Our Educational Message

Hi, and welcome to our blog. This space is designed to share ideas and methodologies that we use to teach Turkish teenagers. In particular, there is a strong focus on ICT-ELT, which means if you like visual and technological support for your style of teaching, this blog is for you. My colleague, Brentson Ramsey, has been working alongside me for three years. He is also a big proponent of the ICT-ELT Paradigm, which means he will also be posting from his own teaching perspective on the blog.

2010 was the beginning of this new journey, and although there is no definitive ICT-ELT road map available for everyone to follow, it is exciting to explore the technological means to make teaching more fun and affective for students. Our main message is for teachers to ADOPT & ADAPT the paradigm shift for their own needs, and remember that
ICT-ELT is a TOOL, NOT a SOLUTION.

Saturday 8 December 2012

Cross-Cultural Project Work Using ICT-ELT



The idea that English faculties in any institution can successfully blend and work easily with others is every good school principal's dream. Unfortunately, the reality is most teachers on both sides are rather swathe to commit for a whole host of reasons.
Therefore, it is left to certain teachers to try and make it happen for their students without stepping on any of their colleagues toes. The following project outlines an activity that includes material from possibly four different departments, and shows how it is possible to do it under one "ELT" roof without bruising or putting a blemish anywhere near sensitive people's tootsies.

QR Codes have been around for several years, and they have been getting a lot of publicity lately. This post aims to further promote this technology, which we have found to be exciting, quirky and student-engaging.



This image of QR codes is from the assignment we did with our students in Istanbul down in Tunel, Istiklal and Galata.  If you point your QR reader (available on smart phones and ipad type devices, you can see their own flip books of the assignment.




The decision to give our students the opportunity to explore other subject areas in ELT came from the reader we are doing at the moment, TIMECAPSULE, by Robert Campbell. It tells the story of a fourteen year old girl who makes a time-capsule for a school history project. She is then magically transported back in time. This part of the narrative was when my colleague and I started to think we had a great opportunity to grasp by getting the students to do something history related in English.




We organized the students to go down town to three very historic areas of Istanbul: TUNEL, GALATA and BEYOGLU. We went with them to make sure the trip went smoothly, but realistically the students were left to complete the task themselves.



FIRST: They had to take pictures of buildings and landmarks, views and the people so that they would have their own research materials for the project assignment.



SECOND:  During the holiday break, the students had to interview an elderly member of their family and ask ten questions of their own choosing related to the three areas visited on the walkabout, and the 1970s era to link with the reader and associated context.



THIRD:  Using the new pictures, and having found old family photographs, the students had to make a ten slide powerpoint. The questions would be stated on each slide, then the comparable pictures displayed.



FOURTH:  Once completed, instead of saving the ppp as a presentation, the students had to save their slides as a PDF. This is so they could turn the slideshow into a FLIPBOOK.



FIFTH:  The students then upload the pdf to www.flipsnack.com and turn it into a flipbook. Check out this video tutorial of the process.



SIXTH:  On returning from the holiday, the students made their presentations to us. We were blown away, to say the least, hence I felt inspired to share the outcomes, and maybe you can do the same with the ICT opportunity and your students.  The flipbooks are behind those QR codes at the top, so if you take a look, you can see a few of the codes and feel inspired to do something similar with your students.



To put closure on the assignment, we introduced COMIC LIFE to the students. This program offers many templates we all associate with comics and comic books. The students then slide their own pictures and speech bubbles onto the template, save and print. We had the students use their pictures from that awesome day down in Tunel, Galata and Beyoglu. Here is an example of what our students produced.






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