- OADL in ELT |2023 -
In my previous blog post, I mentioned that I am taking a
course called open and distance learning. I decided to briefly talk about what
we have done so far in the lesson because, honestly, and contrary to what I
think, it has contributed a lot to me. It has been 7 weeks, so let's join this
journey with me!
At the very beginning of the lesson, our instructor, Gokhan
Cemil Karacan, gave us some pieces of
information related to teacher digital competence for English language teachers
throughout the lesson. I learned that Facebook
isn't an old-fashioned platform for my department since there are bunches of
Facebook groups related to ELT and teachers helping each other there. They
share useful materials for teaching. He shared so many forum links with us, and
I definitely will make use of them in the future or when needed. After he instructed us with new
ways to collaborate with other teachers, he wanted us to be a group of 4–5 and
write what we could and couldn't do in terms of technology, of course. Then we
gave our pieces of paper to him. By doing that, I guess he not only made us see
what we can do for this lecture but also saw our class' digital competency
level, as well. So, that's what we covered with him in Week 1. He assigned us with editing our websites/blog as a homework. So, I updated you, guys. 😊😊
In Week 2, he handed out an exit ticket to be able to
keep us engaged as much as possible and to make this lesson meaningful. On
my exit ticket, I wrote that I didn't know what reflective practice means or
what digital CPDs are. Also, there was a comment section on the paper, and I
mentioned the positive and negative sides of handing out exit tickets during
the lesson. As far as I'm not mistaken, he wanted us to join either a Facebook
or Telegram group and watch a webinar related to ELT. So, to submit this
homework, I found a TG group called English Teachers and joined. I was shocked
when I saw the bunches of material—links, folders, pdfs, etc.—that are shared
in the group, since most of them are beneficial to me. However, the part about
attending a webinar was extremely beneficial to me. Because I tried hard to
find one that is related to ELT and registration. Well, eventually I found a
pretty amazing and informative one. However, the finding a webinar part of the
development process piqued my interest, as I discovered several very
interesting and upcoming webinars. I registered all of them with pleasure. So,
what I am trying to say is that this task he assigned us actually played a big
role in improving me. I was not really keen on watching webinars back then, but
now, yeah, I do, thanks to him and his brilliant tasks.😄
This week's (third) topic was selecting digital materials. We basically talked about what factors we need to consider when selecting digital materials. Those can be, for example,
- Purpose (specific language skill, grammar point, language practice, strategic skill building, world knowledge, culture)
- Authenticity of materials
- Appropriateness (age, level, linguistic and cultural background, grade-level,
- Interactivity
- Feedback
- Pedagogical Soundness
Then, he shared with us some links to some sites where we could find amazing materials (ISLColllective, Games4ESL, Engoo, Exam English, ClassTools, etc.) for our lessons. At the end of the lesson, he wanted us to group up, find materials online (we could choose them according to a level, age group, and grade of our own choice), then justify our selection of materials and present. My group and I found an informative video from TRTWorld. We decided on B1 as our learners' proficiency level. Our justification was that the material we found was pretty suitable for the proficiency level of our students. It has subtitles synced with the video, so they can watch it without zoning out. Plus, our students will genuinely want to watch the video, and the reason why is that it is a very informative yet catchy topic. To engage our students, we can ask questions that stimulate and encourage them to speak. We can ask them to state the reasoning behind their answers to increase their participation. Our instructor created a table on Google Drive, so we inserted the information about our work there. This is our table's link ᐳ By clicking on it, you can take a look at my group's work.
In week 4, we talked generally about
material adaptation. Then, he taught us how to adapt digital material, which
was quite beneficial to me. After the instructing part was done, he asked us to
adapt the material we picked last week for use in online lessons. We were asked
to group it up, retrieve it, and adapt it by adding, deleting, reordering,
changing the input, changing the content, or digitizing it.
5th week's topic was digital material and activity design. We talked about these elements,
- Copyright
- Availability & Accessibility
- Pedagogical (age, level, grade, background, learning theory, method)
- Learning objectives
- Authenticity
- Interactivity
- Time & Resources
- Technological Infrastructure
- Cultural relevance
- Collaboration and communication
- Assessment and Evaluation
when designing an activity online. He suggested some sites where we can
design activities, and I would love to share them with you. They're namely; Quizizz, Make It, Lumi, Educaplay, EdPuzzle, and ThingLink. After the lesson,
we are asked to group up with our fellow group members. Then, using LUMI,
create a digital activity or material with contextual details of our choice as
a group. Our learners are 6th graders with a pre-intermediate level. We wanted to prepare an interactive activity with the song we chose for practicing conditionals. After listening to the lyrics, in order to check whether they understand what they are listening to, they have to choose the sentence they heard right after listening. I liked designing materials on LUMI since it was easy to use. I mean,
it has an easy interface, which made us happy as a group.😜
This week (6), we just presented what we had created last week on LUMI, and our instructor provided us with valuable feedback. We talked about teaching in online environments. Apart from that he gave us a lecture bingo, which 'till that day I had never heard about it, to fill during the lesson. Here is mine;
Last week (7), before our midterms, we talked about videoconferencing tools. According to the research, Zoom is the most preferred tool for conferring. We talked about the importance of setting the environment for an online lesson. These were creating a list of around 8–10 norms, including specific rules like "stay on topic," "always be kind and respectful," "raise your hand and wait to be called on before turning on your microphone, set and enforce consequences (attendance, pass/fail); set clear due dates (allow late work; send reminders through posts); and utilize screen recording. Then, we were assigned to teach an online lesson with our group members, record it, then submit it as a homework. We received a pretty good feedback from our instructor, so if want to watch it, here is the link.
So, guys, I've just summarized the whole tiring 7 weeks for you! I hope you find it informative and useful. If so, let me know in the comments! Thank y'all, see you on my next blog post!
Bye for now! 💜💜💜
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