TRAVEL THE WORLD THROUGH YOUR SMARTPHONE

Hello my dear readers! This week our task was creating a high school level material by using Augmented Reality. If you don't know what Augmented Reality is, in short, AR is a view of the real, physical world in which users find elements enhanced by computer-generated input. There are many applications that you can use to experience AR. Me and my friend Izel prefered "ARize" which I found the most user-friendly. There is the video of me introducing our material. ⇩

an augmented reality material for english learners from İzel Gür on Vimeo.

After deciding the city and the landmarks we searched for the best quality videos. We wanted to have diversity so we used 360-degree videos as well as mp4 videos. The difficult part of creating this material was coming up with engaging questions for non-audio videos. But I believe thanks to all that brainstorming we ended up with a satisfying result. And I must say that I really enjoyed creating this material.  

THE FIRST HANDOUT THAT I PREPARED

Hello my dear readers! As you see above the first task of this course was creating an inductive task based on the use of corpora. From my old high school English grammar book me and my friend Izel were searching for a unit which was given in a traditional deductive way. We chose "be to" & "be supposed to" unit as our topic and used the given examples in our material. Here you can see how this subject is taught in the book ⇩

While preparing this material I noticed how useful corpus can be.

Corpus is a contemporary technological tool and used for various different purposes. What benefited me and will benefit language teachers is that corpus enables reliable language analysis due to the fact that it consists of either written texts or a transcription of recorded speech which means the data of the language is collected in its natural context.

In our material we used corpus to make students explore the meanings and the  grammar rules of "be to" and "be supposed to". Then in exercise 2 and 3 the students practice these structures. And finally in exercise 4 they produce their own sentences using these structures.

Thanks to using corpus, instead of a traditional deductive teaching we can have a inductive teaching which enables learning to be more permanent.

WELCOME ONCE AGAIN

Hello my dear readers! 

Last semester I was posting about how to integrate Web 2.0 tools in language teaching. And I was using those tools as a student. It was for my Educational Technologies class.

This semester I’m going to use this blog for my new class, Material Design in ELT. This course is also about technology in connection with education but in a matter of designing materials as you can understand from the name of it. Therefore, I will be using technological tools as a teacher and I’m really excited about it. 

I hope me and my classmates can learn deeply and create successful examples of what we learn. I am looking forward to design and post my first material.

It’s good to be back! 

ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END

Hello my dear readers! We finished the semester and completed the course. That's why this is a good-bye post. I must say that I liked blogging more than I thought. I learn the best when I share the information. Therefore blogging was very useful in that matter as well as improving my writing skills. 

This course enlightened me about 21st century teaching and gave me a lot of task ideas that I can give to my students in the future. In other classes of mine they teach us teaching approaches but they don't show how we can integrate technology which fulfills the needs of this era's students'. I learned that there are lots of different and entertaining ways of technology which can be used in and out of the classrooms. It will not only catch the students' attention more but also will be a time saver. The teaching will be more efficient and up-to-date.

I believe that we used this course to good account although it was given only one semester which is not enough. In my opinion this course should be given for two semesters. Another thing that I would suggest would be doing a research and finding a different way of using technology in education from what we had learned in this course and then sharing it in our blog. Thus, we can learn more ways of technology integration in education.

The thing that I liked the most about this course is blogging. Due to anyone can be the reader and what we write will stay on the internet forever blogging makes us do the task more attentively. To be honest there is nothing that I didn't like about this course. The learning process, the given tasks and grading system is really proper.

The difficulties that I had were technical problems. When me and my friends were creating a PSA and a podcast, it took a while to figure out how to edit. By trying over and over again and watching tutorials we managed to end up with satisfactory results. 

Finally, I want to thank my teacher for enabling me to see the technology integration in education from a bigger perspective and my friends for creating amazing works with me. But the biggest thanks to you my dear readers! You made this blog valuable by reading it. I wrote everything here in the hope that it would be useful to you. Thank you for being with me in this journey. Take care of yourselves my precious readers! 

