Digital Storytelling: An Introvert’s Nightmare! 😕

Hello again, Dear Reader!

    Welcome to my second post of the night. I know it’s not typical of my posting habits but we had two tasks this week. 

(Read about my other task, online collaborative writing, here.)

    I don’t even know where to begin about this task… While my groupmates are my good friends, we clashed on every step. 

    We were given three options: We could do a Public Service Announcement, a How-To-Do video, or a fictional story. Firstly, we couldn’t decide on which option to choose, then decided on a fictional story. We wrote a script (with a few minor clashes) but the script was too long and it didn't fit the task instructions. (I told you it was getting too long, guys! Anyways…) Then we had to scrap that idea (Sophie, The Protector of Nyxea Wisest of the Wizards Baramir Solaris, and the Evil Witch… you will never be forgotten.) and start again with our Plan B: A PSA on bread waste in Turkey.

    At this point, we were already feeling low about this project since we spent so much time on a script that was unusable but we kept going. We did our research, wrote another script, and met at the library to record and edit the video. We were in a group study room from 9 am to 6 pm, working, snapping at each other, laughing, whining, and taking small breaks to prevent arguments. It was… an experience. 

    At the end of the day we had a minute-long PSA on bread waste, which I am proud of. Even though it’s just a minute, we really worked hard for it. (I never want to see a picture of bread again, especially bread in garbage. I feel traumatised.) 

    We used several tools for this project but Google Docs (for all the writing) and CapCut (for editing) were our main tools. I suggest both, even though CapCut can be tricky sometimes.

    A huge thank you to my friends Elena Çetinkaya and Baran Doğu for all their hard work. An extra shout-out for Baran, our Teach Boy who did most of the editing! Even though we had our moments, it was lovely to work with you. Love you both!

    Would I give this task to my students in the future? I am not sure. Researching, writing the script, and narration were valuable for language usage but editing seemed too technical and time consuming, and almost pushed us into arguing with each other even though we are really good friends.

    I think I will stick with podcast tasks. 🙂

    I hope you enjoy our PSA! (You can also watch it on YouTube.) 

    I am waiting for your comments. What do you think? Would you use digital storytelling in your EFL classrooms?

With love, Bea x

Online Collaborative Writing: An Introvert's Dream Task! 😊

 Hello, my Dear Reader! 💙

    I missed you! Even though I started this blog as part of a course, it quickly became a habit/hobby of mine. I love sharing my tasks with you, which is great because this week I’ve got TWO! Yay! (I was TOTALLY chill about it! And NOT anxious at all !!!!) 

    (You can click here to read about my other task, digital storytelling.)

    We were assigned an online collaborative writing task, and out of two options, my dearest groupmates (Elena Çetinkaya and Baran Doğu, you may check their blogs by clicking on their names) and I opted for writing a film review for a university magazine using Google Docs, mostly because it was familiar!

    We use Google Docs for almost every group project we are tasked with. It’s functional, practical, and easy to use. It’s also my favourite writing tool! 

    Film reviews are also familiar to me. (I told you I am a nerd.) I love reading film reviews, and I really value other people’s opinions while choosing a film to watch. (Follow me on my Letterboxd account! We can be friends there too!) 

    

    As you can imagine, I had SO MUCH FUN with this task. I was in my room, sitting on my bed with my cats, listening to music, drinking chamomile tea, and working. It’s literally an introvert’s dream task!

Lucy was very supportive :)

    Google Docs is a great tool that is integrated with Google Drive and Gmail, which makes it easy to use and accessible for collaborative writing. Plus, it provides a chat and a comment section, which my friends and I didn’t use before this project. We used to select a different colour and write our comments on the page itself. It worked for us but using the chat and comment section properly was neat! I will definitely continue using them. 

    I have added a screenshot at the bottom of the post to show you our process, but you can read our full review directly on Google Docs by clicking HERE.

    I want to thank my group friends Elena and Baran, it was great working with you. Thank you for letting me pick the film. Love you both! And of course, thanks to my friends Melis Açıkkaya, Buse Beyaz, and Gülşen Demir for their valuable comments and feedback. We really improved our review thanks to you. 

With love, Bea x

I did something I thought I could never do: I published a podcast! 🥳

 Hello again, my Dear Reader!

    

    It’s been a while. I was busy with my midterms (and essays, presentations, a couple of tasks… 😫), but I am back now with a much-anticipated project: the podcast I was telling you about! 

    My good friend Elena Çetinkaya (Click here to visit her blog. She is so cool, I love her!! 💙) and I wrote, narrated, and edited a short story for our podcast. The Melody of the Forest is a one-episode short story about three friends, a peculiar cat, and a special melody - with sound effects! You can click HERE or scroll down to the end of this post to listen.

    We had so much fun -and a few difficulties- while creating our podcast. For example, did you know the university buildings were locked on Sundays? We didn’t. 🙃 So we met on Göztepe Campus to record our podcast, but every faculty building was locked except the library. After a “What are we supposed to do now?” crisis, we recorded our podcast in the library BATHROOM, haha. 

    Standing in a bathroom with a laptop and a microphone felt so silly, we had to make a few takes until we could narrate the story without laughing. I was extremely anxious about recording myself !!for publication!! but this project turned into a fun activity with a dear friend really fast. Adding the sound effects was slightly harder since we weren’t familiar with editing but we still had so much fun with it, and everything came together beautifully. We felt like producers, haha!

