Mindmap

Here 's what I am planning to create  for my e-textbook project: a mindmap for my e-textbook

About e-textbooks

Week 2: Discussion questions
1)Which visual elements do you think are important for your learners?
colorful pictures & images
tables & graphic organizers & flow charts
2)What are your thoughts about the future of textbooks?
I agree with the idea that they will be more prevalent.In my institution we are using a coursebook supplemented by an itool and most days I teach with the itool without referring to the printed book (even though I am a traditional reader who adore the touch and smell of paper :)) But the itool eases my life in the class extraordinarily- no more file opennigs to search for a track, just one click for an answer key or scripts) I believe in the near future students will be buying those itools but not the books. Once in my classroom, a student had forgotten to bring one of his books that day, he just took the picture of certain pages from his friend's book with his smart phone and  read from his phone and did all the task.Nothing is impossible for them :) I couldn't even get angry for his irresponsibility as he was that creative :) lol 
3)How do you believe digital textbooks should be designed to best match learner's needs?
I believe everyone can benefit a lot from etextbooks if they ......
*are user friendly (not all the learners are digital  natives)
*have simple icons to lead through the pages
 *have direct links to appropriate websites (be it an online dictionary, wikipedia or any relevant website)
*direct links to audio/ audio-visual materials (difficult to search through a huge list of tracks)
*downloadable
*have interactive exercises for self-study
*enable students to communicate with the instructor via instant messaging or emailing
*allow file sharing (for writing/speaking assignments) and feedback

Again

That's for sure now...I need to be taking an online course to reflect here on this blog. Anyway, the course is on EVO again.It's titled "Creating e-perfect textbook".I'm doing much better this time because I've been able to complete the tasks of first two weeks. The following presentation is for second week's task: outlining the principles of our prospective e-book.I enjoyed using the tool (prezi) a lot :)

a new electronic journey

Hi ...  again..:) I've mentioned the online course I'm taking before. It is EVO Digital Story Telling for YLs 2013. I've been interested in teaching English to very young learners since my daughter's birth. The course has started today. It seems to be really fun and the idea of getting acquainted with new tools to create digital stories is exciting. I've played with photopeach, x-tranormal and storybird so far and enjoyed them all a lot.

I'll be learning about Digital Storytelling through another online course starting on 14th January and continuing five weeks onwards. Really excited I am... the following is how I've started ...ooopss captions are Turkish ... :) bir demet Asya on PhotoPeach

the new term

It's been ages since I last wrote here..
The new term has already started. Midterms are ahead of us, in two weeks time, to be precise.
This term there is only one course I am teaching- English 1 / 2 hours per week, but to 11 different classes, the sizes of which range from XXL to XL :) - maximum 120 students to minimum 60. wow.. what an experience with large classes ha ??
It is technology but nothing which saves my life. Otherwise it would really be difficult to draw the attention of such large groups and keep them quiet. I shouldn't forget to say that to be a bit flexible with attendance also helps :)

Compared to last year, there is little variety in the use of online materials in my classes. Unfortunately, no virtual class platforms, online assignments or webquests.... just the pages of book always projected on the board or wall, a few supplementary videos from popular ESL websites. Nevertheless, even these help a lot because the students attending regulary have poor English backgrounds and aren't used to being exposed to such visuals.They really appreciate them. Of course lots of things could be tried with these groups, but the low frequency of our weekly meetings and the limited class hours are the obstacles in front of me now. Hopefully, next term, as I 'll have the broad picture in my mind, I might try out some other online tools with at least a few of these groups.

The term is finally over....

I'm dealing with entering the grades into the system...

Thank God this term has turned out to be a less painful one, resulting in few student failures thus not many knockings on my office door- bearing the message: Teacher, can't you give any extra points because I'm on the edge of CC. or so

Anyway ...

My summer holiday is nearing, just 11 eleven days ahead.

Hope to have a good rest though it seems to be unlikely due to some health problems of my father.

wish things won't get worse...