G O O D B Y E

 

When I look back on how I came in contact with English lessons in my school days, technology rarely played a role. At most, videos were played in English class, or a CD of the teacher's songs was used to introduce us to the new topic. Before this 'Educational Technologies' course, I had never recorded a podcast, created a storytelling video, let alone created an entire blog. I think at this time it is important to integrate technology in the classroom. Students of all ages are in constant contact with technology in their private lives, be it on their iPad, cell phone, or thanks to video games. So why not use their interest in technology in a simple and fun way for learning purposes? In many cases, I think access to technology learning is also hindered by parents and teachers. Especially at my old schools, before I went to university, the teachers were often a bit older and couldn't even get used to interactive whiteboards. They simply weren't ready to educate themselves technologically and pass on knowledge with the help of technology - there were always only worksheets and their information came from at least 10-year-old index cards that were almost falling apart.

I really enjoyed the course and even though we were given assignments it didn't feel like we were limited in any way in our creativity. I loved that the teacher introduced us to so many helpful websites from all different learning categories, as I didn't know many of them but found them very well constructed and even recommended them to my mother who teaches English at an elementary school in Germany.

My favorite assignments of the whole course were creating the movie poster and infographic. I can't really explain why, but I was able to let my creativity run free and were only bound by small guidelines when it came to the design or the information. The tasks I didn't like so much were the blog entry about 21st-century learning because it seemed a bit stiff and boring in contrast to the other tasks, and the storytelling task. Not because of the assignment itself, I thought that was great, but because I really haven't gotten a foothold in video editing yet and couldn't meet the time limit either.

As a small note to improve the course, I would only suggest that the students can decide for themselves whether they want to complete each task in groups or individually (except, of course, for tasks where group work is not possible). However, this is only a personal opinion, because I, unfortunately, do not like group work at all and have had only bad experiences for years. Otherwise, it was a very great course, without stress with a lot of fun and a great, friendly, and open-hearted teacher. 

Thank you for a great time!

See you soon, 

ONCE UPON A TIME ...

- Storytelling - 

Today I would like to talk about my storytelling assignment. I did the task individually.

Our teacher gave us three different storytelling projects to choose from. I chose Project 1 - Creating a Public Service Announcement (PSA). These are short announcements/summaries that are meant to inform, educate, and in the best-case scenario, move humanity to action.

The teacher told us to think about what facts we want to include, what target audience we want to address, make sure that our topic is brief but its reason is clearly stated, and what goal we want to achieve or what we would like people to do after watching our storytelling video.

I chose to create a video about the environmental pollution issue in turkey through waste with the goal that people take their own action on the chosen issue. My biggest obstacle was to stick to the given time span of the video (60 sec.) which, as you can see from my video, I did NOT succeed in. It was simply impossible for me to limit this topic to 60 sec., even though that might have consequences for my grade.

For creating my storytelling video I used the platform 'Vimeo' which offers a great selection of templates, stickers, short clip videos, and general design editing sectors. The website was easy to use, editing went without a hitch and the video was downloaded without a problem. I then recorded my voiceover, looked for some quiet piano music, and played both audio files onto my video using 'InShot'. InShot is a great mobile app to edit and recreate videos, super easy to use, downloads work without problems and it offers a good quality as well.

Storytelling is helpful for the language classroom because it is a place to practice English language skills as well as communication skills in general and it builds a community (perhaps if people would like to share their opinion about your storytelling topic because they feel personally attached to it). Creating the video could increase computer skills and knowledge about helpful designing tools on the internet.

Furthermore, the creativity of the students is stimulated, the topics and possibilities of interpretation are multifaceted and, to a large extent, the students work on something they have chosen themselves.

So, what do you think about my chosen topic for the storytelling?
Let us chat in the comment box below!

See you soon, 

NEWS ABOUT INFOGRAPHICS

 

Today I want to talk about infographics. According to Wikipedia, infographics are “[…] graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly“.

Our teacher gave us the possibility to choose between three different infographic approaches, so I decided to create my own infographic on how to be/become a good teacher. I didn’t have any clear instructions which makes it a wide and creative task because I’m able to decide what I want to include and what not and how to design it supportively. Of course, Infographics should include images, graphics, diagrams, visual data, etc. So this is what I had to take care of. 

 

I used “www.canva.com“ as my creating-an-infographic-tool because (as mentioned in my last blogpost) Canva is a great online design and publishing tool that deals with the creative design of presentations, posters, flyers, cards, videos, collages, worksheets, as well as infographics. It provides all kinds of great templates which are easy to fill with information and easily editable. For my infographic, I used a given template from the free example section and edited and filled it with pictures, facts, useful information, and my research sources. 

