AUGMENTED REALITY: MAYBE BETTER THAN THE REAL?

#Current Issues in Teaching #Instructional Technology #Canva #Happy New Year

The last post of this year! We wave goodbye to the last year and welcome a brand new year, so I feel pretty good about it. I hope finishing all my final assignments before entering to the new year and get some fresh air. Especially having a farewell to my 5000-word essay on the Bosnian War could be amazing. Having a nightmare which Ratko Mladic is your cellmate is not funny, after all. It gives me the creeps…

So reality is harsh sometimes, but what about the augmented reality (AR)? I think, it’s even better than what happens in real life and an amazing way to show your students the idealistic version of life. Currently, we’ve been assigned to create an AR-integrated teaching material which we prompted the students to explore a city abroad. Well, it was a state in our case which is Arizona, USA and we introduced the landmarks of Arizona such as Grand Canyon National Park and Meteor Crater. Furthermore, we introduced the Tucson Museum of Art and some outdoor activities which could be done in Arizona. I have dealt with the outdoor activities part as it was something which I was quite interested in. Hopefully, I found a video named “Outdoor Adventure Guide to Arizona | Ask A Local” from the channel “Visit the USA”. After finding this video, I created a mini listening activity for the students in the worksheet we created. I also came up with the idea for the project and prepared both of these parts in our worksheet on Canva.

AR is a nice way of integrating the technology into English language classes and making the unreachable things reachable. I would like to use it in my future English classes as an ancillary source.

Here you could find the link for the worksheet and the lesson plan:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGZ1KJ5qv8/2zPglKIU-i3YGL72fk5GLw/edit?utm_content=DAGZ1KJ5qv8&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DHXtGC1E09RjI0uoAx3UGuOvatyMGxjb9dwwpr8xPdQ/edit?usp=sharing 

See you soon!

MY WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN: FLIPPED CLASS AND SUCH

You didn’t see it wrong: My world turned upside down. Because I have learned about “flipped class” and I also want you too learn this unconventional teaching approach. A flipped class inverts the typical cycle of content acquisition and application (The University of Texas at Austin, 2024). Hence, what has normally done in class is handled via computer mediation and what has been traditionally homework becomes the class practice. Key advantages of flipped class are increasing the depth of knowledge, making the learners more active and interactive and getting more feedback and error correction (The University of Texas at Austin, 2024) . However, these advantages could be gained if your students have connection to internet at their homes and are willing to watch the computer-mediated online lecture videos.

                                       Difference between classical lecture setting and the flipped classroom
                                                  

In my flipped teaching video assignment which I prepared with two of my classmates, we prepared a vocabulary teaching video to the fifth graders on the topic ‘My Daily Routine’. We divided the daily activities to three phases: The morning, the afternoon and the evening. I took the evening part as it is my favourite phase of the day. Each of us taught five chunks with example sentences. While preparing our video, we made use of Zoom and Canva. As I was accustomed to use both of these programs, I didn’t live a problem. In addition, we prepared a quiz gameshow via Wordwall. It was a website which I’ve heard a lot before but never had the chance to visit. Preparing the quiz only took a couple minutes thanks to the ready-made templates at the website. I recommend all ELT teachers to use Wordwall to colour their English language classes. And also give a shot to the flipped class…

Here you can find the link for the flipped teaching video, quiz and the lesson plan:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGYcQPUMk0/enxWawk04isReZR9qEbXkA/watch?utm_content=DAGYcQPUMk0&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=editor

https://wordwall.net/resource/83550252

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I_hi4m4pS8KkNMomjD8unyZGfHV4-0oxZzbt1LsvhoQ/edit?usp=sharing 

Take care!

References

The University of Texas at Austin. (2024, December 9). Flipped Classroom. https://ctl.utexas.edu/instructional-strategies/flipped-classroom