M-LEARNING STORM

From the title, we can understand that a mobile phone is a necessity for us. We can not live without our mobile phones. Most of the parents see them as dangerous machines, we know that we can change the disadvantage to advantage. Most of our teachers want us to turn off our mobile phones while they are teaching. Instead of this warning, they can teach their lessons on in a mobilised environment. We have many programs for teaching. If you want to see these programs you can check  the address http://play.google.com. You can get any program you want and these programs are free.  Our mobile phones are not for only Facebook or Twitter, and the world is not builded up on these two sharing sites. You can install a dictionary program like Tureng, or your blog sites. It is your choice to use which programs you want. We can not have merits or demerits in language teaching. We have to handle the demerits of the mobile phones and we use the merits of them communicatively. My daily routine list is: studying, eating, sleeping, looking around, reading and mobile learning. Make your own list and see the difference. Mobile learning takes us one step further.

PBworks, MANY PEOPLE WORK

 

 

As it is understood from the title, I will mention about the use of wikis in English Language Teaching. Wiki is a website which allows its users to add, delete, and edit the contents, or the program that makes this possible like Wikipedia which is thought to be the world’s largest wiki, and PBworks is a tool by which everyone can work on a subject at the same time. It is very useful for the groups of people whose members live or have to work in different places. For example, you live in Turkey and have to work on a project and the other members of your group live in United States. You have to share your ideas and work on your project  at the same time, but  you can not do anything because of this problem. The tool that you can use in such circumstances is PBworks. It is a program like Google Documents. In Turkish schools many students have fear of embarassment because of what other  students and teachers think about their work, especially for their written products. A language teacher can use PBworks to assess his/her students. It gives us a chance to evaluate their works without offending them. Everything is online and everyone can see what others do, and they can make only written comments not verbal. It can be a solution for hesitation or embarassment. Moreover, as we have seen in WordPress, many people around the world can see what we have done or what we are doing and make their contributions to our products. Let PBworks and WeWork, do not hesitate, make the work easy. Life is much better, now.

WORDPRESS: SIMPLY SOMETHING SOPHISTICATED

In Turkey, one of the main problems in foreign language teaching is students’ unwillingness to writing. We become scared when our teachers ask us to write a composition, reflection, self-evaluation, etc. We have this problem especially while writing in a foreign language. The former generation was also unwilling to write something else becauseof the teachers’ response. There is a general hesitation about writing in another language. There may be several reasons of this. For example, lack of the lexical and grammatical knowledge, fear of what others think about the written product and so on. In this century, there are some main writing tools for us to make the writing process easier. For instance, we have a program called WordPress. We can use this tool for write whatever we want, and show what we have produced to others. We also have a chance to add or omit whatever we need in our written product. If you want to show what you have written to other people, then you should have a WordPress account, and write about any topic that you like. There are many people around the world who have WordPress accounts. Moreover, your written products can be seen by these people, and what is more, you can approve their comments whenever you want. It’s your choice to write and show what you can success. It’s time to show the power of vocabulary and writing. Do not be scared of writing and never mind what others think. Show your imagination. WordPress is waiting for you , the only thing you should do is to get an account and let the world be aware of you.

We all struggle with some problems as humanbeings, but there is a problem we should overcome: Girls’ Education. What comes into your mind when someone says “a girl who demanded school”? A girl of course demands school, education, and good living conditions because all of these things belong to natural law. In other words, a girl demands school because its her right. This problem is still alive in most countries included some regions of Turkey. Most families still refuse girls’ education and do not send their daughters to schools. However, there is a huge need for women in society. For instance, as you know most of men in the world are jealous of their wifes or girlfriends. Let’s think about these jealous men, I mean the men who refuses girls’ education, going to hospital and want a female doctor for their wives or girlfriends. There is a paradox here, is not there? A man refuses girls’ education and a “female doctor” for his wife. Also some mothers do not want her daughters not to be educated. Instead like what they saw in their families, they want them to be married with children. Mothers and fathers do not forget that the world need your daughters to be educated.

There is one more problem again: “female circumcision”. Most of the girls especially in eastern regions of the world, in Islamic countries have to do this. It’s bad, really bad… Girls and also boys attend a ceremonies at the age of 17, or earlier then it is. It’s unhealthy and not mentioned in the holy book,too. It kills girls.

CALL the Charming

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Arthur C. Clarke

I was really scared when I first saw the name of the course CALL because I did not know how to use technology espeacially computer technology. When I was on holiday, I mean a  long long holiday and long days, I started to think about the course content. Then Nik Peachey, an expert on mobile learning  and has really good infortmation on educational technology, came into my mind. He had a conference session in 6th International ELT Conference: ” The Use of Technology in Student-Centered Learning” at Beykent University. He left a good impression on me because he was giving a speech about a subject, a controversial issue that today’s teachers have to improve, and I strongly believe that this course will help me to improve my skills. I should admit that technology is everywhere even in dreams. Moreover, CALL puts an emphasis on student-centered materials that allows us to work on our own which promotes self-paced learning. It also helps teachers to facilitate the language learning process.  A combination of Computer Assisted Language Learning and face-to-face learning refers to “blended learning” and this type of learning increases learning the target language and is more commonly found, but without CALL or ” the most effective way of technology usage”, face-to-face learning is nothing.

Another feature of the CALL is that learners learn from “all” teachers, not only from English teachers, so that’s why all the areas should apply to CALL. Do not forget that it is not a method, it is a tool for learning. CALL can be used to reinforce what has been learned in the classrooms. We can use it to help our learners with limited language proficiency. In today’s world, most of us don’t know how to make an effective search on a specific subject and mutter on our own as “wish there is a  spell or a fairy and I can get anything easily.” Don’t worry there is a learning spell on how to get the knowledge, but firstly we should confess that there is nothing without struggling. Here’s  the ingredients of the spell:

1) Technology is not a monster. On the contrary,  it is our best friend like Casper the friendly ghost. Find some technological devices (a computer I mean) and be ready for the next step.

2) There is something in education world named CALL. Please take your device, go to faculty, find a seat before the class starts, and turn it on.

3) Write CALL on the search engine and look at the related things. If you don’t find anything appropriate please go to your instructor and ask him/her about CALL. Definitely your instructor will help you.

Finally, I have great news for us. We have learned how to be CALL wizards or witches. I hope there will be much more to do with Computer Assisted Language Learning. Let the technology (CALL) embrace you.