THE END OF CALL

At the beginning of term, I was worried about this lesson because when the teacher said anything about next Iesson tasks, I didn’t know anything that the teacher said. This lesson seemed very difficult. As the time passed, I had some difficulties but I learned many things which I will use in my teaching life. I said that this lesson will be very useful and effective for me. I think, it come true because I learned a lot of things about technology usage in my lessons.

I said that this lesson has a lot of new terms. I don’t know what they are and how they are used. Now I know them. They are very useful for me. I use all of them. I enjoyed in this lesson.I hope I will use all of them in my lessons. Of course, it is necessary to remember the  teacher’s effort for teaching all the tasks, and drawing all of our attention to the lesson. Thank you very much for everything.

This is my first blog post :

Technology significantly affects society and human are continuous relationship with technology and also it is used in education. The use of internet in education has a positive impact on the students, teachers, as well as the educational system as a whole. I think this course will be very effective for me and my friends because students can connect, share, and learn on a global scale. We must learn it and apply in our teaching life. This course will be very useful.Technolgy has a lot of benefits in language learning.
This course includes a lot of new terms. These are: blogger, wordpress, PBworks, wetpaint, elluninate, etc. I don’t know what they are, how they are used. I am looking forward to beginning our lesson. I think this course will be fun and difficult.:)

Podcasts

We learn podcasts in this week. Podcasts are digital media files, which are produced in a series. You can subscribe to a series of files, or podcast, by using a piece of software called a podcatcher. Once you subscribe, your podcatcher periodically checks to see if any new files have been published, and if so, automatically downloads them onto your computer or portable music player for you to listen to or watch, whenever you wish. I search on net and I learn that podcasters often start shows with the intention of building online communities, and often solicit comments and feedback on their programs. People use web blogs, groups, and forums to communicate with other listeners and the show’s producers. Businesses are beginning to realize that podcasting is a cheap way to advertise to groups with very specific interests. Many large companies are starting to produce podcasts, both to communicate with their customers, and also with their own employees and also Podcast is very much a horizontal media form: producers are consumers and consumers become producers and engage in conversations with each other.  I can use for education purposes. I t is very useful. I can publish my students’ works and school songs, use in school news by telling children and parents what is going on at our school. I can use in interviews -with members of staff, children, members of the community, and visitors to school.

digital storytelling and storyjumper

At eleventh week, our topic is digital storytelling and storyjumper. I’ m familiar with digital storytelling. Digital storytelling involves combining narrative with digital content to create a short movie. Digital stories can include interactive movies with highly produced audio and visual effects or presentation slides with narration or music.

The teacher mentioned movie maker. Movie maker is a software that allows us to create and edit videos. This program is manufactured by Microsoft Windows and is available for free. Then the teacher mentioned storyjumper website.It gives parents, kids, teachers and authors a fun set of intuitive tools for writing and illustrating kids stories.

I will use both of them in my lessons because I can incorporate multimedia into my curriculum and also introduce storytelling in combination with social networking in order to increase global participation, collaboration, and communication skills. Moreover, digital storytelling is a way to incorporate and teach the twenty-first century student the twenty-first century technology skills such as information literacy, visual literacy, global awareness, communication and technology literacy. pictures, music, and narration reinforce ideas and appeal to different learning types. I can use it to introduce projects, themes, or any content area, and can also let my students make their own digital stories and then share them. I can create digital stories to help facilitate class discussions, as an anticipatory set for a new topic, or to help students gain a better understanding of more abstract concepts. These stories can become an integral part of any lesson in many subject areas. Students can also create their own digital stories and the benefits that they can receive from it can be quite plentiful. Through the creation of these stories students are required to take ownership of the material they are presenting. They have to analyze and synthesize information as well. All of this supports higher level thinking. Students are able to give themselves a voice through expressing their own thoughts and ideas.

StoryJumper brings together reading, writing, and imagination, giving students an outlet to express themselves through storytelling. StoryJumper provides an outlet for students to use their imaginations as well as learn some real writing strategy if they’re ready for it. The simple interface lets kids illustrate one page using a drag and drop graphics system while adding their own text onto the facing page. When students are finished, they can publish their story as viewable to public, private, or friends and family only on the StoryJumper site. They also have the option of purchasing a hardcover version for $24.95.

