NAZLICAN YILDIRIM

Three of the online courses I have taken this semester:

If you're enjoying my blogposts, I guarantee you will like my classmates' blogs as well. Here are some examples: -  https://baranbersanalisan.blogspot.com/ -  https://tugcesutas.blogspot.com -  https://plussinformation.blogspot.com/ -  https://halilunes.blogspot.com/ -  https://ilkaylinguland.blogspot.com/?m=1

Second Life is a popular 3D virtual world which is used all around the world. It is the largest virtual world developed for social purposes. Once you create your account, you can customize your avatar and learn how to use the controls in the game with a few exercises in the Learning Area. Your avatars can visit and create new places in Second Life. You can interact with other users / residents via text or voice. I have chosen one of the default avatars and since I was pleased enough with how she looks, I didn't change her appearance: It's possible to use Second Life for educational purposes. It's especially good if you want your students to interact with other people who are native English speakers. But it's also a great opportunitiy if they don't have the same native language, because users will have to use English to talk to each other and that can help them be more comfortable with their speaking skills. You can visit so many places in Second Life, and if you tak

Sutori is a tool you can use to transform your lessons into collaborative learning experiences. It's especially very useful for remote learning. You can use it for writing & multimedia projects, portfolios and timelines. You can add interactive quizzes for formative assessment. I would suggest you to add images, videos and audio too for the maximum effect.  Here are 3 ways to use Sutori: Your students can get closer with their peers through adding comments to each other's work. They can use invite their friends and have real-time collaboration in their group work. They can use a slideshow format if they wish to. Their data is kept private and secure, and you as a teacher can check their work, monitor their progress, assess learning and provide feedback. And finally, they can share their works easily in a few clicks to Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams, they can also send a link, an email or an embed code as well. 

Thinglink is an education technology platform that can be used to create interactive and engaging learning experiences for students.  You can create so many content with Thinglink. Other than your usual images and presentations, you can also create 360 °  image or virtual tour, aerial view, VR experience and so much more. Since it has many content options, it's easy to find a type of content to enhance learning in your classroom. Some types of content you can create on Thinglink: This is a screenshot I took while I was visiting someone's shop via Thinglink:  As you can see, there are even more content here. After you join someone's virtual tour you can also interact with reading activities, videos, and a lot of information in general. 

Biteable considers itself to be the world's simplest video maker. I'm not sure if it's truly the "simplest" but with Biteable you can make animations online in minutes. Its free option includes HD TV quality videos, publishing to YouTube & Facebook, 1GB storage, 5 video projects per month. Its premium option on the other hand, includes unlimited videos, 85000 stock footage clips, no Bitable logo/watermark, downloading your videos, uploading your own footage and privacy controls.  Like other video-making tools we have looked together, it's possible to make your lessons more interesting for your students if you use Biteable. You can make videos about any topic you wish, and it will immediately get more attention from your students. A Biteable tutorial if you're having trouble with creating your videos: 

Quizlet makes simple learning tools that let you study anything. Its most frequently used feature is flashcards. Flashcards can be very useful to teach vocabulary. On the one side of the flashcard, you can write a word in English, and on the other side of the flashcard you can insert an image of the word and its translation in Turkish (or whatever your students' first language is). It includes more than 300 million study tests, so it's best for you to discover them for yourself.  Although it's mostly used for flashcards, you can also design and use tests or games. We have worked on a flashcard set of 60 words last semester with two of my friends for another class, and here is the link for it if you want to check it out:  https://quizlet.com/_98qpxx?x=1jqt&i=3ei811

Canva is a free online graphical tool that combines design, photo editing, and layout to help teachers and students create amazing projects.  Anyone can use Canva, it has a very wide range of options. From creating Instagram posts to Twitter headers, from writing your CV to designing other media graphics, you can do so many things with Canva. Teachers can be used by teachers to generate posters, guidance, and projects, but it can also by accessed by students for tasks.  It's very easy to use and your end products are very aesthetically pleasing. So don't forget to check out Canva for your designs!

Socrative is a classroom app for fun, effective engagement and on-the-fly assessments. It includes quizzes which are very easy to create, polls, exit tickets and more. Its free version includes 50 students, 1 public room for your class, launch 1 activity at a time, on-the-fly questioning, space race assessment. This is how Socrative look when you log in to your teacher account: You can either design / launch activities or you can create quizzes for your students. When you first make your account it gives you a random code, for example in the screenshot above my code is MJN5Q6R, but you can change it on "Rooms".  If you have short, quick questions you can use Multiple Choice, True/False and Short Answer options and get instant response from your students.  Exit Ticket is a simple and great way of getting quick feedback from your students. Before they leave the class, they can answer a few questions about how well they understood that day's materials.  Space Race is exactly

Storybird is a language arts tool that allows you to create illustrations and inspire students to write stories. It has a writing curriculum which offers more than 700 lessons, quizzes, and writing prompts created by experienced educators and expert authors.  Its main purpose is to help students storytell and create / publish storybooks. After signing up for a free classroom account, teachers can create assignments, and review & comment on submitted stories.  It's a very simple tool where you choose the pictures you want to show in your story and add texts. I recommend introducing this tool to your students so that they can improve their writing skills. Here is a very short & simple preview of a story I added on Storybird to show you how it looks:  https://storybird.com/picture-book/preview/summer-vacation-a1-level- And here is a beginner level tutorial on Storybird: 

Gistory is a free Turkish-made app which follows the light of Multimedia Learning Theory and Universal Design Principles. It enables new ways of providing language content for learners of foreign languages as well as new ways of language practice.  You can add pictures or videos (you don't need to record the videos yourself, you can add links from YouTube) and add questions under them for your students to answer.  The more interesting part of Gistory is how it allows students to interact with stories and choose the path the characters are going to follow. It has interactive stories with different endings. The endings change with the students' choices. It's very interesting in the sense that not every student is going to get the same ending and they can discuss about their choices between their peers as well.  (The link you can use to download the Gistory app on iOS:  https://apps.apple.com/uy/app/gistory/id1498287693  Unfortunately, I couldn't log in to the app no matte

