Swiftkey adds a lot more features to the stock keyboard. Swype is preloaded in swiftkey. Swyping is a faster way of texting than typing. You can also increase/decrease size, change the layout of the keyboard. It gives you extra emoticons, colors and designs for your keyboard. However, if you are not into customization and like the simplicity of stock keyboard, you can always go with it. I would recommend Swift Key to my future students, because it can remember which words you use and gives you the alternatives, so that you can type a lot more faster than you normally type.
Voki is a great web- site that allows you to create your own audio material for your students. Using such materials as Voki offers, you can increase students attention on listening tasks, because listening skill needs constant attention from students. You can make your listening tasks more interesting , more appealing to students, so that they will be able to be more focused on the listening tasks.
Fill in all the gaps, then press "Check" to check your answers. Use the "Hint" button to get a free letter if an answer is giving you trouble. You can also click on the "[?]" button to get a clue. Note that you will lose points if you ask for hints or clues!
Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service for google users. It searches blogs, web pages and news in accordance with users search terms and notifies when it finds the results via email.
This app of Google could effectively be used in TEFL context . Students can create alerts that interests them , or they can create alerts related to topic of their homework, course, or they can use it as an authentic way of learning the language by reading the sources that they are interested.
As future teachers, we need to be aware that keeping students and ourselves up to date is one of the most important things we must do in this constantly changing technological environment. Apps such as Google Alerts may help us both to inform our students and ourselves with these developments in the technology, language learning and teaching.
Fill in all the gaps, then press "Check" to check your answers. Use the "Hint" button to get a free letter if an answer is giving you trouble. You can also click on the "[?]" button to get a clue. Note that you will lose points if you ask for hints or clues!
When I start teaching , I don't think there will be lots of problems regarding the use of technology. Because when we look at how technology is being integrated to teaching , we can see that it is constantly developing and new students which we call the Generation Z are already adapted to technology . They are born into technlogy, so I don't think there will be problems with the use of technology regarding the students. But there may be some problems about the institutions such as lack of financial support. We know that not every region of the Turkey, are in the same level in terms of economy.It may take time for some places or institutions to catch up with the latest advancements in the technology , but eventually they will come around. I have a very optimistic view about teaching and learning in the past. Because as the time passes we are actually improving ourselves. The best example of this is that teachers' roles swiched from an authoritative figure to mentor or a facilitator.Students now are more able to do things themselves while they are learning. In the future , I believe , these kind of advancements will take place much more effectively since we will understandt how students acquire knowledhe and what teachers should be doing to help them learn more effectively.
By the time we start teaching, there will be a huge difference between the education we got in the high school or in the university and the future students' education.When we were at the high school or now at the university , of course we are using the technology , but we are using it only at a certain extend. Technology , these days, is being used as a facilitator to the learning. We are using it in the classroom environments, assignments and in our researches, but we are not using the technology ,or we are not taking the all advantages that we can take from it if we were to use it fully integrated with the education. Technology even changed our brain structures, in other words how we organize the knowledge in our brains. If we be aware of these new adjustments, we may use it in a better, more efficient way. For example, the way we organize the knowledge in our brains is like we try to hold the whole knowledge in our minds , and it affects learning a new information. But the next generation, according to scientists, won't be triying to remember all the knowledge , it will be enough just to remember the ''location'' of the knowledge, therefore leaving more process power while learning the new information. I believe , with the technological developments all around the world, all the educational institutions will need to be or will be adapted these technological developments into their curriculum,and arrange the new techniques and train the teachers according to it. It could seem to be an optimistic point of view , the nature of human beings is going forward I believe.
One of the most important roles of the teacher will be the role of ''adaptor'' in the future and as teachers, I believe, we need to encourage our students to use the available technology in the most efficient way we could. To be able to do that, I would of course let my students to use the technological devices in the classroom such as ipads, mobile phones, or whichever technological devices that would help them to be more engaged would be available when the time comes.
According to the gathered by the World Economic Forum , Turkey is slighlty above the avarage availability to latest technology, whereas Sweden comes first in the world countries.
