My Last Post - Goodbye!

  Hello there!

Before starting this course, I was expecting to learn how I would use technology in a class, as a teacher. Having students use technology to enchance their learning wasn't a thought that I had, except for the very basic stuff like using a powerpoint presentation. Because when I was a student, that was what was expected of me: know how to use word, powerpoint and paint, nothing more. I was never expected to create as much as I did in class, and I was pretty insecure about my digital abilities. Well, I'm happy to announce that this is no longer the case. Now, I know how to use technology both as a student, and as a teacher. I found that creating is crucial for language learning, and the internet gives us endless tools to create whatever we please.

I genuinely enjoyed most of our tasks, if not all, but my favorites were creating a padlet, creating a digital story and designing a magazine cover. I liked the first two mostly because they were collaborative works that gave me an opportunity to create something with my friends, especially in a time like this where we all are so far from each other, and I liked the magazine cover design a lot because it allowed me to create something that I would genuinely enjoy having up on my wall - well, before all the writing anyway.

My least favorite tasks were probably creating an infographic, mostly because I feel like infographics appeal to visual learners, and I certainly am not one. Thanks, aphantasia. I remember struggling when using the wiki page, it seemed very laggy and it was very frustrating to use, so that's not a task I was thrilled about either.

Before I move on to my suggestion about how to improve the course, I just want to thank my teacher, Dr. Kurt. This course was so much fun, and it was informative beyond my imagination. I looked forward to your class each week. So, from the bottom of my heart; thank you for an amazing semester. I hope that you enjoyed teaching me, as much as I enjoyed learning from you.

My only suggestion to improve the course would be giving the students more freedom in their topic choices. We had a lot of creative freedom in this class - a lot more than any other class - but personally, I feel like I would have enjoyed making -for example- and infographic about the events of the Harry Potter books much more than making an infographic about being a student in 2020.

Well, dear reader, I guess this is my goodbye.

For the last time,

Stay safe, stay kind.

Digital Storytelling - Where is Our Book?

 Hello there!

This week’s task was to create a digital story. Well, the task was given two weeks ago, but since it takes quite a while, we were given two weeks to complete it. For the same reason, it was a group project, which I love doing. I’ve partnered up with my friend, Kaan (you might remember him from the padlet) and we began to work.

We decided that we wanted to tell a story that was aimed at a young audience, that would be easy to understand, and hopefully help them learn English. So, Kaan made us a task list, and we divided the tasks. I wrote the script, Kaan made the visuals on storyboardthat, and edited them in adobe photoshop, then we both recorded our lines with soundcloud then Kaan edited them in audacity, then he put them together in a video with windows 10 video editor, and added the scene transitions with filmforth.

I quite enjoyed the task, I love doing group work and writing and telling stories has always been something I liked doing. I will probably use digital stories in the future as a teacher, and I might give the task to do their own for a graded homework as it is quite a process.
Anyway, with the end of the semester approaching, I’m afraid the end of this blog will come soon too. 

I’ll see you in my next post, so
Stay safe, stay kind.

 

 

Infographics - Online Higher Education In Turkey, During a Pandemic!

  Hello there!

So, if you're reading this blog in 2020 or 2021, you're probably aware of the fact that we are in a pandemic. If you weren't, I'm so sorry to inform you; we're in a pandemic. But, life goes on, we can't just all sit in our homes and wait for this to pass, so we still have to get our education. How, you ask? 

Welcome to online education! This week's task was to create an infographic about online higher education in Turkey, during the Covid-19 pandemic. For this task, I used Piktochart. The site already had infographic templates and it was fairly easy to use.

 Personally, this wasn't my favorite task, which is probably because I'm not someone who can use visuals to learn easily. And also because in most -if not all- other tasks, we had the freedom to choose what we would talk about. But it is still a relevant topic, so I guess I can't complain too much. I would probably give my students the task to prepare an infographic as an option alongside preparing a poster (which was one of my favorite tasks) so they could either make a poster and write about the poster, or create an infographic about one of their interests.

Well, that's about it for today,

Stay safe, stay kind.