Journi is a free road safety education program for younger children. It was created by the help of education experts, to teach young children the skills that are needed to develop healthy road safety attitudes and behaviours. It is suggested for kids in year 5-6, age 10-12. It includes interactive games, quizzes and videos. It can be used at home or in the classroom.  An introductory video for Journi: Its overall objective is to help students learn the answer to the "What does it take to travel safely and independently?" question. It has authentic assessment tasks that include the creation of an infographic and the design of a digital game or interactive quiz. All these tasks require understandings and skills related to safe and independent travel.

Seesaw is a simple student-driven portfolio that allows students and teachers to record and share what's happening in the classroom. They can publish and share their work while still communicating with their teachers, parents and peers.  After you create your account as a teacher, you will then get to name your class, choose a grade and add your students. This is how the list of your classes look on the left side of the page: You can customize your class, for example you can change the color scheme and icon of it like I did on the picture above. Depending on which option you choose, your students can join with a QR or Text Student Code, or with their emails. You can customize the students' icons as well, you can use Seesaw's animal icons or add their photos.  You can add activities, journal entries (for journal entries you can add photos, videos, drawings, files, notes and links), blog posts with Seesaw. It also allows students to message you directly if they're having

Augmented Reality is a technology that projects computer-generated augmentations on top of reality, helping us perform tasks better and efficiently. It is an interactive method which falls between reality and virtual reality. It involves overlaying visual, auditory, or other sensory information onto the world in order to enhance one's experience. It incorporates three basic features which are a combination of real and virtual worlds, real-time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects.  Some of the best current examples of Augmented Reality are IKEA Mobile App, Nintendo's Pokemon Go App, Google Pixel's Star Wars Stickers, Disney Coloring Book,  L’Oréal Makeup App, Weather Channel Studio Effects and U.S. Army.  This technology can be experienced with hardware, display, eyeglasses, HUD, contact lenses, virtual retinal display, EyeTap, Handheld, projection mapping, tracking, networking, input devices, computer and projector.

Virtual reality uses VR headsets to create a simulated environment and helps an individual to experience a reality that is similar to the real world or completely different. Instead of viewing a screen in front of you, users are immersed and able to interact with 3D worlds. A lot of companies such as Amazon, Apple, Oculus, Intel, Snapchat and Sony are investing billions of dollars in the VR sector. Some of the best VR products are Oculus Quest, Nintendo Labo VR Kit, Sony Playstation VR, Lenovo Mirage and many more. These gadgets enable an individual to immerse in a digital environment to experience a world which is different from reality. Once you put them on, you're detached from the physical world. VR is not all about gaming. Its potential spreads to industries such as education (e.g. Class VR), military, medicine and sports.

Kahoot is a fun game-based learning platform. You can easily create quizzes for your students. You send the code of the quiz to your students, then they can either download the app or enter the code on its website and join. Each question has a limited time, and how quickly you answer a question is important too! It's generally a fun game and encourages students to pay more attention to the classes with a bit of friendly competition. This is how Kahoot looks while you're creating a quiz: You can change the question type to True and False. There are other question types as well but they're only avaible for the Premium option.  You can change the time limit up to 4 minutes. You can give standard points, double points or no points at all. 

Pixton is a great learner-centered tool, it allows students to use what they have learned in such a fun way, they get to make comics! It is a click and drag comic development site, which means your students' don't necessarily have to know each step in making actual comics. Of course as a teacher you can also create comics, but I'd recommend encouraging your students to try it. They can edit their avatars, the background, the texts, the facial expressions and actions. Like many other tools we have checked, Pixton is also free but has more options with its Premium version.  Here is a little comic I have made on Computational Linguistics using Pixton: (For higher quality of my short comic:  https://share.pixton.com/qxz9wuf

Mondly, Busuu, Memrise and Duolingo are some of the apps / websites you can use for learning new languages. These apps provide a placement test to see which level you are, but don't worry if you're a completely beginner because they are especially good for people who are not familiar with new languages. Unless you upgrade to a Premium account, they're all free to use. I strongly recommend you to try them out and learn at least a few words and phrases in a new language! For example, this is the introduction of a Spanish course on Duolingo: Tutorials for these apps: Duolingo:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBjeXF_Osm4 Busuu:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2g6_Y_auTM Mondly:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMt64CBIbg8 Memrise:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tto1BQMhqbE

Animoto is a free classroom tool for educators, students and administrations. You don't need any software downloads. You can share your videos with your parents, friends and teachers. You can either send them a link or download the video. You can use photos or videos to create and customize your video. It's very easy to use, you can quickly create videos online.  Here is an example of a video created on Animoto, I chose to make it about the Victorian Age's most famous novelists: (As you can see, there is a watermark on the video. If it bothers you, you can upgrade your account for a certain amount ot money and unlock more features, such as better video quality and more music options.) Animoto isn't the only tool you can use to create videos. You can also check out: Film Flicker, Toondoo, Toontastic, Powtoon, Animatron and Animaker.

Here is my "Web 2.0 Tools for Teaching" Trello board. It's a lot easier to decide which tool you want to use if you can see all of them in a single place, so here it is! The invitation link for you:  https://trello.com/invite/b/z6DMn54D/761b5b4a7b133b843e989b9890d803f4/web-20-tools-for-teaching In addition to the explanations taken from my blogpost, there are also tutorials you can check out. (Just click on the tool you wish to learn more about and you will see the link of the videos!)