Halil ÜNEŞ

  A summary of Social Networking as an Educational Tool      In modern digital technologies' world, it is impossible to implement digital tools into education. Since today's young generating is already aware of this world and the flow of information is carried out via internet, it is inevitable to use them for education. Web 2.0 tools are suited perfectly for this purpose, with its tools like blogs, Wikipedia, podcasts and those produces exclusively for education like Edpuzzle, Classroom and Nearpod, and with its function rich in variety like interactive environment, tools for team working and creating, editing and sharing your own content. Young people are digital natives, which means that they grow up side by side to digital tools like Google, Youtube, and game applications. They tend to learn visually and aurally more than sole texts. They also enjoy being in touch with other users of these applications and doing team activities. Being alone in learning journey is a burden f

      Nearpod is an excellent platform that helps educators to create interactive lessons, whether it is the classroom or virtual. Its concept is very simple. It includes Quiz's, Polls, Collaborate Bords, and more. Students can access a teacher's presentation through a code. It provides simple presentation delivery, personalized provision, distributing resources, live formative assessment, ongoing assessment, self-assessment, open-ended task etc.

  Link to the Trello work: https://trello.com/b/t568JJxL

         Here are the links to the blogs of my friend, work of whom I follow:         Ali Vehbi Yalınç:  https://alivehbiyalinc.blogspot.com/?m=1          Ahmet Doğan:  https://hightechmats.blogspot.com/          Kristina Nikolaeva:  https://kristinanklva.blogspot.com/          İsa Arslan:  https://englishmaterials2021.wordpress.com/          Muhammet Aydoğdu:  https://muhammedaydogdu.blogspot.com/

           Flipgrid is a free educational application that allows teacher to create a virtual classroom and open up discussions where students share their ideas by uploading their videos about the discussion topic. As they engage in the conversations, students get to revael their thoughts easily and freely without having to be in physical classroom. As in the example above, the question "Do you prefer a distant education, f2f (face to face) education or a little from both aka blended (education)?" raised by the professor constitutes a interactive circle. And then, students engage in the discussion. This is a powerful and meaningful tool of education as students are prompted to think over the subject and communicate their thoughts by using their communicative skills. 

      Pear Deck is an add-on tool allowing teachers to create interactive slide presentation. An ordinary slide creation applications are just used to transform the content in a way that only the teacher has the accsess to make addings, comments, and assessments about it. However, this tool, Pear Deck, is designed to help teachers get to collobrate with students over the content by engaging the class. So, while you, as a teacher, present your content during the class, you can also want students to add their ideas, comments, views, and questions, or even check if there are present in the class, or afk- away from keyboard- by asking them for click on the slide. In the screenshot above I prepared, I wanted kids to write their ideas down inside the allocated area. They could write what they thought about the topic "Global Problems". But, in conventional presentations, this had been impossible, since they had no feature to engage the class in interactive actions.

      Designed especially to serve to teachers, Edmodo offers an simple but powerful environment where they can create folders into which they upload content-related files, give assignments, gather the given assignments of any format, communicate with colleagues, students and parents, and make assessments. Students also share their thoughts, questions and assessments.     However, not only is Edmodo designed for teachers, but also for interactive clubs. Inside, the host can upload the weekly topic with the participant or can make surveys. Edmodo is also used for book clubs, foreign language practice, professional development workshops, sub-hub, science probes, and planning committees.

          Edpuzzle is an internet-based application designed to blend visual content with question-solving system. It is a simple platform. As people learn more with visual content, this platform aims to engage students in a "traceable" work. The site contains a large number of videos of any content, from linguistic ones to sports videos, also including YouTube videos. In the platform, teachers can find - or upload on their own- a video, add questions about the content which will appear during the video on certain points and assign it to their class. They can also use the previously prepared videos which have the question system. The platform is quiet interactive as it aims to make students experience the learning journey with pleasure.

      Padlet is the another application used frequently in education. Having a diverse usage in digital education, Padlet offers many tools for conveying ideas and projects,  and for creating an collabrative working environment. How can Padlet be used in education? As a interactive board Group working Interaction Gathered student work Brainstorming Mindmap Creating activities and events Lesson plans