ePals

This week, we explored an online network for teachers and students where they can connect with many other students and teachers from around the world: ePals. I should admit that it took me a while to figure out how it works, and I made use of e-Pals is Global Education in order to see how people are using the website. You will see comments from other users on the right side of this page.

There are a lot of things you can do on ePals. You can find connections from around the world to collaborate, and while looking for connections, you can narrow your search results by choosing the country, language, student age group, average class size, subjects, interests, grades taught, and specializations. I was really  happy to see that there are many connections from my home country, Turkey. If I had known about ePals when I was in Turkey, I would have definitely used it while teaching English to my students. It would provide us with opportunities to connect with native speakers of English, and participate in projects with classrooms from around the world. Needless to say, this would contribute so much to my students' cultural awareness and communication skills in many ways.

I especially loved the Explore Experiences feature. I liked the idea of School Swap project, where you can have your students partner with a classroom from another country. Through this project, students will be discovering the similarities and differences between their classrooms, activities, campuses. As a culminating project, it is suggested that the students create a video presenting facts and info about their partner school. It is a very interesting project where students will have the opportunity to communicate with native speakers of the target language and use this info while creating their video. I also loved the Taste of Culture project, where students exchange recipes and examine what the ingredients tell them about the other culture’s location and climate. Food is always fun, and you can use this project when you teach imperatives in English as the recipes always have directions.

The Educator's PLN 

This week, I learnt about a social networking website where teachers from all around the world come together and create a network of educators. You can sign up for free, but your membership needs to be approved before you can view some features of the Educator's PLN.

Signing up for this website, you can make connections with teachers from all the world no matter where you are. It currently has more than 18,000 members. You can use this website to ask questions, chat about classroom problems, share your resources and expertise with others, find out what is going on in other classrooms, learn about teaching strategies and educational issues.   

21st Century Learner

Today, I read A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Siemens. It was a very interesting article where I mostly enjoyed the comparisons between learners today and learners in the past. A learner today is like a doctor. I believe that the reason I came up with this analogy has a lot to do with the fact that I have been watching the TV show Grey's Anatomy for a few months now. When you think about doctors’ offices and their equipment 20 years ago, it must look very different from the ones we see now. There is a lot of new information, illnesses/treatments have changed over the years, new treatments are in effect, and there is a lot of digital equipment they are making use of in order to diagnose and treat patients. When I think back on my times as a middle school student, I cannot see a smartphone, iPad, computer, kindle, social networking sites, smart boards, online blogs in my room or classroom. I do remember a lot of books and notebooks. The way learners acquire information has tremendously changed.

Siemens states that experience has long been considered the best teacher of knowledge. Since we cannot experience everything, other people’s experiences, and hence other people, become the surrogate for knowledge. This is where I should emphasize the significance of our networks. In today’s world, we are all connected to each other through technology and learn from each other constantly. A doctor should constantly update themselves in their fields, be aware of developments, attend conferences, talk to other doctors about their experiences so that they don’t miss anything important that would leave them behind. We learn not only from our experiences but from many sources. Siemens elaborates on this in his video the Network is the Learning where he says that the particular network I create is what enables me to stay current in my own field. Today people connect with each other in numerous ways. It is very easy to keep in touch with people from other cities, countries and even the far away ones. We should make use of this in the best way possible.