Beyza's first blog

EVO 2010- Join the fun!

2010-01-14T01:09:00.003+02:00

Hi all!

I am thrilled that Electronic Village Online (EVO) 2010 sessions have started. It might be familiar to those who have participated in them before but if you haven't heard of these sessions, here is a brief description of these sessions :

'For six weeks, participants in EVO can engage with ESOL experts in collaborative, online discussion sessions or in hands-on virtual workshops of professional and scholarly benefit. These sessions will bring together participants for a longer period of time than is permitted by the land-based TESOL convention and will allow a fuller development of ideas and themes of the convention or of professional interest in general.'

The most appealing aspect of these sessions is the chance to meet educators from different parts of the World and share insights. These sessions are also FREE.

It is the fourth time I am attending these sessions and they have definitely contributed a lot to my career and goals. I am taking "Multiliteracies for Social Networking and Collaborative Learning Environments" and "Teaching Languages in a Virtual World" this year. Although it is diffcult to take two sessions at the same time when working full time, I just couldn't decide which one to take so I decided to take two of them:) I hope I can survive!

Although the sessions have already started, it is still possible to register. You can see the list of these sessions in the following link:

I will be happy to read your reflections about EVO sessions. I hope you enjoy them.

Best wishes.

Why do educators need to be more literate in using web 2.0 tools? Here is the answer:

2010-01-11T00:18:00.001+02:00

a great video explaining the functions of twitter - worth watching:)

2009-11-01T01:38:00.003+02:00

Hi all,

As my focus has been on twitter recently, I would like to share a video. Actually, I had posted an informative post on twitter but I think this video is better in terms of explaining the functions of twitter.

Please reply to this post by explaining how you use twitter.

Thanks for reading this post.

Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

my twitter mosaic

2009-08-30T01:05:00.002+03:00

Hi all,
The chart below displays my twitter mosaic,people I follow on twitter. I would like to thank each one of them for sharing their wonderful ideas and keeping me up to date.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

twitter - my new focus

2009-07-24T16:16:00.009+03:00

Hi all,

In this post, I would like to reflect upon a really popular tool, twitter, that I discovered later than many technology enthusiasts. My first twitter experience was not very well. At first I had thought it was just like simple tool people use to reflect what they are doing. The use of twitter seemed so limited to me that I didn't update my status or 'tweeted' for more than three months. After having seen that it is being mentioned a lot in the world of CALL, I decided to focus on twitter again.

Then what is twitter?

Twitter is a microblogging platform helping its users to update their status, send and read people's messages called tweets. If you have a twitter account, people can subscribe to your profile and be your followers. You can also subscribe to their profiles and catch up with their updates, links and messages. Accessing twitter is quite easy. You can either visit twitter website or use external applications like tweetdeck and tweetie or use you mobile to send and respond to people's tweets.

Is it really so popular?

Yes, definitely! That's why many magazines and newspapers and even celebrities have twitter accounts. The popularity of twitter has even led some people to post ads and access many people. It is also necessary to note that this wonderful tool is ranked as one of the 50 most popular websites worldwide by Alexa's web traffic analysis.

What can be done using twitter?

The use of twitter is NOT limited to updating your status. It can be used for various purposes like:

sharing links
sharing photos
catching up with recent news&trends
replying to people's tweets
sending messages to your friends
meeting new people
making your blog more popular
finding the information needed using popular tags

Twitter vs Facebook

I think I have admit that I find twitter more user friendly and purposeful when compared to facebook as a language teacher.

How can you sign up for a twitter account?

Please visit http://www.twitter.com to get a twitter account.

What is my twitter id?

If you want to follow me on twitter my id is beyza.

If you want to learn more about twitter, please read the wonderful blog post by Kalinago English:

http://kalinago.blogspot.com/2009/08/english-language-teachers-guide-to.html

Happy tweeting:)

B.

my presentation-Check it out!

2009-04-04T23:41:00.006+03:00

After my concurrent session today in a local ELT conference on technology, I would like to share my presentation with my followers. I am going to write another post about my ideas both about my presentation and the conference as the theme of it was related to technology.

