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.

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.

A Nice Year!

WHAT A WONDERFUL YEAR!

    The course “Educational Technologies” which I had was a good experience. I had a lot of fun during courses, assignments sometimes could be exhausting though. I learned so many things and materials/instruments, and I am sure that I will benefit from all of them.

    I first thought that integration the technology in language learning is not so needed. My thoughts are not changed because I still think that the efficiency of teachers is much more important than the technological improvement s/he uses. However, I think both the teachers and learners still need to adapt themselves to technological advancements in case of catching the requirements of this age.

The task I most liked was creating an “About Me” page. Because I lack self-confidence and am too introverted to explain myself, creating a blog about myself and adding a page completely “About Me” helps me to get over this feeling. I continue to be shy, but this course might be the first step to overcome my unpleasant habit.

I have some suggestions for this course. If I were the instructor giving this course, I prefer getting my students to create the task in school instead of giving them these as homework. I think it is important that seeing all steps is vital, as doing them as homework can cause some missed steps to occur. Even if the time limitation does not let me get my students to do their tasks in the classroom, maybe I would choose to decrease the number of assignments. But I wish I had more courses like this, and I would have taken this course as a continuant one like “Educational Technologies I and II”. Lastly, I would like to thank my teacher and all my readers. See you again!

My First Podcast!

A Podcast Trial and an Idea of a Green World

Hi again! I have prepared a podcast today. My podcast is a short talk about how to make the world a better place. I have talked about my opinion on how should we live. If you want to listen to my short podcast you can listen to it here.

Creating my first podcast has been fun. I have already had an idea about “Better World” so writing the script is easy but the recording process has made me stressed. Because of not knowing how to use such devices and programs or platforms for such a work. I have felt negatively exciting to do that job. Nonetheless, I have finished my first recording and shared it, have fun!

I do not completely sure whether I am going to give my future students such a similar task or not. I personally find podcasting useful and fruitful. If I would give them such a task, they would have a chance to listen themselves and improve their listening and speaking skills greatly. So, the greatest advantage of podcasting is that it is an excellent example of self-development way, and I believe that the most effective way of learning is self-learning and knowledge obtained by self-development techniques. However, there is a disadvantage that cannot be ignored. Just as I have written, podcasting can be stressful, and making my student stressed to improve their skills is not my cup of tea. I know advantages are more notable than disadvantages, so it would be a good idea anyway.