckily, the icon is pretty intuitive. It looks like a button. So I can choose from all sorts of buttons here if I click on Show More and then what’s more fun for something like an escape room is if I keep scrolling down. Some people don’t even know this exists, but it’s a big deal.

48:26 Aili We have invisible interactive areas here. Didn’t know that was this is how you make anything easily.

48:34 David Cole I made my own invisible image. Just transparent PNG.

48:38 Aili Okay, well, this is how you’re going to do it. Now, or you have been using Reveal, which would also be a way around this or another way to do this. But here we have invisible areas. So learn something new, important, and we’re going to stick one here. This is where I need your help remembering where they go because I always forget. So we can copy and paste the same. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to copy control C, control V, this here, there. And I could also just keep dragging in from this left toolbar. And finally okay, we have 1230 gosh. Okay. And what’s going to happen, I’m going to add interactivity. I’m going to make it a tooltip this time. It’s a little chat bubble. I don’t need a lot of text. And I’m going to do this with math because it’s the one example that I came up with quickly, kind of on the fly the other day.

49:30 Aili But you could also do this with any kind of worksheet content that you already have, right? Any of your fill in, these ten questions or three questions, you can put them onto multiple pages if you have more than say, I don’t know, six. But all we’re going to do is save one in there. I’m going to save another one in here. Yeah. And then we’re going to save the last one in. Oh, gosh. Here.

50:04 David Cole Yeah, this one we haven’t done tooltip.

50:07 Aili See, it’s hard not to get lost. And then all we need to add to this are some directions. So I’m going to add a visible button this time. So that we have some clear directions, a little info button, hence be clear. Add that. Well, no, then they’ll find the clue. Okay, I’ll add that here and inside my info button, I’m going to have the directions. So search the shelves for three math problems. Once you’ve solved all three, write the numbers in order from smallest to largest to create a three digit number. Then click the arrow and use the three digit code to unlock the next room. This is how this works, okay? And if I were doing something like a language class, then obviously maybe instead of numbers, I would have them take the first letter from each of their answers or the last letter from each of their answers, or the second to last letter, right?

50:59 Aili It depends on how complex they want this to be. So here are my directions. And then all we need is that they’re going to solve these three problems and they’re going to want to go to the next page. So I’m going to add an arrow to the next page there. Add interactivity. Go to page. Wait, before we go to page, we need the page to exist. I know this is a little bit more complex, but I just want people to see how easy it is once they’ve gotten sort of the basics of the interactive image down to make something a little bit more original. Go to page. Next page. We’re going to save this and then our teachers are going to arrive here. Sorry, teachers, not our students are going to arrive here. And we would, I’m going to just say I would probably honestly put another set of clues in a different kind of room.

51:56 Aili And this is how I would lead them through a house. But just for time’s sake, we’re going to keep it really simple and short. And I think that’s all we need. Last thing we need to do is we need to password protect the next page. So add password for the page. And here the password is going to be whatever they had to solve. So what did I say? Write the numbers in order from smallest to largest. So three, six, nine is going to be our password to go to the next page. And then what’s going to happen for our students is in the preview or when we present, they’re going to see our library. Here are their directions. Search the shells for three math problems. They’re going to be looking around like this. Oh, we found one. Okay, so I’m looking one, looking two, I find the third one, which is somewhere around here.

52:48 Aili There we go. I’ve solved these in my notebook, or however I’m documenting my work, showing my work. And once I have them, I know to go to the next room, I have to enter the password, three, six, nine, and they’re on to the next room. That’s the basics of how I would turn something into an escape room pretty quickly.

53:09 David Cole Yeah, that is really cool. I like it a lot. I have a whole Minecraft lesson that I am working on right now, trying to turn it into an escape room.

53:19 Aili Cool.

53:21 David Cole Minecraft and language is really cool.

53:25 Aili Amazing.

53:26 David Cole I think I can use now that password. I didn’t know about the password protector yet, so that’s going to be fun.

53:32 Aili Got to run a summit, learn some things.

53:34 David Cole I love it. You always learn something new. Yeah, I learned how to you already have the blank images, the invisible images.

53:46 Aili Great. And saves a lot of time.

53:49 David Cole How many interactivities can you have on event item? I know, I’ve like I’ve had full screen and clickable before and stuff like that. But how many can you do on them?

54:00 Aili Yeah, so there’s not a single fixed answer to that. Because what it is that before you could only choose one. Maybe there was a way to do two. I don’t think so. I think you’d only choose one. And recently they added the ability to have multiple going at once called complementary interactivities internally. And then the answer is that it depends on which ones you’re applying because they basically don’t all work together. So there are certain things, like maybe I can’t I’m trying to think of what let me look really fast. But there’s not a set limit in terms of number. It’s more about what’s being applied to your element. I’m just taking a look to see for an example of what wouldn’t work so that it makes more sense. Let’s see. So we’re looking at Tooltip interactive window. Go to page. Well, obviously I can’t apply two kinds of window to the same item, right?

54:54 Aili So there is a limitation. And then maybe I can’t remember, for example, if Go to page would allow me to work with something else because maybe I just click on it and I can only click on that.

55:04 David Cole There’s limitations like that full screen at the same time?