Wiki In Action

View more presentations from Beyza.

Plans

2009-03-29T23:46:00.004+03:00

Although I have neglected my blog recently, I have some good news to share!

As I have already mentioned in my MA reflections blog, I could finish my article on the relation between my wiki use and motivation levels of my students and my proposal for a local ELT conference is accepted. I am going to do a concurrent session in the conference next Saturday. I have already prepared my draft but I need to go over some details in order to engage the audience.

After I finish it, I am planning to post it to slideshare and share it with technology enthusiasts.

Wish me luck:)

Digital Storytelling week 4-My first story using movie maker

2009-02-08T03:34:00.006+02:00

Hi all!
Here is my first mini digital story. I hope to be more creative after mastering moviemaker.

EVO-2009 -Digitalstorytelling -Week 1

2009-01-17T16:54:00.005+02:00

Hi again after a long time!

I am well aware that I am neglecting my blog a lot as the number of my responsibilities are increasing. However,I am really happy to push myself more in order to achieve my goals and come up with new ideas thanks to interaction with colleagues.

EVO 2009 started on Sunday.I am really excited about the event as EVO 2009 is different from other EVO events as I am co-moderating a session on digital storytelling with one of my Turkish colleagues Sedat Akayoğlu. Actually I had co-moderated a week last year in tips and tricks workshop with another colleague, Vanessa Vaile but it took only a week. However,I am going to moderate the session for six weeks so it requires more work and responsibilities apart from the ones at the university and the master's program.

Our session began this weeek with introductions. Then the participants were asked to watch four videos and comment on them. Tonight we are going to share reflections in WIZIQ and meet synchronously with the participants. I am really excited to meet them for the first time synchronously and discover the dynamics of the group.

I am going to share my reflections more after the session in WIZIQ in my blog.

If you want to learn more about our digitalstorytelling session you can visit our group wiki below and check the activities :

http://digitalstories09.pbwiki.com

Let's keep interacting and sharing ;)
Best
Beyza

EVO 2009-digital storytelling session proposal accepted

2008-10-20T09:29:00.005+03:00

Hi again,
I am multitasking as usual these days but I can now find more time to blog and share my reflections and good news with my followers.:)I have also started to blog about my MA reflections in another blog which I intend to make reflective .I am glad to have learned the EVO proposal we submitted with my friend Sedat is accepted. We are going to get moderator training for a month and then start the six week session about digital storytelling.I hope to learn a lot both from the training and the real sessions.
Keep following me;)

B.

new plans&ideas

2008-09-25T11:19:00.005+03:00

The end of the year and beginning of a new semester has led me to make new plans and put them into action both in my professional and academic life. I have just learned I will be teaching online and plan the online activities in the University I work for.There's a lot of work to do but not enough time to plan the activities. Therefore, we decided to use a certain coursebook which can be used online and give the ss a certain time to write and submit their tasks.We are going to make use of adobe connect,a tablet pc ,and the coursebook and assign students homework online.As the program is distance, I think setting up a blog or a wiki can help them to interact with their friends and can give them a chance to display their written or oral work to a wider audience.I started doing an M.A in TEFL at Bahcesehir University.I hope to make use of my online experience in the program and euqio myself with necessary information.I also decided to submit a proposal to EVO with my colleague Sedat working at Middle East Technical University.I hope all my plans work .
Wish me luck:)
B.

Happy birthday Webheads!

2008-09-15T22:43:00.005+03:00

In this post I'd like to wish Webheads community happy birthday. I am really glad to be a member of this wonderful community . I have been a member for two years and it has changed a lot in my career. Thanks to this wonderful community I really discovered what I want to do , broadened my horizons ,learned a lot about technology and met wonderful,helpful,creative educators from all around the world.

Thanks for inspiring me Webheads. Happy birthday!

