Posts

Goodbye!

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Hey guys. I’m here with my final post.  I’m afraid it is farewell time. The term is coming to an end.  Photo taken from here Today I’m going to be reflecting my  philosophy statement I posted 2 months ago. I mentioned how technology has many benefits when used properly, especially for education. And my thoughts have not changed about this. But there is one thing that has changed about me, and that is how I use technology. I definitely don’t feel the same as I did 3-4 months ago, when the course started. Well, in the philosophy statement post, I said that I’m not so good with technology but I think I improved myself. Before this course I had no idea about RSS feed, digital story telling and I did not know anything about making a podcast, a padlet or even a magazine cover. I had never created a wiki entry. Photo taken from here In my opinion, this course has so many benefits. I not only learned to be more creative, I also developed my Engl...

My Favorite Web 2.0 Tools!

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Hello! I've created an infographic about 5 of my favorite web tools which should be used by all teachers and students. The website I used   to create the infographic. Hello! I've created an infographic about 5 of my favorite web tools which should be used by all teachers and students.  First of them is Edmodo which we are already using in three courses this term. On Edmodo, our teachers inform us about class schedules, projects, videos we are supposed to watch, etc. The second one is Grammarly. As I mentioned on the infographic, it helps the users to correct their mistakes when they are writing something. Students can use Grammarly to correct their spelling mistakes for their homework.  Kahoot! allows mostly teachers to create games or quizzes based on the topic of the lesson. And students can participate in the lesson with their mobile phones, computers or tablets. Padlet , as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, allows the teacher...

RSS Feed ~ What Is It About?

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Hi everyone! Today my post is about RSS and some websites/blogs I’m currently following.  What is RSS? According to Wikipedia, RSS is a type of web feed which allows users and applications to access updates to online content in a format. Thanks to RSS, you can’t miss the latest posts from the websites you like.  Photo taken from here I tried to use the app “RSS Feed Reader” but it gave error when I tried to add some blogs to my feed. So my friend suggested me to use the Blogger’s own feeder that shows latest updates from these blogs.  You can see a screenshot of how I did it: You must "Add Gadget" and select "Blog List", then pick a title and add the website you wish to follow.  If you want to check out the websites I'm following, you can see them under the "About Me" section. I'm adding a screenshot of them: My favorite is Sandy Millin’s blog . Millin has so many posts on how to be a good teacher, how to use ...

Our Digital Story!

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Photo taken from here Hey everyone! Me and my friends, Deniz and Rana, have created a digital story about how to have a good relationship with teachers . Digital storytelling is basically about telling a story or giving information etc. with the help of technology. Firstly Deniz talked about making a good impression on teachers, secondly, my part was about maintaining good grades and finally Rana mentioned modeling good behaviour.  Photo taken from here While creating the digital story, it took some time to prepare and edit the video. Also adding both audio recordings and music was a bit hard; but we, mostly Deniz, managed to do it. We used Apple's Voice Recording App to record audio, Movie Maker  and  Adobe Premiere Clip   to create the video. It was an okay project, personally not my favorite but it was beneficial. It can help English learners to improve their speaking. You can check out my friends' blogs here: Ran...

A Magazine Cover

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Hi everyone! Today I'm posting a magazine cover that I've recently created for a project.  I designed a fictitious theme magazine about movies, TV shows and books. It is called " Entertainment Digest ". On the cover there are some topics which are included in the magazine. You can see issue number and the logo on the left corner. I personally liked this project but it takes a lot of time to prepare. I'm not sure if I would prefer to use this project in the future. Maybe after their exams students can create a magazine cover, since it improves imagination and is fun to do. Hope you like my cover! (I know I lack photo editing skills, sorry!)

My Evaluation of an ELT Website: one stop english

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Hey everyone! Today I will be evaluating an ELT webside called “one stop english”. You can visit the website from here . Photo taken from here Main Info About one stop english one stop english was created in order to help English learners and mainly English teachers. There are currently over 700,000 users in more than 100 countries around the world. You can subscribe for £42 for a year. It’s a teacher resource site, part of Macmillan Education which is one of the world’s leading publishers of English language teaching materials. Also resources are clearly marked by age and level. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any information about the founders of the website but I found out that Rachel Slatter is the managing editor and Erica is the development editor. I would’ve liked if they informed the visiters of the website about who founded it; however, there is detailed information about two editors, about what their duties and purposes are, what school they gradua...

Padlets! ~ Could it be a waste of time?

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Hi everyone, today’s post is about a padlet assignment for my Instructional Technologies and Materials Design in ELT course. Me and my 4 friends created a padlet about endangered animals on padlet.com , together. Every member of our group participated and I think the outcome is quite good. Photo taken from here We did our research on the information about endangered animals, causes of why they are endangered, possible solutions and we conducted a survey as well. I found some information about spesific species and shared a graph showing some species’ numbers. Creating a padlet was easy and useful; it helps the users to learn the information in an enjoyable way. You can write anything you want, share photos or videos, change the style of your padlet, etc. I used all of these methods and I didn’t find it difficult at all. I think it could and it should be used in the classrooms, mostly in the language classrooms. The learners, especially young learners, can...