Let's Array Words! Wordle!

      Hi all, it's me again! In this post I will write my last assignment and introduce you a new tool that our friends presented in the class. Its name is "Wordle"!


      What is Wordle? –It is a tool which enables its users to generate “word clouds” from the text the user provides. He/she can changes the font and color, decides its layout (vertical, horizontal), and also its language properties including removing common words. 

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to your own desktop to use as you wish.

      You doesn't have to sign up to create a word cloud on wordle. You just click create and start writing the words. That's it, just that simple. You can share your Wordle in any platform as any kind of picture like "*.jpg", "*.png"...


      In language teaching, teacher can use it as a brainstorming board or cloud, if the aim is to teach some certain words than just gives an assignment about the topic that includes creating a word cloud.

Word Cloud of Big Data Technologies

Advantages

• Free to use
• Write a word repeatedly to make it bigger on the cloud
• Easily remove the common words
• Change the colors

Disadvantages

      I couldn't find any disadvantage of this tool. If you think that there is some bad things about it, you can comment under this post.

Tayfun Erdoğmuş

Microsoft Office Publisher!

      Hi all, it's me again! In this post I will write about our last assignment and about Microsoft Office Publisher. 

      As a last assignment our teacher gave some tools to present to the class. I and Oğuz presented Microsoft Office Publisher. We had a pair work of course, he introduced the tool than I show the steps one by one with the options and we concluded our presentation with the samples that were prepared by Oğuz.
    
      For the technical knowledge, I can say that this tool is very handy to use and easy to understand. It has Microsoft Office based interface and if you can use any kind of Office tool, you can also use this tool."Publisher helps you create great small business marketing material, do desktop publishing from your own home or office, and even offers greeting cards for most occasions." 
      
      In language teaching, teachers can use this tool to give their students such assignments that can improve their creativity, writing skills. For example a teacher can assign his/her students to create a brochure about a place that they love or a menu that includes favorite meals of students.


      All the creator of these assignments consist of three easy steps:

      

      1. Choose your template,

      2. Organize it, 

      3. Save it.

      When it is saved, you can share or use it anywhere you want. Like every tool, this tool has advantages and disadvantages too.

Advantages

• You can create many things like brochure, greeting card, menu , invitation card.
• It is handy to use, so you can personalize, design as you want.
• It is available in almost every language.

Disadvantages

• It's charged when the trial ends.

      These are the examples :

                  

Tayfun Erdoğmuş

Learn English with Lingualeo!

      Hi all, it's me again! In this post I'm going to introduce you an application that can be installed to windows, android and ios based cell phones or tablets, also you can use its website on your computer. The name of the application is: English with Lingualeo. If you want to use this application or website (both are the same thing) you may use your facebook or google plus account or just you can use your e-mail to register. When your registration finishes, it asks you some questions about your skills, abilities, hobbies etc...

      You can practice or study with this application and you can watch videos in English with subtitles. But the most important feature of the videos is, if you don't know a word in the video you can just click on the word and see its meaning.

                                

      Lingualeo has also grammer lessons but you have to pay to use its all features but without paying anything you can use it, too.  For example small tests can be done by this application at the outside of the class.

                             

      In conclusion, learners of English can use this application to improve their level, knowledge and practice what they already know.

External links:
Lingualeo for Android

Lingualeo for Ios

Lingualeo for Windows Phone

Lingualeo for Desktop/Notebook/Web

Tayfun Erdoğmuş

Digital Storytelling Project: How to Make a Bottle Cap Party Whistle !

      Hi all it's me again! In this post ,again, Seda Çolak was with me and we prepared "How to" video about a great thing. This thing is an handmade whistle and it looks really cool.

      At first I have to say that finding a topic for a "Digital Storytelling Project" was a big challenge for us and we tried to find something different or something we don't know, but there are a lot of "How to" videos or topics. Finally we found something different at this website. There are images and information of our topic at this page. Our steps were simple, we were supposed to take the images and texts and use them but when the creating the video part came I figured out that it wasn't that simple. We used such programs that "Audacity", "Movie Maker" but there are so many tools that can be used for "Digital Storytelling"(DS).

      DS can be used by students to enhance the understanding of the knowledge of their own. It may also improve their speaking skill and vocabulary knowledge, too. When they tell a story or make a how to video like ours their world knowledge improves and they can survive in some circumstances.