An interesting activity to be used in language classes

2008-07-23T09:23:00.006+03:00

Hi again,
In this post, I would like to share an interesting activity to be used in language classes. Two months ago my friend Rita,an English teacher in Argentina, asked me if her sts could make an interview with me about Turkey. I accepted her offer and her students
interviewed me in June using yahoo messenger and another voice recording tool. After that they compiled some information about Turkey to be be displayed on their class wiki.They also did other interviews with other language teachers from different countries to get some information or learn things they wonder about them.I found this activity both purposeful,exciting and fun.It is also a good example of how technology can be integrated to language classes.As students need more productive activities,this activity can be integrated to many language classes or programs as speaking or presentation tasks. The link to Rita's class wiki is below.

http://caeb2008.pbwiki.com/Beyza-Yilmaz-Interview

What do you think about such communicative,purposeful activities? If you have done such activities , do not hesitate to add it in the comment section.
Have fun!
B.

Exploring Voicethread

2008-02-25T22:56:00.009+02:00

Hi again,
EVO sessions are over but I'm still lurking behind.I still have tons of daily digests to read and digest:) in my mailbox. I 'm planning to go over them slowly whenever I find time. I'll comment on the tools I found useful in all three sessions I participated. I want to start with voicethread. To be honest, I wasn't so aware of some nice tools to record students' voices and create a discussion. In BAW we explored some other voicetools but the most impressive one is voicethread. It's very user-friendly both for the students and teachers.It doesn't take a lot of time to sign up.We did some acitivites about it both in BAW and Advanced Tips &Tricks and I loved voicethread .However, I needed to try it with my students so I created a voicethread about online advertising and embedded it to my new class wiki in order to see how my sts would think.They just loved it and it didn't take a lot for them to get used to it. I'm also planning to use some other new tools to see which ones are more suitable to my teaching context.I want to ask my readers some questions in the end of my post.
1-If you use voicethread or other voicetools how do you use them?
2-Do you know any other voicetools which have better features than voicethread?
3-Can you post some voicethreads or discussions that you created with your students?
(The one I created is embedded in my class wiki.You 'll find it if you can visit http://bahcesehirb1h.pbwiki.com/online+advertising
and leave your own comments there.
Looking forward to your ideas
Beyza

Five things B4educators participants don't know about me

2008-02-04T12:34:00.001+02:00

Hi again bloggers ,

I'm a little late again to post this assignment I guess.It was really nice to discover the importance of tagging and RSS feeds in week3 .In this post I'm going to mention five things that you don't know about me .

The first thing that will make you surprised is that I started to speak when I was only six months old.Not only my mother but also other people who know my childhood say this is true.They also note that I started to utter sentences instead of single words.I know this is unbeliavable but I remember as got older (when I was two),I started correcting everyone's grammatical mistakes.Maybe it was a sign to show that I had the potential to be a language teacher:))

The second thing that you probably don't know about me is also about my childhood.I was a really strange child.Instead of watching cartoons,I preferred watching news .Therefore I knew all of the prime ministers and presidents of almost all countries.I remember people asking me the names of some countries' prime ministers and presidents:))
The third thing that you guys don't know about me is that,I was really good at science and maths when I was an elementary and a high school student.Many people were surprised to have seen that I have chosen a different career rather than being a scientist.

Another thing that will surprise you is that I never wanted to be a teacher.Instead of being a teacher I wanted to study political science or international relations.Even when I was a sophomore I thought I could change my deparment and study something different.However,I liked teaching English when I was a junior (thanks to my professors) as it was a part of my teaching practicum.I really dicovered that teaching was the thing that I really wanted .I 'm really to happy to have changed my mind.I love teaching.

The last thing that will make you surprised is I'm addicted to sports.I think I can't live without doing sports.I used to play basketball,voleyball and swim. It's the way I get rid of my stress and worries and feel refreshed.I'm really into fitness these days .I go to the gym whenever I have free time .It's really hard as I have quite hectic schedule but impossible is nothing,if you really want to achieve something.