55:07 Aili Yeah, I think not, though. I’ve been surprised because they’ve been coming up with more things. Like sometimes you can, but the first click is reveal and the second click is go to page. So the full answer is play around with it. Play around with it.

55:23 David Cole All right, well, that was an excellent demo. Thank you so much for showing everybody that you’re going to have so many people making so many little escape room. It’s going to be fun.

55:34 Aili I would love that.

55:37 David Cole All right, now you have a special promo that you wanted to talk to our guests about today. Can you tell us a little bit?

55:44 Aili Yes, it’s a two part promo. So part one, we have a discount code for anybody looking to get an.edu Pro plan. So if they wanted access to all of the templates or more advanced features. And for that at Checkout, they just need to enter Tutor Resource 25. It’s 25% off, and that’s good. Until the 15 June, part one. And then part two is we’re raffling off five pro plans for free through a form. What’s the best way for me to get this to you, David? Should I pass it to you afterwards?

56:14 David Cole Just send it to me afterwards and I will include it in a link below.

56:17 Aili Perfect. So people could enter for that, and then we’ll draw five winners.

56:22 David Cole That is awesome. The Ed pro is so cool. You’re able to do so much with it, so I love it.

56:31 Aili Highly recommended.

56:33 David Cole Yes, definitely. But those of you just wanting to get started, check out a free plan. It’s really cool. Play around, make a few things. Use the shooter resource link to upgrade when you’re ready because it’s amazing and it gives you a chance to have access to those premium, the star ones that are on the templates and every other feature like branding and things like that down the road.

56:57 Aili That’s right.

57:01 David Cole That’s my two cent. And if you have any questions about it, you can always send me a message. I’ve been using Genially for a while. We’ll have some contact information on here as so, Eileen, do you have any.

57:17 Aili Words of advice, inspiration, parting advice? Check out the free plan. Like, seriously, it can do a lot. Don’t let it stop you. This idea that maybe you’re going to need upgrade, you may even not. So luckily from Community, my job is not to sell anything. You can start free, you can stay free, and there’s a lot you can do with that. So I would definitely check it out.

57:39 David Cole Very cool. Well, thank you for your time today. It’s been awesome.

57:44 Aili Thanks so much, David. Yeah, I’ve really enjoyed this.

57:47 David Cole It’s really been inspirational. There’s a lot of cool things, and I’ve got some really cool ideas going through my head. Now. After our lunch call, everybody definitely take a look at all the information that we have down below. Also some information on how to use some information on where you can find some of the templates, as well as the discount codes that mentioned, as well as the raffle.

58:12 Aili Awesome. I’ll share out my Twitter handle also for anybody looking to connect with me or wanting to show me what they’re creating. I’d love to see that or any questions when I come my way.

58:23 David Cole All right, thank you so much for your time, and I’m sure people are going to be in touch. Bye, everyone.

58:32 Aili Bye, guys. Bye, everyone. Bye.

Instructional Designer

David is an energetic and highly qualified professional English tutor committed to his students' success.

He has a Masters Degree in Education as well as two years of teaching experience at the University level, four years of corporate training experience, and over five years of experience teaching English as as second language to children online. David also has several years of experience in instructional design and curriculum design, in both corporate and education environments.

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Guest Essay

Chris Christie: I’ve Debated Trump 6 Times. Here’s What Harris Needs to Do Tonight.

By Chris Christie

A former governor of New Jersey and a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and 2024.

Tens of millions of Americans will be watching the first debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Tuesday night. Many of these folks will be Republicans and independents who, like me, have decided that they are unwilling to vote for Mr. Trump.

I’ll be honest: I don’t have much of an opinion of Ms. Harris yet, because I don’t know her well. If she’s an unknown quantity to me, you can bet she’s also one to the countless everyday Americans she needs to win over. These voters love this country, and many of them will be looking at her on Tuesday night for the first time as a potential president.

Which is why the debate presents a critical opportunity for Ms. Harris. The opportunity for Mr. Trump is much smaller. The country already knows him and has, in the main, formed opinions of him. Because Ms. Harris is a relatively undefined political candidate, she has both the advantage and the bigger challenge.

She needs to demonstrate a commitment to changing not just the way we talk to one another, but the very way we must steer our governance on a more productive path. For Republicans and independents who do not support Mr. Trump, this is how she earns their vote. They want to be for something , not just against someone .

I’ve debated Mr. Trump six times and I’d wager I’ve participated in at least 30 debate prep sessions with him since 2016. No one has more experience in the arena listening to his attacks and debunking them than I have. That’s how I know that Ms. Harris’s goal during the debate cannot be merely besting Mr. Trump or out-insulting him. If she spends most of her time tussling with him, she will end up like so many who have come before, stuck in the mud against the best political insulter in my lifetime. The problem with focusing only on him is that you ultimately sacrifice your message as you amplify his.

While I ran an entire presidential campaign last year arguing why Mr. Trump should not be president, I believe, just as I did then, that this process demands more than just making the case against him. The country will benefit if Ms. Harris earns support that extends beyond the rallying cry of Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy. She should want to persuade voters not just to vanquish him, but to get behind her vision to unite the country.

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