      And here is the video:

Tayfun Erdoğmuş

Very Cool Website "Voscreen"

      Hi all, it's me again! In this post I will introduce you a website called "Voscreen". At first I want to say that this website can help you to practice your vocabulary knowledge and you can learn some new words via funny videos.
   
      The creator of the "Voscreen" is Deniz Dündar and he graduated from METU.  Here is an interview with him about the site.



      The website has a lot of short videos. The system of the website is watching videos, listening the sentences and trying to translate them in your language. This method is very useful to learn new words, for example I didn't know what "requisite" means but while I was capturing a screenshot for this post I learned it! It means "gerekli, elzem" in Turkish.

      Voscreen has videos from at the level of the kids to advanced level, so anyone can sign up and start to watch videos and practice. It aims to teach words without using a dictionary so the learner can learn and use these words fluently.

      The website doesn't have any update time written on it and the videos are all high quality and I think they appeal the target audience. For example the next screenshot is taken from kids section and the video taken from a animated film "Toy Story 3":

     How To Use?

     When you select the level, you see a video. After it finishes two button appears and the website wants you to choose one. The button on the left doesn't show the subtitle but the right one does.

With Subtitle 

Without Subtitle

      In EFL teaching, a teacher can use this website as a second vocabulary practising tool, so I recommend this website to Teachers.

Tayfun Erdoğmuş

An Amazing System! RSS!

   Hi all, it's me again! In this post I will write about "what is RSS?", "RSS readers" and "my favourite blog that I follow from a reader". Let's begin with the very first question, what is RSS?

RSS (Rich Site Summary; often called Really Simple Syndication) uses a family of standard web feed formats to publish frequently updated information: blog entries, news headlines, audio, video. An RSS document (called "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, and metadata, like publishing date and author's name.

      As stated at the quote that I took from Wikipedia, RSS helps us to reach blogs or any other channels easily and at that point we use "RSS readers". Using a RSS reader is the easiest way to see the newest posts that are published.
      
      I'm using FeedReader to follow a blog. It's about technology and mostly ELT teachers and its name is "Nik's Learning Technology Blog For English Language Teachers". ELT teachers may follow that blog in order to find new styles and softwares to use.

Tayfun Erdoğmuş

We Wrote a Wiki Page! Review!

      Hi all, it's me again! This is the first time that we wrote a review on a "Wiki" page and again Seda Çolak was with me.

      This week our task was creating a wiki page and writing a review of a film and we did it. It wasn't as hard as we thought and we didn't have any problem. After a long discussion we decided to write the review of the film that we watched a year ago "Life of Pi". I hope you will like it while you are reading our review.

      I want to say that using the wiki in the classroom is not very effective at all but it also has advantages too. If you want to use a wiki page, you should know that almost anyone can make changes on your wiki page. This means if you put an important information one of your students or anyone that has the access to the link can change anything on the page. But using the wiki pages for group works and doing tasks collaboratively could help you to see what your students do or write.

      Click here to go to our wiki page.

      The screenshots of our wiki page:

Tayfun Erdoğmuş

My First Podcast! (Unbelievable Dream)

      Hi all, it's me again! This is my first podcast post and I worked with Seda Çolak.

      We created a sound rich story and vocalized it together. We found the effects on the internet and edited our recordings with them. This podcast is suitable for all learners but especially young learners and beginners can benefit from this kind of stories. So the language we used is not too complicated. We didn't have any problem while recording our sounds and finding the sound effects. But creating a story was the hardest part.

      I also recommend that teachers should use podcasts for their students because they can listen podcasts over and over. This feature of podcasting can be very beneficial for students because it may improve their listening skills, improve their learning etc..

      Thank you for reading my blog and listening the podcast. I will be waiting for your comments.. :)




      You can listen it down below:

Tayfun Erdoğmuş

It's All About Technology and ELT

      Hi all, welcome to my blog. I'm Tayfun and I study ELT at Marmara University. This is my first serious attempt to share posts about technology integrated teaching, latest innovations, ideas, experiences and anything which i find interesting and useful about English Language Teaching area.. I think English can be learnt and taught more easily with the help of technology. I will share some posts with you about using technology in ELT. I think the posts will be useful and enjoyable. I hope you will enjoy.. I would be grateful if you share your ideas with me as well. Take care. See you soon.

Tayfun Erdoğmuş