Yaşar Ne Oynar Ne Oynamaz

 Bu hafta Gamfed Türkiye topluluğunun gönüllü ve onurlu bir üyesi olma yolunda, oyunlaştırma ile ilgili farklı bakış açılarına sahip olup ufkumu genişletmiş bulunmaktayım. Oyun ve oyunlaştırma ile ilgili farkettiğim bir çok şey oldu. Farkettim ki;

1) Oyun ve oyunlaştırma yaşamın doğal bir parçasıymış.

Evet.. Ben oyunu ve bir şeyleri oyun haline getirmeyi tee çocuklukta bırakıyoruz sanıyordum. Meğersem öyle değilmiş oyun hep bizimle olabilir ve hayatımıza renk katabilirmiş. İlişkimizde, iş yerimizde, evimizde her yerde hayatı sürdürürken oyunlaştırmadan yararlanıp bunu günlük hayatımızın bir parçası kılabilirmişiz.

2) 7'inde de 70'inde de oyunlaştırma

Bu bir haftalık süreçte farkettim oynamak sadece 7'imizde lügakatımızda olup 70'imizde lügatımızdan çıkması gereken bir eylem değilmiş. Her yaşın, her çağın oyunu farklı olabileceğinden kullanacağımız teknikleri iyi bilip o dönemdeki yaşantımızı oyunlaştırarak süreci daha keyifli kılabilir ve hayattaki hedeflerimize ulaşma yolunda süreci eziyetten meziyete dönüştürebiliriz. 

3) "Oyun" dediğimizde..

Bu süreçte farkettim ki "oyun" dediğimizde kafamızda çağrışan şey kötü olmamalı. "Oyun" kelimesinin kafamızda yer ettiği şeklini değiştirmemiz gerekli. "Oyun" belirli bir grup ya da insan tarafında bizi tongaya düşürmek için gerçekleştirilen şey değildir her zaman da. Dil öğreten bir öğretmen olarak "oyun"un kafalarda daha farklı yer etmesi gerektiğinin kanaatine vardım bu süreçte ve bu da benim ve benim gibilerin sarf edeceği çabalarla olacak.

Son olarak bu hafta farkettim ki aslında hepimiz birer "Yaşar"ız. Hayatı oynuyoruz. Hedeflerimiz doğrultusunda hayatta oynayacağımız oyunları genel olarak biz seçiyoruz bazen seçim bize verilmeyebiliyor. Seçim bize verildiğinde tabii ki de neyi oynayıp neyi oynamayacağımıza biz karar veriyoruz amaçlarımız doğrultusunda ama oynamak istemesek de oynamamız gereken oyunlar olduğunda işte tam burada oyunlaştırma bizim için çok daha faydalı olabilir ve oynamak istemediğimiz bir oyunun iyi ya da kötü, bir şekilde sonuna gelmemiz için bize ve yaşantımıza katkı sağlayıp o süreci katlanır hale getirebilir.

HELLO, HERE WE GO, WE GONNA MAKE A TRIP SHOW

Here I am with my second post from Copenhagen :)

It has been almost two months since I came here and I can say that I get used to living here. For two months,  I had lots of experiences. First of all, I became official in Denmark. How can you do this? The answer is getting a CPR number and Nem ID. However it was a bit hard stuff for all the international students because the international house where you can  get the number is only open to the students at specific times and you should check it on the internet before you go there. You should also bring some documents with you. When you go there, it is possible to see a long line in the street where all the students wait for getting their CPR numbers. After this long line, you hand in your documents to the personnels and they call you at the end and you become official in Denmark :) This process can take 3-4 hours so it is good to have some snacks and some card games in order to spend time there. I saw some students playing games while they were waiting :)

Next step is to have a youth travel card. This is called "ungdomskort" in Danish and if you are a student in Copenhagen, it is one of the best choices to travel in the city because you can use all kinds of transportation system and travel around the whole city easily in charge of an affordable fee. You can also cycle in the city. It is common as much as driving. There are many bicycle roads and places for parking bicycles in the city.

