Tag: educational techology

Edpuzzle

Hello again, today I want to share my experiences with Edpuzzle. Last week I taught Second Conditional to my 7th graders and started to search for a way to make my students revise it. Last Thursday, in our Multimedia Design class (Master), my friends introduced a great web 2.0 tool that I can use in my own classroom in order to boost 2nd conditional. Here is the new tool that our students can enjoy and learn while using it at the same time: Edpuzzle.

Edpuzzle is a massive video platform which helps teachers to create amazing video lessons. It also ensures students learn with a high rate of participation. Teachers can pick a video from KhanAcademy, Youtube, National Geographic, TedTalks, Veritasium, and other video provider sites and edit it according to the related course for free. You can also add and edit your own videos.

Edpuzzle is the easiest way to make any kind of video interactive.

Here is the video I have just edited: Edpuzzle – Second Conditional

Enjoy 🙂

 

 

A Creative Classroom Application: “ Ask me! ” Hat

 

“Our classroom is our stage.”

Sometimes the teacher might get exhausted by the questions coming from the students. Not only the questions about the lesson but the questions such as “Can I sit next to my friend? Can I use my red pen? Which pencil should I use? Can I write it here?” These questions might seem innocent but answering that kind of questions every minute, every day seems actually a huge burden for the teacher. Moreover, the tolerance of the teacher decreases day by day through the year while they are on their favorite stage – the classroom.

However, there is a simple application that can be applied to class easily. Think that there are 4 hats – “Ask Me!” written on them – in the classroom hanging on the wall all the time. 4 students can wear hats when there is an activity going on in the class. If the other students have a question during the class, they can ask it to the hat wearers. If the students on duty do not know the answer, the can simply ask it to their teachers and convey it to their friends.

This application might lighten the burden on teachers’ shoulders for a bit and lets students take an active role in the learning process. This might also be called “peer teaching” if it is preferred to be used in that way.

Please comment below if you have any ideas more like this one.

Thank you for reading.

This post is taken from https://www.egitimpedia.com/yaratici-bir-sinif-uygulamasi-bana-soru-sor-sapkasi/

Web 2.0 Tool: Quizlet

Do you want to bring fun and challenge to your classroom?

If your answer is yes, this application is great for you. In this brief blog post, I will try to introduce you the features of Quizlet and show you how to use it in the classroom.

How/When did I find Quizlet?

I am an English teacher, we learn many new words in a week. Especially with my 8th graders, we learn plenty of new vocabulary in every single unit. So naturally, there are so many words to memorize that sometimes my students might have difficult times during the exams. I found Quizlet during my search on how to ease their suffering 🙂 But of course, you can use it for any other purpose.

I started using Quizlet with using other users’ sets. When I fully learned what to do, I started to build my own vocabulary sets – filling them with the words that we have recently learned by that time. I use the sets quite different than the other users actually such as making competitions among the students. While 2 students racing, the one who gives the quickest answer which is the Turkish meaning of the word wins the tour. In the end, the student who gives the most correct answer wins the game. I also share the sets I prepared with my students and their parents so that they can study at home from their phones, tablets or computers.

There are several study modes in Quizlet.

1- The “Learn” part comes the first. The learners can master through a personalized study plan in this section. It is like a mini-test but when you cannot know the answer, it comes right in front of you over and over again until you acquire it properly.

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2- Another study mode is quite familiar to all of us. It is called “Flashcards”. The learner can study or review the intended terms using the real-like flashcards.

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3- “Write” part is also quite educational. It keeps track of what you have learned and what you have missed in order to make you aware of the process.

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4- “Spell” section is the audio part. It reads the terms aloud so that the learner can write it down. It checks if the spelling is correct.

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5- “Test” part allows you to see yourself in an exam or a quiz. You can create your own test just by selecting the question types, and the rest is arranged by the tool.

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6- “Match” section is where it all gets gamified. Students love to match the words with the meanings. They challenge each other to do it a shorter period of time.

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7- “Gravity” is the other gamified section. You should write the meaning of the word inside a comet before it hits the ground. So the adrenalin and the learning go together here.

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8- The last part is the “Live” part. It is the place where all go collaborative. The learners get their phones and the excitement starts. The system sets the teams. The team which gets to 12 first will be the winner. So as a teacher, sit back and relax while they are having fun and learn.

 

We teach the digital natives who born into a virtual world. All of our students now have a smartphone, so why not use them in order to teach. We cannot use traditional ways to teach anymore. We have to keep the pace. The learners can download the app to their phone or tablet and use it online/offline wherever they go. So let’s use contemporary ways to teach such as Quizlet 🙂

Instructional Goals

So in this post, I want to talk about assessing needs to identify instructional goals (Dick & Carey, 2001). Dick and Carey mention the significance of the needs assessment process in order to achieve the instructional goals like “skills, knowledge, and attitudes”. Designers mostly focus on acquisitions at the end of the course. The acquisitions also take place in my yearly plan (guess what? I’m a teacher 🙂 ) and they are like “students will be able to take notes while listening”.

The problem, the solution, and the instructional goal have to be crystal clear. As the authors said, “identify the problem” and find solutions about them is not an easy task.  We, as learners, have to find a problem and try to identify a solution, too. We should emphasize the acquisition part which is the main goal of instructional design.

To learn more, check Dick & Carey (2001) – The Systematic Design of Instruction, Chapter 2.

Some Notes on Instructional Design

The previous semester, I had the chance to take the Instructional Design Course from Ayhan Doğan who is a great teacher. So I want to share some of my notes here which I took before, during and after the lesson.

First I want to start with the Introduction to Instructional Design (Dick & Carey, 2001). I’m just going to make a brief summary of that chapter with some visuals I prepared.

 The first chapter starts with a traditional instructional process which contains only learners, textbooks and instructors. To teach the students already existing content in their textbook was the duty of the teacher. According to this, training the teacher would be enough to raise the learning.

 

 

 

However, the modern appearance of the instructional process includes learners, instructional materials, instructor, and learning environment. It is more systematic. In the chapter, we also have a chance to find the answer to a question: What is a system? In a system, every single unit reckons upon each other. Every unit of the system (materials, instructor, learner, environment) is related to each other. The failure of one means the hitch of the whole. The instructional system evolves whenever something goes wrong, it automatically starts to look for a solution that can make itself better. For example, if a student has a problem with the present perfect tense and s/he doesn’t understand the way the instructor taught, then a new way should be found. But on the contrary, I believe the system should change continuously. The process should improve progressively without needing a failure in order to change.

In the “Components of the Systems Approach Model” part, Dick and Carey explain us the instructional system design step by step. I think this part is to ease our understanding of the whole concept. However, as the authors said, if you are a novice, you will understand the system better when “you begin to use” it. So the first chapter crayons the aims, the utility of the instructional process and why should we use the systems approach.