IT IS REALLY ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIALS DESIGN!

Hello everyone.

In this post, I want to tell you all my thoughts and experiences about the Technology and Materials Design course which is I have been taking in university this year. As I mentioned before, this blog was opened as a requirement of the Technology and Materials Design course. But I never wrote on this blog as a necessity of this course.

Picture 1

When I heard the name of this course at the very beginning of the semester, I thought that I will spend a period with papers, cartons, colored pencils and etc. However, I was quite surprised that the content of the lesson was totally different from what I had expected.

The course was theoretical actually in the first weeks. We have been informed about the content of the course, how it will be handled, what the blog is like, and so on.

You have known me for about 10 weeks, my friends, my family and my teachers also have known me and I've already mentioned it before; I am not good at technology and something related to technology. Maybe it's because I do not have any interest. But, I managed this course.

Picture 2

Collaboration is the most important thing that helped me during this period of my life. When I collaborate with somebody, I feel more confident and more relaxed.

While setting my blog for the first time, I wanted my friend's to help me. Then, I learned a lot of things that helped me during this blogging process like embedding a link, adding visuals, setting the background etc.

I wrote more than ten posts whether they were obligatory or not. Because while I was writing, I was enjoying at the same time. Even it was hard, it was still enjoyable.

Picture 3

The behaviors of my instructor also effected my view on this couse. Because I believe that I can listen to the teacher's lesson I love. So it was an important point for me on this issue.

Considering all this, I will continue blogging because in the future when I work as a teacher, I will easily find sources that help me that prepared by me. It is amazing!

If you want, you can follow my instructor's blog here.

I highly recommend you to look at it.

The picture above is taken from here.

Picture 1 is taken from here.

Picture 2 is taken from here.

Picture 3 is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

KAHOOT : TOOLS FOR EVERYONE!

Hello everyone.

I want to start by saying a lot of apologies to my words. I have not been able to write anything in almost three weeks. I could almost say that these three weeks were the busiest three weeks of my life. In addition to the Technology and Materials Design course, I also had an assignment to complete for Scientific Research Methods course. Anyway, I can finally write my posts.

First of all, I want to talk about a tool I made a presentation with my friend Hasan in the class I had experienced during this period. It was Kahoot. It is simply a web-based tool that allows you to prepare quizzes, discussions and surveys on it.

In details, a Kahoot can be created by teachers, students, business-people or social users and it can be played with an unlimited number of users.

The most common type that is created by using this tool is Quiz. In a Quiz, you can add as many questions as you want. Also you can use videos, pictures or something visual while adding the questions. In a question, you should mention at least two at most four options to answer. There should be one correct answer and you have to set a time-limit for each question.

The other type is the Discussion type. Discussions are designed to facilitate a conversation. When people attend the conversation, there is one quick question with no right or wrong answer. You can use visuals while adding the questions as well. You can also set a time-limit. In this type, everyone in the conversation is supposed to mention their thoughts on this issue. I think this one is more business-like, but if our aim is to create a business-like atmosphere, we can use it everywhere else.

The last type you can create by using this tool is Survey. You can add questions as many as you want related to your topic. By preparing the questions, you can add visuals. Also in this type you have to add at least two at most four options but none of is the right answer. Because, this is a survey, you can just collect data, you cannot examine people.

I will share my PowerPoint slides below which I used in the classroom while presenting this tool and I will also share a slide about 'The Milestones of Fashion History' because me and my friend Hasan created a Quiz type of Kahoot related to this topic.

This tool can be very useful for anyone who has to deal with people after giving courses or presenting a topic etc. with the help of Quizzes. Also in companies, schools or any place where society is with the help of Discussions and Surveys, dealing with the problems can be more easier.

You can access detailed information about Kahoot below:

KAHOOT by Oğulcan on Scribd

You can have a look before test yourself below.

The Milestones of Fashion History by Oğulcan on Scribd

You can test yourself on Kahoot with the code: '8776953'

The picture above is taken from here.

If you want, you can follow Hasan's blog here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE BEST FRIENDS? : DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Hello everyone.

This is the second post in this week. I apologize for not posting last week. I am publishing this post this week to make up for it. 