I hope you find the five things I mentioned about myself interesting :)I'm looking forward to reading your comments.Please keep my blog posted:)

Happy blogging &Best wishes
Beyza

RSS feeds

2008-01-28T23:12:00.000+02:00

Hi again,
Omg! I think I've fallen behind . I need to complete lots of assignments and prepare my own presentation. This post is to complete my assignment in blogging for educators. I've watched a video about RSS and read an article related to it. I'll answer some questions about RSS in this post.The first question I need to answer is about what I understood and didn't grasp about RSS.
In my opinion RSS is great tool to check what's new on your favorite blogs.After reading the article I mentioned in the beginning of my post,I created an account in bloglines and subscribed to my favorite blogs.It was really nice to have seen all the new posts on one page.

Another question I need to answer is about how it's important in the classroom.Well,I need to mention a mistake I made last year while blogging with my A2B class. Apart from our class blog, I asked my students to create their own blogs to post their assignments and reflections.Of course I needed to check them. Can you guess how I monitored their blogs? There were twenty blogs and I checked them one by one by going to their blogs every night!! Therefore I wasted a lot of time checking and commenting on their assignments.If I had known RSS readers, I'd have spent my time on the other things. In my opinion it's important in the classroom both for students and teachers.If there 's a class blog and the students are required to keep their own blogs, the teacher and other students can subscribe both to the class blog and students' blogs . They can check whether there's something new or not without wasting time( unlike the way I did it:). Students can also subscribe some other blogs related to EFL and check their RSS readers whether there's something new or not in a really short time.

Finally,I definitely believe it can be helpful in my blogging experience.I'll definitely use bloglines to check what's new either on my favorite blogs or on my students' blogs to save time and learn how to set up an aggregator to help people who are interested in my blog in order not to make the same mistake again:)

I hope I answered all the questions successfully.I'm really looking forward to reading your comments:)

Happy blogging
Beyza

EVO 2008

2008-01-24T22:30:00.001+02:00

Hi again,
Time has flown. EVO sessions started last week and I'm really excited about them. This year it's really different from EVO 2007 as I'm in three different groups and I will co-moderate some sessions in Advanced Tips &Tricks Group in week 5 . As I'm a member of three groups, it is taking a lot of time to check daily digests and digest:) ,boomark or respond to them.I feel much secure about some tools as I tried to use them last year so I think I will focus on details more this year. I hope to make more use of webtools with my students after the sessions end.I will try to update this blog about my adventures and reflect upon the things I will learn.

My ideas about wikis

2007-11-30T23:00:00.000+02:00

It has been a long time since I last reflected on my experiences and new ideas about web 2. I'used a wiki with my students and discovered new things about them .It seemed very boring in the first glance when compared to blogs but as Iand my students became more proficent in using them, we discovered more creative ways of using them together such as story completion as a whole class.It's also important to to note that they all felt confident as they had the right to change the content of our class wiki. My colleagues also helped me to come up with new ideas about how to use wikis in my presentations. Nearly all of them are now eager to use wikis with their students. I think they will also discover new activities to help their students work colloboratively &learn from their mistakes like me and help me to reflect them here .We all love wikis:)

Beyza

Del.icio.us :)

2007-09-19T14:01:00.000+03:00

Internet is a vast source of information so everyone receives lots of important links from yahoogroups,or friends just like me. It's really difficult to keep these links together so I asked Vance (the king of the webheads) to help me. He suggested opening a del.icio.us account and collect all my links there. I found it really useful and I'm going keep all my important links in my de.icio.us account from now on. I'll keep my blog posted when I discover a new feature of it.You can access all my links by going to the link below .

http://del.icio.us/buoyant

Believe me they're really delicious :)
Enjoy:)
Beyza

my blogging presentation was fun!

2007-09-17T16:09:00.000+03:00

Today,I did a session about blogging to my colleagues here in Bahcesehir University. I showed my old class blog and the blogs I set up for each level in the university. It was really fun and they really enjoyed the session. I think I'll do another session in our computer lab to experiment our instructors more with blogging. I hope to be successful in my new mission:)

Yuppii! I have my own wiki!!

