Farewell!

Goodbye Friends!

            What a wonderful semester! Time passed and this year comes to past just like the other years! I have done lots of task and completed assignments for this semester. I will summarize what I have completed and learned, as well as I will tell my strengths and weaknesses.

            The course’s first assignment was creating a timeline which was an easy and a quick task. Secondly, we created a corpus which is a kind of a complex language dictionary. Thirdly, we made a flipped classroom video which can be considered as an asynchronous video that aims online teaching. Then, AR/VR integrated teaching material had been developed. Lastly, we created a WebQuest task which is sort of online tasks requires to follow guidelines according to some webpages and online platforms. While doing most of these tasks, I did not work alone. My classmate Burak and I worked together to offer our students these materials.

            For the evaluation part, I inspired by some questions I found on the internet. I will use the question from this page to make my evaluation.

• The instructor stimulated my interest in the subject.

Yes, she did everything to make the topic look catchy.

• The instructor managed classroom time and pace well.

Besides traffic issues (that she has no power over it) there were no such a problem.

• The instructor was organized and prepared for every class.

She the most prepared instructor I have ever had. She always ready and knows what she will do.

• The instructor encouraged discussion and responded to questions.

She encouraged us, but she should have known that our generation is very depressive, and our anxiety could be triggered so easily, I would like to see that she would use more passive ways to involve us to her class.

• The instructor demonstrated in-depth knowledge of the subject.

There is a reason why she always give such technology related courses.

• The instructor appeared enthusiastic and interested.

As I had had a teacher who has his courses like he were in a funeral house to normal “enthusiastic” teachers. I know that difference, and I think she is really interested in her courses in natural way rather than seeming like roleplaying.

• The instructor used a variety of instructional methods to reach the course objectives.

Her aims and objectives were clear, and her methods were understandable. Just I wish she would be more volunteer to offer more options in her assignments.

• The instructor challenged students to do their best work.

I usually do not like challenging task; however, her challenges what makes me improved. I believe that even there were some hard parts in those tasks, getting over them gave me significant experience.

            As for the last part, I will demonstrate my strengths and weaknesses. My best strength is I think I am able to understand quickly that what my instructor really wants me to do. I can figure out fast, and complete my tasks. Besides this, If there are some mistakes, I can redesign my work accordingly to feedback I am given. My worst weakness is my anxiety. If a task requires to show myself (not even my face but my body silhouette or voice), it becomes so hard for me to complete as I overthink about what people could say about my work. So, by the light of this knowledge, the easiest task was timeline as it merely required any group work or effort. And the hardest task was for me is the flipped classroom task as it required to dub the classroom with our real voice.

            Overall, I really enjoyed and appreciated this course and really believe it gave me very useful experience. I also feel myself lucky for having a good instructor for such a course. I hope I will get more knowledgeable about using technology in my classes easily.

WebQuest Experience

 

Our WebQuest Experience!

            Hi All! I hope you are doing well! I am here with my last assignment this semester. And this time, I and my classmate Burak created a WebQuest for you. As you wonder what it is a WebQuest, here the description comes: A WebQuest is an online learning activity where students follow a structured inquiry process to explore a specific topic using internet resources. It typically involves tasks, resources, and evaluation criteria, fostering critical thinking and collaborative skills.

            While we are creating this masterpiece our reference has been “Ortaöğretim Genel Müdürlüğü”’s “Hazırlık İngilizce” which is one of the interactive coursebook it offers. In that book there are units, and we chose unit 14 “Travel”. We created our WebQuest in the theme of traveling, and our work mainly focuses on exploring. We used Zunal for our WebQuest.

            As I mentioned before, this was a pair work, and I and Burak created same WebQuest with different blogpost. (You can see his post by clicking here.) Also, you can see our work by clicking here. When it comes to write about our process, it was getting easier and easier. As we get aware of how we can complete our task more fluid and organized, I have not faced crucial difficulties during creating this task. Our strength is we did everything according to rules we had given. And our weakness is we might spend so much time on details. Overall, it was an enjoyable task, and if I had the chance, I would use WebQuest in my class.

AR/VR Integration!

Hi Again!

            This time we made our task with augmented reality and more advanced digital tools. I and my classmate Burak worked together to create a in-class material for A2 level worksheet for Prep-class students. (By the way you can check his blog by clicking here.)

            We were tasked with using QR codes and examination required augmented reality. I think we did a good job as we really get used to integrate such materials in our work. But I cannot tell lie that majority of the work has been done by Burak. I have just completed the missing parts and revise our work by the light of the feedback of our instructor.

            Now let me summarize what this “Augmented Reality” is and what actually we integrated it by doing. Augmented reality (AR) adds digital elements to a live view often by using the camera on a smartphone. We can say for Augmented reality experiences include Snapchat lenses and the game Pokémon Go. Virtual reality (VR) implies a complete immersion experience that shuts out the physical world. So, if we create digital reality and integrate it into real-place and/or real-times, it becomes VR. 

            Lastly, I think I can use AR and VR in my classroom, as it is fun to use and easy to use. If you would like to take a glimpse of our work you can click here.

FLIPPED CLASSROOMS!

 

Our Flipped Classroom Assignment!

Hi All! Today I am going to present you to a blessing for one of our modern teaching approaches, if you said, "Is it Flipped Classroom Approach?" you make it right! So, let me give some information about flipped classroom then talk about our assignment.

First of all, the flipped learning is one of the methodologies that gives teachers the opportunity to prioritize the learning process of the class by assigning students lecture and investigate the materials and the presentations to be viewed at home or outside of class.

Moreover, this approach offers various advantages such as: 

• Allows teachers to spend less time introducing new lessons.
• Allows students to develop their learning skills independently.
• Allows teachers to create more attractive lessons.
• Allows students to catch up their classmates.
• Allows teachers to use the materials they have created before.
• Allows students to understand the lesson with supports.

