We're almost done.

Hello everyone.. It's my last post on this blog for my Instructional Technologies course and I'm a bit sad about it. We consumed lots of energy and we tried to do our bests. And here we are: at the end. 

But I'll admit something; at the beginning of the term, I thought blogging is not my thing but now I'm used to sharing posts on this blog and the idea of continuation of blogging is not far from me. This course teached me a lot. It is indeed the most beneficial course of all we had this semester. Because the moment we had our steps out of the class, we were sure that we've learned something to be better teachers (I mean it because the other lessons does not feel like that.). So, I would like to thank my teacher truly. 

Now I have got a lot of materails to be used on my future classroom and I know how to use them. Also I've learned how to mix technology with my lesson plan. Like I said before, the effects of the tech is not avoidable but this course teached me how to take advantage of it with appropriate websites and blogs. I'm sure that I would not be able to use the technology effectively and also actively if I have not take this course. 

All the process was fun and sociable. I have some enjoyable moments doing tasks with my friend that I'll remember. Sometimes it did not go well and sometimes we (I think) did good job.

We were lucky o have this course. I hope it won't be taken out from the curriculum and other students will benefit from it. 

I feel like I'm a different teacher that I used to be. Thank you all...

RSS Feed

Hello again! I've shared two posts in two days repeatedly, I know.. Hope you are not totally bored with me.

As you can see from the title, today I'm going to talk about the RSS feeder and the blogs I follow. Firstly, What is RSS? Wikipedia has a definition of it:

"RSS (originally RDF Site Summary; later, two competing approaches emerged, which used the backronyms Rich Site Summary and Really Simple Syndication respectively) is a type of web feed which allows users and applications to access updates to online content in a standardized, computer-readable format."

There are lots of services that you can benefit from such as Feedly, Panda, Reeder 3, Feeder, Flowreader and etc. So, which service am I following right now? It's Flowreader!

When you sign up to this kind of websites, they offer you some contents to follow from cinema to sports.. You can choose what you desire and thus it will be easier to keep up with the news you are interested in. Besides, you can also follow spesific websites/blogs like I do. Here some ELT blogs I follow:

But among them, Lizzie Pinard is my favorite one. 

Lizzie Pinard is a well trained English language teacher and she has a love affair with the world of education. Her blog contains:

• information about her materials development
• research project and presentations as well as reflective writing
• a range of classroom activities
• wealth of links related to the Cambridge Delta and the Leeds Met M.A. ELT. 

I think you should follow her blog too, because all the different topics she shares makes her blog a teaching and learning haven. It helps set new benchmarks for excellence and passion for teachers and students alike. 

Call it a day! See you later!

Web 2.0 Tools

HELLO!!! This time our topic is "Creating an infographic" which is about web 2.0 tools. If you are asking "What is an infographic?" then here is your answer:

"Infographics, the word information graphics, use graphic visual representations to show information, data or knowledge."¹

If you click here, you can see my infographic which represents my five favorite web 2.0 tools. It is the first time that I've done this. It was tiring but also enjoyable.

By the way, if you are also asking "What are the web 2.0 tools?" here is your answer, :) again:

"Web 2.0, a term we use almost everyday, is an ambiguous concept reffering to a large and shifting set of technological, as well as to an approach of using technology in socially and technologically integrated way." ²

Hope you learned something thanks to this post. See you!

References:

¹ Ru, G., & Ming, Y. C. (2014). Infographics applied in design education. Workshop on Advanced Research andTechnology in Industry Applications (WARTIA), Ottawa Convention Centre, Ottawa, ON, Canada, 29-30September 2014.  

² (Drigas, Ioannidou, Kokkalia, &Lytras, 2014; Kay, Knaack, & Petrarca, 2009; Light & Polin, 2010;Silius, Kailanto, & Tervakari, 2011)

Poster Presentation

Hello again! This time I'm here with a magazine cover. Creating a poster was this week's task and it was the most enjoyable one that I've been doing so far. Maybe it is because of the person on the cover: David Bowie. I love everything about them. (it is actually singular "they".) And also I love doing anything about them.

