EASY WAY TO CREATE COMIX - Makebeliefcomix.com

Hello friends..

That's hard to believe that it is almost the end of the year..At the beginning of this year I  was so anxious for I did not know what was waiting for me after all those years far from school.As I am  a former student  decided to gradute after all those years, it seemed it so hard to me to catch up with the school.Whatever... the year is almost over and we had such great time at Technology and Material courses with our instructor Mrs.Kurt..As a person highly interested in technology and internet I realized that the internet is a world  bigger than I thought when we use it in the right way for ELT.

I've become so chatty: ) I guess I should pass up to the subject of  this week's post..A few weeks ago ,me and my peer Ebru presented the tool we're responsible at the class.The tool was a website that enables us to create comix.It was such fun tool that Ebru and I had fun times while exploring the tool and preparing the presentation.

As I mentioned above  makebeliefscomix is a website that allows you create your own comic strips.It is so easy to use the website.Even you don't need to log in to create comix.

How to create your comic

When you get in the website, just click on the enter here button.From the panel that wellcomes you all other steps are such simple to complete.

-You should first decide how many panels you are going to use.

-Click on the backgrounds and objects window and select a desired background for your comic.

-Scroll the arrow to choose your character.

-Place your character on the panel arranging  with the editing section.Flip-Scale-Move objects and characters.

-Add  thought or talk balloons and make your characters express themselves or tell something.

-Click on the next button when you are all done with it send it via e-mail-(Tool does not have embedding options but dont worry you can have the pdf format of your work or have the screenshot.)

That's all guys..May be you are not the creater of Captain America or Superman series but you are the creator of your own comic.Enjoy !!

How to use makebeliefscomix for educational purposes

In addition to being a website that can be used just for fun, makebeliefscomix is a website highly  productive for educational purposes- especially for language classes.

Let's have a look at how we can use this tool in our classrooms for language teaching.

-Have students to create an autobiographical comic strip talking about themselves and their families.

-Have students create a comic strip story using new vocabulary words that are being taught.

-Have students break up into pairs or groups to create their comic strips together.

-Having students fill in talk or thought balloons for different cartoon characters helps them practice conversation and offers a way to experiment with language.

-Use the cartoon strips to introduce students  the world of creative writing and pleasure of  using their imaginations more fully.

-Create comic strips in which students can practice real -life practical scenarios, such as looking for a job, learning how to deal with a school bully or interacting with a difficult boss or classmate.

-After a students completes creation of a comic strip ,ask him to read aloud  or act out the dialogue written for his characters.

-Choose a theme for the day, such as My Top 3 Wishes or Ways to Improve the Environment, or focus on a theme for a unit that is being taught that day ,and have each class member do a comic strip on that subject.

Besides these ideas there are also many ready-made printable writing tools and lesson plans at the website.All waiting for you..All waiting for your creative students.Good luck in your class: )

I am also adding an tutorial video for tool-You can also have an idea from the video below.

Voice Your Character with ZOOBE-A useful app for Language Classes

Hello friends..

This week I am introducing you a joyful app for  your language classes ,especially for young learners.

These days mobiles devices are everywhere...Although we always say that we are tired of mobile phones or computers, we never put them aside.They are always in our hands: )

After our teacher Mrs.Kurt told us the task of this week.I searched for a while from google store.There were so many applications.It took long time to choose.At the end I found Zoobe.Me and my housemate had so much fun while trying it.Zoobe is a free 3D animated message app for IOS and Android.It is a free app.You can easily download it from IOS or Android market.

There are so many animated characters available for many styles in Zoobe.You can choose your character fit your mood  on it and express how you feel.The only thing you should do is to record your message and let Zoobe match the character's animation to your voice.Within seconds, your unique character voice message is ready to send : )

Lets Use Zoobe For Fun with your Students

Since I began having the Technology and Materials course I really gained great awareness at improving ideas on how to use any app-any material on language teaching.I think Zoobe is a great app to improve speaking skills.Time limit is 30 seconds in Zoobe.How about giving a task to be created with Zoobe to your students?

