What's new with you folks?
It has been five weeks in our teacher training program and each passing week I feel that we are constructing a strong bond with my group. We are getting used to each other and the discussions are carried quite smoothly, I am blissful about this.
This week's topic was various multimedia tools. While our instructor was presenting varieties of tools, we were asked to decide upon a digital tool to be presented very briefly a week before the session. With my group, we decided to prepare a presentation about the tool 'Quizlet'. The app is very beneficial to teach vocabulary sets and to practice them. Two of our group members knew the tool beforehand -including me- so it was not that challenging to prepare a presentation. One of our members did the presentation and the other groups and our instructor found the tool pretty much practical so we were satisfied with what we have done.
In the first half of the session as usual we were asked to discuss upon the reflection questions that we were supposed to answer until the session. In the break-out rooms we discussed some of the questions in length and breadth. When we were all back together in the main session, we had a lot to say and this is the best part of our sessions to be honest since we are able to share our opinions freely and get to know about what others are thinking and what kind of perspective they're adopting.
In the second half of the session our instructor presented some eye-opening, practical tools to us such as: Weebly, Animoto, Renderforest, Thinglink, Tiki-toki and Edpuzzle. I knew Thinglink beforehand and I even created a Thinglink for my blog before so if you want you can scroll down a bit on the timeline of my blog and check it easily :)
Other groups presented some more tools such as Voscreen, Seesaw, iSpring and Venngage. I really liked some of the tools and I am even planing to use them in very near future. It was nice to have a session like this because we were not only shown the tools but we were taught how to implement them into our classroom settings as well I am thankful to both our instructor and my friends for introducing such practical and attractive tools.
Some catchy detail about the tools:
1- Weebly: With this tool, you can create a whole website on the internet and most of the features that is serving are free. Teachers are given the chance of being the producer of their own materials and if they want they can even ask their students to create a website as well to facilitate creativity and production skills. Videos, links, photos and even the blogs can be added to the website.
2- Animoto: This tool enables you to create some slide shows with photos or videos and it is quite creative and easy.
3- Renderforest: This tool brings many functions together. In only one site you can create logos, videos and website. It seems highly efficient.
4- Thinglink: I knew this tool before and you can again scroll down a bit to see my post about it. With this tool you can create interactive images.
5- Tiki-toki: This was one of the best tools that I learnt about during the session, it is used for making 3D timelines. A mesmerising visual can be created on students' minds.
6- Edpuzzle: With the help of this tool, teachers are able to create interactive videos. It allows you to embed questions to be answered into the video. I personally found it amazingly beneficial.
7- Voscreen: I knew this tool before as well. When I was a high schooler -even in those times- I found it quite attractive. With this tool you can improve your vocabulary bank with fun. The tool is presenting new vocabulary sets by making you watch some parts from show & entertainment industry. I highly recommend it.
8- Seesaw: Once again you can check my early posts and find a sample of it :') This tool is basically for creating online portfolios. It is a nice tool to track the improvement of the students.
9- iSpring: This tool is a bit huge because you need to download it on your computer. It can be used for collaboration and integration. It includes presentations, videos and interactive role plays. The base of the tool is the simulation that it provides. With that you can create many authentic settings for the students themselves by even personalising the characters that they are going to make use of.
10- Venngage: This tool is pretty much like Canva and I am using Canva quite often. Everything is pretty much the same but Venngage has more options. It is basically for designing some posters, creative posts, and so on. It serves many more beneficial templates to be used.
Bilge Güral xx
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