Family

ICT - FAIR

ICT - FAIR 

We had an Ict-Fair on 21st november. We were so exited since we haven't been in an activity like this before. We set up and orginised our own stand, present our ethnographic studies through the programme that we chose. People visited our stand and we presented our presentation, programme to them. Our programme was Prezi and our ethnographic study was about Christiania. There were two more stand that present prezi except for us in the fair. 

We had a lot of fun with our awesome erasmus friends and it was a lot of fun to present our programme to people. We also visit other stands and got knowledge about different kind of programmes. I have learned new programmes that I would like to use. I have also learned different qualities of the programmes that I have already known. It was both entertaining and instructive.  

This is the link for our presentation, you can watch it through this link. 

http://prezi.com/obfdgvotqnbp/christiania

We also created a handout for the people who were visiting our stand. This is the handout which includes an overview of our programme, has a look in the qualities of it and looks out how to use it effectively in the classroom. 

PREZI 

Prezi is an alternative web tool to boring Powerpoint slides, and it lets you prepare impressive, rich, visual and interesting presentations. You can prepare more effective and attractive presentations than you do with ppt.  The file types that you can use in your presentations are jpg, pdf, video and swf. Prezi needs membership, but you can get into the Prezi world without any payment. You can share your presentations on the web pages and you can use your Prezis without any internet connection by downloading on your computer. This web-based tool allows the user to fly from location to location and to explore the relationship between ideas on the presentation, sometimes with turning elements upside down, sometimes zooming in or out. The theory behind Prezi is that our ideas are not linear, but rather bundles of interconnected concepts that are better captured as a whole with many parts. Prezi allows the user to illustrate the relationship of concepts to one another.

Benefits of Prezi in Education Settings

1.  A lot of movement
2.  Ability to share with a large group
3.  The meeting feature allows multiple users to edit it at the same time
4.  The marker feature allows you to circle and highlight important features
5.  The zoom feature lets you focus in on certain topics
6.  The versatility
7.  Keeps people’s focus longer than PowerPoint
8.  Non Linear slide arrangement
9.  Looks more professional than PowerPoint

10.  Allows endless creativity!                                                                 

Ø  Prezi can be used with either a PC or Macintosh computer. Users need a high-speed Internet

connection, an up-to-date supported web browser and operating system, a minimum of 1 GB
computer memory, a scroll mouse or touchpad, and a recent
version of the Adobe Flash Player program for Prezi to be more effective in a school practice.

Educational Studies

HOMEWORK

Last friday we talked about homework in educational studies which was so interesting. I haven't thought about homework in detail before. Why do we have homework and what is the negative, positive effects of it ? and of course what is homework ? We tried to find a contemporary definition of homework. I thought about this and I think the comtemporary definition is;


Homework is any kind of activity ,which is supposed to facilitate learning, make students to have much more knowledge, create a link between home and school, develop different skills,given by the school to be completed outside of the class.

Democratic Citizenship

CULTURE WITH MUSIC VIDEO

We had a homework that we should find a music video about our own culture in democratic citizenship. I chose this video because it shows a turkish tradition.

  

   This tradition is called "Bairam". Bairam is a religious holiday.  This video shows how we celebrate Bairam. Everyone gathers together and celebrate the bairam  by eating sweets like  candy, chocolate, baklava. It is special for the occasion purchased clothes and this attire is called bayramlık. People visit relatives and friends .It is important to honor the elderly; therefore mostly the younger generation visit the older one. Kissing the right hand of the elderly and placing it on the forehead is a custom to show respect and greet them for the bairam. People greet each other by saying Bayramınız Kutlu Olsun meaning May Your Feast Be Blessed. Children going around in their neigborhood, from door to door and wishing people a happy bairam. As a reward they receive candies. 

Theory Into Practice

        THEORY INTO PRACTICE 

A Behaviourist Lesson

According to Skinner who is one of the most known behaviourist , the most substantial procesess in language developments are imitations, practice and positive / negative reinforcement. Children acquire the language by imitating the environment. They practice the behaviours of adults, sounds coming from environment. In this way, it becomes  a habit for children after a while. As they are learning, they affect from the external factors. If they get positive reinforcement, children will be encouraged so learning will take place at the highest level. However, children may have errors and make mistakes. If the teacher gives negative reinforcement, it may cause children to lose their motivation.