    We used Vocaroo for recording, Pixabay for getting copyright-free sound effects, Audacity for editing, and Podbean for publishing. I can recommend all of these websites and apps if you want to create a podcast yourself.

    As it is the custom with these tasks, I thought about my future students and how a task like this might help them. One major advantage that I came up with is the creativity! This task forced us to be creative in every step (even figuring out we could use the bathroom to record was creative in its own way) and we ended up with a product that is completely ours. 

    Another advantage of a podcast task is, of course, the fact that our students are SPEAKING English! Which is the whole point! 

    I would love to try this task with my students one day. I think high schoolers would have so much fun with it.

with love, Bea x

I made an infographic on netiquette! (Then I had a mental health crisis at 1 AM over it.)

Hello, Dear Reader!

    Do you know what an infographic is? If you don’t, that’s okay. I didn’t know until this week, either!

    In short, an infographic is a visual document in which information or data is presented using images, icons, charts, graphics, and minimal text. I bet you've seen one before; they're very popular! They make information or data simpler and more engaging for the consumer and are used everywhere from education to business. 

    (If you want to learn more about infographics, click HERE.)

    I was assigned to prepare an infographic for my Instructional Technologies and Material Design in ELT course, and I chose to prepare an infographic on netiquette. I chose this topic because I have been on online spaces from a very early age (my parents were a little bit TOO trusting), and I learnt the do’s and don’ts of the internet by trial and error. I wish someone would have explained them to me when I was younger and inexperienced online. 

    Therefore, I think it’s important to talk about netiquette with our students and an English classroom is ideal for that. We can integrate the topic into our classroom discourse, OR we can assign them a task where they need to create an infographic on netiquette haha. 

    Creating an infographic was an emotional roller coaster for me. I had so much FUN with the process. I loved choosing icons, playing with the colours, and creating something visually appealing. THEN, I finished it and had a mental health crisis at 1 AM over the fact that Venngage doesn’t share the embed code with non-premium users! Unbelievable!

    (If you want to try creating an infographic (and experiencing an emotional roller coaster yourself), you can click HERE.)

    You can see my rather genius (!) solution to the problem below. I learnt how to embed a WEBSITE from a YouTube video and used it to cheat the system, haha! 

    I am sorry that you have to zoom out and scroll a little bit, Dear Reader, but this is the best I could do without the embed code. 🙁

    You can also,  

CLICK HERE FOR MY INFOGRAPHIC ON NETIQUETTE 

    Lastly, I would love to use infographics in the future, both as teaching material and as a creative task for my students. I think they would benefit from both but especially from tasks they would create. Creating an infographic would help them learn the topic since they would spend time with it and help to improve their creativity and critical thinking skills! 

    I learnt so much from this assignment! I hope you learnt from my experience too, Dear Reader!

Take care of yourself until next time.

With love, Bea x

EDITED on 10/04/2025

Hello again, Dear Reader! 

    It's been more than a week since I posted my infographic and since then I got some peer feedback! I was so proud of my infographic, I even volunteered and showed it to the whole class and got my instructor's feedback as well! 

    Based on the feedback, I deleted the links in the boxes (since I already have a reference part) to remove the word cluster and added a slogan at the end to imply a conclusion and provide a smooth ending. 

You can CLICK HERE FOR MY UPDATED INFOGRAPHIC. 

    I also updated the embedded version, which you can check below. (The link on the post above is the original version.)

Some thoughts on language learning and the ever-changing 21st century

Hello again, Dear Reader!

Do you remember how you learnt English? Did you learn it in a traditional classroom setting, or did you learn it online? 

With all due respect to all my English teachers, I have to admit that they only managed to give me crumbs. I learnt English by being a fangirl online. (Shout out to Louis Tomlinson’s Doncaster accent.) I wanted to consume but more importantly, CREATE fan content so I had to teach myself how to use various tools on the internet AND English. (If you checked my About Me page, you know I am a nerd.)

Time is moving constantly and changing us along with it. So, why are we not changing how we teach when the way we learn has already changed? In a language classroom, our aim should be guiding our students into using the language as much as possible and integration of technology and activities that prompt our students to create is the most effective way.

To me, Dear Reader, 21st-century learning is learning how to learn, how to take our learning into our own hands and seeking knowledge outside of the classroom. As teachers, we need to be conscious of this and adjust our teaching according to it. We need to equip ourselves with the tools and skills that are needed for this fast century, so we can equip our students with them as well.

Most importantly, we need to teach our students how to keep up with this ever-changing world. It is the skill we all need.

That’s what the 21st century is all about: trying to keep up. 

With love, Bea. x

Welcome to my first post! 💜

Hello there, Dear Reader! 

    I am thrilled that you somehow managed to stumble upon my little language corner. It’s lovely to see you here! 

    I am Bea, I live in Istanbul, Turkey, and I am an English pre-service teacher in training (I am a student, basically, but a pre-service teacher in training sounds way cooler!). Click HERE to read more about me.

    I hope you stick around, Dear Reader, because in this blog, we aim to learn how to learn and how to use 21st-century technology (and cat memes!) in our classrooms. We can only teach within our range and it is our utmost responsibility to broaden that range every single day as teachers! 

    Subscribe to not miss anything, my Dear Reader! I plan to post my attempts as I try new and different technology-based learning activities. You don’t want to miss my upcoming podcast!

With love, Bea. x

via GIPHY