Tag: involvement

Let’s Begin :)

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When I first read this motivational sentence, I spent some time thinking on it. Everyone wants to be great, no one is okay with the average. The thinking process is fine, but the way through greatness is the hard one. But, hey, if you do not start, you will never know. Besides life treats different to everyone, so who knows? 🙂

I just want to mention one or two things more. I searched this sentence both in Turkish and English pages, and the difference between them made me felt pity for my country. On English websites, there are articles about this sentence, they thought really hard on it and made comments about the sentence and the author himself, who is a motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar. They came up with new ideas and new motivational speeches after the sentence.

On the other hand, when I wrote the Turkish meaning of this sentence, Google brought me only quote sites, motivational sentences sites, adages sites, whosesentencesarethose.com kind of sites… It was really disappointing. We stopped thinking, we are not creating anymore, we are not producing. We should be motivated by these sentences and achieve greater successes, but we’d rather make show.

We must stop this nonsense, and put our reality glasses on at once. So let’s begin 🙂

Powtoon

Hello friends, in this post I want to introduce Powtoon. Using animation videos helps you to attract attention easily, especially in this era. Powtoon is a great, easy-to-use, free animation software (there is a Pro version too). You can create unique animations with the tools the site provides you or you can edit a ready-to-use animation. There are hundreds of different backgrounds, props, shapes, images, videos, and effect that you can use in your animation video, you can also add sound, music or even your own voice.

I highly recommend you to go Powtoon, and start creating amazing animation videos for your classroom.

Here is mine which I prepared it for my 7th graders to teach Present Perfect Continuous and for the educational video assignment of Multimedia class in BAU.

Enjoy 🙂

     Multimedia – May The Tenses Be With You!

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 🙂