For instance;

Teacher explains the daily routine thorough a dialogue. Firstly, teacher reads the dialogue aloud and then wants students to read it aloud. Students try to imitate the pronunciation of the teacher; they do it more than one time to practice. Then, the teacher asks students about what’s going on in the dialogue by making some sentences like;

–teacher: Mike goes shopping, right.

–that’s right, Mike goes shopping.

–Teacher: Very good, Mike goes shopping and buys coffee, right.

–That’s right; Mike goes shopping and buys coffee

–Teacher: Mike goes shopping and buys coffee every day.....................

In the example, students learn the subject through repetitions, imitation, and reinforcement. But there are also limitations. One of them is overgeneralization which is when students learn a rule, they can imply the rule for all of the cases. As an example, students may use the present tense which is used in the example above for past or future event, too.

An Innatist Lesson

In the Innatist  Perspective, there are five hypothesis in Krashen’s monitor model. I would like to explain them in an example ;

Teacher would like to teach colours with some colourful cards, and she shows cards to students just by speaking in target language. Through this way, students can understand the message that is wanted to be learned. This is called input hypothesis in Krashen’s monitor mode. Also the affective filter hypothesis is efficient in learning, students should be motivated. If they aren’t motivated enough, they can have difficulty in learning

At the end of lesson, teacher shows some colourful things in the class and asks them the colour of the things. Students answer in target language. Thus, students become aware of their learning , which is given name the monitor hypothesis. Students try to explain the colours by using their grammatical knowledge and that is called  the natural order hypothesis.  The students learn the language consciously/ unconsciously  and this  is called the acquisition-learning hypothesis. But it also has some limitations, the teacher gives priority to fluency rather than accuracy.

A Socio-cultural Lesson

Socio-cultural Perspective is a theory in which students learn from interaction, environment and experiences. We will explain the perspective with an example that is a classroom activity;

The topic that the teacher teaches is how to order something in a restaurant. Teacher makes groups of two students. One student will have the knowledge that provides him/her to support him/her partner so that zone of proximal development can occur. Zone of proximal development is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help. Teacher gives instruction and asks students to create a dialogue about the topic. When students need a help while creating the dialogue, the teacher helps them. Students read and try to dramatize the dialogue in front of the class. It becomes an experience for them, which gives a chance to students to be able to imply it to their real life. 

My comment;

English has different parts like vocabulary, grammar, translation, pronunciation that’s why I think I need different perspectives of teaching. As a future English teacher I think, all of the perspectives can be useful in some situations and I will use a mix of these perspectives. However, I would like to use socio-cultural perspective mostly. 

An Intercultural Research for Democratic Citizenship

An interview with our teacher in my teaching experience :

- Do you think your class is multicultural? Why?
+ Yes, because in my class there are students from different countries (students from Poland, Hungary and also Iraq) and also among Danish students there is a lot of different cultures

- What are you doing for your students to feel good in your class? (Concerning intercultural students)
+ Polish girl - knows a little of Danish language, comes from strict catholic school and I think, she does not want to be here, we tried to solve it with her parents, school psychologists. It is her second year here and the first year class really tried hard to involve her, but the more she refused them, the less they tried.
+ Other students are well integrated, without any bigger problems

- What do you think is the hardest thing to deal with for your intercultural students?

- Do you think it is different to teach culture in multicultural class and in class with only Danish students?
+ It is easier in multicultural classes, because there is more points of view and you can make a better discussion; if it is class only from Danish students, they are very narrow minded (they are young, so they do not have such experience and Danish culture is the only thing they knew)
+ Bigger cities, there is more cultures then in smaller cities like here, in Vordingborg

- How do you teach democratic citizenship in your classes? (Education for democracy and citizenship)
+ I try to find examples children understand and interest them, we also speak about democracy in history lessons
+ When we are making rules of class, we discuss about it -> I always want every student to speak and to be heard

- Do you think, it is necessary to teach democratic citizenship?
+ Yes, It is important for students to know how great country they have and that it does not come free - they have to work for it. I want them to appreciate it and to try to keep it alive.

; I teach children different culture in order to teach them how to be tolerant, to respect other people
; It is important to see your students regularly, so you can be sure that they are happy in school
; Be sure, that every children is heard
; If there is any problem (behaviour problems, bullying) we cooperate with police, psychologists and other institutions working with children

Bitstripsforschools comic

Alice and I made a comic by using bitstripsforschools program.It is about problem that students are unused to cognitive strangeness.