Now, it is time to travel around the city :) You can start with Nyhavn. It is 17th century waterfront, canal and entertainment district lined by brightly colored 17-18th century townhouses. You should also see the Little Mermaid. The statue is one of the landmarks in the city.  If you want to go deep into the history of the city, you can find some traces in the Round Tower. When you are at the top of the tower, you can also see the fascinating view of the city. Christiangborg Palace is also one of the most important historical places and it brings the past to the light. It is also unique in the world in terms of being home to the three supreme powers: the executive power, the legislative power and the judicial power. When you get bored with the colors of history :"black and white", you can make your trip more colorful by visiting freetown "Christiania". 

           

ONE DAY TRIP TO MALMÖ

Malmö is a city in the borders of Sweden. It is 1 hour away from Copenhagen by bus and you can be in the borders of Sweden after crossing just a bridge. When we arrived the city, we visited Malmö Castle. There was also a museum in the castle. There were many kinds of animals and Some of the animals could camouflage themselves so well that we couldn't find them sometimes. It was like a game to catch the animals in the branches. After that, we sat a restaurant and tasted one of the traditional Swedish desserts and then we went to see "Turning Torso". It is a 

skyscraper and the structure is regarded as the first twisted skyscraper in the world. Towards the end of the day, we watched the sunset from the city's perspective and it was fascinating. I think it was the most exciting part of our trip. After we had our dinner, we were on the road to the central station. We had lots of fun while walking to the station. We sang songs and danced madly altogether. We took our bus in the central station and we were back in town one hour later. I was very happy at the end of the trip with having many memorable moments :)  

                                   

                                               

A LEGAL ALIEN, IN COPENHAGEN

Hello everyone from Copenhagen :)


Finally, I arrived in Copenhagen. When my plane landed in the airport, I was shocked by myself not by the city :) because I thought that I was going to feel myself as a stranger in this city, all the things here were going to seem to me strange but it didn't happen. I was relaxed. I felt as if I was in Turkey but in another city which I don't know. After passport control at the airport, I asked for the travelcard to take a train to the personnel that wears a red jacket. He helped me so much that he explained all the details about using the card. After having the card, I took the train to Vanlose then the other train to Ballerup. A woman helped me to reach my accommodation in Ballerup because I needed to take a bus to reach there. She got on the bus with me and told me about the stop I need to get off, then I found the house and met the woman to host me. Her name is Kirsten and she is 83 years old. She showed me the room that I would stay. I liked it. It was small but very cute and handy. I spent the night by sleeping like a log because I was very tired. On my first day in Copenhagen, I went out to explore the area and buy something necessary. I found a shopping mall. Its name is Ballerup Centret. It is 1 km away from my house. It has many shops and supermarkets. I thought I could find all the things I need here. On second day, I went to the school. I really really liked it. It facilitates lots of opportunities for students in terms of not only education but also entertainment. It has a big library, many cafeterias, sport halls. It has many areas to make students feel comfortable. I think this is motivating for students. You may even want to sleep there :) In my first course- the Nordic Model, there are lots of exchange students in my class. Some of them are from Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Russia as I remember. I think this is going to be a wonderful experience to study with them together in this term at UCC. Our tutor is also a very sweet man. His name is Frants Mathiesen. He makes lots jokes and always smiles,  He took us to the park near the university in the last part of the course. While we were walking to the park, I talked to him. I liked him more, because he makes you feel as if he was one of your friends not a tutor. There were a prison and a big church near the park. When I looked at the prison, I was a bit surprized because it had many windows; however the prisons in Turkey does not have so many windows like that, They have a few windows in general. When I mentioned about it to Mrs. Mathiesen, he was surprised. We did some activities in the park and then distributed. I think I will have many unforgettable moments here at the end of the term with these people and I am excited for new experiences and here are some photos of Copenhagen from my perspective:

 

 

 

WHAT DID THE COURSE CONTRIBUTE TO ME?