IN CONCLUSION

Hello my dear readers! All this term I talked about Web 2.0 tools to use in the classroom. Here, in this post I put an infographic to show my favorites. All have limited free usage and a lot of amazing affordances . Not only from affordances perspective but also when I look from a student's eyes they are the most entertaining  and useful Web 2.0 tools. 

To create this infographic and the magazine cover under this post, I used Canva as well. You can create a infographic, magazine cover, flyer, CV, wallpaper and many more. If you want to learn more about Canva you can read my post below.

The other tool Padlet is the one that I created my climate change KWL chart with. It is so easy and fun to use. To see different ways to use it in the classroom go to my "Online Way of "Write on a Sticky Note and Put It on the Wall" Activity"
 post.

Most of my friends' favorite is also Pixton. It is so colorful and full of features. You can find all the clothes and all the expressions that you want. You can even create a character which exactly looks like you. I'm sure it will be one of your students' favorite as well.

Please leave your favorite Web 2.0 tools as a comment. I am looking forward to explore more!

A TASK TO IMPROVE CREATIVITY

Hello my dear readers! As you see above this week our task was creating a magazine cover. Our teacher left the choice of the theme to us. I preferred to crate a beauty- fashion magazine. Because we are in the end of December, to make it accurate I talked about Christmas, new year and the recently released Netflix series.

I especially liked this task because it didn't need a lot of technological skills and it was more of a visual work. Having the freedom to choose the theme of the magazine made the task more enjoyable as well.

I used Canva as the tool to create this magazine cover. One of the reasons why I preferred Canva is because it is easy to use and it has a lot of free templates. Another affordance is that it allows you to download the product as PDF or PNG or JPG without any payment.

If you are looking for a task which improves creativity as well as English skills, this task will be the one students enjoy. Don't forget to consider that young learners will need guidance in terms of finding the right tool and using it.

I hope you liked my first magazine cover and this task idea. If you have creative task ideas please leave it as a comment! 

IT IS POSSIBLE TO RAISE SOCIAL AWARENESS WHILE IMPROVING YOUR ENGLISH

Hello my dear readers! You are seeing an example of digital storytelling above. Our teacher gave us three options to choose. These were creating a public service announcement, a how-to story or a fictional story. Me, my friends Izel and Aleyna decided to create a PSA about depression. 

PSAs are designed to raise awareness on important issues while disseminating information quickly and efficiently. They enable learners to actively participate in a project that will allow them to become stewards of and advocates for social change. Hence, creating a PSA will be a task that students enjoy and a different genre they can use their English in. 

While me and my friends were creating our PSA, doing research and writing the text was the easy part but editing took so long. Matching the sentences with the right visual and editing the timing was really tiring. Nevertheless, seeing the outcome was satisfying.

To see an example of a modern and different homework for second language learners and also to learn more about depression please watch our PSA. Don't forget to share it with your friends to inform them about one of the biggest health issues of our era. 

ONLINE WAY OF "WRITE ON A STICKY NOTE AND PUT IT ON THE WALL" ACTIVITY

Hello my dear readers! You are now seeing my online board that I created with my friends Izel, Aleyna and Ecem. This online board is called Padlet. It is a great place for gathering ideas, sharing them and modifying them later. Users can add links, YouTube videos, files and images to Padlet notes. The good news is Padlet is a great classroom tool and there are plenty of ways to use it. Here is a poster of 30 ways to use it: 

As you see on the top, our task was using Padlet in KWL chart format. We had three columns to fill as "Know, Want to Know and Learned". Our topic was global warming. I know that our planet is warming up, ice sheets are melting and the sea level is increasing. One of the causes of global warming is the rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration. Burning fossil fuels, deforestation and even use of deodorants increases carbon dioxide levels. But I didn’t know how far it can go and if we don’t take actions how it will affect us. After my research I saw that there are a lot of organizations fighting against climate change and there are hundreds of small actions we can take. On the other hand, I saw what's at stake if we don't act now. 

