ThingLink

Hello everyone! Today I will talk about ThingLink.

ThingLink is an application on which you can create and share interactive images, videos, and 360° media. As a teacher you can create groups, add your students to them, give them assingments, and follow up the process. As a student you can create enjoyable contents, work in groups, and learn in an entertaining way. I think creating something on ThingLink is both entertaining and educational. I decided to create a spoken image today. It was really fast and easy to choose an image, and to add my voice message to that image. I had fun doing this. My topic is colours, and I hope it will be useful for someone wanting to learn colours in English. I will share the link of my image here, yet most probably it will not work. So I will also share the screen record of it below.

https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1323684895284789249

Vidcast

Hello everyone! Now I want to talk about vidcast. 

A vidcast is a video clip designed to be viewed in a portable device. It is also called "vcast" "vodcast" and "videocast". It is the video counterpart of a podcast and uses the same RSS syndication method for delivering material to users. In order to draw attention to vidcast's existence in language teaching, I prepared a vidcast about "much, many, a lot of, lots of."

Virtual Reality

Hello everyone! Today I will talk about an important system of today's world. Yup, virtual reality!!

Virtual reality is the meeting of virtuality and reality in simple terms. Now let me explain what I mean in detail. The virtual part of this system is mostly provided by software programming. Today people can make use of computer technology, which is the most important part of virtuality, to create a simulated environment. Surely this means without changing your environment in real world, you can be in another environment thanks to VR. The heart of the matter is that it can completely make you feel like you are really there. The environment created by VR encourages the users to accept and believe it as a real environment. VR experience primarily focuses on the senses of vision and sound.

This technology is used in many field like video games, social apps, vehicle simulators, medicine, car design and education. I will indeed focus on the field of education in this blog. VR solutions for education to be used in schools are stil not at the intended level. Since students are likely to have a better retention through seeing, hearing and doing, it can’t be denied that VR fits greatly with their needs though. It offers detailed visualization. Besides it provides teacher with headsets virtually taking students out the classroom, and making them explore in first person various settings.

To touch upon my on field, which is English Language Teaching, I can say instead of making students work on papers to do activities, you can make them feel like being in the real environment of that language. For example if you assign your students with a presentation, they can practice public speaking thanks to VR, and thusly they can get encouragement. You can make your students watch 360 degree videos, and want them to explain what they see in the target language, which will make them feel like being in the real environment of that language. Apart from these, you can make use of new platforms like YouTube 360, Samsung Gear, and Oculus Go. To sum up the use of VR may be not still at the intended level all around the world. Though it is an undeniable fact that its effects are increasing, so we had better do our best to learn and use VR in order to catch up with current needs.

Mondly, Busuu, Memrise, Duolingo

Hello everyone! Hope y’all are having a nice day! Generally I don’t think that the apps and websites that I talk about are the ones that everyone are familiar with. Yet today I will talk about 4 apps that I think anyone wanting to learn a new language in this technology age must have heard about at least one of them. This fact points to their usability and popularity. I want to tell you more details about them, and make some people who haven’t heard about any of them yet aware of them. So let’s start!

The first one is Mondly. When you start using Mondly, you’re asked to choose the one you want to learn among 33 languages, and determine your level in that language. After this your learning process starts. The first activity is showing you two pictures and a word in your first language, and asking you to choose the correct picture and word in target language. Then you’re asked to translate sentences in accordance with your level. You can speak with Mondly Bot in your target language. During the chat you see the things you can say as an answer to the Bot. You can follow up the advanced statistics of your learning process day by day. You can add friends, and compare your progress with them. Finally I must say some features of the app have to be paid for, though the ones that are free are worth trying too.

The second one is Busuu. Last summer while trying to learn French I gave a chance to Busuu. This made me notice that this app is really well designed for the needs of the people wanting to learn foreign language. There are activities for all language skills (speaking, listening, writing and reading). It has a system that you can easily follow up your progress in detail. You can check the percentage of your fluency and how many words you’ve learned daily. You can prepare a study plan for yourself. I mean for example, you can set a planner that requires you to study 10 minutes a day, and this way you get daily reminder in order not to miss your lessons. Finally the most useful feature of Busuu is making it possible for you to get feedback from native speakers. All features of Busuu are not free either. For example you can’t reach to all of the lessons without paying. Though you can still learn so many things for free thanks to Busuu.

The third one is Memrise. This app is definitely appropriate for vocabulary learning in more than 20 languages. It makes you learn so many words, phrases, and sentences in a short time, and make you keep them in your mind easily thanks to various activities. You can watch native speaker videos, improve your listening skills, practice speaking, and test your memory speed. Almost three years ago when I was in high school, I discovered Memrise while I was trying to improve my English. Consequently I can say that it really made me learn new vocabulary which I still haven’t forgotten.

