Education and Technology

Derya Duğan. 20 years old. A student in ELT department of Marmara University.

[edtechnology-blog1]

Really Simple Syndication

Internet is one of the most important parts of our lives. We are following many sites such as blogs. However it is not so easy to follow all updates. So today I will share a tool I’ve learned in my instructional technology and material design course with you. 

What is RSS?

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". It is a way to easily distribute a list of headlines, update notices, and sometimes content to a wide number of people. It is used by computer programs that organize those headlines and notices for easy reading.

The main benefit of RSS is that you do not have to check the site every time for new content. When you subscribe to RSS, the reader itself notify you every time the new content is publish. 

Here is some examples of RSS:

-Feedly

-Newsblur

-Feedreader

-G2Reader

These are suitable for Windows, IOS, Android and Linux. You can use them online by subscribing them. You can also download them in your computer or phone.

I use Feedreader. It is very easy and free to use. You can follow all blogs with the help of Feedreader. You can categorize blogs. For example I follow Özge karaoğlu’s blog under the category of education. I highly recommend her blog. There are new ideas to teach english to young learners on her blog. You can visit her blog from here.

Source1

Source2

[edtechnology-blog1]

Web 2.0 TOOLS

In this post, we will be discussing web 2.0 tools for education.

Web 2.0 tools are tools of technology that allow teachers and students alike to create, collaborate, edit and share content on-line that is user-generated.

These can include tools for: presentation, research, collaboration, audio, video, slideshow, images, music, drawing, writing, organizing, mapping, quiz and test generation, file storage and web pages, and also tools for graphing and conversion.

These tools provide instant access to knowledge and dynamic learning environments. Learners can actively participate in learning process. Communication among students is facilitated so collaboration is encouraged.

You can find some of my favorite web 2.0 tools below. 

Source1

Source2

Source3

[edtechnology-blog1]

NEW WEEK WITH A NEW TOOL

Online Poster

Thanks to my Instructional Technology and Material Design course, I’ve learned a new tool and I want to share with you. Our task for this week was to create an online poster. We had two options; first one is movie poster book report project and the other one is magazine cover project. I chose magazine cover project and my theme is about a music festival. I used canva to create this poster. I highly recommend this site, it is very easy to use.

I think creating online poster is very suitable task for education. The process of the creating poster can be beneficial for students. Firstly they can work in pairs or groups. During the creating time, their communication skills will be improved. Also their creativity will be thrive. They will be more engaged with technology. In addition to all, the learning environment will be more fun and entertaining. So I would certainly use this tool with my students.

[edtechnology-blog1]

Hello everyone!

This week, our topic is digital storytelling. We were asked to create a digital story for our course. I will write about it and also share my own digital story with you. Let’s start!

What is Digital Storytelling?

Digital stories are multimedia presentations that combine a variety of communicative elements within a narrative structure. 

You can create personal or fictional digital stories and enrich it with pictures. However, digital storytelling has some elements to be considered. These elements are;

1. Point of View: What is the main point of the story and what is the perspective of the author?

2. A Dramatic Question: A key question that keeps the viewer's attention and will be answered by the end of the story.

3. Emotional Content: Serious issues that come alive in a personal and powerful way and connects the audience to the story.

4. The Gift of Your Voice: A way to personalize the story to help the audience understand the context. 5. The Power of the Soundtrack: Music or other sounds that support and embellish the story. 6. Economy: Using just enough content to tell the story without overloading the viewer. 7. Pacing:The rhythm of the story and how slowly or quickly it progresses.

DIGITAL STORYTELLING IN CLASSROOM

This tool is a great way of achieving 21st century skills. It provides your students to use technology, work collaboratively or individually, be creative. In addition, it has an important role to improve their vocabulary and pronunciation skills.

For this task we worked in pairs. My pair was Orhan and you can visit his site from here. We created a digital story about the development of the chicken embryo. We used microsoft video editor to create out story. Here is our video. 

Source1

Source2

[edtechnology-blog1]

WHAT IS PADLET?

Padlet is an online virtual “bulletin” board, where students and teachers can collaborate, reflect, share links and pictures, in a secure location.

