Augmented Reality???

Day by day, I'm fascinated by the technological improvements. One of these improvements is the augmented reality. It's basically an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information. For example, Pokemon GO! is one of the AR apps.

We can also use AR for educational purposes. There are many applications for enhancing learning-teaching environment such as ZapWorks, ARKKit etc. You can create your own AR environment via these apps. 




But personally, for the ELT branch, I think AR technology is not sufficient yet.

   

The AR can be used in lessons like chemistry, physics and biology as well as geograpy.

Second Life???

If you know about the gaming market, you can see different online open-world simulation games like Sims, Mstar etc. Basically, you create an avatar that represents you online. You can dance, eat, love and do many other things that related to the human being. But I'm going to talk about Second Life a little bit.

Second Life is a simulation game as I've mentioned above. But it is kind of different than the others. Many universities around the world, like California State University and Istanbul University have invested in this game and founded their own places in the game.

I can proudly say that I've been to the California State University, even though it was online. But I can prove.

This is my avatar. If you decide to download the game, here is the link:
https://secondlife.com/
You can create an account for free. And feel free to add me in game!!!

My nickname is "berfovski".

Videos for Teaching???

Personally, I think face-to-face teaching works much better, since you can see the responses at the very moment without any delay. And I think this makes a difference -just an opinion-. But what if you can't?

We have encountered this question in this period, period of pandemia. All around the world, schools have been shut down necessarily. As a result, education has been interrupted as anything else related to the daily urban life.

But technology thankfully has rescued this "wounded education" for a little bit. We faced a great number of applications and started to know technology's value.

And today, I'm here to talk about the "vlog" craze. Simply, you record yourself like you are keeping a diary. So here's the question: Why shouldn't a teacher record a vlog about his/her lesson?

Since my camera is not working, I had to capture "myself" from the app, Voki. But the voice is mine.

https://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=16495748&chsm=2ede9f35703de19f2e1c6acffa7f5fb0


P.S: Yes, it's Elizaberf again.

Voki???

Would you like to become a cat, a Hillary Clinton or an anime character while talking about something? Well, if your answer is "yes", then I have good news for you!!! Voki exists for this purpose..
Voki is simply a tool that can be used by uploading an audio, or typing what you want. Then, you choose your character and customize it. I proudly became the Elizabeth , or you can say "Elizaberf" for you and ironically, talked about English as lingua franca.






https://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=16493048&chsm=945bcbd81d1c11ffa154bcf83d5c7156








P.S: Elizaberf was good tho!!

Powtoon???

Today in "Useful Applications": Powtoon!!!

Powtoon is simply an animation program that you can create any animation you want to. You can create a slide about your job. In our context, you can make a video about your lesson. I created a tiny "tasty" animation for beginners and young learners of English.

https://www.powtoon.com/c/ehfwZNGKkWB/1/m

You can add many images, videos etc.

Soundcloud???

As you know, I'm looking for different applications that can be used in teaching-learning process. Today's lucky app is the Soundcloud!!!
It seems a little bit casual. It's OK. You can listen to different musics and artists in this app. But how is this related to education???
Well, you can also be an artist!!! You can record whatever you want to -unless it's inappropriate- and upload to the cloud.
I tried it for the ELT students and teachers by talking about the Direct Method.

https://soundcloud.com/berfin-oezen/direct-method-in-elt

Hope you enjoy!!!

TPACK and SAMR???

As you've noticed, this blog is about ELT and remote/online teaching. While talking about these, we shouldn't forget about the essence of it, of course. And here I am today with the TPACK and SAMR. OK but what are those???

TPACK is short for Technological Pedagogical  and Content Knowledge, and is a framework that points out the main domains of knowledge. By this way, teachers can use them while teaching!!! Content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and technological knowledge make up the TPACK all together. 

Content knowledge: Teacher's actual knowledge about the language (grammar,vocabulary etc.).
Pedagogical knowledge: Teacher's knowledge of how to teach.
Technological knowledge: Teacher's knowledge of how to teach THROUGH technology.

SAMR is short for Substitution,Augmentation,Modification and Redefining Levels. It basically explains how and why technology should be used in education.

Substitution Level: Substitution of coursebooks.
Augmentation Level: Enhancing the class beyond coursebooks.
Modification Level: Modifying the teaching process.
Redefining Level: Changing the ways of teaching and learning.