As you know, I am writing this blog as a requirement of the Technology and Material Design course. One of our assignments this week was to create a digital storytelling. 

For this reason, my best friend Hasan and I decided to meet and make a story about friendship. What we really need to do is to simply introduce ourselves in the story, to tell us how we met and to say what friendship is for us. But it made us a little scared to try something we had never experienced before. Later on we figured out how simple it was. 

First of all we started by taking the necessary materials such as colorful papers, scissors, pens etc. from the stationery. Later we went to a place where we could work quietly and recorded our video. Actually, after this part, I can say that Hasan made the majority of the work. 

We edited the video first with the editing program called VEGAS Pro. With our voice recorder on my phone, we recorded our audio and inserted the video. After all the editing process we uploaded our video to Youtube. 

As I mentioned before, working with someone on such projects is really useful. We complement each other in matters we do not know, and this simplifies our work. 

Giving the students the task of creating digital stories in English classes can improve their English. Because in this process the student will think in English and record their voices while creating the story. Especially, as in our country, it may prevent English being learned only theoretically.,

You can watch our digital story below.

You can download the editing program by clicking here.

If you want, you can also follow  Hasan's blog here.

The picture above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

ENGLISH IS IN MY POCKET: MOBILE LEARNING

Hello everyone.

This week I examined an application on mobile learning. This application is Duolingo. This app is an application that aims to teach language especially English with fun and it is free on mobile devices. 




The application simply works as follows; First of all, after you log in to the application, you are asked whether you are new in learning English or you want to pass the placement test. I solved the placement test. In this test, which lasted about 3 minutes, there were questions in listening, reading, writing and speaking parts. I got to level 9. After this step the application exempts you from the tests of the levels you jump.

The application categorized English as grammar and practice in general. You click on the topic you want to solve such as Foods, Simple Present Tense, etc., and then you see the number of lessons that need to be solved for that topic. At low levels, the number of courses starts at 4 and goes up to 8 at higher levels. If you do not want to complete the topic's lessons lesson by lesson, you have the option of taking the proficiency exam and jumping that one at a time.

The colors of the lessons you have not solved yet are gray. The color of the courses you complete turns into orange. According to the color of the courses you leave halfway, it turns into red or green.

Some of the questions in the lessons are supported by visuals and some of them are answered by recording your voice.

However, many questions in the application usually in the form of translate from Turkish to English or from English to Turkish.

The most favorite feature of this application is that when you give the right answer, it says 'Your answer is correct!' and when you give the wrong answer it says 'You answered wrong!' and warns you by saying the right answer.

The application also aims to have fun competing with friends to increase the amount of fun a bit. In addition, after passing the levels, the application gives you langots and you can visit the app's shop and buy power-ups.

The application aims to teach only two languages (English and German) for Turkish speakers, but for English speakers it offers many language learning options from Spanish to French, Japanese to Catalan.

If you download this application on your mobile device and start to use it, I recommend you to solve the placement test at the beginning of the application.

You can visit the website of this application just by clicking here.

You can download this application by clicking here.

The picture above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

USE BUT BE AWARE: WEBSITE EVALUATION

Hello everyone.

I evaluated a website for you this week. I am very excited to tell you about this phenomenal experience for me. 

First of all I started by looking for a website to evaluate the work. You know I usually post about ELT and young learners on my blog. For this reason, I was supposed to evaluate a website related to learning and teaching English by our instructor from university. I chose ESLGold to evaluate. 

At first it seemes a bit boring in fact, but as I continued to evaluate, I realized that how useful it was. 

While evaluating the website, I also had the opportunity to explore the website. And I got little tips on how to use this website appropriately for its purpose. Also, proceeding according to the form given to us by our instructor made it a little easier to study on this issue.

I used the form which was provided by our instructor to evaluate the website. It made this evaluation easier and it included the questions listed below.

1.Who authored the website? Is there any information about their qualifications or credentials?

1.The website is administered by ESLGold Teachers. There are eight teachers in charge of preparing content for this website. Each one has their own profile and they have academic information about themselves. If you want, you can get detailed knowledge about teachers and their experiences in their lives. 

