Do You Have A Rich Site Summary?

    
    Hi everyone :)

    How was your week? Mine was fast! Because I was waiting for Infinity War😅 but that's not the subject of course,sorry I just had to say it... Back to earth, this week's topic is something very useful. It might be something you already use or something you have seen, wondered what it is but never used before or you have no idea about it. Which ever it is let's talk about....RSS!!

   
  
   What is this RSS???
   

       RSS is short for "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary"

   
   RSS is a format that enables you to be informed about the updates of websites, blogs etc. of your choice. You download RSS or add it to your browser and create your own feed. Whenever there is an update, you know about it without going to the website all the time to check. Especially if you are following a blog or if you are devoted to a website it is something you can benefit from.


  
   Kinds Of RSS Readers

   There are five kinds of RSS readers you can choose from and some examples for you:

1.   Web-based feed readers ( feedly )
2.   Desktop feed readers 
3.   Browser built-in feed readers ( panda )
4.   Email based feed readers
5.   Mobile feed readers 

    

   Mine is a browser built-in feed reader. I simply added it to my browser by clicking   "add to Chrome" and there are many others as you can see.

                                                                                       

It looks like this when you open it. I can see my feed which are the blogs that I follow.

 


If you click on one of the blogs or websites on the feed you can see the posts in chronological order and read the one you want without going to the website if you want.

   You can also see the notification at the right top of the page.

If you want to know about RSS more here is a video you can watch!

     And last but not least I want to introduce a blog...

 

    It is called Tekhnologic. It is as it can be understood from the name about technology but not any kind of technology, it focuses on technology used in the classroom.

  

        
   This blog is written by a teacher  who likes to use technology and he shares his ideas, experiences with us.

You can read his ABOUT page and get more information on the writer and the blog.

   He gives examples, templates that you can download and use with your class.

   It is really a useful and fun blog that I enjoy exploring and I think you should take a look at it too :)

Here are some other blogs recommendations...

->sandymillin

->tefltastic

->eltplanning

   I hope you liked this post of mine and it has given you new information or an idea. I'll see you next week( maaybe with a group project😉).

  

Thank you!!!

Welcome to The English Class of The Internet

     Hi everyone! 

     How long has it been... a month😯? It really has been a while. I hope you been well and happy.

     I had my midterms and a little break after but now I am back with new content that I think you'll like... Aaand this week's post is about a website of course.

     This website we are evaluating is called "ESOL Courses" !!! It is, as they describe themselves, a free online learning platform. (Website link will be given down below)

     "ESOL" is an acronym for English for Speakers of Other Languages.

     Who are the writers and who is this website for?

     This website is written by ELT authors and experienced English language teachers under the name of the company called "ESOL Courses Limited" which is based in England. Their target audience contains both teachers and learners as they say. What I've seen is that the word "learner" here means "adult learners" MORE than "young learners"

     What is the aim of this site?

     They aim for teachers to find classroom materials(I will be showing an example further in the post) and learners to improve their language skills and knowledge independently if they want.

     Further information...

     And I should say I couldn't see a date on the page but it is very loaded with useful information to last a while. And as this website is prepared by native speakers who are experienced in the field of ELT, you can trust the accuracy of the content.

    As you can see from the site map section yourself too, this page contains categories such as skills, levels which are "beginner,elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, advanced", topic areas and themes, quizzes and games etc.

   









      And as I've seen, the images on the website are attractive and appealing to the eye, in other words it's not boring. 😊


Here I've clicked on the "listening" part and opened a lesson. The lesson first starts with a brief explanation and informs that you will learn vocabulary besides the listening skill.

    They give some statements and expect you to do some predictions.

    And in the second part, you watch the video.

   And they give you a quiz to test your predictions after the video.

 You hide or show the answer key. 

 And as they mentioned on top of the page there is a review that helps with vocabulary.





      
 Would I recommend this website to teachers?
        Yes, I would. I think it is very useful for teachers because they can use the lessons as it is, for example; make their students watch the video and than print out the questions and the review part and continue the class that way or they can just take the subject as an idea and make their own tasks in class. Either way I think it can be very helpful.


       If you are interested, you can explore the website yourself by clicking here.

    

     

    There are many many websites and blogs to help you with language learning especially with English and ESOL is only one of these helpful websites. I hope this post inspired you to search and use this or any other website out there that can really help you....

    

     Thank you as always :)

See you next week!!!

    

     

Get Lost In A Book

    
      Hi there! :)

      After the podcast of last week, this time we joined a Wiki page for our task in material design course. Our teacher opened a wiki page, we logged in and created our own pages about a book we want.

     What is "Wiki"?
     A wiki is a free website that can be edited by visitors to the site. It is a useful and easy to use tool especially for collaborative works. 

    If you want to know how it works simply you can click here and watch the video!!!
    
    What about it's relation with education?
     A wiki page can be used in class projects, homework etc. You can give individual or group tasks. It's useful for learners to do research and write about their research. It can help develop their language skills since they will be searching English content and they will be writing their own sentences in English. I think it's a creative task to give your students.
    And also it is a good opportunity to get to know the students and to hear about their ideas, knowledge etc. especially for the ones that don't talk much in class.
    