Finally the fourth one is Duolingo. It makes you choose your purpose for learning target language while starting. So you can stay focused on your purpose, and follow a process in accordance with it. Since it daily reminds you of checking the app, and seeing your process, I think it is a motivating app. You can improve your vocabulary and listening skill on Duolingo.

Edpuzzle, Nearpod

Hello everyone! Today I want to talk about two applications I've discovered newly. These are Edpuzzle and Nearpod. Both are great applications to be used by teachers and students in order to create a quite interactive environment in the field of education. Let's start!

The first one is Edpuzzle. This application's main focus is videos. You can share videos from other platforms with your students on Edpuzzle. You can also create your videos. At the end of each video, you can prepare tests about the content of that video for your students. Thusly you'll be able to check and evaluate their processes. On the other hand as a student you can easily access to your online classes, check your assingments and their due dates, and watch the videos uploaded by your teachers as many times as you want. As it is seen, Edpuzzle is a beneficial application both for students and teachers.

The second one is Nearpod. It's actually similar with Edpuzzle. Though we can say it has larger amount of qualifications. As a teacher you can benefit from videos uploaded by other teacher, and you can create you own videos too. Besides you can share various documents with your students. I mean what kind of document you want, you can share. Besides there are some useful ways to evaluate the processes of your students. You can do this with the help of quizes, polls, and different kinds of questions. There are also interactive activities you can engage with like 3D Objects and Draw Its. As students you can make group works with your peers by the use of texts, images, and gifs. You can also do an activite of matching pairs with timer. To sum up, I believe that Nearpod will be both entertaining and educational for you thanks to all these and more.

Storybird

Hello everyone, hope y'all are fine! Today I want to talk about Storybird which is an amazingly entertaining and useful website. To tell briefly, I can say you can write and prepare picture books, longform stories, comics, flash fictions and poetry on Storybird. Besides you can read what other guys have written of course! If you're a teacher you can create classes, add your students, and stay connected with them on this entertaining and educational platform.

Thusly you can give your students assignments. After preparing their works, getting comments and feedback from various people may encourage them in the process of writing. They can create their own libraries with their own works and the ones they have read and liked. Storybird is appropriate for each age group, and is one of the most suitable online ways for giving writing and reading assignments.

Here's the picture book I've created on Storybird and the link for it, hope you enjoy it: https://storybird.com/picture-book/oscar-and-his-new-family

Quizlet

Hello everyone! The next application I want to talk about is Quizlet. Thanks to Quizlet you'll be able to memorize the words and phrases you've learnt everywhere and everytime you want also saving paper.

Firstly you create a class and design it in accordance with your needs, or your students' needs if you're a teacher. Thanks to Quizlet Live you can play didactic games with all your students. You can find appropriate materials for completing the content of your classes. You can share special images and audios with your students. You can make your students practice what they’ve learnt everywhere and everytime they want. Besides you can follow up the process of your students.

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You can create cards which have the words and their meanings on each side of them, and memorize words or phrases easily. You can add images for each one if you wish. You can mark the ones that you have diffucilty memorizing as your favourites, and later work on them again.

Thanks to didactic games and tests, you can both practice what you've learnt and have fun at the same time.

Here's the link for my Quizlet experience: https://quizlet.com/tr/508992858/animals-flash-cards/

Pixton.com

Hello everyone! Today I will talk about a quite entertaining and educational website. This website is called Pixton. When we first start it, we're asked to choose our role as an educator, student, parent or worker. I decided to use it as an educator. Then we get the chance to create a class or comics, which I decided to create a comic.

While creating a comic, we can choose a background, characters, focus, words, faces and actions of our characters. Besides we can even choose the weather. We can set the sunlight or moonlight. Some options have to be paid for. Yet I think there are still enough options for each qualification. I already create my first comic without paying.

To tell about more details, we can choose outfits, skin, hair, and eye colours of our characters. Some options have to paid for here too, yet there are enough free options in my opinion. Generally speaking, I think it's a well designed website. While creating the comic, I had lots of fun. I felt like playing a didactic game. 

Here's my first comic and the link for it, hope you enjoy it: https://share.pixton.com/psai6kg

Podcast

Hello everyone! Today I wanna talk about podcasts. A podcast is simply an episodic audiofile. It must be about a specific topic or theme. You can listen to podcasts with your smartphones everywhere and everytime you want. Since there are numerous podcasts about numerous topics, I'm sure everyone can find one about a topic they're interested in.

I want to introduce Anchor, which is an application for podcast recording and listening, with you. I discovered it newly, yet I can say that I am already impressed. Thanks to Anchor, you can record or listen to podcasts everywhere and everytime you want easily. You can record them as segments, and share as episodes. You can add background music, title, description, tag and cover picture to your podcasts. With all these qualifications and more, Anchor is an amazing application for the ones who are interested in podcasts. I hope you enjoy my first podcast on Anchor. It is about Total Physical Response (TPR) as a language teaching approach and here's the link for it: https://anchor.fm/zu00fcleyha-bozkurt/episodes/Total-Physical-Response-ee6dcs