Instructional Technologies

 We started our lesson with the daily moods of our classmates. Then we went on with today's topic: Systems that can be used while giving a presentation and how to make our presentations more interactive. We checked out a few websites to use in order to improve our presentations. The websites are below; Nearpod: A n interactive presentation website that has VR (360 ° Map), voting, pie chart,   true/false activity, drawing, and  collaborative board features. Mentimeter: Another interactive website with many features like interactive polls, quizzes, Q&A, and word cloud. Hypersay: Again, an interactive website 😀. The site has a chatbox, question tab, and clapping feature. Slido: A presentation website that has features like polling, Q&A, multiple choice quiz, rating, ranking, etc. Canva: A website that has informative graphic templates about many topics. Postermywall: Another website with many templates that can be used in order to improve presentations visually. Pik...

We started our lesson by recalling what we did in previous weeks; technologies to use while practicing reading (e.g. Storyweaver, CommonLit ), writing (e.g. Padlet, OneNote ), vocabulary (e.g. Kahoot, Quizziz ), etc. Then went on with this week's topic: Oral Communication Skills and How to Develop them with Technology During our lesson, we observed many websites. Some of which are below; - Google Podcasts: The website where you can try Google's feature with thousands of podcasts - Castos: A website to produce your own podcast or listen to one - Voki: A website where the narrator can form a character and make it talk - Powtoon: Website to generate animations - Vyond: Website to make animation videos - EdPuzzle: Website to prepare interactive videos - YouGlish: Website that shows the word used in context (in videos) - VoScreen: Website to study language by doing activities from movie/series scenes. Example of an exercise is down below [Picture 5] - Elllo: Website that give...

We started our lesson by joining Mr. Karacan's padlet  presentation. Like we do every week, we started by reviewing our previous lessons' topics; Web 1.0 - 2.0 - 3.0, the statistics we discussed in week 2, etc. While reviewing our former lessons we also analyzed padlet  and learned about what does it do + how to use it. We examined the site and a presentation made for 4th graders. After that, we went on with Google Docs and checked the interactivity by writing a story 😀. The other sites/applications we checked during the lesson are listed below: - Dropbox Paper :  A website/application that can be shared with others and work as a group by writing simultaneously. - Slack: An interactive software - Evernote/OneNote/Notion: Applications students & teachers can use to take notes. After these, we checked websites that help with  Automated Writing .  We tried Grammarly and checked  ProWritingAid, LangaugeToo . Apparently, these websites/extensions/appl...

 At the beginning of the lesson, we briefly talked about our previous lessons and summarised the topics. Then, we went on with this week's topic; how to teach reading with online platforms? During the lesson, we observed many internet sites which will help with online reading. Some of which are; - Rapid Translator: A chrome extension that immediately translates the target word. - digitallibrary.io: Can be used as an e-library - storyweaver: An e-library that has books in different levels - Scholastic: A publishing house which has its books as an e-book on it site - raz-kids: A kids' book library with interactive books - common.lit: A website with articles and e-books - readworks.org: An e-library that also has games and activities in it. This week's lesson was quite informative and beneficial. I've checked the sites myself and will definitely use them in my daily life!

This week's lesson started with a summary of the last week's lesson. We mentioned the tables, the amount of internet usage, and web evolution once again. Later on, we read a table [Picture 1], in which we learned more about Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0 . During discussions, Deniz Kasap said that in Web 2.0, the most used application is Facebook and she added that Amazon and GittiGidiyor  are good examples for Web 3.0 since they keep track of our actions.   After reading and discussing the features in the table we went on with this week's main topic; online platforms . Mr. Karacan said that sometimes teachers may not have enough materials for the next lesson. In that case, doing online quizzes is the best option. It not only gets the students' attention but also lets them have and learn at the same time. In the lesson, we analyzed a few sites like EdWordle*[Picture 2], WordSift*, etc. and played Quizlet -which I failed to succeed...- I quite enjoyed our lesson this wee...

During our lesson, we examined a few tables (e.g Global Digital Usage, Most Used Digital Platforms, etc.) and came to the conclusion that the number of people between the age of 16 to 64 using mobile phones, the internet, and social media has risen since last year. To quote Mr. Karacan "Every 8.5 out of 10 individuals use internet connection.", which means that people can connect with each other through the web and we, teachers, should use this opportunity in our favor. Later on, we discussed the short teaching videos on the internet. Ayşe Sude mentioned a guy on TikTok teaching English and we exchanged views on whether this is effective or not. We also mentioned the applications used to practice languages such as Discord, Duolingo, Tandem, HelloTalk, Cambly, etc.  Then we analyzed the most visited websites in Turkey like Google, EBA, Translate, etc. meaning that there are millions of students in our country using the internet for education and language purposes. We continued...