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.

Posters - Magazine Cover!

 Hello there!

This week's assignment was to create a poster. I chose to make a fictional magazine cover, "Not Sus" a magazine for the crewmates in the game Among Us. Using PosterMyWall as my teacher had suggested, I browsed the official Among Us twitter account for inspiration and images that I could use. 

I wanted to create this cover about Among Us because just like most people my age, I love the game! It was also easy to find images and hypothetical article titles about. Plus, if I will have to look into some images on my screen, I'd rather it be images of something that I enjoy.

In the future, I probably would assign a similar task to my students, because I had a lot of fun while making my poster. It wasn't too complicated, and it gave me an end product that I enjoyed. I also love tasks that allow students to share their interests, I believe that it strengthens the bond between the students and the teacher.

Anyway, I hope you all will like my poster, because I'm quite proud of how it turned out.

With that said,

Stay safe, stay kind.

 

Padlets - Lack of Education!

 Hello there!

This week's task was to create a KWL (Know, Want to know, Learnt) chart, using the Padlet tool. Padlet is a website that basically provides the user with an empty canvas to fill with videos, pictures, texts etc. as they please. One advantage it has over other similar webistes though, is that it allows multiple people to work on the same page at the same time! This week I collaborated with my friends Şayan, Kaan and İlayda. You can find their blogs by clicking their names!

Our topic was "Lack of Education" so, our first step was to fill out our Know column with what we knew about education - or lackthereof, we all made 3 points, before moving onto the Want to know column, where we -again- each asked 3 questions that we wanted to know the answers to. Then the last step was to fill out the Learnt column, where we wrote the answers to our questions. I think it was a pretty fun activity to do, especially since I got to work with my friends. You can find our padlet here!

As always, 

Stay safe, stay kind.

Book Reviews - Wiki Assignments!

  Hello there!

This week's assignment was to create a wiki page, reviewing a book of our choice. I chose to review Death Note, the manga series. It was one of my favorite series in middle school, and it sparked my interest in anime - and books that didn't have words only.

Honestly, the assignment itself was a struggle for me, mainly because the site just didn't work as it was intended. I had a lot of trouble with adjusting the text size, changing the color of the text, adding pictures in the places I wanted to add them and so on. 

I did find the book reviews fun, seeing my classmates' work was pretty exciting. I think this might be a fun activity to do in a future class, because it lets students bring something they found interesting to the spotlight. However, I don't see myself using wikis again, mainly because of the technical issues that I seemed to be unable to handle.

You can find my review here!

See you on my next post,

Stay safe, stay kind.

Podcasting - 60 Seconds to Improve the World!

 Hello there!

This week's assignment for my course was to create a podcast. I decided to talk about how to improve the world, in 60 seconds. In the podcast, I talk about kindness, and how I believe it can change the world.

What I say in the recording, word by word is right below to make it more accessible!

Cansu Yılmaz · Kindness can save the world - 60 seconds

 Hello There,

My idea to improve the world would be making the world a kinder place. In this day and age, I think a lot of world's problems can be solved with a little more kindess, and a little more compassion for one other.

I believe that kindness is so powerful that it can end world hunger, end wars across the globe, end poverty, even end global warming and many other issues that we're facing today, and will face tomorrow.

And how do I come into this picture, you ask? Well, I believe that kindness is contagious. So I do my best to be kind, and leave a positive impact on people around me. I believe that every simple kind thing that I do, makes the world a better place, better than before.

As a future teacher, I will do my best to raise kind, compassionate students and lead by example.

as always,

Stay safe, stay kind.