This task made me notice what I don't know about global warming and enabled me to learn them. Since it was a collaborative work, I really enjoyed it. 

Check our Padlet wall to learn about global warming and to see an example of how you can use Padlet in the classroom. 

COLLABORATIVE + QUICK = WIKI

Hello my dear readers! In this post I will talk about a different and modern way for students to learn to work collaboratively while practicing English. Wikis can be useful both when being read or written.

As an example me and my friend Izel created a page in our classroom wiki. Our task was reviewing a movie. We chose Will Smith's movie Seven Pounds, you can read our review here. While we were improving our writing skills in English, we also enjoyed creating an internet page as a class.

If you are also looking for your students to see that it is so easy to put information on the internet and what they read is not always right, wikis will be useful for that matter as well.

A PERFECT HOMEWORK FOR SLL: PODCASTING

Hello my dear readers! As you see above I created a podcast with my friend Izel as a homework example which enables the teacher to hear all of the students talk in English. 

Podcasting is an amazing assignment for students to improve their both listening and speaking skills. The other advantage of podcasting is that the students have the freedom to talk about their interests which makes the homework more enjoyable.

When I was creating the podcast I noticed that since I can not make changes after I post it, I need to be more careful. Besides, before I started recording I needed to listen a lot of different podcasts to be able to create a quality one.

The hardest part was putting different audio files together and finding the best program to do it. Nevertheless, it is a modern way to improve speaking skills and a fun homework to do.

Briefly, if you are looking for an enjoyable, useful and contemporary assignment for your students, you have found it! It is podcasting. 

HELP OF RSS FEEDREADERS AND BLOGS IN ELT

Hello my dear readers! The image that you see above is my RSS feedreader’s screenshot. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. It is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. It enables you to keep up with all the topics that you want in one place. There is a variety of RSS feedreaders available for different platforms. Some popular feed readers are: 

- FeedReader (Windows) 

- Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac)  

- My Yahoo (online) 

You can use them as a software or an online reader, it’s up to you. I am an IOS user and I use Feedly. One of the reasons why it is useful is because you save time by not needing to visit each site individually and you ensure your privacy by not needing to join each site's email newsletter. 

As I highlighted above Lesson Plays Digger is my favorite blog. The blog is based on lesson plans and teaching tips. All the activities posted on the blog are tried and shared with the materials. There is also a section as “Teacher’s Toolbox”. There you can find not only educational activities but also YouTube and Instagram accounts which will be helpful for ELT. Another useful feature of this blog is you can choose the proper activity for your class easily because the English levels are stated for each activity. 

I highly recommend this blog and the use of RSS readers to ELT teachers. Believe me they will help a lot. And if you have a blog to suggest, please leave it as a comment! 

HOW TO SUCCEED IN THIS CENTURY

Hello my dear readers! As you understand from the word cloud above, in this post I’m gonna talk about 21st century learning.

In a world which is constantly changing and where learning never stops students must master at some particular content knowledge, skills, expertises and literacies. We can analyze these 21st century student outcomes in four domains:

1. Key subjects such as English, science, mathematics, history must be related to 21st century themes. Which are financial, economic, business, entrepreneurial, civic, health, environmental literacy and global awareness.
2. Learning and innovation skills must be developed in order to be prepared for life and complex work environments. These skills include creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication and collaboration.
3. Information literacy, media literacy and ICT (Information and Communications Technology) literacy must be improved to become effective citizens.
4. Life and career skills must be upgraded. These essential skills include flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility.

With the support of standards and assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development and learning environments you can ensure success both in life and in work. 
As a visual representation here is a framework about 21st century learning ⤵️

If you are reading this, take this post as a wake-up call. You should start improving these skills not only for work but also for daily life. You need to be qualified enough to catch up with life.