In my opinion, creating an infographic is useful for language learners because it functions as a great “summary“ work underlined with important facts in form of numbers, diagrams, statistics, etc. It requires good research and professional sources and the strength to present these information creatively. Furthermore, the teacher is able to give any instructions he/she wants because infographics could be basically about anything and could be involved with every topic. 

What are your thoughts about my infographic? Anything that you would like to add? Let me know in the comment box below!

See you soon, 

MOVIE POSTERS - THE RIGHT APPROACH?

 

My task was to create a movie poster about a book I read which (in my imagination) will be made into a movie. The poster will be part of an advertising strategy.

I chose “Five feet apart”.

The poster should contain the title of the film in large visible letters while being the center of attention. The names of the author as director and the name of the producer (me) of the film should be mentioned on the poster. The focus of the poster should be an attention-grabbing illustration or collage that reflects the idea of the film's story without adopting the book cover 1-to-1. Furthermore, quotes from the actors as well as a certain 'tagline' should be added to increase the attention and interest of any person who saw the poster (doesn't matter if they read the book before or not) to watch the movie. Lastly, the poster should also have a rating or commentary as a critique.

To create my poster I used the website "www.canva.com". Canva is an online design and publishing tool that deals with the creative design of presentations, posters, flyers, cards, videos, collages, worksheets, etc.  It offers templates that can be filled in and used directly (e.g. worksheets for teachers) but can also be modified further. After that, various download options are available, although one must keep in mind that not all designs are free of charge.

I think the assignment was great and well-implemented (even though I think my poster version is a bit overloaded, due to all the information it must contain). For later, I can very well imagine incorporating this task in my "eventual teaching", because as I also mentioned in previous postings about the other tasks, students can spread their creativity in any direction they want with the help of technical devices and interesting ways to present their ideas and creations.

What are your thoughts about my movie poster? Any tips on how I can improve my work? Let me know in the comment box below!

See you soon, 

PADLET - A BLANK WALL FOR STUDENTS IDEAS

 

My task was to create a padlet in a group work (3) about a self-chosen topic. My group chose the topic ‘Migration‘. The teacher gave us the possibility to narrow down the topic to a local level, e.g. migration in Turkey, so some of the group members decided to find information for a region, others talked about the topic from a wider angle. Our teacher wanted us to create a KWL chart on our padlet including a list of ‘WHAT WE KNOW, so our basic knowledge about the topic without researching on the internet, ‘WANT TO KNOW‘, at least three questions we ask ourselves in the research process and we assume to answer and ‘WHAT WE LEARNED‘, the answers to our questions after we research on the internet. We were also able to support our topic and the given information with links to other websites, videos, visuals, or other sources we might find helpful in our research process.

The task was easy to understand and padlet is a great and easy manageable tool. It offers great templates to give your padlet a personal touch and gives you the possibility to change the whole set as well as upload your own pictures as a background or as topic support, divide the posts into different colors to connect related information, links and videos are easy to embed, which is great for me because I often struggle to link my sources according to the given instructions if the tool doesn’t show me an easy approach to it. In my opinion, padlet can be used with any age group and it is a great way to gather information about a specific topic especially when it comes to group or classwork.

I'm still in the process of learning how to learn and teach through and with websites and how to use them successfully. The course 'Educational Technologies' showed and shows us that technology should contribute to the lesson, especially because the technology century is growing and growing day by day. Technology shouldn't be seen as a threat or a distraction. We can use it as a support in our learning process to gain new information and to learn how to work with technology. It's important to use websites and tools like Padlet or creating podcasts and blog posts, digital stories, etc. in classes if we want to integrate technology in the right and most successful way.

And even if some people might not want to admit it, technology can make your life easier in many ways.

Here is the link to our padlet, if you would like to have a look: PADLET

Have you used ‚Padlet‘ before?  If yes, what are your thoughts about it? Let me know what you think about the tool in the comments below!

See you soon, 

VENI, VIDI, “WIKI”… ?

My task was to create a film review as a wiki page, including the movies trailer, pictures, overall background information about the film (actors/actresses, director, type of movie, etc.) as well as describing the main features and parts of the storyline (of course without any spoiler, nobody likes them) and lastly general comments and opinions about the acting, the music, the settings, animation, etc. including my opinion if I would recommend the movie or not and if, why. 

The film of my choice is called “Five feet apart”. A love drama about two teenagers, both suffering from cystic fibrosis, damned to stay away from each other at all costs, due to the high infection rate that could cost them their lives but still hit by Cupid’s arrow and madly in love with each other. Fits the sentence: “The heart wants what it wants”, or?

The task was easy to understand and fulfill. The wiki page is easily editable but doesn’t have enough creative features in my opinion (background, more fonts, colors…). For me it wasn’t hard to write the review due to the given example document by the teacher and because opinion-based writing is easier for me than theory-based writing. 