       
     In this century, we are surrounded by technology. It is everywhere, on the buses, at cafes, in schools and the new generation is growing up with technology. I even see some babies playing with cellphones and tablets in the baby carriages.  As preservice teachers, we should be aware of the danger :) and we should think that we may take the advantageous of technology for education. But how? Are we sufficient for using it? At the beginning of this course, I thought that I was capable enough to use technology for my education in the future. In my opinion, using technology for education would be easy. However later I learned that I had just the ability to open google and search for something.

     Thanks to this course, I discovered many sites and tools which make my teaching effective in the future. Now I think that I am a really capable of using technology for education. I can provide my students with the tools to create a song. I can teach them how to evaluate a film or create stories on the internet. I can recommend some useful mobile apps to them for learning English. In this way, I can get my students' attention, They will be more motivated to engage in the learning activities. They will be active and develop their skills like creative thinking, writing. The most important point is that they can take the pleasure in learning.

     At the end of the course, I am glad with having this course. It made me advantageous in terms of using technology beneficially. I am now aware of that there are much more tools and sites for education and they are waiting to be used. In my opinion, each preservice teacher should take a course like this course and learn how to integrate technology into his or her lessons in order to be an effective teacher and have effective teaching.

MEETING A NEW USEFUL TOOL: STORYBIRD

     Hello everyone!
     Our last task is giving information about the tool which we presented in the class. We had chosen Storybird as a tool to present with my partner Buse and we introduced it in the class last week. Now it is time for you to meet with Storybird.

     Storybird is a platform which lets anyone make stories or in seconds. Especially it gives opportunities to teachers and students to develop their writing and creative thinking skills. You can write stories by adding some photos to your story and publish them on the website. You can also write a poem on the website. However you must sign in Storybird, before you come to the process of creating a story. You can sign in Storybird for free via your email address or you can create a new address there.

   
     After signing in Storybird, you should decide what you will write. Are you going to write a poem or create a picture book or create a longform story? It is up to you! After you decide what you will write, you begin to create your own material. For example if you want to create a picture book, you write your story and according to the topic of the story, you can add a cover page and some images which are given on the site. Finally you can and publish it privately or publicly. If you want to publish it privately, only your family and friends can see your work, but if you choose to publish it publicly, everyone can access and read it, you can also share your story somewhere else by the means of the embed code of your story.

IN TERMS OF LEARNING ENGLISH

     English language teachers can benefit from storybird. Teachers can create some tasks for their students to develop their language learning skills and to engage in learning activities. While creating a story, students can invite their friends in this creative process and in this way they can learn to cooperate and collaborate with each other. Teachers also provide the students with the opportunity to develop their creative thinking skills by writing a story. Students can learn to think creatively. These are some task example for students:

Option 1: Teachers can give some keywords to students and ask them to write a story with these keywords by adding some photos to their stories.

        Ex key words: car, traffic, road, bridge, motorway

Option 2:They can write just the first sentence of a story as a clue and expect students to make the story continue, to complete it based on this sentence.

      Ex : One day Robert went for a walk. On the way he saw a/an....

Option 3: They can give only a word as a theme to students and tell them to write a story about this theme.

      Ex: Love

OUR STORY 

We chose second option as a task and created our story with my partner on the website. Here is the first sentence of our story:

     One day, Simon and his mother are discussing about ...........(future)

If you want to read it, you should click here: FROM THE DECISION TO THE FUTURE WITH SIMON

CONSTRAINTS 

     Storybird has some constraints. Firstly you can not use Storybird without having an account or an email address, Seconly you can not upload photos or use the images you want because the images are  categorized, You have to chose one category and use the images about that category. Additionally, you can not add your voice or a song into your story.

IN CONCLUSION 

     Although it has some constraints, Storybird is a useful tool for language learning. By using this tool, teachers can grab their students' attention and students can engage in the activities and enhance their some skills like writing, reading, creative thinking, so they may not get bored and take pleasure in language learning proces.

LEARN ENGLISH FOR THE SAKE OF LEO :)

     Hello, everyone!

