lostinelt

 Hello my dear readers. This week started with us creating the last steps of our project before presenting. We were mostly on Zoom as a group discussing and making changes, adding details to our work. We had both an amazing and tiring time during the last week of project. We as a group worked on our website design details more than the last days. However, our focus was on analyzing the survey we conducted. Survey gave us so much data we had to work on. I can honestly say that it was the most exhausting part of doing this project yet it was also fun. Seeing so many different views, comments were entertaining. Mostly because the high school students who answered the survey questions worded their thoughts in so many creative ways. But again it showed me how hard it is to analyze data for a research. I don't how long we spent on Zoom but I know that is part of my life I will miss forever because it was the major part of my university life. In the end we talked about how we would make t...

 Hello my lovely readers and visitors. We have arrived the final part of our training. After about 12 weeks, we are here in the end. Before giving my general thoughts and feelings about this amazing project, I want to talk about what we did this week and what we will be doing in the next 2 days. During the weekdays we had already decided the materials and features we wanted on our website /project. We finalized our writings for each section/page and created tools, videos. We had few meetings both during the weekdays and the weekend. I cannot lie, even though the process was stressful I had the most fun on our Zoom meetings. On Sunday, we decided few more details on our website and added our texts and other tools. On Monday we worked on the design details, the colours, the theme and basically every other detail. We talked about the presentation and how we would present each part/page. We only have one thing to do which is analyzing the survey. We left that part for tomorrow to work ...

 Hello, everyone. This past week was more efficient than the ones before. Firstly while waiting for my friends' finals to end I read more articles about our project topic. I took notes and shared them with my friends. LAter this week we talked about adding new materials into our project such as survey. We talked about the details and everything. Our work as this week made it obvious is going good. We only have few things to work. See you on next and the final week 

 Hello. I wish I could post a blog entry that is longer and more detailed but this week was nothing like I expected. I'm sorry to be not active on the process. This week I only revised the introduction I wrote and looked through the articles I bookmarked. Yet it was not scanning, I can say I did some skimming. We didn't have any meetings but as we talked before  we will focus on the project more after the finals end. This is all for this week. 

 Hello everyone. Today I want to talk about the process of the project we're working on as usual. This week was rather bussier as we have our final exams and assignments. Unfortunately I couldn't do anything proper this week. I only bookmarked some articles on Mendeley. I couldn't even read them but I believe I will have read by the end of the week. However, we didn't waste our time. We had a Zoom meeting with our teacher. We asked some of the questions we had in mind. We mentioned some of the problems we faced while searching our topic. In the end the meeting was really informative and pur teacher helped us get some ideas on how to move forward with the project.  After the meeting we also discussed some points as a group. We decided to create opportunities from  the struggles we were facing. Now I have a clearer mind about everything we do. 

 Hi, today I will be talking about an another week of our project's process. This week I was assigned to search and create a text about the good examples of synchronous online distance learning tools.However, we did not have any online meetings because of my friends' busy schedule so I did my part on my own. As far as we have talked, we will, of course, contribute to each other's parts and fix the text if there are any issues.  I did my search mostly on Zoom and Microsoft Teams and their use/benefits to distance learning. I found some articles about the mentioned tools yet I don't think what I found is enough since I couldn't do a proper, wider search because of my final assignments.  I highlighted everything I found important on the articles and divided them into sub-sets to create the whole text. What I failed to do was creating the text. There are two major reasons of my failure. First, I couldn't bring the information together in a good structured way. Secon...

  Hello, as I mentioned on my previous post I will be informing you about the things we did this week as a group. Firstly, we decided on a day and a time to have a Zoom meeting. In our meeting, we firstly designed the task we were asked ( I attached the screenshot of the task design on my previous post.). We came up with some ideas and figure out what kind of a task would be easier yet more entertaining and informative. Then we worked on our outline for our project. Previous weeks, we decided on our topic which is Synchronous Online Distance Learning and decided on who would do which part when. So, this week only thing we had to do was creating subsets and deciding the content of each title. Everyone shared their ideas about titles and we created such a detailed, informative outline. (at least for us) Even though we wre tired, we had fun while discussing.  Later this week, I started working on my part which was introduction. I made some searches about synchronous and asynchron...

