Infographic and Pinterest

An infographic is a representation of information in a graphic format designed to make the data easily understandable at a glance. People use infographics to quickly communicate a message, to simplify the presentation of large amounts of data, to see data patterns and relationships, and to monitor changes in variables over time. 

 A well-designed infographic can help you simplify a complicated subject or turn an otherwise boring subject into a fun experience. Adding interactive content like infographics to your classroom can be one of the most fun and intriguing activities you can do in your classroom.

 And what is Pinterest? Pinterest is basically a bookmarking tool. People pin or save images they found on the internet to different boards that they created. For example, cooking recipes are very popular. They can browse through images of delicious food and when they click on it they can see the recipe for that food. They can also save it to their own recipe board via pinning. If you are planning to run your class through infographics I think Pinterest is a very useful tool to find those infographics. If you are looking for an infographic about days, you can easily find it there. You can even create a classroom in Pinterest to share your pins with your students.

My Infographic about Public Transportations in Istanbul.
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My Vidcast

In this Vidcast I talked about Individualistic and Collectivistic Cultures and how they effect the language development of a child.

Direk link to Youtube.
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Moodle

Moodle is an online learning platform and it is based on social constructivist pedagogy. It is a free platform and it is fairly easy to use. Because with the help of Moodle information is easy to share as well as accessing the learning materials. I also like the fact that Moodle supports the social interaction between students, they should do their given tasks or projects by cooperating and collaborating with instructors or students. You can edit your lectures anywhere at any given time and your students can reach that lecture immediately. The platform also makes it possible for teachers to communicate with their students. Lastly moodle offers several assessment strategies including multiple choice, true-false, matching and open-ended questions. The teacher can see their students' scores and performances so this way teachers can follow up their students'
improvements.   

   
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Pixton

Pixton is a cartoon creation tool that lets people create comics about anything. It is very easy to use and that's why you can let your students create their own comics. And also it does have a Pixton for school site. It lets you create a classroom with your students and share the comics you crated. However, it is not free of use. I think pixton is not exactly a study telling application, you can use it between slides to keep the attention of the students, or just to have a laugh in the classroom or more differently you can use it to give out a simple message through that comics. I would use this application but just as a bridge between my subjects.

I created a comic called "Dinosaurs"
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Padlet

Padlet is a website that allows us to create a blog that you can use to display information on any topic. You can add images, videos and you can return later to edit it. It is great for visualizing the content so the students won't get distracted and their attention would always be on the board with you. You can also let your students do some Padlet's before coming to class to test their creativity because this application allows you to create different kind of blogs for different kind of topics. I can it being used in a classroom instead of a powerpoint slideshow because it is attractive and keeps the focus of the students.  I created a Padlet about the Advantages & Disadvantages of the Internet in Education
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Powtoon

Powtoon is an animation website that can allow us to create animated slideshows for our students with pre-created objects, images and videos. It is web based so there is no need for any installation. It is easy to use and the end product is always exciting. I think integrating this website to any classroom is possible and the use of technology within the classroom is more likely to increase by the students because when they see their teacher using these kind of websites is always encoureging as I did a simple subject as "Types of Communication" and it is far more better and exciting than a simple powerpoint slideshow. It would keep students attention and their morales high.

My Powtoon about Types of Communication
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Socrative

In this application, teachers can create quizzes quickly and efficiently. On top of that with the help of this application teachers can observe their student's learning process. And the ability to copy another teacher's quizzes can really help out a community, for example in a little town where there are 3 schools and 6 English teachers, with the help of this application teachers don't need to be alone and get the help of their colleagues and their colleagues can get help from you too. From students perspective, I think this application can improve their weaknesses if they are willing to study and learn on this app.

I created a little quiz to show what this application looks like.

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Storybird

Storybird is a storytelling tool that allows everyone to create stories. Teachers can use this website to improve their students reading and writing skills. Also, students can create their own stories to improve their creativity. I think using this website in a classroom would make that class effective, fun and interactive. I recommend everyone to give it a try and see what it's all about. It can really change the motivation of the classroom and you can give little life lessons to kids through this tool like the stories that our parents told us but with technology.

I tried to write a story about a girl named "Layla". It's a short picture book about which animals we can feed in our home.
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Voki

Voki is an educational tool that allows people to create their own talking avatar. You can customize your characters to look like historical figures and such, and I like this part of this site. You can easily make the class more fun and enjoyable. Let's say you are talking about Greek Mythology so you can make Hades talk exactly how you want.
While this looks fun and interactive I imagine it can only be fun for 6 to 12-year-olds. The characters and the way they talk will be goofy for above that age so choosing your student level for this site is really important. It is overall a very good site that encourages students to learn while having fun.
I made an avatar that talks about prose's for example. You can easily change the subject and it will still be entertaining for kids.


https://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=15238034&chsm=17a509e6d15dfbe1087273230c6f606e
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Kahoot



Kahoot is an interactive quiz app that can also offer puzzles and etc. When you are done completing your quiz the app will give you a password so that way it becomes a classroom activity. It raises competitiveness and it is fun. It can catch the attention of the students easily and also you can see your class’s level. On top of that in a generation where kids are always with their phone, when they see that they can contribute to the classroom and study with their phone they become more attractive to the class and become happier than before. 

I also prepared 2 quizzes for you to see how it works and how it can be so effective in learning.

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/5d551068-4ee3-43d0-a77b-60a91fb63137

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/98ee060f-878a-49f3-834c-7670f496f78f
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Second Life

As the years pass the effect of technology on humankind keeps growing and as teachers we need to adapt. Gamification, this is the golden word of our generation, because kids love to play games, they are on their computer at least 3 or 4 hours every day. And while Second Life is a Virtual Reality game it can also make learning fun with its multi-world servers.
But unfortunately I think it is not enough and I am waiting for something that can get past Second Life in near future. While it was good 4 or 5 years ago, in our generation where everything is changing in a day, it couldn’t keep up with the World. It is too complicated for kids, some computers are having trouble running this program because it is not optimized and you can’t make older students log in and say “ let’s study on Second Life today” because it will be boring for them. These kids are playing games that are so realistic that you can not even decide which one's which, and between these games and Second Life, it is not even comparable. 
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