IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: A REFLECTION ON INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES AND MATERIAL DESIGN IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING COURSE

#ELT #Instructional Technology #Technology Integration #Assignments

It has been more than 2 months since I’ve written my first blog and I guess it is time to write a reflection on Instructional Technologies course as it came to an end. Instructional Technologies course was a unique course when it is compared to other courses in the ELT Department. Probably, it was the only course which we didn’t talk about Chomsky, and I am grateful for that (Sorry Chomsky!). During the high school I was almost like a 21^st century Luddite as I thought technology makes people dumb and technological developments will result in further dumbness (actually I still think same to some extent). However, when technology is used as an ancillary force in your knowledge quest, it is undeniably helpful.

Before taking this course, last year we took another course named Informational Technologies which we have learned some online platforms like Canva or Padlet, but we didn’t have the opportunity to use these apps. However, thanks to the Instructional Technologies design course, I have been able to understand how I can integrate technology to ELT. Spending some time on understanding the apps and watching my creative energy burst out were important highlights of this course to me.

During this course, I learned how to create an infographic, podcast, public service announcement, write a collaborative film review and make an AI-integrated interview. From every assignment, I learned new things and gaining technological literacy gave me confidence. I can sincerely say that I enjoyed every task. It was a perfect course and I thank my teacher, Asst. Prof. Mustafa Polat, for being so understanding and caring to all of the students throughout the semester.

And final words… Until this time, no one commented to my blog, so I feel a bit heartbroken about it. But I know there are 110 views of this blog so that means there are other people visiting this blog except me (if 100 views are not viewed by me). If you’d like me to discover any other app for educational purposes, I ‘d gladly do in the future. Until that time, goodbye!

JOHN LENNON CALLED ME A “CLEVER SOD”: THE MAGIC OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

#Magic School #AI #Character Chatbot #Writing Feedback Tool #John Lennon

Lately, we’ve been assigned to interview with a historical figure via Magic School’s Character Chatbot. Magic School is an online platform which aims to prevent the teacher burnout with providing various tools to the teachers. With these tools, teachers can develop lesson plans, design assignments, and generate materials. Magic School have over 60 Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools which makes this platform a heaven for the creative and innovative teachers (University of Cincinnati, 2024).

Character Chatbot is a tool in the Magic Student part of the Magic School which assists you to chat with any historic figure, author, or recognisable character from a story. When I heard that there is an AI facility like this, I felt a bit bewildered at first. The options were endless. I could have talked with  Hitler, with Anne Frank, with Simone de Beauvoir, with Keith Moon…In the end, I decided to do a supposed interview with John Lennon as he is a well-known figure in the music history. In addition, I know a great deal of knowledge about Lennon and The Beatles. Therefore, I thought I could catch hold of any mistake that the AI does and inform you about it.

 Ah, so you've picked up on that line from "Strawberry Fields Forever", have you? (chuckles wryly) Leave it to a clever sod like yourself to find the deeper meaning in me lyrics.

As I fired my first question to AI Lennon, a bubbly John Lennon welcomed me with a ‘Liverpudlian’ accent. His way of talking was definitely lovely and compelling which instigated me to enter to a virtual universe which I can hug my musical hero and reminisce about the past. Most of the interview was really immersive and felt very close to reality. However, there were also sometimes which our AI Lennon made mistakes. AI Lennon told me that he wrote the song ‘Yesterday’ though it was an obvious Paul McCartney classic. Also, AI Lennon said his mother Julia was playing the piano but as far as I’m concerned there isn’t such a thing as well.

After I completed my interview with John Lennon, I have written a report on it where I highlighted the key points from our conversation. With the Magic School’s Writing Feedback Tool, I got feedback for my report. The feedback was relevant and accurate usually. In accordance with the feedback, I made some alterations in my report and polished it.

As we also discussed in our last Instructional Technology course, AI is currently like a 5-year-old kid and needs improvement. However, the results are even awe-inspiring for now. The AI tools can definitely be integrated to the teaching and learning practices. AI can be an amazing tool to enliven the class environment and could motivate students. However, it must not be forgotten that AI is not perfect and have the potential of providing you with wrong answers sometimes. Therefore, if it will be used for educational purposes, teachers must scrutinise the processes and must not be totally dependent on AI.

Here you can find the interview's transcript, first draft and the feedback, final draft and the review of the feedback writing tool:

Transcript of the interview with John Lennon-Azra Yakıcı 101022049 2-D.docx

Report-First Draft-Feedback-AZRA YAKICI 101022049 2-D.docx

Report-Final Draft-Review of the writing feedback tool-AZRA YAKICI 101022049 2-D.docx

And 'Strawberry Fields Forever' by The Beatles! See you soon and goodbye:

https://youtu.be/HtUH9z_Oey8?feature=shared 

References

University of Cincinnati. (2024, May 27). AI tools for education. https://guides.libraries.uc.edu/ai-education/msa#:~:text=Magic%20School%20AI%20is%20a,hours%20a%20week%20for%20educators

I ATE HIS LIVER WITH SOME FAVA BEANS AND A NICE CHIANTI: WRITING THE REVIEW OF ‘THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS'

#Film Review #The Silence of the Lambs #Colloborative Writing Task

Recently, we’ve been assigned to create a movie review as a collaborative writing task using Google Docs. Again, I collaborated with Sümeyra and Zeynep for this assignment. We decided to write a review on ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ as it was a movie we all watched before. Sümeyra wrote the first paragraph of the review. I wrote the second paragraph which I summarised the plot and Zeynep wrote the third paragraph. We’ve written the fourth paragraph collaboratively.