I have finished this task with my classmate Burak (you can check his blog here). I personally find easy to complete this task as it is not complicated as corpus project. What we did well are: We organized quickly and found the concept we would like to work on. What the things are challenged us are: We may create more professional work (but we do not have access to premium tools sadly) and we may get feedback from our instructor.

You can check our video by clicking here and our hand-out from here.

My Corpus Experience!

Using Corpus in Language Teaching

    Hi All! It's me again.

    This time I assigned to use a corpus and creating a teaching material to use in my classroom. If you ever wonder what it is a corpus, I can simplfy it by defining it as a database of a language.

    To be honest this task has been very confusing because interface of most of the corpura (plural of corpus by the way) is very sloppy, and they seem very far from catching my attention as a teacher besides my students for now. If you interested in  taking a glance at the corpus I used, you can click here.

    I completed this task with my fellow teacher candidate friend. We took our inspriation from MEB English course book. You can see the example exercise below. We created an in-class material that make our students to use corpus we showed them how to use. They would need the corpus not only for doing the exercise from MEB book but also for the worksheet we integreated as well. You can see the material we created by clicking here.

    Even if this task was confusing to complete, it was a good experince to learn things such as corpora are exist. They make you feel very professional when you learn how to use them correctly. But when it comes to if I want use this material in future, my answer is no as there has to be much more simplier way to make my students inductively learn by their own in my opinion.

    Our process of preparing this material was very slow at first. After getting feedback from our teacher we finalize our work much more easier and fluently, so we integrated our focus and theme each other very well.

    And my opinion about how data driven learning could benefit language learning is that it is must not an option in our times. "Data administration" is an undeniable concept for our generation and no doubtly it has to be integrated in education as well. So corpus learning is a way our yeacher showed us. However as I said I would try finding another way rather than this method as I do not like it very much.

    Before forgetting, you can also read about this experience from my friend's blog right here.

Video-project Experience!

 

I will tell the truth; this task has been the hardest one I was asked to do. I did this task with my dear classmate Burak Haşlak (you can see his blog here.) We did not have so much fun while doing this task. Because of the hardness of the task, I did not enjoy doing it. Unfortunately, I could not use or give the same task to my future students. By the way, you can see our product here.

We have done our task with our own video editing programs. Majorly, editing was part of Burak, and I took the responsibility for the script and written works. The good points about our tools are they had no cost (at least for us) and we had no trouble after finishing the task. The bad point about the tools as it was very hard to figure it out. (Fortunately, we finally learned the necessary part we used).

I think the digital story is not bad; however, I will not ever never give my students such a task as homework or out-class task. It is another type of must-be-done-in-classroom task. Because of the hardness (I mean only those who took courses on how to create such things can easily do these tasks without facing any obstacle.) In my opinion, giving such a task to my students might make them take a dislike.

Nevertheless, seeing the final product made both me and my friend happy and relaxed. Completing such a task may lead me to greater success. Yes, it was hard and took so much afford but in the end, everybody (including the fish) was happy.

My Infographic Project!

                                             My Infographic Project

    And this time I was given a task that I create an infographic. If I had to summarize what an infographic is, it is abundant with images and visual, effective, and attractive. Infographics are for as the name tells us giving information. The way of providing the information is like a poster something about the topic written on it and the receivers are acquiring the information they need. It can also easily draw attention, so curious readers can learn something from it.

    I use Canva for this assignment. It was fun but I think I will not suggest such a thing to my students. Because it is more suitable for those already interested in creating advertisements or such online works. It can be hard for students, and it was already hard for me. Nonetheless, I have done my work well and you can check my work here. 

My Poster Project

Poster Project!

    Hi again! This time I was asked for creating an online poster for a book I read before. The task was what if a movie shot about that book and you were supposed to create a poster for it, what would it be?

    This time task was easy. Most probably because I have already known what I would like to see. As a fan of the Lord of the Rings universe, of course, it would be from there. Besides this, the book named “Silmarillion” deserves a perfect movie, so I chose to create a poster for it.

    You can check, examine, and make recommend my poster from here. Actually, I quickly did this job. Even I could spend much more time on this assignment, it is still a good work as I did it voluntarily.

    The answer to the question that whether I use this kind of project or not is unfortunately I will not because without any passion or profession preparing a poster cannot meet its full potential. Yes, I said I enjoyed it while I was working on it, but it would be just for fun purposes, so it cannot use for educational aims. Making something useful for teaching should be more complicated.

21st Century Learning

 

21^st Century Learning

The 21^st Century is different from any other era of humanity. As humanity never advanced ever before, we experience new, surprising, and exciting events, technologies, and discoveries. Our current period, the 21^st Century, offers us drastically changed ways to live, communicate, work and learn.

21^st Century Learning is outshining other centuries by using the Internet and online platforms. With the invention of the Internet which is the largest column of our current entire community. Education also benefits from online methods and the internet itself. Both teachers and students or all kinds of learners participate in online lessons via internet connection without the need of going to schools. The teacher can give their lessons with computer-integrated useful programs and can use very extended digital material such as slides and videos. Students can benefit from online homework and online lesson independently.

In my opinion, 21^st Century Learning means digital learning, being able to use digital platforms and use the internet as many as possible. It is additionally important for language learning. As students and teachers can be united from all over the globe, we can study foreign languages ignoring distances. Furthermore, thanks to the internet we can reach any sources we demand. If we are learning a new language this can be especially useful, we can find any kind of grammar knowledge, reading or listening activities, or tips for learning that language. I have already used these kinds of things while I have been learning English. And as a 21^st Century teacher, I will be sure about my students also use them too.