COMING UP: CURRENT ISSUES IN TEACHING

#ELT #Current Issues In Teaching #Technology Integration #Assignments #About Me

     Long time no see! How are you all? For the ones who views this blog for the first time I’m Azra and you could find out about me in the “About Me” part. But let’s make some updates! I’m not a sophomore anymore, I’m a junior in the English Language Teaching department of Marmara University. Our campus’ location is changed. I was really pissed off in the beginning but now I’m used to the daily drag of commuting with 4 public transports (Sad but true!). On the road, I listen dozens of rock songs and try to stay sane. Though I sound pathetic, I enjoy road and listen to some Queen and Mannfred Mann albums. And sometimes ‘Puppy Love’ by Donny Osmond (one of my guilty pleasures).

       As you know, last term I created this blog for my Instructional Technologies & Material Design course. As part of this course, I created some materials with diverse technological tools. Immersing myself to these creative activities gained me technological proficiency and practicality. Likewise, this term we will create some materials for direct use in the classroom for Current Issues in Teaching course. This time the blogs I will be posting will be more about lesson-oriented materials and how to create technology-enhanced lesson plans.

Stay in touch with me and don’t forget to share and comment to my posts!

I’m coming up😎

Paul McCartney-Coming Up

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!

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

 

 

INFOGRAPHICS: A FUN WAY TO TEACH AND LEARN ENGLISH

 #infographics #ELT #Piktochart

The students can create their own infographics.

Recently, we’ve been assigned to create an

 informational infographic on ethical and

 legal issues related to effective technology

 use. We’ve been asked to choose one issue

 of our interest and I have chosen ‘plagiarism’.

 I’ve chosen this topic because ‘plagiarism’ is

 an important issue regarding both written and 

online work.

I’ve used the website ‘Piktochart’ for creating my infographic. Piktochart is a practical infographic website that presented me many templates. Though, there was also an option which you could create your infographic from scratch, and I went for it as I wanted to create my own design. At first, I felt a bit indecisive about where to start but when I started experimenting on the colours, fonts, and icons everything fit into place. As the words started to spill down on my computer screen, I felt a bit surprised at my ability to blend information and humour.

In my opinion, infographics could be an amazing way to teach and learn English. If we consider the students’ general complaints about the lesson (the lesson being too teacher-centred and boring), infographics with their colourful and eye-catching design and semi formal language could be a fun language learning strategy. Clear, concise, and step-by-step explanations and examples about complex topics could assist the students to grasp the topics in an authentic way. Furthermore, the students could be asked to create their own infographics on a language topic (such as present perfect tense or vocabulary about cooking) to get a grip of the course topics.

You can check out my infographic from the link below:

https://create.piktochart.com/output/63536217-what-is-plagiarism-azra-yakici-101022049-2-d

See you soon and take care!

References

Hurst, D. (2008). Children at School [Photograph]. Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Children_at_school_%288720604364%29.jpg

WE ARE LIVING IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY: 21st CENTURY LEARNING

 #21st century learning #ELT #Technology

Technology of our daily lives seems extremely normal to us these days but there is truly more than meets the eye. We couldn’t underestimate the effect of technology on fundamental areas of our lives, such as education. The education in the 21^st century is much more different than it was in the 20^th century. There is even a new concept emerged as ‘21^st century learning’.

However, now technology is literally everywhere,
and we are engaged with it almost every minute.

Back in the 1950’s it was a such a thrill to watch TV with your
family. The best way of being in touch with the technology
and the whole world.

Like many people, when I hear the concept of ‘21^st century learning’ the skills like creativity, collaboration and communication technology literacy comes to my mind. However, life/job skills, ethical/emotional awareness, and cultural competence are also crucial skills for 21^st century learning (Kereluik et al., 2013) To be more specific, these skills are very important for language learning as learning a language means interpreting the world from a new lens with the help of the acquired language. To be even more specific, the technology integration and the most ethical ways of doing it is a vital thing in an English classroom in 21^st century. As we all know, language reflects our life and thoughts, and our lives are partly affected by the languages that we born with and choose to learn. Thus, it is impossible for us (the teacher candidates) to consider our lives (or technological lives) and language learning in disparate means.

Time changes, our educational habits too.

References

Chan, C. W. (2017). Crowded Subway Hong Kong [Photograph]. Getty Images. https://www.vox.com/2017/4/25/15408846/study-mobile-ads-crowds-purchase-subway-commuters

Deen, P. (2009). Cute Young Boy Using Computer in Nature [Photograph]. IStock by Getty Images. https://www.istockphoto.com/tr/foto%C4%9Fraf/cute-young-boy-using-computer-in-nature-gm182145764-10026562?searchscope=image%2Cfilm

Kereluik, K., Mishra, P., Fahnoe, C., & Terry, L. (2013). What knowledge is of most worth: Teacher knowledge for 21st century learning. Journal of digital learning in teacher education, 29(4), 127-140. https://doi.org/10.1080/21532974.2013.10784716