Let's Talk About This Term

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Hi everyone! It's me again 😊 Today I am kinda sad, because our course has ended this week.  In our Instructional Technology & Material Design course, I learned lots of informations about how to use technology actively in my lessons. In addition to this, I experienced how to work collaboratively while using technology. 

Let's summarize this term! 

This term was full of innovation because I realized that using technology actively in foreign language classes enhances the quality of learning. For me, What I liked the most about this lesson is that we can express ourselves freely. Sometimes we hesitate about talking even if we know the right answer or expressing our ideas, feelings etc. Of course there may be lots of  reasons of it; like shyness, peer pressure etc. But in this course, we had a chance to share, to talk, to write and to show what we know about technology.
There is hardly nothing I didn't like about the course because I had a great time while discovering the use of technology.
It contributes our future carrier positively, because we can apply what we learned in our own lessons in the future.
I think that it would be more beneficial for us, if we choose the topic by ourselves on the condition that topic is about technology. In my opinion it is important as not all of the topics appeal to every student.
As for the my favorite assignment, It was absolutely The Book Review. Because I really love reading and recommending my favorites to other people. That's why i liked it.

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Note: My message to one who will take this course next year is you will really have fun thorought the year with this course😉

Mobile Learning!

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Hello! It's me again. Now i am here to introduce an application that can be used for language learning and can used in our daily life. If you are interested in language learning, there are many options to use on mobile. The applications are very purposeful and full of activities. One of them is Quizlet.

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Quizlet is a mobile and web-based study application. It allow students to study via learning tools and games.You can sign up with your Facebook or Google account but if you don't have them don't worry😊 You can easily join the Quizlet. 

In Quizlet, there are several study modes such as flash cards, gravity, learn, long-term learning, speller, march etc. You can find the exercises related to the topic that you are working on.

 For example, I want to practice with french words. I wrote down what i want to practice and then i picked one of the options.

If you want to share content with classmates or students, you can

create your own sets too. To create sets, you first need to have an account. You can use texts and images while creating your sets.

It is very useful for teachers who are looking to get things set up for their students quickly and efficiently. You can create lots of sets related to topic that you are dealing with and students can follow them. Thus learning for students becomes more fun.

A Task Idea

You can ask the students to create their own vocabulary cards and to share them with other students. 

Talking Photos!

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 Hi everyone! Today, I'm gonna talk about how to create talking photos😁

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With my friends Tuğçe, Beyza and I made a presentation about Blabberize. And my friends made presentation about Voki and Fotobabble. They are different sites but they are all used to make talking photos. It is very simple to use them.

Why We Use It?

It is a free online tool which allows you to quickly create talking images, providing some great opportunities to foster student engagement and collaboration.

How To Use It?
First, for Blabberize, you have to have an account to save your outputs or to share them, and you simple upload a photo and record your voice or add a recorded voice, here there is.

 
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In Blabberize, you can add a mouth while listening it, it moves. It is so fun especially when using animal pictures, anime pictures etc.
Here is one example
                          

      Advantages of Blabberize

Advantages of Blabberize are that students can make their pronunciations better as they have to record their voice and listen it. Their teachers can also hear all of their voices and it is very important because if there are shy students it gives a chance to show themselves. It can be suitable both individual and group work.

Limitations
It requires some tools to use it such as microphones and computer.
It has a time limit which is around 30 seconds. If you need more time, you can use Voki. Because it lets us 60 seconds to record.

Task Ideas

There a lots of task ideas two of them are;
 Introducing the family ⇨ students can add a photo and give information about their families.
Making greeting cards ⇒ they can add a new year-themed photo and wish their friends happy new year.

By using these tools, you can create an enjoyable classroom atmosphere but you should check it before using them in classroom. You should give step by step instructions so that students can benefit from them easily.
Hope you like my post and see you soon 😊

Who wants a story?