Picture 1

Additionally, this website is a website that appeals to people of all ages, has appropriate content, is constantly updated and frequently visited.

2.What is the content of the website?

2.The website generally provides content related to English teaching, such as tests, quizzes, courses, videos, study guides for students of all ages. Especially those activities are provided, such as reading, writing, speaking, listening, Business English, vocabulary and TOEFL. Students can also find an ideal tutor to help them learn English one-on-one in this website.

Picture 2

3.Who is the target audience?

3.The target audience that this website wants to reach is anyone who wants to learn English and also the teachers who want to use the materials which are provided by this website.

Picture 3

4.What is the purpose of the website?

4.The purpose of this website is to teach people English in an entertaining way through videos, daily lessons and activities. Also this websites aims to provide free resources for teachers and students, all categorized by skill and level.

5.Is there a date that shows when the site has last been updated?

5.At the bottom of the website is a date for the latest update in 2017.

Picture 4

6.Accuracy of the information- Are there any errors?

6.Because this website was prepared by experts in the field, no errors were made when the information was given. We can see that there is no error when we check a sub-tab of each tab on the site.

Picture 5

7.Are there any broken links?

7.Some videos linked to the site are unavailable because these videos have been deleted from their source and there are broken links because the parts of the site are not updated.

Picture 6

8.Are the images of high quality and appealing to the target audience?

8.When you click on the website, the pictures on the home page and the main tabs are loaded with high quality, but when website is checked in detail, it is noticed that some photos are downloaded at low quality. But all the photos appeal to the target audience.

Picture 7

Picture 8

9.How can it be applied to EFL teaching?

9.Many of the contents on the website are correlated with teaching English. For this reason, we can use this site effectively by telling the students to use the website as a resource when giving an assignment, by watching the videos at the school during the course and by applying the quizzes and tests at the school.

Lastly, I would like to present you two recommendations;

One of them is that while you are going to work on a project which is based on websites, it will be very useful for you to use the website by evaluating it.

The other one is that you can check out the website where I learned a lot of useful information when writing this post, and I think it will be very helpful if you are interested in learning and teaching English.

Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3, Picture 4, Picture 5, Picture 6, Picture 7 and Picture 8 are taken from the website which I evaluated.

You can visit the website just by clicking here.

The picture above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

BEST FRIEND APPROACH

Hello everyone.

Today, I would like to talk about an approach of my own which is originated from colloborative group works. I have been experiencing this approach for 6 months with youngers.

Those who follows me from social media and those who read my previous post 'How To Deal With Young Learners In 5 Steps?' certainly know that while I am studying at university, I also work part-time as an English teacher in two kindergartens. In general, we follow a TPR-based approach in education, but I have developed a system that will enable children to focus more on the lesson and feel more secure.

While using The Best Friend Approach, I basically try to create a more relaxed environment by pairing students with their best friends in team works. I detect the best friends with the technique which I will explain in the next paragraph.

First I tell the kids to close their eyes and start imagining. In an amusement park, I tell them they were together with their favorite friends walked hand in hand all day and ate ice cream with details.  After a five minute-imagination, I tell the kids to open their eyes. And I ask them the critical question; 

'Who was there in the amusement park with you?'

According to the responses I received, in conversations, hand-held dance activities, group works, etc., I am matching the children with their best friends.

Pros;
-With this approach, children are more comfortable while participating in lessons.
-Children can express themselves more easily to their close friends.

Cons;
-Children's communication with other students is broken for that activity.
-This approach is difficult and time-consuming to apply to students who are not preschoolers.

I hope I can help you.

This gif above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

CINEWIKI: THE GREEN MILE

Hello everyone.

I have experienced Wiki for you this week. I will give you some information about the Wiki, and I will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the Wiki.

A wiki is a website that provides collaborative modification of it's content and structure directly from the web browser.

While I was experiencing this website, I reviewed an Academy Award-winning film 'The Green Mile'. I worked with my friend Hasan in this project. First we started by creating a wiki on the website that our teacher prepared for us. We started reviewing the movie we chose. In addition to what we generally remember, we used the information about the movie on the Internet while we were creating our Wiki page. We added some pictures, gifs and the trailer of the movie.

