Digital Storytelling

Hi all! This time, I will share my experiences on making a storytelling. In this project, I worked with my friend, Şule AKBABA.
Firstly, we thought about the audince and  what we are going to tell in our story. After deciding on what kinds of characters will take place, we wrote the script of our story by our imagination. Then we prepared the drawings and colored them. We took pictures each of them by the order of plots. We recorded our voices, narrating the story and dubbing the characters. And we arrange the record to the sequenced pictures which we brought to movie maker. We chose a background music and put the script of the dialogs in their scences. After all we arranged all materials we used regarding a concord. There it is our digitalstory for young learners! :) I hope you'll like it!

It was very enjoble to prepare this video. We had lots of fun and pushed our 'being a good teacher' skills forward one step ahead while we were working on it.
I think, digital storytelling will help language learners a lot if they know to benefit it. Learners, especially young learners will enjoy their learning with these kinds of activites. Also these projects will improves their imaginations. I hope today's teachers will do make use of these types of works!

Little Story Creator

Hi, everyone! Today I am going to introduce you a storytelling application named ‘Little Story Creator’.

As a first part you press on the button ‘ + ‘ to create a new story. When you start, you add a name for your story as you wish.

After naming, there comes different background options for your story as you see on the picture. And for each page of your story you can choose different types of background.

In the right side of the page, there is a part to add different things on your story. Now we are going to look at them individually.

As you see the pictures below when you press on the photographer-shaped button, there comes two options ; one of which is for exporting photos from your own gallery, Facebook, Flickr, Picasa or Dropbox and the other is for exporting a video.

After adding an image or more (or you can do this before adding  etc. if you want) , you can add a title and a text for the first page of your story as the screenshot shows below.

When writing this title or the text, you can choose a different type of fonts and colors. Moreover, you can set the tone of shadow and border of the texts.

Then you can record your voice and arrange it to the text you have written as you see from the image below.

 

You can also add different kinds of stickers on your images in the story pressing on the yellow smile emoji button.

And you can draw pictures or write in different colors by the pencil button and erase some or all of them with the button under it as you can see below.

After all, you can go on a new page or duplicate the page you have already done.You can delete the page you want to remove.

Pros of the application

-You can use this app in a language classroom with young learners easily since it is a simple application.

-Directions are clear to follow the steps, so it serves clear to use.

-With the texting and recording options in the app, learners can practise their writing and speaking skills.

Cons of the application

-The application is very simple, so its audience’s level is low.

-Although different options are there, it lacks variablity and features like saving a story as a video.

-And I think it has to be improved as I encounter some technical problems.

Learning English - Exercises, Grammar, Vocabulary, Exams

Hi all! Today I am going to introduce you a website named ‘englisch-hilfen’.   Its name is in German as it was created by a German, so it has two versions; German and English. It aims to help English learners of any level.

The website was created by Joerg Poehland. He is an English language teacher with the exprerience of 25 years in Germany. To know about him more, you can take a look at this interview with him. And click here for the contact information.

In the website,  there are 4 main sections in which each has sub-sections. Sub-sections are ordered by levels.

 In the first one, Grammar & Vocabulary, grammar rules of the language are explained clearly and vocabulary is given by topic-categorized lists including information about confusing words, idioms, phrases, abbreviations etc. 

Grammar and Vocabulary Explanations

Each of Grammar and Vocabulary explanations are followed by different types of exercises. 

Grammar and Vocabulary Exercises

In the second part ‘Test & Exams’,  complex testing and exams are given to strengthen what is learned.

Exams

Complex Testing

 Third part ‘English & School’ supplies English dictionaries, lessons and worksheets as avaible to download and use as handouts.

  The fourth part ‘English & Free Time’,  attention is into daily English lessons which provides listening prfactices with conversation transcripts and games which are three types; ‘crosswords’, ‘find the pairs’ and ‘hangman’. Games are also categorized by topics and levels.

Games 1

Games 2

Daily English Lessons

I liked the website regarding its orderly  settled arrangments, clear explanataions, categorized sections and sub-sections, which any one could use the website without getting lost in it. I mean it is detailed in giving information but tidy at the same time! Beside that, lots of exercises are easy to use there. It supplies many avaible materials espacially for grammar. And they all are for free. So, you can benefit from it to make a gradual learning for your students.

When it comes to disadvantages, the biggest one is that unfortunately the website lacks improving  ‘listening’ and ‘speaking’ skills as it is dominantly based on grammar-vocabulary teaching. So the website alone is never enough for 4 skills of English. Secondly, visuality and variety of exercises/games are inadequate. Although the website’s audience embraces all levels, I wouldn’t reccommend it for kids since attractive items for little learners are very limited on this website.

WIKI PAGE : MY FAVOURITE BOOK

Hi all! This is my wiki project. I introduced one of my favourite books on the wiki page that I created. I loved the idea of introducing a book you recommend to the others with your own words and perspectives on it! And it awakened a point on me : I can use it in my profession as a teacher. Moreover, I can use it in various ways within my students.
Now here is my one of my favourite books. Hope you will decide to read it! :)
The Missing Rose

A Horror Story

This is our very first Podcast project with Şule. The poadcast is on a rich sound story on which we used more than 10 sounds. Some of them were taken from Sound Effect Library, some of them belong to us. We preferred to record our voice via the recorder of computer. It required a bit effort but it was very enjoyable too. We tried to do our best to make it clear and qualified. We think that these kinds of activities can be used in teaching as an activity. We can make them useful for the learners. Learners can practice and improve their learning. Hope you will like it! :)

WELCOME

I am a second-year student in the ELT Department of Marmara University. Since my profession will be based on teaching and -inseparably- learning, my blog’s aim is to contribute to the progress in this area and to make use of materials and stuffs related to education of foreign languages by posting, benefiting from other bloggers’ posts and reviewing myself on this process. 
Thanks for viewing my blog.