 Sadly I couldn't join this week's session because of health conditions. But my dear teacher uploaded the recordings of the session on Dropbox so I was able to follow what happened during the lesson. We were assigned with the article "Teaching Materials" by Matsuda (2012) before the sessions. Article basically focused on criteria for choosing materials, ELT coursebooks, selecting and creating supplemental materials. So we had knowledge about the topic beforehand like the other weeks. We were also asked to bring an ELT coursebook that we had used in our middle or high schools to make some evaluations. (I will talk about it later on.)  Firstly, in the session they were seperated into groups to discuss pre and post reading questions related to the article from assignment. I had a chance to watch all groups for few minutes thanks to the recording. Most of them, like me, believed that materials played the role of the input source. They wanted ELT materials to have more glo...

 This week's topic was about digital tools. So, in the first session and the beginning of the second session we learnt about new tools to use in teaching thanks to our teacher. Tiki toki, thinglink, animoto, renderforest, edpuzzle and weebly were introduced. I had had knowledge about Thinglink before the introduction as it was included on my previous year's course. It has been one of my favourite tools since it highlights visual learning. I have always had fun while usiing Thinglink and this  is another reason for me to like it. The other tools apart from Edpuzzle  were unfamiliar to me. However, I only used Edpuzzle as a stundet and never created my own activities. So learning about it was really helpful. Tiki Toki is a timeline creating website which we thought would  be useful with teaching tenses and asking student tocreate their biographies. Learning about Weeblywas actuallyreally important for me. I, unfortunately, did not know about the process of creating a w...

  The sessions were about the impact of technology on teachers and classroom environments this week. We were separated into groups of 3-4 and asked to discuss the reflection questions that we had already answered as an assignment. During the discussion we had similar answers. However, some different ideas were shared as well. For example, I hadn't thought about negative impact of technology on kids until one of our friends mentioned. Getting new ideas and seeing things from different perspectives are the reasons that I like group works. It really helps with the way that I think. For the first time in 4 weeks, we had some time left after discussion. Our discussion was quick yet eye opening for me. Also, with the left time we kind of got to know each other better. After the group discussion, we shared our ideas as groups to the whole class. One thing I realized was that every one of us were concerned about the students' access to technological tools and connectivity. Everyone inc...

  This week we discussed about  "digital citizenship, digital literacy, information literacy, copyright and licensing" topics. The session started with a match up game which included main terms of the chapters we were assigned. 9 terms were asked to match up with their definitions and I got 7 out of 9. I confused ICT with social media literacy if I'm not wrong. Then we continued our session with discussions made in groups. In our group we mainly had the same ideas about digital literacy, digital information, the skills of information literacy, the need for digital literacy and so on. However, when it comes to deciding the reliability of a source, one of our friends said something I would have never thought in my whole life, which was "checking if  the source has gsm number or not." She explained that in medical researches if there is a number we can contact and get more information from a professional which meant they were a credible source. This is a tactic  I ...

  This week we had two main topics; collobration skills and global englishes. In t he first sessions we started with an activity. Our teacher showed us a picture and asked us to create a story with words used in the picture as a group. After discussing our stories, we were asked to create a storyline for the song we listened. I had a great time doing these tasks. Working as a group really helps me understand others and realize my own strengths in different roles . For example, I can see if I'm better at initiating the idea or creating ideas to back up the story while working collaboratively. Also noticing if I'm better at keeping notes and summarizing or keeping the track of time is possible in group work. So, doing these two activities not only made me have fun but also realize new sides of me. Last task on collaborative work was about finding the murderer. It was a fun game but I believe such games would be a lot easier in face to face education. We had few difficulties but i...

   1st Week of 21st Century Skills Training    On 6th of November, we had our first online course of 21st Century Skills Training. In the first session we discussed "Critical Thinking". Before the session, we were asked to read a text about critical thinking and consider the given 4 or 5 questions. So, in the session i, like all my friends in the project, already had an idea about critical thinking which made the tasks easier to do. At first, we were not given an explanation or definition. We played a little game where everyone gave an answer to given questions about 21st skills through our phones and we were able to see the word cloud, which also made it clear that our ideas  on 21st century skills as participants were similar. Then, we were separated into groups of 4 with different roles and asked to answer questions about critical thinkers. I think this was helpful because i could see the different perspectives in the group while explaining strong and weak cr...

Hello everyone, I will tell you about another amazing educational app. It's called Gistory. Well, the first time I tried using Gistory back in March i had really time understanding the concept but now spending more time on it I figured it out easily -or maybe not easily hehe- and I want you to take a look. So the app allows you to create interactive stories which is really useful for foreign language teaching. As you can see from the pictures below, while learning about present continues tense pictures, videos, fill in the blanks activities are given to test your knowledge. So it's really helpful for your students to test their level on the subject. It's not only the stories given by the app but you can also create your own. All you have to do is select "add a gistory" option. Then you should put a cover and choose a title. After that process, you can add chunks. For each one you can add explanations or questions with photos, videos and audio. I kinda ...