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Hi everyone, It's me again 😁 I hope you're all good because this week's project is full of fun. Our new task is the Digital StoryTelling. In this Project, I worked with my friend Tuğçe. I am gonna show you how we created the story and I'll give you some advices. Come on! Time to learn how to create a digital story.

''The stories that we tell others and ourselves reveal who we think we are along with identifiying out purpose, meaning, and worth in life. Telling personal stories publicly celebrates our life.''
                                                                   -Bernajean Porter

With the use of technology in the classes, digital stories take place in our lives enormously. It is a short form of digital media that allows every people to share aspects of their story and it is a relatively new term which describes the new practice of every people who use the digital story tools to tell their story. If you want to learn more details you can find it here.
 I think it is quite easy to use because i hadn't any difficulty. While narrating the story, you can add animations, sounds, pictures, texts etc. There are lots of digital tools but we preferred Carnegielibrary. Among the given tasks, we chose the fictional story. We had so much fun because working in pairs is always fun. First, we wrote the story and then we created visuals. And at the end, we recorded our voices and then we added it to the story. That's all😁
Using digital story tools in a classroom can create positive atmosphere and increase the student's attentions. There are lots of options to create a story so students can choose whatever they want. When they create a digital story, they force themselves to pronounce truly, to think creatively and to find different tools. In addition if they are given a pair work, collaboration among themselves will increase. They can easily express their emotions, opinions etc. For all these reasons, I would definitely use the digital story tools in the future to make my classes better😊
That's all what I want to share with you. See you next week!
Please don't forget to check our digital story :)

Let's Discover RSS Feed!

     

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Hi everyone! This week I'll talk about the RSS Feed. It is very simple and benefical tool for following blogs or sites which are about our personal interests, jobs, experiences. You just download it and add your favourite blogs. Whenever they post, it comes to your feedreader.

What is RSS Feed?

RSS(Really Simple Syndication) is a web page notifier that is used by new providers, blogs and podcasts to make it easy to track new added content. It is an easy tool between publishers and readers. RSS feeds don't waste your time, you won't lose time checking or visiting the sites. When the new content is published, you'll be notified about it. And also you can categorize them considering your interests. 

There are lots of RSS options, you can download to your computer, or just simply use it online by signing in with your Facebook or Google account. I am using Feedreader. It is simple and you can choose some different groupings like according to their sources, topics etc.

Here is my feedreader's screenshot! I follow different types of blogs. Some of them Elt blogs, others like travel blogs, food blogs etc. The number of new shared posts is listed next to blogs. As you see, my favourite one is FilmEnglish.

FilmEnglish is authorised by Kieran Donaghy who is a university teacher, teacher trainer and materials writer with over 25 years experience in English Language Teaching. It consists of lots of lesson plan themes for different age groups. It is very helpful and enjoyable for teachers. And posts include a video and a theme, everything is explained step by step, and also at the end of lesson plans a homework is given. As a teacher if you want to make your lessons based on films you can follow this site. 

I hope this post will be beneficial for you. See you next week 😊

Time To Be An Evaluator!

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Hello everyone!

This week, I am gonna talk about websites. Websites are extremely useful and benecial tools for almost all areas but especially it is used in education. Today, almost every teacher use some web tools like websites, podcasts etc. Because it is an visual and concrete way to help the students to understand the lesson's aims.

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For this week's task I'll evaluate a website which is used by ELT teachers and designed for ELT teachers as well. It is Designerlessons and it is all about lesson plans categorized for each stage of learners. (pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate, advanced)

The authors of this website are George Clinton and Neil McMillian. They are both english teachers and teaching trainers. According to them lessons should be fun and inspiring, useful and relevant, spontaneous and intelligent, unplugged and sometimes surprising. And they shouldn't follow the rules. Every lesson plan has its own aims, stages, focused skills. Stages are mostly like discussion, video comprehension (optional), questions, activities.

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The purpose of the website is to engage and promote conversation in a semi-controlled way. The teacher is responsible for guiding and correcting the language production in class.