Tenth Week

I learned mIRC, Skype, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter social network services. mIRC has a number of distinguishing features. One is its scripting language which is further developed with each version. The scripting language can be used to make minor changes to the program like custom commands , but can also be used to completely alter the behavior and appearance of mIRC. Another claimed feature is mIRC’s file sharing abilities, via the DCC protocol, featuring a built in file server. mIRC’s abilities and behaviors can be altered and extended using the embedded mIRC scripting language.                                                         Now Skype is part of Microsoft. It brings innovative technology to friends, family and colleagues everywhere. You can enable more people to connect in more ways that transform and enhance their lives. With Skype, you can share a story, celebrate a birthday, learn a language, hold a meeting, work with colleagues – just about anything you need to do together every day. You can use Skype on whatever works best for you – on your phone or computer or a TV with Skype on it. It is free to start using Skype – to speak, see and instant message other people on Skype for example. You can even try out group video, with the latest version of Skype.If you pay a little, you can do more things, in more ways, with more people – like call phones, access WiFi or send texts. You can pay as you go or buy a subscription, whatever works for you. And in the world of business, this means you can bring your entire ecosystem of workers, partners and customers together to get things done.                                                                                                                           Yahoo operates a portal that provides the latest news, entertainment, and sports information. The portal also gives users access to other Yahoo! services like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Groups and Yahoo! Messenger. Yahoo provides Internet communication services such as Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mail. It mobile offers services for email, instant messaging, and mobile blogging, as well as information services, searches and alerts. Services for the camera phone include entertainment and ring tones and also it offers shopping services such as Yahoo Shopping. Yahoo offers a multi-lingual interface. The site is available in over 20 languages.                                    Facebook is an online social networking service and users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as “People From Work” or “Close Friends”. Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information, and other personal information. Users can communicate with friends and other users through private or public messages and a chat feature. They can also create and join interest groups and “like pages”, some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising. Since April 2011, Facebook users have had the ability to make live voice calls via Facebook Chat, allowing users to chat with others from all over the world. Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile. The website is free to users, and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads. Facebook requires a user’s name and profile picture to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.                                                                                                                    Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”. Unregistered users can read tweets, while registered users can post tweets through the website interface, SMS, or a range of apps for mobile devices.Twitter messages are public but users can also send private messages. Users can group posts together by topic or type by use of hashtags – words or phrases prefixed with a “#” sign. Similarly, the “@” sign followed by a username is used for mentioning or replying to other users. To repost a message from another Twitter user, and share it with one’s own followers, the retweet function is symbolized by “RT” in the message.  If you follow 20 people, you’ll see a mix of tweets scrolling down the page: breakfast-cereal updates, interesting new links, music recommendations, even musings on the future of education.                                                                                                I can use these services in my classroom because they are very popular and almost everyone uses one service among them. They can be very useful for them because they are familiar with them. For example, I make a group and I give them homework on this service. The other students’ can add comments, like their sharings, send message each other or chat, share something about the lesson. It may be  videos, essays etc.

3rd Week

I learned use of Wikis in English Language Classrooms. Pb works is one of Wikis that I have learned today. Pb works is an easy to use web page that multiple people can edit. PBworks is the easiest way to get a workspace for your classroom or for yourself. I can add pages, upload pages, see all pages and files, change wiki settings, search pages for specific word/phase and attach pictures or video clips. In fact, I can attach any type of file to any page in your workspace. I can get notified by email of every change that’s made to my workspace. I will use it because it gets students active in their learning: Students can use PBworks to do group work or create their own student portfolio. It gives chance us to demo my work : Use PBworks as an easy portfolio for learning and technology in my classroom. I can create an online slideshow to demo my work with one click. It keeps students and parents informed: Set up a page in your PBworks to update parents on what my classroom is doing, or to update students on changes to my syllabus. It’s live and editable anytime. I can also lock certain pages and hide others and also make my workspace public and private. It provides that the students have a sense of ownership and work on from home and school. It is a place for sharing works and ideas and great for digital portfolios.Setting up a PBworks is free. I have 2GB of storage space, unlimited pages, and an unlimited number of visitors. If I’d like more features and storage space, I can pay salary in order to use them. 

 

