Wikis in the classroom

    Here I am with a new idea that will be pretty useful in the classroom. Have you ever thought that you can benefit from Wikis for educational purposes? You may not be familiar with using Wikis so I will give a brief information about using Wikis in the classroom.

What is Wiki?

'' Wiki is an online application that allows users to contribute to or edit its content. Meaning “quick” in the Hawaiian language, wiki is a creative and open environment where everyone has a voice. The significance of wiki lies in the fact that there is no assigned “leader” or “head writer” ''
                                                                                                                ~elearningindustry~

    

        Web sites known as wikis have emerged as a cheap and easy way to do it. Providing an online environment for students typically involved creating a Web site, registering a domain, building pages and a lot of other fairly technical stuff. Fortunately, wikis allow anyone—from individuals to classrooms to entire schools—to have the equivalent, without the technical hassle. Wikis also are completely editable by anyone. They were designed to be an online forum, where someone could post a piece of information, and others would then edit it, or add to it. This dynamic is perfect in a classroom setting. Unfettered access means students can be involved in a project or lesson any time of day, from literally anywhere in the world.

                                                                                                            ~educationworld~

After giving you a brief information about Wikis, I want to talk about my own experience with Wiki. This week our teacher gave us a task for creating our own Wiki page for writing a book review. I chose a book that I read for my English Literature course in the high school, 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte. For my Wiki page, I collected the information I need for introducing the book and I read the comments and other reviews about the book to get and idea. Than I wrote the reason why I chose this book. The book was made into a movie so I gave the trailer of the movie to make the readers more curious about the book. Actually, as a person who likes writing and reading, it was really fun for me to create a page like this because I noticed that by searching for the information to write the review,  I learnt a lot about the writer and Victorian time, the understanding of life in that time. That is, you not only gain writing and reading skills but also it gives you the chance for expressing your ideas about a subject, story etc. and critical thinking that is quite important in learning and teaching. Maybe it may comes as a torture at the beginning for the ones doesn't like reading and also we can't say that all the things we share in the Wikis are completely reliable, but it's hands down that it's a good way for broaden your horizon and gain a critical comprehension.

Here is my example for you! Enjoy reading,  I hope you like it!

https://ourfavouritebooks.wikispaces.com/Jane+Eyre

                                                                            

Podcast ^_^

Hi there! Today, I'll introduce you something which is pretty useful for your teaching. As I mentioned before, technology has a great impact on our lives, so why don't we use this in teaching? I can say that Podcasting is a form of audio broadcasting on the internet and I met this great thing thanks to my Technology & Materials Design course.
                                                                            
   Here, I'll give you an example, this week we have a task for using Podcast effectively. We were given three options to choose and we chose creating a sound rich horror story.Our teacher gave us the beginning part of the story. My friends and I, the usual backseat students, wrote the rest of the script, you can't even imagine how fun it was. We were like 'ohh write this sentence.. Oh noo it sounds too fake, ahh wait a second how about this?..' so we had lots of creative ideas but limited time to speak. Think about it, in traditional lessons, sometimes we can't even find something to talk about for 2 minutes. As for the recording part, now it was time for us to show our acting and speaking skills. First we downloaded a variety of sound effects like door knocking, screaming, breathing, heart beats etc. and after that we shared the tasks among us. I played the background sound and Melike was responsible for playing other sound effects, Sevda wrote the text but we forgot to download tick-tack sound effect and there was no internet connection so we tried to record it from a clock but it didn't work, it was not scary at all so I used a song which contains clock tick-tacks and it worked! Surprisingly, we did a great job in our first try but in our second try, we couldn't stop laughing cause I played another song instead of our background sound and the song was in Korean which made it more funny. I think we did everything right in our third try and finally we created our own horror story! I really had fun while recording evil laugh part :) I hope we can do this again cause I feel like we're really a part of a story like the female version of 'The Three Musketeers' and not forgetting, we have an assister, Ms.Kar, Sevda's cat, thanks for giving us inspiration for the scary parts, she was really angry during our recording part :)

 I know you wonder our horror story, let's see how your friends can be this much crazy, listen to our story 'Panic House Revenge'!



Audio and voice recording >>


 




 Yeah, we're that much crazy! What are friends for! Here you have the full text of our story!

It was three o’clock in the morning and there was a storm outside. We were awake watching a horror film when suddenly the door was knocked... 

 Kate: Any volunteer? 
 Seddy: Don't look at me no way.. 
 Mel: It's your idea to watch horror film so go and open the door
 Kate: you cowards OK, I'm gonna open it.
 Kate: What happened?
 Mel: Someone poked me! 
 Seddy: It wasn't me! 
Kate: Me, neither.. 
Mel: I know you're trying to scare me! 
Seddy: No, please just calm down! 
Kate: Just stop it! I'm gonna open the door

 *** 
Mel: Where is she? 
Seddy: Yeah, it's been almost 10 minutes 
Seddy: What the hell was that? 
Mel: Yaaaa I'm scared! Kateeee are you OK? 
Seddy: Kateee I feel like something bad happened, I'm gonna take a look
 Mel: No, don't leave me alonee... 
Seddy: It's OK, I'll be back in a second. 
 Mel: OK, Mel calm down I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid 
Mel: Kate, Seddy is that youu? Heyy, it's not funny you know! 
 Mel: Omg! what's that? Kate! Seddy! 
Seddy/Kate: You should have come with us... 
Kate: You missed a lot by not coming to panic house.. 
Mel: It was all for just a stupid game, I could've die here!
 Seddy: You didn't come with us so we brought the game to you!
                             ~The End~ 

Me as Seddy, Sevda as Kate, Melike as Mel I hope You like it!

Welcome to my blog!

Hello everyone! Welcome to my very first blog. As an ELT student and a learner at the same time, I would like to share what I learn through my experiences or the things I read on educational issues with you.Time flies and nothing can stay the same so every new day brings us a lot of new ways that will help developing  the way we teach. By means of technology, today we have lots of chances for accessing creative educational ideas from all over the world so I will be blogging about English language teaching and learning taking these new ways into account. I am looking forward to reading your experiences about your education life. This blog will always be open to your new ideas, comments and contributions! Thank you!