The themes was not limited; there were diverse of them (from fashion to sports) and music was my choice. Firstly, I searched a proper photo of David Bowie as a cover; it should have been hd standart. Then, I added fashion and a TV series on my cover. I did not take too long. Trying to find best fonts, schemes and layout was a real fun becuse I like to edit photos and etc.

I think it is applicable as a task unless we limit the themes. If we give stuents a poster presantation task and we do not limit, they will choose a theme that they enjoy it most. For that reason, the task will turned out to be an enjoyable activiy, not a task that they have to do with an obligation.

Here is mine! With a David Bowie cover, of course :')

Creating A Digital Story: Mummyshtein and The Bear

Hi everyone! The spring is here and all the things I've done seems so beautiful to me.. And today I'm back with a digital story named Mummysthein and The Bear. I worked on this project with my beautiful friend Dila. (Don't forget to visit her blog!)

Firstly, I thought it would be an easy task but it turned out to be the hard one. The process of this project started with out brainstorming; then, we decided on the topic. Actually the moment we created our animation and our story was simultaneous. We had fun.. The app we used for our project was Animaker. We have lots of technical difficulties. For example we could not add any voice to the digital story that we created. So, we used Movie Maker.

I think Animaker is a tough app for creating a animation. There are lots of difficulties yet it is fun to some extent. I'm not sure if I give this task to my students or not in the future but If I want them to challenge, this task will be appropriate.

Hope u enjoy🌌✨

 

Today's tea: Discovering an ELT blog!

This week's topic is evaluation! We are suppossed to find a blog/website related to ELT and write down our opinions about it. The blog's name I want to evaluate is "Emily blogs". You can check it by clicking here. The blog's scope is about teaching and publishing for young learners and also the environment of the ELT classroom; the author gives tips and suggestions to create a picture of a class which is appropriate and healthy.

The website is authored by Emily Hird. If you check the blog and click the "welcome" button, you can see the information about her qualifications and her background. 

"I am a qualified ELT teacher turned editor and published materials writer. I have been working in the publishing industry for over a decade, at Cambridge University Press, as Publisher for ELT Primary and Pre-Primary, and freelance." ¹

Emily's blog's content is ranging from the gender to reinforcing elements for teaching. Her particular interest in young learners, early years and CLIL makes it easy for us to read her posts delightfully. The target audience is her colleagues. All EFL teachers in the world can benefit from the posts Emily shares. 

The pupose of this website is to give suggestions and tips to her colleagues; by increasing the awareness about some classroom issues such as gender, she helps to find the right enviroment. 

The website has not been updated recenty; 22rd February 2018 is the last time the author shared her post. But it does not mean that it was the last post. Hope we will receive many more posts in the near future. 

I have tried to read the sharings as much as possible. Actually I could not find any unlogical issue. The contents were related to 21st century learning and the accuracy of information was quite high according to my findings about this century's learning ways. 

The links that the author shares with us are working; there is no broken links. 

The website's background colour is white which I find it rather fresh. The pictures used in the posts have high quality and the font is not bothering our eyes. I totally find the blog reader-friendly.

The sharings can easily be applied to EFL teaching; they are really helpful and efficient. I find a criticism about this website that I'm definitely agree with: 

Her publishing background is evident from her lucid and well-laid-out blogposts that clearly outline how each topic is applicable to our classrooms, top tips and suggestions, and the follow-up steps we can take e.g. further reading, etc. ²

It is really a good feeling that we can find so many websites we can benefit from. This website is one of them and there is no harm in searching some ways to facilitate our teaching; These kind of websites are ready to help us. ☺❤

The Internet-Based Project

Greetings everyone! I’m here to give you some information about my internet-based project. Creating a wall in Padlet was the task of this week and we were supposed to do this project with a group of 5 to 8 of our friends. I’ve really enjoyed with the people I worked because they were always friendly and helpful throughout the process of the work. We were get along with each other and there were no disagreement between us.