As I watched the movie just a month ago, it was easy for me to write the plot summary. I’ve also added the picture of my favourite scene from the movie which Hannibal Lecter touches to the finger of Clarice Starling. Google Docs was a platform which I was already familiar with, so the process passed quite smoothly. In addition, I embedded the movie’s trailer to the document which was something I’ve never done before. Thus, I can say that I learnt some new features of the Google Docs. It is definitely an excellent educational tool for collaborative tasks.

In my opinion, collaborative tasks have always a risky and tricky side. In a learning environment, there are learners with different learning styles, and they use different strategies in order to be successful in their courses. For extrovert and hardworking students, collaborative tasks could be a good way of assessment for a teacher. However, for introvert and reflective students (such as me 😊) collaborative tasks are quite daunting and tedious. Therefore, if there is a cooperative and lively atmosphere in a classroom the collaborative writing tasks can be implemented. However, if there is a competitive and apathetic atmosphere in the classroom, it’s better to give individual writing tasks to the students.

Comments from another group (just click on the photos to see them clearly)

You can check out the review from the link below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xCAmlofrblFbfMSQGrm7T0pWZo9RaFKxIywggagIamQ/edit?usp=sharing

And these are the blogs of other contributors:

Sümeyra Sabancı: https://smyrsabanci34.wixsite.com/creativeteacher

Zeynep Sude Seven: http://itszesu.wordpress.com

Then, goodbye with a song from the movie! ‘Goodbye Horses’ by Q Lazzarus:

https://youtu.be/zILmrAJgzSc?feature=shared

 

CREATING A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT ON AUTISM: HOW IT ALL WENT?

#PSA #Material Design #Creating videos

Latterly, we’ve been assigned to prepare a public service announcement (PSA) as a group. I collaborated with two of my friends, Sümeyra and Zeynep, for this assignment. As we were brainstorming on what topic should we choose for our PSA, I came up with the idea of preparing a video on ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder’. Owing to people’s lack of knowledge on what is autism, as a group we reached a consensus on this topic.

At first, with the help of some health websites, we created our own authentic text and divided it into three. Respectively, Zeynep talked about ‘what is autism?’, I talked about the symptoms of autism and Sümeyra talked on tips for the parents. We decided to use Canva for creating our video because it could be used both via computer and mobile phone and documents could be shared with the others so easily. Creating a video on Canva was really easy but there were not many options for adjusting the audio which could be a downside of the app.

In the future, I would like to show this video to my students and give assignments to them for creating their own PSAs to raise awareness. The disorders like autism, ADHD or mental deficiency are serious prevalent disorders which needs to be respected and the children must be aware of their role in these individuals’ life. Instead of ignoring students’ lack of knowledge and condoning the wrong attitudes of the students to these special individuals, as teachers we must show what is right and wrong.

You can find our video from the link below:

https://youtu.be/5khT55-OLts 

By the way, these are the blogs of my beloved friends:

Sümeyra Sabancı: https://smyrsabanci34.wixsite.com/creativeteacher

Zeynep Sude Seven: http://itszesu.wordpress.com

See you soon and take care!

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2024, May 7). What is autism spectrum disorder?. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/autism/what-is-autism-spectrum-disorder#:~:text=Autism%20spectrum%20disorder%20(ASD)%20is,restricted%20interests%20and%20repetitive%20behavior

Asha Speech & Hearing Clinic. (2024, May 7). Autism spectrum disorder (ASD). https://www.ashaspeechhearingclinic.com/facilities/autism/

Audionautix. Acoustic meditation 2. (2021, May 7). [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/GKS91I7eC3I?si=qPrCD_zZT0tKp9YY

Bialasiewicz, K. (2018). Heller Sendromu ile Çocuk [Photograph]. IStock. https://www.istockphoto.com/tr/foto%C4%9Fraf/heller-sendromu-ile-%C3%A7ocuk-gm903614034-249215334

C, C. D. (2021). A young child is being examined by a doctor [Photograph]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/a-young-child-is-being-examined-by-a-doctor-fx9RJgZYRUE

Government of Canada. (2024, May 7). Autism: signs and symptoms. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/autism-spectrum-disorder-asd/signs-symptoms-autism-spectrum-disorder-asd.html

Picture, G. (2024). Little boy at a therapist's office, sitting in a white chair in front of his psychologist in a rebellious manner [Photograph]. Shutterstock. https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/little-boy-therapists-office-sitting-white-444704881

Rahman, S., Ahmed, S. F., Shahid, O., Arrafi, M. A., & Ahad, M. A. R. (2022). Automated detection approaches to autism spectrum disorder based on human activity analysis: A review. Cognitive Computation, 14(5), 1773-1800. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-021-09895-w

Reynolds-Kebler, J. (2006). Chasing after a bubble [Photograph]. Openverse. https://openverse.org/image/ac96c9af-d99b-442b-b307-98e289a0be93?q=2-3%20year%20old%20child

Shilova, A. (2024). Portrait of cute little boy closed mouth with his hand, studio shot [Photograph]. Shutterstock. https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-cute-little-boy-closed-mouth-69834943

Shufrych, O. (2021). The classmates point to the boy and laugh at him [Photograph]. Shutterstock. https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/classmates-point-boy-laugh-him-2023210151

Siemens, J. (2020). A young boy playing with his cars during the COVID-19 home quarantine [Photograph]. Getty Images. https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/jordan-siemens-child-playing-with-toy?assettype=image&phrase=jordan%20siemens%20child%20playing%20with%20toy&sort=mostpopular&license=rf%2Crm

Youngson, N. (2024). Autism [Photograph]. The Blue Diamond Gallery. https://thebluediamondgallery.com/hand-held-card/a/autism.html