     In this post, I am going to introduce a mobile app for language learning. As you know, we are equipped with many technological devices in this century like computers, mobile phones. Although they have some disadvantageous in terms of health, they also have many advantageous. They generally enable us to access the information easily and learn fast. There are many mobile apps in your mobile phones. The most common types of these apps are the ones for learning a foreign language. Today people look for some apps which help them to learn a language everywhere and everytime and they also want these apps to be funny. I will introduce a great mobile app to you for learning English. It's name is "Lingualeo" It is a personal online service that helps people master foreign languages.

     THE PROCESS

     I thought that I would have difficulty in finding a different app for learning English at the beginning  because many apps for learning a language in mobiles are similar. I asked for some help from my roommate. She suggested this app and mentioned about it. Then I began to think it would be appropriate for my task. Firstly I searched it on the internet and had some ideas about it. It appealed to me, later I downloaded it on my phone to learn more about it. It is for both all children and adults who are able to use a mobile phone. It is a really funny app because learning a foreign language in this app is like playing a game. There is a character called "Leo". The more you learn the language and make a good progress in the language, the more saturation Leo has. In other words, it is like feeding an animal by learning a language.

     

HOW CAN YOU USE IT?
   
     You can download it and sign up for it freely however it has some in-app purchases. You can also use your facebook account to sign up. You choose your proficiency level and begin to discover it. According to your level, it includes grammar courses.  It has also lots of trainings for reading skills like restoring texts and in this way, you can develop your speed reading and understanding. It provides many vocabulary games and exercises to learn new words and memorize them. If you want to improve your speaking, there are also many materials for you to use in the "collections" section. For example, you can listen TED Talks with subtitles. You may have materials for everday speech and business speech. It also charges you with some tasks like "brainstorm" training, completing lesson in the course, studying a text or a video.

 
      To sum up, I think this app is very useful for learning a foreign language. You can learn a foreign language in a funny way. I recommend this app to you. While other apps for learning a language does not force you to make a progress in the process, this app does. You may feel you have to make a progress in order to saturate Leo while using it. :)

MAKING LEARNING ENTERTAINING BY USING DIGITAL STORYTELLING

     Hi, everyone!

     Our new task is to create a Digital Storytelling Project. Firstly I want to mention about what it is. Digital Storytelling means a short form of digital media production that allows everyday people to share aspects of their story. It entered our lives with technology and became a useful device for education. Today, Teachers can incorporate digital storytelling into their instruction to make learning entertaining and make their students engage in learning activities. I shared this task with my partner Buse Nur Bozkurt. We had some options for the project. We chose to create a fictional story, because we believed we could also improve our creativity in this way. We used Storymaker to create our story because it facilitates lots of opportunities in terms of using different colours and varied images.

     We wanted to create a story which may be beneficial to learners in terms of learning how to use an English pattern in a sentence. We wrote a short story. We created the characters and the scenes in the website, and then we added our voices into the story. Finally we made them combine by the means of Movie Maker.

     The story's name is "Julia's Secret Ability". It is about 2 minutes. It's main character is a girl called "Julia". She tries to discover her abilities in the story. We wrote the story for primary and secondary students. The story has some purposes. It aims to teach students how to use "can/can't" in a sentence. It also aims to make students have an implication from the story about life. 

      In the process, we had some difficulties. For example, we wanted to make characters move but we couldn't. In addition to this, we had a difficulty in vocalizing it because we had to find a silent place to vocalize it. Luckily we could overcome this problem and vocalize it but it took some because we thought that we shouldn't make a mistake about pronounciation and also we should use the right tone of our voices so that we can grab learner's attention. Therefore we had to record our voices again and again.

     Although we had some difficulties in the process, we were happy at the end of the process because we learned to use a device which may make us advantageous in our professional lives in the future. I think Digital Storytelling is beneficial to both teachers and students. It enables teacher to grab students' attention more easily and enables students to improve their writing, reading, listening and speaking skills and it also enhances creativity.

     This is our story. I hope you will enjoy it :)