The users can add images, links, videos and more. They also use the same board at the same time so Padlet is very useful for collaborative works. This week’s task was to create a Padlet in groups. Therefore I created a padlet about miscommunication with my friends and we did a street interview to learn the ideas of the people. You can reach our padlet from here.

IN THE CLASROOM

As I mentioned in the previous post, collaborative environment is very important in language teaching. Students can share their ideas quickly with their phones or computers. They can see each other’s post and give feedback immediately. There are so many ideas about use of padlet such as brainstorming, thinking maps, book discussions and more. For example, brainstorming is the most popular one for class. Teacher gives a topic students to brainstorm and students share their comments. Everybody can see what others think and discuss. Padlet is also used outside the classroom. For their homework and assignments, it is very useful. 

Padlet can have hindrances as well as good aspects. According to my experiences, in the areas such as subject determination, there can be group discussions while doing this project. The clear identification of the issue can accelerate the process. There may not be equal task distribution and post-sharing among students. I think, the teacher should pay attention to these points.

Source 1

Source 2

[edtechnology-blog1]

WIKI IN EDUCATION

Hello everyone! In this post, I will inform you about wiki. 

WHAT IS A WIKI?

A wiki is a server program that allows users to collaborate in forming the content of a Web site. The term comes from the word "wikiwiki," which means "fast" in the Hawaiian language. 

WHAT A WIKI MEANS IN TERMS OF EDUCATION?

Wikis are so useful to be productive for both students and teachers. Students can work, solve their problems and create new things all together. They can improve their writing skills and their participation in the subject increases. Besides teachers can use it for their classroom management, instructions, assignments etc.

Our assignment was to create a wiki page for this week. It was about our favorite book. We can see the other’s project in the same page and we can have an idea about other projects and books. We asked each other’s questions and answered them. So I can say that it helps us to work collaboratively.

You can visit my wiki from here. You also can comment on it. 

References

Source

[edtechnology-blog1]

PODCASTING

Dear readers, in this post we will be talking about podcasting and I’ll share my podcast with you.

WHAT IS A PODCAST?

A podcast or generically netcast, is an episodic series of digital audio or video files which a user can download in order to listen to. It is often available for subscription, so that new episodes are automatically downloaded via web syndication to the user's own local computer, mobile application, or portable media player.

ADVANTAGES OF PODCASTING IN LANGUAGE LEARNING?

Podcasting has numerous benefits in language learning and teaching. Firstly, it is easy to reach. Nowadays everyone has a mobile phone and internet. So, teachers can reach their students easily, make the learning process fun and take their students’ attention. By giving students podcast assignment, teachers can develop their students’ creativity and collaborative aspects. Furthermore podcasting is a great tool for students to improve their pronunciation, speaking and listening skills. While doing that, students can learn different things they have never known.

MY PODCAST

Click here to reach my podcast. 

I created this podcast with my friend Orhan. We arranged our podcast by using Podomatic. It is a quite easy to use. I recommend you all. 

This the transcript of our podcast:

 It was such a lovely day me and my friend were suddenly heard a loud scream. We just stopped and looked around to see what’s going on. We saw a man and a woman in the park. The man was trying to take woman’s bag, they were fighting. At the end thief grabbed the bag and we decided to run after him but he was so fast we run run after him till the bridge and caught him and grabbed the bag. But he punched my friend. The woman came to us and asked: -Are you OK? And we said: -Yes,We are fine. And then we decided to call the police. They arrived in a few minutes.Police officers started to ask question about the thief. We tried to describe him but we couldn’t see the thief’s face.And then a fortuneteller came and asked questions about the incident and she said(with a manly voice): -I can tell you here the man is. Police said: -How? How can you say?Did you see him? She said: -No I didn’t but I can help you, I have magical powers. She picked her magical ball. It was shining like mirror. She started to tell about the thief’s place: - I see, I see a postman and a post office. He lives next to the post office on the Basket Street. I can see a number. Ahaaa! 18! 18! I swear the God I found him. Police officers were shocked just like us.They believed in her and hit to the road to find him. But...What was that? The fortuneteller was the thief, he just fooled all of us.He grabbed the bag and disappeared again. The woman started to cry desperately. 