2007-08-13T18:18:00.001+03:00

Hi again,
I set up my own wiki about some useful tech tools and how they can be used in ELT today.I want to share it with all English teachers in the future(after I become more familiar with it) .Now it's confidential but I'll make it public after I make all the necessary changes . I'll have 3 weeks off but I'm sure I'll come up with many useful ideas in my holiday.

Beyza
(A toddler wiki user:)

Reading List

2007-06-13T14:05:00.001+03:00

Hi again,
CELTA is over!!!That means I'll have plenty of time to blog this summer.While I was checking my emails,I came accross a list of books and links about learning technologies.I just wanted to share the list.If you have any other books in your mind,just let me know.Here's the URL http://www.prof2000.pt/users/vstevens/writing.htm#books.
Beyza

posting a video-mission completed:)What's the next one?

2007-02-15T22:03:00.000+02:00

Hello,
I have just posted a new video thanks to my computer guru student Cagrı and Glady's.I had assumed it was very hard to do that but I understood that it is pretty easy.I'll definitely use more videos in my class blog to make my ss more active in the class blog.I hope it works:)
Bye for now

Beyza

integrating blogging to classes-my experiences

2007-02-12T21:40:00.000+02:00

Merhaba
Last week was a very busy week for me because of my new class and my attempts to integrate blogging to my class. Almost 50% of my ss have blogs now but I have to admit that it took a lot of time to make them to get used to blogging. My intention of using blogging in my class is to make my ss produce sth in other words;to create them an opportunity t o use the new language they learn.I assigned them two writing tasks and many of them managed to complete them. However I'm not sure about how to correct them since they have serious mistakes.I don't want to discourage them but at the same time some mistakes have to be corrected. I sometimes post a general comment to my ss' blogs and write they need to revise their paragraphs again.I 'm thinking of some other solutions and checking B4B mails a lot to overcome that difficulty.I also think that I should involve my ss more in the class blog since it is easier to control what's going on.Videos,some reading texts , even voice messages can be useful in involving my ss in the class blog.I hope it works.
Beyza

My new class blog

2007-02-03T23:35:00.000+02:00

Hi again:)
I have created a class blog for my new class which is going to start on Monday.As it is my first class blog ,I'm very excited and enthusiastic about it.I have written an introductory message in Turkish since my new ss are very low level ss who have repeated the same module twice.I will post a new entry to that blog about how to get an account and create a blog, in Turkish ,if they have problems about these things.Moreover I added some links to that blog.I'm always open to everyone's ideas and suggestions so if you have any ideas or suggestions,lets share and learn from our experiences:)
Best wishes
Beyza

Widgets

2007-01-31T22:52:00.000+02:00

Hi again
Today I learned another important term for blogging which is called"widget".Here is the definition of it(taken from B4B yahoo group):

Widgets - fun, useful mini-applications that help you do everyday tasks. Widgets display information and invite the user to act in a number of ways. Widgets like clocks, chat widget, weather widget, etc,allow you to do something right there in the blog, without opening
another application.

I 'm planning to add at least two widgets to my blog since my purpose is to find out how a successful blog can be created.I hope to complete my widgets mission successfully.If I have any technical difficulties,I 'll note them to my blog.(as this blog is supposed to be a reflective one):)

Links

2007-01-30T20:56:00.000+02:00

Hello

I have just added some links to my blog.I hope everyone finds them useful .Many of them are from "tips and tricks "sessions.I'm going to add new ones to the list .If you have any suggestions about them please do not hesitate to share them .

Happy blogging:)

Beyza

(A toddler blogger:)

I'm getting used to blogging:)

2007-01-27T23:37:00.000+02:00

Hi again

I have done many things in my blog today.Moreover I received many comments from B4B participants.In my opinion ,my blog is very simple now but I'm sure with the help of B4B participants I'm going to complete my blogging mission successfully:)

Trying to overcome blogophobia:)

2007-01-24T23:27:00.000+02:00

Hi :)
This is my first blog so I'm very excited about it.I created this blog in order to use in my online blogging lessons.I hope to come up with interesting and new ideas:)