In regards to advantages, we can say that Wiki is a site that could entertain the readers as well as teach them things. Besides, people in the world can work on the same document.

The disadvantages are anyone can be the editor if everyone is allowed to edit the wiki and you can not get immediate feedback from readers if your entry is not so popular.

To sum up, I had a lot of fun while I was creating the Wiki. I am very happy that we prepared this project with my friend, Hasan colloboratively. Creating Wiki pages is simple and fun. You can start by reviewing something at first.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 1, Picture 2 and Picture 3 are taken from our Wiki entry.

You can read our Wiki entry here.

If you want, you can also follow Hasan's blog here.

The picture above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

PODCASTING: FUN IN FEAR

Hello everyone.

I would like to give you some information about podcasting and the podcast that I experienced for the first time and tell you my experiences. 

Podcasting is mainly the preparation and distribution of audio files. A podcast is easily created by using mobile phones or computers. 

At first I thought that a very difficult and tedious process awaited me, but contrary to what I had expected, it was a project that I had a lot of fun with. When making this podcast we first made a plan with my pair, Hande. We chose the third option from the options and decided to vocalize a 2-minute story. First we wrote the story and decided which part of the story to be vocalized by whom. Then we rehearsed and calculated how many minutes it took. Then we prepared the musics to use in the background. And we came to the hardest part of the project; Recording. 

It was really hard to record because keeping our countenance was not easy and using sound effects on time was required so much efford. But it was easier for me to work with friend that always makes me feel more relax and joyful. I am very lucky to have such a funny and responsible friend like Hande.

You can listen our podcast here.
I hope you enjoy while listening.

If you want, you can also follow Hande's blog here.

The picture above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUNG LEARNERS IN 5 STEPS?

With the entry of English into our primary schools’ 2nd grade curriculum in our country English teachers began to encounter younger learners. 

In addition, there is also English at the forefront of the kindergartens’ subject courses that have become popular recently. 4, 5, and even 3 year olds students have started learning English. And it is really hard to achieve something on behalf of learning with children in this age group. 

Now I’m 19 and I am experiencing my first teaching activities in a kindergarten. I would like to tell you in 5 steps how I managed to deal with these little mischiefs as a result of many events I've been experiencing;

Step 1: Be friends with children, treat them like they are. If they do not see you as one of them, then they understand that you are trying to teach something and start to get bored. In addition, after a while they completely grow away from the course.

Step 2:  Make preparations for what you need on that day. Do not forget that they are children, their thoughts and movements are unpredictable. So, you should absolutely have B, C, D or even E plan.

Step 3: Try to keep your lessons funny. Try to teach English by singing and dancing as much as possible. Be sure that sitting all day is so boring for everyone especially children.

Step 4: There is/will be a student in your class who never obey the rules and create problems. Give these types of students responsibilities in the classroom. So, you can manage the class easily.

Step 5: There must be rules in your class belong to you and were created by you. For example, when you lift your hand into the air, it can symbolize the end of this lesson or when you chant your fingers, it can symbolize the time of dance.

I hope these tricks will help you.

The photograph above is taken from here.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

DO YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN REALLY LEARN IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

With the development of technology, education technologies and modern educational terms that have entered our lives have laid the foundations of today's 21st century education.

The methods of education that are used today and which should be preferred should be appropriate and understandable to modern children of modern age, connected with technology.

In this context, in today's education, students should be more interacted with each other. For this reason, today, problem-solving skills, ability to analyze the data should be gained and the motivation of the students should be kept high.

In my opinion, an ideal student profile can be provided by team works and student-teacher collaborations. In this way, the student gains self-confidence without much responsibility and can be ready for his future life.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.

WELCOME TO THE MOST ICONIC BLOG IN THE WORLD!

Hi everyone.

I'm new here and I'm so excited about that. This is my first blog experience and I know we will enjoy it together.

I'll share my opinions,
I'll share some facts,
I'll share my projects that I work on etc.

You can also follow me on Instagram!

Please, feel free to leave a comment.

Thank you, Oğulcan Özdağ.