We can't say this website is up-to-date as the last post that has been posted is on April 20,2016. It is the negative point of this website. Because for the education, it should be live and timely in order to make it more valuable.

Posts are appropriate for the target audience, this site may not seem colorful but plans are supported with appealing visual aids and pictures. And there is no broken links.

Teachers can use plans directly or they can change them a bit according to the their tasks.

In my opinion, it is a good example of ELT websites so I would highly recommend it. As it is full of fun and successful mainly because it really does serve its aims. Furthermore both students and teachers have fun while learning.

Hope you like my website evaluation. Now I am waiting for the comments :)

Let's talk about the Wiki

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Wiki is an online application that allows users to contribute to or edit its content. It is easy to use and follow also it allows anyone to edit. Teachers can also use wikispaces to create assignments and share resources. We can asking for help, reading our wikis and we can work collaboratively on wiki. But don't forget to be careful as anyone can edit and there may be a problem with its reliance. Anyway you can have many benefits of using wikis.

Another feature of wiki is to develop our language skills by reading and writing. The more we write and read the more we use the language effectively. Also, the others can comment our posts and this may give us some clues to improve ourselves. It is so beneficial way both writers and the readers to use language properly.

I wrote my review about Brave New World. It includes general informations about the book. Its always fun and exticing to share with others what i like. Because when i like something, I talk about it every second. You can find my review in here. Hope'll you like and enjoy it.  

Story Time

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Hi Everyone!

I'd like to share our story with you. I created this story with my friend, Tuğçe. Our story is about a girl who is lost and wants to be found. We share our story via SoundCloud. It was the first time i have used it. I think it is a very effective and beneficial way of learning and teaching English. Every teacher can benefit from this kind of websites. I strongly recommend it to all students and teachers if they are looking for something new and technological. It may help students to improve their pronounciation, raise their interest in language and learning. Furthermore it is free and easy to use.

Our story is named ''LOST''

!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!

In reality, the story is a dream of a little girl who has been lost for a long time. She's into a well and waiting to be found by her mother. That's why she's trying to direct her mother in the first dream, and she's not aware of that it is just a dream. In the second dream, she thinks that everything is just a dream but when she comes to the well she falls again and she wakes up for the last time. She realizes that she has never been found by anyone.

HOW TO CREATE A PODCAST?

First we decided to the topic and then we chose the podcast tool. We wrote our story which is called ‘’lost’’ then we recorded our voices and uploaded it to the soundcloud.

Questions about Podcasting

-How did you find podcasting?

It was easy to use it and and fun. We had a chance to hear our voices and it helped us to pay attention to our pronounciation.

-Was it difficult/easy/enjoyable?

It was enjoyable to use podcast because it can be done easily. We didn’t spend so much time while doing it. 

-Did you have any difficulties? 

No,we haven’t. Because the instructions were so clear.

-Would you use podcasting with your students in the future? Why/Why not? 

I’ll use it. Because it is very effective and beneficial way of learning and teaching English.

Historical Development Of CALL

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Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL)

  Computers are trending in our century. As we know, CALL has experienced many changes during its history. As the usage of computers in language teaching is more and more common, so the modernization becomes inevitable. There are lots of stages of CALL. It can be summarized in three development stages: behaviorist CALL, communicative CALL, and integrative CALL. You can check it in my timeline.☺

 

Timeline

21st Century Learning

21st century learning is centered by the technology. In this century, the focus is on creativity, critical learning, communication and collaboration of them, because these skills are essential for learning process. And these skills are known as 4C. The things that we learnt in this way will be more memorable. Here is my word cloud and hope it will help you 😊

Welcome to My Blog!

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Hello everyone! This is my very first post in the blogger's world. I am trying to be a good English teacher who can use the technology effectively in her classes.t. So we will discover using the technology active in our classes and daily lives. I'll share my weekly tasks about my course 'technology and material design. You can make me really happy by sharing your comments.
Thank you and have fun!