     If you want to watch a video on how teachers can use wikis in the classroom you can click here !!!

     About My Wiki     
     My wiki is about the book "My Sweet Orange Tree". I found it in my grandfather's house when I was younger. I read it more than once. I highly recommend to read this book.

    
     You can check out my wiki page HERE! ( watch out for SPOILERS!!!)

.

See you next week! :)

Mirrorself: A Podcast Story

   Hi everyone! :)
   
   This week's post is about a team work. As a team, me and my two close friends Sıla Çelebi and Öznur Çelepi, we prepared a podcast for you!!! 

   For Sıla's blog click here and for Öznur's blog click here

   First of all, you might know all about podcasting or you might have no clue. So, for those of you who don't know about it, podcast is simply a digital audio file or a series of files made available on the Internet. You can talk (or sing) about any topic you want on a podcast.

   Fun facts: 
   If it contains video it's called vodcast!
   The name "podcast" comes from "ipod" and "broadcasting"
   

   We were given this assignment on last week's material design course and we had three options to choose from which were recording a song, talking about an idea and telling a sound rich story. We went with the 3rd option. We thought it would be nice to write a story. None of us ever recorded a podcast before so it was something new and exciting for each of us. We worked together in every process of the task and we started with forming a story. I personally found this part the most enjoyable because we gathered our imaginations and worked sentence by sentence. And actually that's where the difficulties started because we had time limitation and we wrote a little more than it was needed(ups!)... But we managed to shorten it. And then we found a silent place to record our story. And no, we definitely couldn't do it in the first trial 😅 But I think we did well for people who never recorded a podcast before. We found and made some sound effects since it had to be a sound rich story. And we finished our podcast by using this website called PodOmatic and all the other links to the sounds we found online will be down below.

   And if you ask me if I would use podcasting with my students in the future and why? I would say yes! Because I think it's a good opportunity for both creativity and speaking skills and I would definitely recommend them to listen to podcasts and record a podcast if they want.

Finally the podcast we recorded is about a woman who gave up her dreams too early and forgot to believe herself... If you want to know more about her and whether she will start believing herself again here is our podcast named "Mirrorself" 

     

Click HERE to listen to our story!!!😊

Listen to "lake and bird" sounds

Listen to "kids" sounds

Listen to "face washing" sounds

Look at the photograph

THANK YOU, SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!!!👋

Help of Computers

  There has been very interesting developments in history of teaching with technology especially in computer assisted teaching that have led us to where we are today. In order to get a general idea of the process let's take a look at the timeline I have made.

click here to see where I made my timeline 

  In 1930s large mainframe computers were found and later developed in mid 1940s. They were also used in World War II for missile guidance and cryptography in early 1940s. In 1940s also mechanical translations appeared but they were later seen inadequate.

  Throughout 1950s improved systems and therefore programming languages were developed. Also Call programs were used for drill and testing.

  

  The first electronic corpus " The Brown Corpus of Standard American English" was developed in 1960s along with a number of pioneer CALL projects. And also and most importantly at this time where computers were seen as practice teaching machines "Behavioristic CALL" emerged. 

Behaviorstic model is simply learning through the stimulus - response - feedback.

  In the 1970s-80s the "Communicative CALL" emerged as communicative language learning and teaching emerged. Communicative uses of technology were developed.

  After these kind of developments, in the 1990s powerful desktop computers that supported Internet use, LANs, multimedia and linked resources came into existence and set the present stage of CALL which is "Integrative CALL" .

  

  And all of this shows us that as the world improves the usage of technology increases accordingly. What we should do is to keep up with this improvement and  be aware of the opportunities in this century we live in. We are in a time of information. We should keep on using our creativity, be open to change and develop more and more....

Thank you for reading :)

Teachers Guiding the Century

click here to see where I did my word cloud

 
  When I compare the ways and materials used in classes today, even with the day I started school-let alone a century- I can't help but see a change, a development.I start to notice these changes more as I study English Language Teaching myself.

   These developments come naturally because people have an innate need of moving forward. Therefore everyday, every minute new ideas are put forth, new perspectives are born especially in learning and teaching. 

   With every new generation we can see inevitable changes particularly with the usage of technology that teachers need to keep up with. They need to use technology effectively and when it's needed. This means they need to learn how to repurpose technology to make it useful in teaching.
  
   And most importantly teachers need to be creative and they ought to show their students the way to be creative. They need to lead their students to communicate and collaborate effectively, and to think in a critical manner. 
   
 ➜Mishra and Keohler say " If you are not going to change pedagogy, then technology use makes no significant difference." 

   What 21st century needs and wants from teachers is to change their ways, their pedagogy  to be able to guide their students.

Thank you for reading!

See you next week :)

WELCOME!

source

   Hi!

   Welcome to my blog!! This is an educational blog in which I will post about teaching English by using technology. 
    In "Instructional Technology and Materials Design" course we are all opening individual blogs and each week we will have our tasks to post about. You can expect to see posts related to 21st century learning, CALL etc. I will try my best to bring you the useful content. Stick with me and you might learn things you didn't know you needed before.

  See you on my next post hopefully :)