Creating A Digital Poster: I Want To Be An Editor From Now On!

 

Hello, everyone! In this post, I will talk about the process of creating a digital poster.

I used the tool called Canva to create my poster, which allows you to do many different things. It has a simple and enjoyable design. You can access Canva by clicking here.

The task given to us was to create a digital poster for our Educational Technologies course. I chose to make a magazine cover and set the theme as music. Meanwhile, I downloaded a black-and-white theme in the magazine cover category from Canva. 

Then I put a photo of Zayn Malik on the cover as he is my favorite singer. I chose "vivace" as my magazine title, what is a musical term meaning "active" in Latin. I selected four article topics and added them to the cover. Finally, I completed my poster by adding the logo, issue, and barcode.

I would like to give such an assignment to my students in the future, but I think this task is suitable for adults. Younger students may have difficulty using tools like Canva and designing poster. 

That's all from me for now, I hope you liked this post. Take care, see you soon! 💜

Digital Storytelling: How To Do An Origami Heart

 

Hello, everyone! In this post, I will talk about our digital storytelling task.

First of all, we worked on this assignment as a duo. You can access the blog of my pair, Buse by clicking here.

We had three options for this task, we chose the "how to" project. There have been only me in the video, but we did the dubbing together. Buse also edited the video, we used the tool called Sony Vegas Pro.

To briefly list the steps we followed while doing the task:

1) We chose one of the three projects, and decided to tape an origami video.

2) I shot about two and a half minutes of video at home.

3) I recorded my voice in the greeting and farewell parts, and Buse vocalized the instructions part.

4) Buse organized the video and added our voice using the editing program.

The most challenging part of this task was setting up the camera and shooting myself because both I messed up the order of the instructions a few times, and my movements were so fast that we couldn't synchronize them with our voices. So, I had to repeat the recording five times.

I think digital storytelling tasks are beneficial in language classes because they contribute to the development of foreign language skills. However, such assignments should not be given to younger students because editing and recording are too tiring and professional.

That's all from me for now, I hope you liked this post. Take care, see you soon! 💜

Before leaving the page, you can revise our "how to" video.

Recording A Podcast: Wait For Me BBC!

 Hello, everyone! In this post, I will talk about my podcast task process.

First of all, there were four options for creating a podcast. I chose the second one, "improving the world" and worked individually. I talked about why people should say "I love you" to their loved ones more often.

In the beginning, I thought for a while about the topic. Later, I got an idea from a friend and modified that idea. Then, I wrote down what I was going to say. I chose the site called Vocaroo to record my voice because it was so simple to use.

The most challenging part for me while recording the podcast was the time. I was anxious during the process because I always had to follow how many seconds I spoke.

In the future, I can assign such a task to my students because I think it is beneficial in many aspects. I think it improves the pronunciation and intonation of the students and allows the introvert ones to voice their opinions. In addition, the topic selection part leads them to brainstorm.

In short, the podcast assignment has been both stressful and rewarding for me. That's all from me for now, I hope you liked this post. Take care, see you soon! 💜

Before leaving the page, you can listen to my podcast here.

My Padlet Project Process: Such An Enyojable Tool!

Hello, everyone! In this post, I will talk about my first Padlet project process.

Firstly, we worked in groups of four; me, Buse, Merve, and Sümeyye. You can visit their blog pages by clicking on their names. 

We chose "gender inequality" among some of the subjects and narrowed it down to "gender inequality in business". Afterward, we created a Padlet page and made additions under three headings: what we know, what we want to know, and what we learned. Each of us selected three questions about the topic and researched them. We cited and embedded the sources in words. The second phase of our project was to write a blog post on our Padlet experience.

Frankly, it is such a fun site. It has a minimal and beneficial design, so I was able to keep up with it easily. I think Padlet, as a tool, allows me to share in detail about my project, and it was profitable to add photos and links to the posts.

The Padlet page led me to improve my 21st-century learning skills. It supports creativity and critical thinking because it encourages us to explain the issue in our own words. Also, since we work in groups, it helps us to communicate and collaborate more comfortably. In short, I have used this tool with great pleasure, enjoying working with my closest friends.

That's all from me for now. I hope you liked this post. Take care, see you soon! 💜

You can have a look at our padlet page here:

My First Wiki Page: It Was Fun!

Hello, everyone! In this post, I will talk about my first wiki page creation experience.

First of all, I was not alone while creating my first wiki page. My partner was Buse, she is one of my classmates. We worked on it and created the page together. You can go to her blog by clicking here.

Our first task on the wiki page was to write a film review for the Educational Technologies course. As I mentioned, we did this assignment in groups of two. We had the right to choose any movie we wanted for this assignment.

So, Buse and I chose the movie "Detachment" to watch, in which a temporary high school teacher named Henry plays the lead role. Afterwards, we watched this movie by taking notes. We organized the notes we took and decided the points we wanted to emphasize while creating the wiki page. At the end, we created the page by following the instructions given by our teacher. Of course, in the meantime, we did research about the movie and added some visual elements such as pictures and trailer videos.

As someone who already likes to write, I found this process fun and comfortable. It was a valuable experience to put my own ideas into words about a movie I watched, to support the content with images, and especially to work with a partner. It was easier to exchange ideas because my peer, Buse was one of my close friends.

In short, I think wikis are really useful as creative writing tools because they are guiding and even instructive in many different language areas such as vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure. Therefore, I think this tool is an important and reasonable option to improve students' writing skills.

That’s all from me for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Take care, see you soon! 💜

21st Century Learning And Technology: How Do They Relate To Each Other?

 

In today's world, technological devices are with us at every moment of our daily routine. We use technology everywhere. So what does this invention that has permeated every moment of our lives have to do with 21st-century learning?

First of all, it seems to me that the learning process is now unthinkable independent of technology. For example, we mostly meet our basic school needs such as taking notes, doing homework, and researching by using our smartphones. 

From primary school to university, from non-formal to formal education, now many learners use smartphones, computers, and smart boards. Therefore, I think learning in today's century and technology should be evaluated together, these two concepts should be completely intertwined.

Most importantly, as an English teacher candidate, I should talk about technology & language learning, too. To me, incorporating technological tools into the language classroom is one of the most important things to do. 

For instance, we need technology for aspects such as making students listen to some audio recordings to improve their listening skills or showing sample English videos to emphasize the importance of pronunciation. To do these, at least a regular internet connection and a smartphone/smart board are needed.

As I said, technology is now one of the milestones of twenty-first-century learning. Accordingly, we should strive to integrate our learning process with technological developments. At the end of the day, not accepting innovations or not being able to keep up with them only makes us "boomers", right?

That's all from me for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Take care, see you soon! 💜

Welcome, everyone!

 

My name is Şilan. I am 20 years old. I am a sophomore in the English Language Teaching(ELT) department at Marmara University, Turkey.

I created this blog to use in my course which is called "Educational Technologies". Although the main reason for the existence of this blog is my school, I hope to use it to improve myself, too.

I especially want to develop my English writing skills. I also aim to learn to use technological tools more comfortably. In short, I hope to learn how to use technology simultaneously with education, as well as share on certain topics.

If you want to contact me for any reason, you can fill out the contact form on the right of my page. You can also read the "about me" section on the left side of my blog to access more personal information about me. You can review my profile picture or check out my favorite singers/books/movies/activities.

Finally, you can go to the first post on my blog called "Technology & 21st Century Learning: What Does It Mean?" by clicking here.
That's all from me for now. I hope you enjoy reading my posts. Take care, see you soon!💜