-Ask them to create an 30 seconds animated recording with Zoobe and share it on your classroom blog or send it to  you via WhatsApp : )

I am sure Zoobe will let you have so many fun times in the classroom.Children will love the characters.Speaking lessons were never this much fun.: )Enjoy  your time with your team.

DIGITAL STORIES FOR DIGITAL GENERATION

Hi everyone,

After the midterm period, life goes on  as usual.Apart from the school I work on weekends.This is making my life a bit harder and  making me  a bit tired but no time for laziness.Life goes on.
This week I am back again with a new joyfull task "The Digital Storytelling".

Digital storytelling is a short form of digital media production that allows everyday people to share aspects of their life story(Wikipedia).Technology is in our laptops,tablets ,smart phones..All have features of taking photos ,recording videos sounds etc..Day by day new applications and programmes are available on  internet and mobile markets to make new videos or edit your photos.Doesn't it sound enjoyfull.Who doesn't like to be a director of his or her own video: ).

When our lovely teacher Mrs.Kurt asked us to prepare a digital story after showing the animated ones created by Özge Karaoğlu, I felt  stucked and I thought that it would be a hard process.After a while ,after surfing on internet searching for some tools I realised that it is so easy: ) Holy google is full of tools for to create our own story.

In this task I worked with my dear friend Ebru.Because of my time consuming weekend job, Ebru spent really more time than me on our task.She made great effort.In our task we tried to tell you a soap making  process at home with the visuals and subtitles on.The photos are taken by Ebru.And Ebru's sweet daughter helped us  practising the steps of soap making.That was a joyfull activity for her either.

Step by step  "our digital story"

-Ebru took the photos of the materials and the steps of soap making process one by one at home.

-We added texts onto the photos to describe that photo and what's happening on that photo.We edited the photos and add texts on PicLab.

-We put them into correct order and prepared the slides on VidLab.Vidlab is great to make smooth transitions between photos.

Also on Proshowgold we made some audia editings on the video.

Below you see our  digital story-Soap making Proces-

Enjoy !

Day by day  google is making me think that anyone can do anything  with the help of internet.As you see we have created our video just in a good way easily.I must confess.I thought it would be hard but It was not.Yes ProshowGold looked a bit complicated at the beginning but we sorted it out.

Digital story got  a high grade from me.I suggest teachers use this tool in their classroom becasue participating into the process of creatiıng sth really enchances our learning.

As I worked with Ebru I recommend you to have a look at her blog.You can  click here to  see what's new on Ebru's blog: )

EVALUATING TIME

Hello guys,
How is your week going? Keeping school up with working is awful.I am  about to sleep any time I find somewhere hot because  I am so tired these days.Mid-terms are on the way.Sleepless nights are waiting for me..Whatever.. I hope you are doing well.

This weeks' task is evaluating an ELT website.You know that  internet is full of websites aiming to make it easy for teachers to teach.These websites provide so many activities,lesson plans,speaking and listenning materials etc.

The website I chose to evaluate is teachit.co.uk .As it is clear from the name of it, it is an England originated website providing materials for teachers and also individual learners.

I give high importance to the people behind the website while searching materials from web.When we click About me section in this website, unfortunately we can't see any biographical information about the creators of the website.There is a list of managers,editor,asistants but we are not able to learn who they are, where they study or their teaching career.This is the first minus  for this website.
In terms of content website  contains many activities lesson plans,teaching packs and resource collections avaible to use either free or paid versions.Target audience of the website is primarily teachers but learners can also benefit.The aim of the website seems commercial initially but after searching for a while we can find a bunch of free resources too.Main purpose is to provide elt materials for teachers indeed.There is no sign of being up-to-date in the interface of the website but a few sections are aiming to present latest resources.After exploring a while website seems to be errorless, as the creators are English originated,this  is not suprising: ) There is no broken links in the website,I guess being a paid one forcing them to be defect-free.For a negative critisism I did not like the images and pictures of the website as they are so pale in color and not appealing for me.