Yes, I would use wikis with my students in the future because of the variety of different theme-based wikis and because it’s an easily understandable tool. For the students, it is good to know how wikis work and if they should consider using information out of wikis or not, and why. 

So if you are interested in more information about my chosen movie, why don’t you take a look at my film review above? 

Let me know in the comment box below if you consider watching the movie after you read my film review or not and why? Or have you maybe seen the movie already? Then share your opinions about it with me in the comments! 

See you soon, 

ONE STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

 What are you doing for others? 

My task was to create a 60-second podcast about an inspiring idea to make the world a better place to live in. The content of my podcast deals with the idea of a one-day per week voluntary day, showing examples of how and where to offer a helping hand and the advantages you gain for yourself, thanks to volunteering.

I had fun creating this assignment, even though I struggled to find an idea at first because the idea I chose now was the first one that came to my mind and I thought I had to find something more revolutionary but in the end, I said to myself: “Why it has to be more revolutionary than this?“ Sometimes the little things matter the most and can change the whole day of a person's life. Isn’t that revolutionary enough? Okay, to be honest, we could make it more interesting by saying the voluntary day is regulated through an app that shows anyone who uses the app with (maybe a radius of 10 km) where help is needed (e.g. animal shelter, homeless shelter, children’s home, etc.) so everyone can choose freely where to go and offer a helping hand (but that really didn’t fit into the 60-seconds limit 😋)

I liked the assignment idea a lot and I could see myself using it in my classes and lessons in the future (if I will ever be a teacher, of course). Students can spread their creativity in any direction they want with the help of technical devices and interesting ways to present their ideas and creations (e.g. singing in the podcast or 60-second time limit etc.)

And by saying so: A little creativity kick never hurt nobody right? ;-)

See you soon, 

#podcast #voluntaryday #helpingothers #sharingiscaring #work

 

WHAT IS COMING IS BETTER THAN WHAT IS GONE

 

 21st-Century Learning - What it is about?

Twenty-first-century learning is mostly based on a digital learning terrain. People connect and communicate with other people all around the globe through different kinds of digital devices. Students rely more and more on overall and context-based information from the internet through different kinds of search machines instead of using books for their researches (e.g. Google Scholar). 

They kind of create their own virtual classroom and deliver content with the help of their improving media and computer network skills and expertise. They develop and need more life and career - innovation - and technology skills to use the wide variety of sources hovering on the internet effectively and accurately. It is important to analyze and organize the media sources based on the context you are using them as support. 

Students should get used to being open to new developments and taking good advantage of them, as well as being able to adapt to new developments. This also includes improving multi-tasking and managing self-directed. It is always helpful to look at a problem from more than one angle which improves critical and innovative thinking by creating new approaches. All these skills, strategies, team works, etc. help students to maintain efficiency and network with others because as we all know - we have to prepare ourselves for the occurring real-life challenges of today’s world. 

After all, new ways and techniques of learning how to be successful will never stop arising. 

What are your opinions on this theme? Let us talk about it in the comments! 

See you soon, 

#21stcenturylearning #newpossibilities #digitallearning #communication #skills #network

FIRST BLOG POST

Hello friends!  Welcome to my first blog post! 

My Name is Anna Çavunmirza and I’m currently studying abroad at Marmara University in Istanbul. However, my roots are German. At my home university, I study in the field of Translation and international/intercultural communication but my dream is to be a language teacher for German and English.

Since I’m a little girl, my family visits turkey every year. We spent lovely summer and autumn months in this beautiful country. That’s also where I met my husband and a reason why this blog will be filled with travel -, culture -, food -, etc. inspirations and experiences. After 5 years in a long-distance relationship and many holidays later, I’m pretty sure I can show you some nice spots in turkey as well as other countries or places I visited. I will emigrate next year and turkey will then be my permanent home country, which leads to the question: 

What are you as readers can expect from this blog?

Simply said: my thoughts, feelings, good and critical experiences, travel inspirations, culture shocks, and comparisons, etc. In other words: You will be my travel buddies. 

The rest you will see if you follow this blog ;-)

… So what do I expect from you in return?

Simply that you enjoy scrolling through this blog. Maybe you find yourself smiling while reading some of my experiences or thoughts. Maybe you even encountered a similar situation in life and you agree or disagree with me. Of course, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section under each blog post as well as tips on how to improve my blog post skills or wishes about things and themes you would like me to include in any further blog post. Communication is the key!

So before I bombard you with travel inspirations in the further weeks and months, why do you not tell me what your favorite spot in this world has been so far and why?

Let me know in the comments below and maybe I will find my next travel destination there? ;-)

See you soon, 

#firstblogpost #traveling #holdiday #adventure #inspiration #culture #aboutme