Pixton

Hey everyone! Today I'll talk about Pixton. It's a "Free Comic, Storyboard & Graphic Novel Maker" They suggest that everyone can make comics, so they have a classic, for educators and for students version. 

Remember my Use of Technology in Education post, I used a comic from Pixton as a visual. You can also use some comics, like I did, as a visual for your presentations, but using something that you created yourself is more impressive, I believe, and your students would think like that as well. 

While you create comics and storyboards as a material, your students can make assignments online by creating their own stories, graphic novels, and comics. 

Or you can choose an unfinished story from the library and use it as a prediction game material. Students can read and guess what might happen next so that there will be an interaction in class.

Here is a YouTube video about how to make a comic with Pixton:

I hope you enjoy!

Take care!

Test your English!

Hello everyone!

I'm writing this post for those who want to test their level in English. Although we are educating ourselves, it's not possible to know our level without testing. And knowing it is important to improve yourself, I believe.

I'll suggest you two most reliable tests:

 Cambridge English and British Council. (both free)

Let me know if you do the test.

Take care! 

Kahoot!

Hey everyone! How are you? I hope you're having a nice day! 

    For today, I am here with an application to make quizzes fun in class, Kahoot! 

It's a platform where you can create/find quizzes and learning games for your students. 

You create the quiz and open it to play, students enter the code to their app on their phones/devices for that quiz and enter it, they need to answer the questions in seconds that you decide. After the quiz finished, everyone can see their score and the top 3 will appear on the screen as well. 

Here I'm leaving a tutorial for you to see the process of creating.

5 Minute Guide to Kahoot

I'm also leaving a mini-quiz that I created about Determiners:

Determiners

Hope you enjoy! 

Take care!

FluentU: Authentic Material

Looking for authentic materials? No worries, I've got you covered! 

No matter what the learner's interest or skill level, FluentU has a wide range of materials from movie trailers to news, from music videos to inspiring talks. 

They have subtitled and translated every word and even created an in-context dictionary, along with example sentences which activate when you click any word.

Videos will help students naturally remember those words in it and therefore they can master new vocabulary. 

 FluentU offers a lot of languages, some of them are Chinese, Japanese, English, German, French, Italian, Korean, and so on.

You can sign up as a student for free, but if you want to be premium and have access to all features, then you have to pay for it.

Here is the introducing video:

 

Enjoy and take care!

Nearpod

Hey guys! We have an award-winning education tool today: Nearpod!  

Nearpod is the most innovative tool I've discovered so far. It offers a great variety of opportunities for you to make your teaching the best. And it is the winner of The EdTech Awards. ("The EdTech Awards recognizes people in and around education for outstanding contributions in transforming education through technology to enrich the lives of learners everywhere." )

 

As Nearpod is combining pedagogy, content, and technology altogether in a very effective and supportive way, once you start using it you'll never want to leave it. 

 

Here is an informative video about Nearpod if you want to learn more:

 

I hope you really try it and make benefits. Take care!

SECOND LIFE

Hello everyone! Today I'll introduce you to a virtual world Second Life. As the name suggests, it is a platform where you can create a new life for yourself. (They have a Youtube channel that you can watch tutorials, bloopers, etc. if you are wondering) Here is a short video about Second Life for you to see what it offers:

As in the videos, you can create your avatar in a world that you can create and live there however you want. Let your creativity do the job for you and enjoy! 

Now let's come to our main point, how to harmonize this app with our education? We can make use of this app to create the best classroom environment with our students. Since students will have a saying in some creation, the affective filter -which is an invisible psychological filter that can either facilitate or hinder language production in a second language- will be lowered so that the learner has no obstacles while acquiring the target language. With Second Life, training, practice, reflection will be much more easier and fun for the learner. 

I have another video, this time it's about the use of Second Life in Istanbul University:

I have also downloaded Second Life and created my avatar, wandered around. If you wanna see, here I am:

I really hope that you download the app and use it. I'm sure you'll see some benefits!

bye for now 

Use of Technology in Education

Hey guys! I want to talk to you about why I've been sharing so many different tools that can help you in the process of creating materials. 

I just wanted to start with a comic that is very much from real life.  Since technology is more and more developing every day, the spread of technology use in different fields is inevitable. One of the current fields is education, of course, and what I was doing from the beginning, is trying to show you the various ways to use the technology in our classes. Learners are not satisfied with the 'old school' approaches to education. In other words, those approaches are not serving them well enough. So what we need to do is catch up with the time and use instructional technologies in our classes. I know that maybe it will take time to adopt, but when it's adopted the efficiency will definitely increase. We shouldn't resist change, we should work with it!
I will keep on sharing new apps/websites for you to try and I believe that, when they are used, they can make a great difference.
I hope you make benefit of it, take care!