As a conclusion, teachit.co.uk is a nice source of activity and ELT materials but when we compare it with other  websites  it looks a bit insufficient.For this reason I  do not recommend this website to my friends and teachers.There are much better websites in the internet.

If you would like to have look at the outlook of the website click on the screenshot I added.You can see it bigger this way.

Have a good weekend..See you.

Follow on Time with RSS ! NEVER MISS ANYTHING

Hello friends,

Last week before mid-terms..Busy days are on the way..But all in all life goes on so do tasks: )

This week  I am writing on RSS.

RSS is a content feeding technology that enables you to follow different contents ,blogs, websites from just one source.RSS - this abbrevation has a few different expansions as Real Simple Syndication, RDF Site Summary, or Rich Site Summary...
The usage of RSS is rising day by day by millions of online users.Wherever you see the RSS icon you can get the RSS data via your RSS feed requester.

There are so many RSS applications available to use free.You can either choose the paid ones for further features.For my blog and my personal use, I chose  "FEEDLY".Feedly is my new green friend.I really feel sorry for the days I spent on internet without Feedly.After searching and trying feedly for a while  I found out how useful and beneficial application it is.That was a bit hard to put it as an button to my blog but at last I succeed: )

With the screenshots below ,you can have an idea about how feedly looks like..You can click on the picture to see it bigger.

At the left side you see the blogs I follow.Among them my favourite one is  highdemandelt.com .This is a blog for teachers to share and discuss on  latest trends on teaching and  improving education world.You can find articles,discussions,observation tasks,presentations and ready-to go-seminars.In another word, we can say that is a zone for teachers to improve themselves from classroom management and reflective teaching.I like this blog and I think it feeds me in terms of staying up-to-date.

Write - Edit - Save- Learn with Wikis

Hello friends ,

After a long week I am back again with an alternative educational trend "wikis".Wikis are forms of websites that allow users to edit or work on the content.In todays' technology world wikis are good forms of websites that allow learners to work on the content and let learners be creative.This can be used in so many different ways, creating short stories film reviews,picture dictionaries etc.

In my project my friend Ebru and I  worked together.We created a film review together.We worked on the  popular movie of Jim Carrey "Mr. Popper's Penguins".We tried to give  brief info about the film, director,plot,actor and actresses,setting an so on..

The film we worked on was a funny film.I had so much fun while watching.I want to thank  my friend Ebru for choosing this joyful film: ).That was her choice.

I share the screenshot of our wiki project to give you an idea about how it looks like..

If you want to a have a look at our wiki project-film review ,please click here

You can click here for my friend Ebru's blog

THEY ALL DESERVE BETTER LIVING SPACES ! ! ! ADOPT ONE TODAY : )

Hello again..That has been a while since my last post.It was a busy week full of presentations and homeworks..I hope you had a good week either.

Let me give you some  info on this weeks' post.

In this post, I  share the podcast project we prepared together with my classmate Ebru Birsen Coşkun.I  also wrote a brief  review on this  project.

In this project I studied with Ebru..We prepared a "60 second idea to improve the world" podcast together..Click the vocaroo link below to listen the record.



Audio and voice recording >>

In the record Ebru and I are talking and improving ideas on adopting stray cats to make the world more livable place for cats and also its positive feedbacks on people adopting them.

In terms of ELT such a task is suitable for B1 level learners.It may be a hard  practice for  beginners.But if you choose a different styles, podcast projects are also so beneficial and fun to practice in lower levels, especially on young learners.It improves speaking skills.

If your students or you are not qualified enough on technological devices (recording, embeding,uploading processes) this may be a little bit hard for you but I am sure you can easily learn how to make it.

I highly recommend to use podcasts in classrooms both to teachers  and learners for listenning anywhere available (smart phones,laptops,ipods).

Here is the link to my friend Birsen's blog.You can have a look at it and learn about her journey.

Ebru's journey of English

See you at next posts..Have a nice week everybody