RSS feeds

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

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

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 :)

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!

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!!

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

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