References

Source1

Source2

[edtechnology-blog1]

TEACHING WITH TECHNOLOGY PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT

 ( taken from here)

   The world is in constant change and its reflection in education is a fact that cannot be ignored. My goal as a teacher is to support my students with the newest ways of learning by contributing them to think more critical, be an individual with high communication skills and more collaborative. At this point, technology is a great opportunity for these goals.

     Technology is now in all areas of our lives and people of all ages intertwined with it. So education cannot be considered without technology. It takes seconds to get to the information and we don't have to waste time with books or encyclopedias. I think the technology is a great tool to quickly reach information, to share our knowledge, to improve itself and to eliminate deficiencies. The learning process supported by various tools is becoming more entertaining for students. It also makes the technology learning process for teachers easier to follow. It provides the opportunity to interact with students outside the classroom environment. In addition, parents can follow their children at any time and be aware of their development.

     On the other hand technology may contain inappropriate items or too much information may mislead them and cause them to lose time. It can also be a source of distraction and a reason for worse grades. The excessive use of technology is also a hindrance to all student's communication and social skills. For all these reasons, teachers and parents should be careful throughout the process.

      I know that my most important responsibility as a teacher is to be a follower of my students in this process. I’ll support them appropriately when needed and give them a chance to become independent individuals. I will teach them with different ways of learning and help them practice more. For more participation, I will make the process fun and motivating. 

References

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

[edtechnology-blog1]

NEW CLASSES WITH NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Hi guys! In this post I am going to mention about computer assisted language learning and its importance for learners and teachers. Let’s look its meaning first.

What is CALL?

“Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is an approach to language teaching and learning in which computer technology is used as an aid to the presentation, reinforcement and assessment of material to be learned, usually including a substantial interactive element.” 

This can be a little scientific :) In other words CALL is a new way of learning and teaching which the process is more integrated with technology. We see again the importance of technology.

But why is technology so important for education?

Technology is a chance to make our learning process more vivid and fun for both teachers and learners. It is also time saving and a great tool to take attention. And moreover, it has many advantages that we cannot count. Therefore technology have been used for these reasons since the beginning of 20th century. You can also see the timeline of the technological development of classes. This development, which started with the use of radio, has now evolved into the use of artificial intelligence. Learners and teachers can reach someone in any part of the world with their blogs. They can conduct any information from different sources and share that information with anyone. Learners can easily express their ideas and teachers can follow them without being in class. In addition being integrated with technology offers many opportunities such as practicing, testing.

After seeing these opportunities, I hope that students and teachers can integrate with it and use this system efficiently. If you want to add something, I am waiting for your comments.

 See you in the next post!

References

source 1

source 2

[edtechnology-blog1]

21st Century Learning

Could our ways of learning have not changed in a period of unstoppable change? Of course not!  The new century brought with it a number of changes to education with itself. Let's see what these changes and 21st century learning are.

Change is everywhere!

The way we learn has changed because our world has changed. 21st century learning means that the students should have some skills to be able to understand and use the knowledge efficiently. These skills are also required to achieve their career goals. These skills are defined as 4Cs: critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, communication. Learners must be cooperative and individuals with high communication skills. They must have the ability to adapt quickly to the rapidly changing platforms and the world. They must be creative, different and think in a critical way.

Why is technology important in the 21st century?

Technology is a great way to have 21st century learning skills. Compared to the past, schools are no longer just classrooms where students sit and listen. Today’s learners are creators and doers which means classes are now learner-centered. Today's classrooms are also full of technology and each student has a unique learning method. And technology enables us to access information quickly and is a chance to have a connection with people across the world.

At this point what skills do you think teachers should have? I am waiting for your answers!

References

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

[edtechnology-blog1]

WELCOME TO MY BLOG!

Hello everyone! You are reading my first post of my blog and I am so excited to see you in my page :) Firstly, I am Derya and 20 years old. I am a student and prospective English teacher in ELT department of Marmara University.

I created this blog to share what I learned in my Instructional Technologies and Material Design class. This means that you can find my posts about education and technology. You can also see different course materials and have ideas.

Have a good time!