2 nd Week

          I have learned WordPress. WordPress.com lets you easily create your own blog and write about the things that interest you. It is a blogging community managed by makers of the open source WordPress software. WordPress.com blogs are free with the option of adding upgrades such as personalized domain names, custom, video storage, and more. In comparison, a self-hosted WordPress.org blog does not have upgrades and must be installed on a web hosting account separately. and also it has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress has a web template system using a template processor.WordPress users may install and switch between themes. Themes allow users to change the look and functionality of a WordPress website or installation without altering the information content or structure of the site. Themes may be installed using the WordPress “Appearance” administration tool or theme folders may be uploaded via FTP. One very popular feature of WordPress is its rich WordPress.com lets you easily create your own blog and write about the things that interest you. It is a blogging community managed by makers of the open source WordPress software. WordPress.com blogs are free with the option of adding upgrades such as personalized domain names, custom CSS, video storage, and more and the Dashboard is where to manage your blog. You can change settings, select themes, write or manage content, add or remove users, add images, buy upgrades, and more through the Dashboard.which allows users and developers to extend its abilities beyond the core installation.The Dashboard is where to manage your blog. You can change settings, select themes, write or manage content, add or remove users, add images, buy upgrades, and more through the Dashboard. You can use it in your mobile phones. You can add new blog posts and pages, commenting, moderating comments, replying to comments in addition to the ability to view the stats. I love this blog. I can use it because it has very different features and help my students. It is very useful. I can give homework and they can prepare and edit on this blog. In addition to online resources like the forums and mailing lists way to involved with WordPress is to attend or volunteer at a WordCamp, which are free or low-cost events that happen all around the world to gather and educate WordPress, organized by WordPress users.WordPress is currently the most popular blogging system in use on the web, powering over 60 million websites worldwide.

8 th Week

I learned WizIQ website. WizIQ is an online learning platform. The site is designed to help students and teachers find each other, and to provide an online virtual classroom learning environment. On the site, one can find online tests, tutorials, and recorded classes. WizIQ also serves as a social networking site to bring together educators and students from around the world. There is no vetting of the teachers on the site, as anybody can become a teacher and anybody can be a student. Teachers upload their profiles advertising what they teach, tutorials, their experience and credentials and students can run searches, find recorded classes to watch, tutorials to take, or teachers to work with. The website indicates that a dial-up modem will be functional but that broadband is recommended for a better experience. I will use this program for my class because I can teach in my own virtual classroom. WizIQ provide virtual classroom to teach students from home and also has calendar to schedule and manage sessions with my students. My students access to best teaching resources from the world and receive compelling content from the experts, ask questions, homework help, and network with friends and also accelerate learning and sharing of knowledge through the network of friends and contacts. WizIQ is very useful site. I love it so much.

seventh week

I have learned nicenet.org and campus.dokeos.com in this week. Nicenet has a simple interface, low graphics (to increase connection speeds), and you can create a class site with just a few minutes of your time. It is designed for post-secondary classrooms and offers Web-based conferencing, personal messaging, scheduling and link / resource sharing.It provides us with a new way to communicate with our students and for our students to communicate and share their work and ideas with each other. All students will have access to Nicenet as long as they have access to a computer with an Internet connection. Because the site is not visually “heavy” with images, ads and media, it loads quickly and is almost never down. Everyone enrolled can participate in discussion forums. The physical proximity of the students is not an issue. They can be in the same room performing tasks in real time, or working at computers in a geographical region and coming together regularly as a physical class, or perhaps they will never meet because the participants don’t live in the same city or even country. I can give students permission to create Conferencing topics or restrict that feature to yourself. I can also restrict students’ ability to post links. One of the most  useful features is that I can designate a student as a temporary Teacher’s Assistant.  This feature allows us to designate different students on a weekly basis to monitor Web-based discussions in your class. I can send messages to students but the easiest way is to email a class member is to go to the Personal messages. I can use this website because it provides me to communicate with my students and for my students and share their task and ideas with each other. I can send messages whole class or selected individuals.                                                                                                 The other website is campus.dokeos.com. This website has more tool than nicenet and its’ different feature is closed user group with outgoing acsess. If I want not to see the students anything, I can close the part of eye. This website is more useful because it has different features. The teacher is more authority. The teacher can direct different parts in this website.

Sixth Week

I learned prezi in this week. This software is very useful for me because I can do my presentation which allows me to zoom, and to size, rotate, or edit it.I places objects on a canvas and navigates between text, images, videos, and other presentation media. Frames allow grouping of presentation media together as a single presentation object. Paths are navigational sequences that connect presentation objects for the purposes of structuring a linear presentation but you have to work on online in prezi. Prezi has got different templates, diagrams, frames and arrows. It saves automatically your presentation and you can load video from youtube, pdf, files etc. You can load your presentation to your computer. I will use this software in my every presentation. Prezi is very entertainment software.

fifth week

This week, we learned a lot of new things about technology. They are very useful. If I have a android phone, I will use them. They provides convenience for us. We can follow newspaper different countries’ and also download books, videos, documentaries from dropbox. We can share video in edmodo website. We can use skype to make free video calls. Merriam Webster Dictionary is very good for us because we can listen the words’ pronunciation and find synonym and antonym meaning of the words and also their origins. I love this lesson, it is very useful for us.