Firstly, we submitted our ideas about the topic and and then settled on the traffic issue in Istanbul. Our experience with the congestion in everyday life had pretty much influenced us to decide on this topic. Then we divide the work into 4 parts (describing the problem, sharing the causes & effects/some public opinion and offering solutions). We were eight, so one duty was undertook by two people.

We completed our project collaboratively which I found very efficient in terms of 21st century learning.

Padlet as a tool also helped us in sharing our project. Because it is easy; there is a simple link sharing allows for quick collaboration and it supports (almost)
every file type. It is beautiful and fun; it allows us to choice colorful wallpapers and themes. 

It was really enjoyable to work with my friends in Padlet. Hope you all enjoy it as well <3

A BOOK REVIEW

Hello everyone! Hope you all are well! I'm feeling so good because I'm here to submit my favorite book's review. It is "Ask The Dust" written by John Fante. I really enjoyed while I was writing down my critique; because, you know, it is so beautiful feeling to write about something you love. 
 I actually read this book last year and at that time I just have met the book I have been looking for. It was one of the books that my beloved one suggested me to read. Hence, I'm so grateful for that <3 

To access the wiki entry click here. Hope you enjoy my review! :')

PODCASTING

 When the task which is doing a podcast is given us, I thought I will be pressured insistently. But the moment me and my friend Dila (Here is her blog: click here) started to handle this work, it turned out to be quite easy and even fun. We put forward ideas about the story we had to write and the process was really enjoyable. 

 I would definitely use podcasting with my students in the future because it is fun and memorable. I would want my students to do it since I can make them being involved in the tasks the way I want. I think this method is one of the methods that make easier to reach the learner-centered issue. 

 Here is my podcast: Tale of the Cave

Teaching with Technology

 Today’s subject is teaching with the technology. So, you will read my opinions related to this subject on this post. 

 Before I reflect my ideas, I want to talk about my learning journey with the computers, telephones, smart boards, projections and other stuffs that educational technology offers us. I was born into technology. Before I started the primary school, the internet was avaliable at my home. Thus, it was inevitable for me to utilize the all the technological sources I was able to reach at that time but I was supposed to abstain from them and head towards to the sources which I had better to find at the library. These are what I was expected to do according to my teachers’ perspectives. 

 Now that it is my case, I think over and over to figure out why my teachers treated me like this. It is probably because of the poverty of the technology they were exposed to. They thought it was harmful and not useful. But actually it really is when it does not used properly. 

 As a candidate teachers of the future, we should not escape from the tech but embrace it. It is stated that “educational technology involves applying ideas from various sources to create the best learning environments possible for students. Educational technologists also ask questions such as how a classroom might change or adapt when a computer is integrated into the curriculum” (Hooper & Rieber, 1995, p. 155).

 If we teach the students the way we used to be teached, there will be a problem. Because it is a fact that the effects of the tech is not avoidable and we should learn to mix it up with our teaching methods. When we do so, our educational environment will be healtier, more efficient an even funnier.

References: 

Hooper, S., & Rieber, L. P. (1995). Teaching with technology. In A. C. Ornstein(Ed.), Teaching: Theory into practice, (pp. 154-170). Needham Heights, MA: Allynand Bacon.

Historical Development of CALL

 Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) was the expression agreed upon at the 1983 TESOL convention in a meeting of all interested participants. This term is widely used to refer to the area of technology and second language teaching and learning despite the fact that revisions for the term are suggested regularly (Chapelle, 2001, p. 3).

    Call has improved gradually. In the Behavioristic CALL, the stimulus-response-feedback model is dominant. In Communicative Call, communicative approaches is applied. The last one; in the Integrative Call, multimedia and the electronic communication are the keys for the approach. 

References:

Chapelle, C. A. (2001). Computer applications insecond language acquisition. New York: Cambridge.