QR Code

Hey everyone! I'll make a quick suggestion for you to use technology in your classes. Since we are in a technology era and more or less all of us are engaged in technology somehow, it's better to use it on behalf of education as well. And the easiest way to use tech in our classes is QR Codes. We are all familiar with these little black and white squares since they are everywhere now. So why don't we use them to reach our activities that are created in so many websites that I have suggested to you? Students can download any QR Code app on their devices- cell phones, tablets- and via scanning it, they can reach out to the activity that you attached to that specific QR Code. 

As an example, you can scan this QR Code and see what's in there:

Here there are some QR Code apps that you can use to create a QR Code:

QR Code Generator, Visualead, 

And here, there are some QR Code apps that your student can download to scan the QR Codes:

(Android) Coreader, QR Code Reader;

(iPhone) 

QR Reader for iPhone, Quick Scan - QR Code Reader

Quizlet

Hello friends, how you doing? I have a very supportive tool for your vocabulary practices today: Quizlet. As they state themselves, "over %90 students who use Quizlet report higher grades". Pretty impressive, right? 

I said vocabulary but actually, Quizlet is a website which gives you the opportunity to discover or create various materials for any profession such as science, languages, and history. Yet, for today, I have focused on some vocabulary practices and selected a ready study test on travel which includes flashcards, games; matching, writing, listening-writing activities and more. 

I insert the link here so that you can check it out and study. 

https://quizlet.com/303255991/travel-flash-cards/

If you like how it works, you can sign up for free and discover more for yourself. 

HP Reveal

Hey guys! Today, I have an Augmented Reality application that will amaze students and make them excited about learning vocabulary. 

First of all, what is Augmented Reality? "Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real-world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory, and olfactory." 

So, why should we use AR in classes? Well, such things while learning a language, like a vocabulary gaining,  can be very very boring for the learner with traditional activities like repetitive drills, writing down the target words, use them in sentences, matching with the equivalent picture, etc. and trying to memorize those. But it is easier when learners are completely involved in an interesting activity. And that's when HP Reveal gets involved. 

HP Reveal is a 'new extended reality platform' as they call it. What you do is, simply, create an animation/ gif/ illustration of the existing item that you photographed. You download the app free, take a picture of the item you want, add a related overlay and save it. After saving, whenever you turn the camera to that item again,  the chosen overlay will pop up on the screen. Isn't that sound funny? I think students, especially younger ones, would love this app and have fun with it. By using this app in your classes, you create a new, dynamic environment for learning. 

I hope you really try using it and love it!

To make it clearer, I left my auras here:

      

Your own avatar on VOKI!

Hello again, now I'll introduce you to the incredible avatar creator website VOKI. This is another website that I've been trying lately and probably the most interesting one. Because what you are doing in this site is to create your own avatar! "Voki is an educational tool that allows users to create their very own talking character." as they define themselves. And it's definitely a fun and creative way for so many purposes from advertisements to education. Of course, our focus is on education, therefore, Voki can be equal to fun time while doing homework. There are ready backgrounds, characters, and objects that can be used, but you can always create from scratch as well! It is a free program but some of the features are priced. But I'm sure that all can create such beautiful things without payment. 

I left what I created by using Voki if you wish to see an example it's right here: 

Looking for online courses?

Hello friends, how you doing? I hope you had a good day and maybe got good news because I had some! Lately, I've been interested in online courses and looking for a platform to get some. And I just completed my first course on Coursera! If you're wondering what is Coursera and how it works; very briefly, it is a platform that one can access the best education experience online. They are partnering with top universities and organizations to offer the courses, so there is no doubt about the quality of education that is being offered. And the courses are available in a wide variety of fields, both for free yet, if you like to receive a certificate, you need to pay a price for it. But if you want to just get the course then the free version is also enough as well. 

I'm excited to take other courses and enjoy my time while discovering new things. I hope you try it and love it as much as I do!

I personally used the free service and when you complete the course, they inform you with an e-mail like this:  

Of course, Coursera is not the only website that offers this service. Here I will leave some other ones for you:

https://www.edx.org/

https://www.udemy.com/

https://www.udacity.com/

Canva

Hello everyone, I'm back after a break and I hope you are all good! I've been exploring new stuff for a while and it's finally time to introduce them to you. Here comes the first one: Canva. It is a website that you can use to create your own designs for logos, posters, flyers, business cards, graphics and even for your resumes and more! And it offers basically everything -i mean literally everything!- like millions of images, photo filters, icons & shapes and hundreds of fonts and it's free! What else would you need, right?

Well, of course, since we are here for English, I used this website with educational purposes and created some posters targeting vocabulary purposes. You can also find templates for lesson plans, worksheets, table of contents, etc. ready to use. And maybe instead of using it yourself as a teacher, you can ask your students to create whatever they want as homework; it would be fun!

Here there are some of what I created, I hope you enjoy!

See the big picture with Mindmeister

Hey guys, next website that I want to mention is an online mind mapping tool Mindmeister.

First of all, a mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information. It is hierarchical and shows relationships among pieces of the whole. And it can be really helpful for students to see the big frame of the topic and then get into the details. So, Mindmeister is a website which is designed for creating those mind maps with minimum effort. It is free and you can either use it online or install the application. Try it and you won't regret it, it is very easy to use! 

Here what I created with the help of the website as an example: