About Call (the end.. :))

At the first lesson of the term, I had some fears about this lesson. I have some prejudice about this course. But my thoughts changed a lot.

This lesson was so useful for us. There are many applications and tools about learning English. I learned a lot of new things and I have developed my using the internet in teaching English. I can use in the future what I learned. There were many tasks to do in the second term, I sometimes get bored while I was studying and doing my tasks. But I learned many things while I was doing them.

I sometimes had some difficulties about the tasks. I have not internet connection in my house. I often went to my friends to do the tasks. Sometimes I used the internet from my mobile phone but it was limited. Therefore, I did my some tasks late but I did all of them.

Finally, I want to say that I am happy with this lesson but I am sad about that the school will be over. I will miss my friends and even I will miss Bolu. I hope that all of us have a nice future 🙂

Weebly and Second Life (Week 12)

This was the last lesson of the term. In this lesson, the teacher mentioned two topics: Weebly and Second Life.

Firstly, I want to mention “weebly”. This is about our final project, creating and publishing a web page. We had an account from Weebly. We will make a web page and we will share our story jumper, digital story telling, podcast, online communities of practice, mobile application. In addition these, we will add some information about us such as biograpy, twitter account, facebook page, personal interest, e-mail adress, blog adress.

Secondly, I want to mention “second life”. It is a new information for me. It is like just a real life. People can do everything that they do real life by using 3D virtual worlds. They can build a 3-d house or a shopping center, earning money, meeting new people from the world, organizing parties and so on. I liked it very much 🙂

Podcasting (Week 11 )

In this lesson, we have learned podcasts and audioboo. Both of these tools are new for me. Firstly, audioboo is a website designed to allow users to post and share sound files on the audioboo website. It allows smartphone users to record and playback digital recordings. It is very useful for the users of smartphone. We can use it for reporting, storytelling, education. It can be used quite easily in the classroom.

Secondly, podcasting involves placing recorded material on a website from which it can be downloaded and listened to at a later time. We can use podcasts to prepare students for learning something new, propose and explain a complex concept, provide some alternative strategies for understanding new content.

Podcasting enables us lots of advantages for teaching. It is easy to create, distribute, and download — no professional equipment is required. It is available anytime and anywhere for students. I think that it is useful for students to increase their English learning, speaking and listening skills.

Week 10

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Twitter & Facebook (Week 9)

This week, our topic was twitter and facebook. I couldn’t attend the class in this week but I learned from my friends. They said that the teacher wanted everyone to have an account on twitter and facebook. I have already facebook and twitter account. I follow my friends and some pages related to ELT.

Using of social media tools in ELT is very effective for teaching and learning. Both facebook and twitter can be used in language classes. We can use them for announcements and assignments. But these tools needs internet connection. All of the students in the class can not have an internet connection.

As a result, I want to use them in the future for my students if it is possible.

Week 8

Wiziq is a collaborative learning platform for teachers and students. It is about to online conference tool. In this lesson, we created a new account an wiziq.com to access it.

This site is designed to help students and teachers find each other, and to provide an online virtual classroom learning environment. WizIQ also serves as a social networking site to bring together educators and students from around the world. Teachers upload their profiles advertising what they teach, tutorials, their experience.

Teachers can give a lesson and students can participate asking questions. Also this lesson can be recorded and can be listened again and again. Owing to wiziq, anyone can teach or learn anytime and anyplace, and it makes education accessible to everyone.

I think it is so useful for students and teachers. I’m going to use it for my teaching.

Online classroom (Week 7)

This week the teacher mentioned online classrom. This is a very useful tool for both teaching and learning. In this lesson, we learned two ways of it. The first one is “Nicenet”. Nicenet is free and we can use it wherever we want.Especially it is useful for us because we can use it our classes and we can create a class for our students. Teachers can teach anything if there is distance as a face to face teaching. Also, we can share some documents or materials or we can give homework and check them on Nicenet.

The second one is “Dokeos”. I think that this is more useful than Nicenet. It is a kind of Facebook but it is closed to people from outside and everybody cannot see it if they are not memebers of Dokeos. As teaching English, we can add quizzes which improve the students’ knowledge about the topics. We have to have internet connection for both of them. All of the students can participate to the lesson actively by using them in our teaching.

They are very useful for us. When we become a teacher, we can use online class. This system is very useful and interesting for the students.

Prezi (Week 6)

In this lesson, I learned ‘prezi’. It is an online presentation tool. I always use powerpoint to prepare a presentation but after this lesson, I will use prezi, also. During the lesson, the teacher showed some presentation. I liked them very much.

Prezi has a special feature, zoom; we can enlarge the slides. I think it is so pleasant. Therefore, in the future, when we teach a lesson with prezi, even a student who doesn’t want to listen to the lesson might be interested in the lesson. It is a great presentation tool.

Prezi is very useful to draw students’ attention.

Mobile Learning (Week 5)

This week we learnt about M-learning. Mobile learning is a big advantage for smart phone users. It has lots of benefits.

During the lesson we learned how we can use them. Some of them :

Google reader,
Gmail,
Feedly,
Skype,
Flipboard,
Ted talk,
Edmodo,
Socrative teacher
Dropbox,
Qr droid,
Dictionaries,
Twitter and so on.

The teacher mentioned all of them. Mobile learning is becoming a very active process of teaching. Also, students are curious about technology and mobile learning can be enjoyable for students.

All of the items are useful for us, I can use them in the future.

Online Groups (Week 4)

The topic of the week is online groups such as Facebook groups, Google groups and Yahoo groups. I know and use just facebook. I just heard the other groups’ name. I want to mention to you yahoo. It is widely known for its web portal, search engine, and related services. Answers, advertising, online mapping, video sharing, fantasy sports and its social media website. It is one of the most popular sites in the United States. “Yahoo” provides Internet communication services such as Yahoo messenger and yahoo e-mail.

All the groups are too useful for us to make essential connections for learning, collaboration and sharing information. They can help us and our students in learning or teaching English. I’m a member of these groups:

https://www.facebook.com/LearnEnglish.BritishCouncilTurkey

https://www.facebook.com/Eltturkey

https://www.facebook.com/English.Material.Club

https://www.facebook.com/Elt.teachers