Hello everyone, i hope you are having a wonderful time at your homes social distancing. Today i want to talk about an award winning education app called "Thinglink". With thinglink you can create photos, videos to make more interesting lessons. You can also create 360° photos or videos to make the best use of the app. This app might help your students enjoy their time while learning new information. As we know students learn best when they are included in the process and such apps like Thinglink make it possible for kids to learn by themselves with teacher's guidance. In Thinglink, you can create photos with audio, texts or links attached to them. You can also add scenes and tag animations. Adding more pictures to your photo setting is also possible. So what happens is simply when you click the tags on the photo you will see everything attached to it like the texts about the photo or audio talking about what's on the photo. The most fun part of using this app is ...

AUGMENTED REALITY  I want to start my post by asking a question today. Have you ever played Pokeman Go? If yes, then you have already tested augmented reality. That means you saw Pokeman creatures appear in your real life neighbourhood while you kept playing. This real life elements blending with digital elements is called AR. Today Augmented Reality is used in entertainment, military training, engineering design, robotics and many other industries. It can be also used in education. AR might change the traditional methods used in teaching. It makes classes more interesting and entertaining. Both teachers and students love education when creativity and interactions are included. AR allows it. For example, augmented reality animated contents in a lesson would attract the students into learning it.  Students shouldn't be only receiving information, they should be experiencing the subject. For instance, medical students experiencing the 3d mode...

  Hello everyone. Have you ever sat back and thought about the old teaching methods using books and boards? it seems like a long time has passed since the teaching/learning with books. But no, in such a short time technology has become the source of our education process. Ebooks, online classroom websites, videos, games, presentations and more have been used as a source, method for a while. But there's something brand new in technology. It's called virtual reality. In the digital age of teaching, it seems like our next stop. VR is a simulated experience that can be similar to the real world. Using VR in teaching is beneficial for students. Students learn best when they experience it and vr allows that. Another aspect is that vr stops students distraction from learning as it gives them a real experience for what they are learning. It keeps students engaged. It allows students to learn complex information easier than traditional methods. It erases the problems rising beca...

Hello guys. Today I won't be posting about a tool that you can use for your lessons, I will be talking about two models that you can use for your lessons. As you know, technology is a big part of our teaching process. So, a model that can help teachers to teach effeciently using technology is a must. A model called TPACK was designed by Mishar and Kohler in 2016 for this aim. It's a model that combines the content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and technology knowledge. TPACK is about what teachers know (content), how technology is used (technology knowledge) and how they teach (pedagogical knowledge). Let's talk about those domains.                                                   Content Knowledge is teachers' expertise of the subject like math, language, science and more. It includes facts and concepts of any subject that are being taught.  ...

Hello everyone. I hope you are having an incredible day. I wanna start my post by asking "Do you find videos to be more interesting for learning?" if the answer is yes, then you will be happy with this post. As you know videos draw more  attetnion for kids. They choose videos in almost every given option. So, you can make a fun environment for your lessons by creating your own kids. However, you wouldn't want those videos to be boring or just your, right? Here's an app called "voki" where you can use avatars or create you own avatars if you pay for premium for your videos. You can either use your own voice or you can make yur avatar read it i any accent with any voice from different people.  It's really fun to make videos thanks to voki.  Here's my attemp to make videos with Voki where I talk about games that English teachers can use for their younger students.  Links to my videos https://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=16446153&height=323...

Hi everyone!! Hope you are having a great day. Today I will share two different apps, both of which offers a better learning environment for students,  to use for your lessons. As you know students give their attentions more if the lesson is interesting and easy for them to understand. Mindmeister and nearpod makes it happen for students. Nearpod allows students to enjoy slides, videos and games made for the lesson while mindmeister lets you make mind maps to teach any lesson or sum up lessons. Hope this review gives an idea about how to make better use of online materials for your lessons. NEARPOD Nearpod is an app to make interactive lessons for your students.  It's really easy to use and students' engagement makes lessons interesting. Firstly, you have to sign up if you are the teacher, for students there are codes to join lessons. You can create your lesson on your library. You can choose adding content, web content or adding activity. On "add content" opti...