My Digital Story "How to"

Hi everyone! Today, I will share a digital story that I created with you. My classmate Eren Yasemen & I prepared this short movie by using Microsoft Movie Maker. We added some pictures, videos, sounds and recordings. Hope you'll enjoy! :)



Reference: Youtube

30Hands

This week, we discussed about digital story and some applications that we can use in the classroom. In this post, I will give some basic information about a digital story application which is 30Hands.It is an application which is accessible for Ipad or Ios users.

30Hands offers people the opportunity to create their own stories supported by images, slides and recordings. By using this application, digital stories can be created like a movie or a slide show.
There are many opportunities of this app, now let's have a look at the process of creating a digital story by using this app.

First of all, when you start using the application you come across with such a screen as below.

As can be seen, firstly you should select a title for the story and then you are starting to add slides and for each slide you are selecting a background or image.

Having selected a background for the first slide, if you want, you can add a recording to the slide reckless of its length. For example, if you want to make it as a storytelling, you can set apart the stories into pieces and range it into slides.

When you finish creating as much as slides you prefer, and adding the recordings to the slides, you can finish your project. Besides adding recordings to the slides, there are some other functions that you might want to use with this app such as adding writings on the slides, changing the colour of the background, adding some special effects to the slides.After finishing your project, this application allows you to share your project, to publish it.

How about using this application in a learning activity? There are some advantages and disadvantages, of course. First of all, it is suitable for everyone at different ages, it is quite simple to use the app. Also the opportunity to publish projects is an advantage. And to talk about disadvantages of the app, I can mention about the poor design of the application and simplicity of it. There could be some other opportunities such as to be able to add videos, to include cartoon characters to add..

To sum up, I can recommend the use of this application in the classroom but there might be other, more-qualified applications.

 To download the application, please click here.

English for Kids; "anglomaniacy.pl"

This website offers the opportunity to learn and practice English via songs, visuals, games etc. It is obvious that this website was prepared for kids when we look at it's colorful design and cartoons.

The website was prepared by a girl from Polland, Barbara in 2005. She is the creater and owner of the website, her aim was to help her young pupils with their English.

There are different choices for learners to improve their English such as vocabulary exercises, grammar exercises, expressions supported by episodes, songs... When learners select a category, then they see different sub-categories related to various topics. Learners can select a topic which they are interested in and then practise it.

When I look at the website, I have both likes & dislikes about it. First of all, I like the design of the website, because it is set up for kids and it is colorful, supported by cartoons. The variety of topics is another thing that I like about, it is likely probable for children to find a topic which they are interested in. There is one more thing which is a plus for me, this website offers printable worksheets of exercises and young learners' teachers can use these materials in their classrooms.
As I mentioned there are also things that I don't like about. Firstly, the design of the website is a bit complicated for children. There might be confusions for children while using it. Also, there are lots of advertisements on the pages, it could be a problem, as well. The aim of this website is to improve young learners' English, that's why it cannot be used for higher levels.
This website can be used in the classroom for many purposes, such as improving grammar knowledge, enriching the vocabulary knowledge and improving listening & speaking skills of the young learners. However; if the teachers want to make students use the website themselves, learners may need guidence for the reasons that I mentioned.
Consequently, I advise this website for young learners with the guidance of their teachers.
To visit the website, please click here.

Wiki Project!

a Wiki website

This week, we were supposed to prepare a wiki page including the information about our favourite books. We wrote about the author, a short summary of plot and characters and we added critiques, motivating questions etc. Finally we rated  the book on a 5 star scale and gave the reason why we recommend the book to others. I choose 'A Prisoner of Birth' by Jeffrey Archer. It was another experience for us and I think Wiki can be used easily in EFL classrooms. It is really advantageous for time-saving and making students realize each other's mistakes and correct them. Lots of creative projects can be carried out via Wiki. In case you have to work with crowded classes, keep Wiki in your mind! :)

This is the page that I created about my favourite book, click here.
If you would like to have a look at what Wiki looks like, click here.

The Twilight Chaos

This week we were supposed to prepare podcasts, and we had 3 different options; record a chant, a myth or a sound rich story with our own voices and we were asked to study in pairs. Inthis project, one of my classmates, Eren Yasemen Karahan and I worked together. We created the story and started to record it. Before trying to record it, in fact, we did not realize that it would be that much difficult to do. There were different characters with different genders and we were two females, that's why it was harder than we thought. Also ve had to record it many many times till we were satisfied with our performance. However; we shared the dialogues and finally could record it. I have to confess that we really had fun during this process. Here the story is, enjoy!


Voice Recorder >>

What's happening here?

Hi everyone! I am Büşra Özdemir, from Istanbul,Turkey. I am studying at English Language Teaching department of Marmara University. During this term, I am going to share my experiences with you. I will comment on acts, criticize things and communicate with you via this blog.  Hopefully, you enjoy! :)