Wordle and Smmry

Wordle is a website that enables us to see how many unique words make up a text, and how frequently each word is used.

I identified words such as

task based learning,

authentic content,

authentic tasks,

meaningful interaction,

and learner. The vocabulary profile were the same.

Smmry is another website that allows us to access the summaries of  texts. When I move my mouse over the text, the frequently used words are shown in highlighted lines. So, it resembles wordle in that sense. Also, I liked the summary because it includes all the essential points. I guess this summary is made by guessing the frequently used words.

Freq Train

Check out how your frequency intuition is:
http://www.lextutor.ca/freq/train/

Here is my result:

British Council-Word Family

The EU has done a lot of research into languages .Here is a WORD FAMILY FRAMEWORK based on CEFR. I believe that is quite useful for English language teacher. It shows the relationship between the level of proficiency and the frequency of usage of particular words.
First I entered "able" :

 

Then I entered "document":

 Here are the results. You can access the website by clicking the following link:

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/wff/

English Words

There are 1,025,109.8 (January 1, 2014 estimate) words in English ! How many words do you know ?

 Here is my results:

  You can check your vocabulary knowledge by using the following links:

1.       http://testyourvocab.com/

2.       http://vocabulary.ugent.be/

Deeper Reflection on the Assure Model

As I wrote in my previous blog, my teachers were generally not very efficient in using the instuctional technology and media. I can say this on the grounds that the only technological equipments we used were television, cd player and projector but its use was very limited. When I compare the instuctional media that is used nowadays, I find our use of instructional media is very very sufficient. For example, we could use our smart phones or simply computers to integrate instruction and technology in a more effective way. I believe computer helps a lot for especially pronunciation. Hearing native pronunciation from online dictionaries, may help students to produce native-like pronunciation. These weren't included in our classes. If they were included, I believe our English lessons would be more effective. Other than fourth step, which is utilizing technology, our teachers were aware of the steps of the Assure model. They analyzed the students profile , stated objectives, selected materials,require learner's response and evaluate well, which in turn contributed to the effectiveness of the lessons.

Google Chrome Education Apps

ABC MOUSE KIDS LEARNING:

This app is desisgned for mainly kindergarten children. ABC Mouse Kids Learning's main aim is to foster children's future academic success by building up a base for it. I think that's pretty smart thing to do because 21st century learners start to rely on technology earlier than previous generations. In a way, we can say that they are born into technology. The app guides children to progress in a sequential way. And once they finish one level , they are rewarded. Also, children have a wide range of variety for choosing the areas that they want to study. For example, they can choose art, book, puzzle etc. In addition, the app doesn't include any advertisements, which is very imporant for avoiding distraction.

Reflection on Chapter 2

When I reflect on my high school years, I would say that some traces behaviorist approach may be seen. For example, in our computer lessons, the students who finished their task earlier were prized by playing computer for the rest of the remaining time. Our task are easy and it was computer assisted as behaviorist suggested. Another example was from our reading and writing example from high school. We watched movies without subtitles and answer the questions in the handout that our teacher distributed. If we were on our best behavior and watched the movie silently, our teacher took the break 10 minutes earlier. Again the task was easy and it was technology assisted in a way. Actually it was quite effective and we were more patient. I remember myself saying " If I complete the task, I will have more free time, so I should start working." As you can see, I was more motivated. A teacher can utilize behaviorist approach easily and it can help teacher to develop classroom management with ease even in a computer lab. environment.

Another learning theory that can be observed in my high school years is social psychology perspective. In literature class, we formed groups and tried to interpret the poems bu ourselves. We were allowed to use dictionaries and internet for getting information about the literary terminology. At the end of each class, all groups represented their poems with the help of their collaborative question and answer session. In that sense, collaborative work were encouraged and we felt more secure. I believe it was very effective in terms of diminishing student' fear of making errors and increasing the collaborative work among students. My suggestion to other teachers as a prospective teacher would be the belief that 4 learning theories can be integrated with technology with right activities and lesson plans. In my opinion, all they have to do is to stay up to date with instructional technologies and be creative.

Ted-ED Reflection on the ASSURE Model of Learning

Think back to a teacher from high school that you thought had been effective in helping students learn and achieve the objectives of your course. What steps in the ASSURE model did that teacher follow? What was missing?

When I reflect on my favourite high school tacher by thinking Assure Model, I would say that she is definetely followed the very first step which is analyzing the learners. In my opinion, a teacher should keep in mind the general profile of students that s/he is teaching. I think she can understand us(mostly our needs) well. She followed the second step which is stating objectives. I felt more oriented in her lessons because I knew I would gain something at the end of each lesson. She was good at the third step but she wasn't very efficient in the fourth step. In other words, she was good at selecting media but she didn't use the media tools very effectively.

TEDed - Exploring the Issues and Principles for Integrating Technology into Teaching/Learning

TEDed : What level of technology integration do you think you will be able to achieve when you start teaching? What obstacles or hurdles do you anticipate you might encounter when you attempt to integrate technology into your teaching. Which or these obstacles will come from the school administration, from your peers, or from yourself? How could you overcome any of these?

As a prospective teacher, I am mostly keen on using and integrating technology into my teaching especially when I think of the development of classroom-oriented technological materials. I think the possible obstacles that I may come across in using technology in my teaching depends on where I work. According to me my observation, universities are more open to the idea of using technology in teaching and learning process. But, primary, middle and high schools are more rigid on this issue. Possibly, the obstacles will come from school administration because it may challenge their traditional way of teaching. Maybe, I will try to persuade the school administration by showing them the effectivenes of integrating technology.

Some interesting research on the use of social media by teenagers.

Reflection on Chapter 1

In secondary school, we didn't have to have lots of literacy skills that we have to now. When I started university definitely I didn't have any ideas of what literacy skills I have. However, now I know 8 different types of literacy skills and I have the confidence to integrate them my academic education. As a student, I need to have computer literacy to complete the assignments that are directly related with using computer such as CTE 319 assignments. In addition, I utilize text literacy skills a lot for readind assignments. As a teacher I believe I will have to have to general literacy skills to faciliatate students' cognitive development. Also, there are different types of students so teachers need to have different types of literacies to address all of them. For example, a teacher needs to have visual,audio and video literacy skills. However, sometimes having those skills are not enough so teacher needs to know how to activate and integrate them into their teaching. At that point, lesson plans such as ASSURE can help teachers. Teachers needs to upgrade their literacies depending on the classroom that they are teaching.

Current use of technology in teaching in Turkey

As prospective teachers, we should all think "How would we describe the current use of technology in teaching in Turkey?" or "How would the technology used in teaching change in the following years?" Technology is not a static thing and it will keep changing all the time. As we looked back, we can see the development of technology for especially the last 10 years. It is actually hard to imagine how technology will change and how this change will affect teaching. To predict the differences that will come about with the development of technology, we have to describe current of technology in teaching. In Turkey, using technology in teaching is not highly valued. Using technology for in-class activities is quite rare. In primary schools and high schools, projectors and televisions are used to watch movies. Computers are used only by teachers for various purposes. However, students use technology very much for doing their homework. I guess in-class activities will be much more based on technology by using websites such as Socrates, Edmodo etc. Students will be more comfortable with using technology and can easily integrate technology into their learning. It will create a more comfortable classroom environment for students, which will faciliatate both teaching and learning.

Interesting!