QR Code in Education

QR Code (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) is the trademark for a type of matrix barcode. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that contains information about the item to which it is attached.
How To Create a QR Code:
I used the site QR Code Generator but there are many other sites and applications that you can use. They are all free and very handy.
It is very easy, too.
When you log in, this screen comes and you can pick what type of QR Code you will create. I chose website.

After choosing, I clicked "Next" and in the new page, I pasted my blog's url.

So, by doing that, I created my QR Code.  The next step I did was to customize my code however I want. 

QR Code in Education:

1. You can save time for logging in by storing website URLs in QR Code. 

2. You can create book reviews in the form of student video responses.

3. You can use it as a voting tool. 

4. You can use it to boost differentiated instruction. For example, you have a poem for students to analyze. You can provide additional scaffolding with a link to a recitation or focused questions to get them started. Use the QR Code to help you manage differentiation of the various strategies in your tool belt of teacher practices.

5. You can create interactive labs or dissections. Codes attached to a skeleton model or dissected cow can take students to important directions or content.

6. You can compile researches. You can let students create codes linking to items discovered during research.

7. You can provide extension assignments. 

8. You can check answers and reflect.

9. You can make learning stations. You can put codes in different areas of the room that will take students to different online activities, videos or content.

10. You can show students exemplars. You can create QR for linking students to examples of quality work, whether it's PowerPoint or slideshare for a class presentation, or people speaking a foreign language specific to your content lesson. 

credit: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/QR-codes-teaching-andrew-miller

Second Life

Second life is an online world in which residents create virtual representations of themselves, called avatars, and interact with other avatars, places or objects.

ABOUT SECOND LIFE

In Second Life, residents can go to a social gatherings, live concerts, press conferences and even college classes. They can do a lot of things you can do in real life- buy land, shop for clothes and gadgets or just visit with friends. They can also do things that are impossible in the real world- avatars can fly or teleport to almost any location. Some residents design short programs, called scripts, which give avatars or objects new abilities, including special animations or the ability to generate copies of toher objects.
When a new resident logs on to Second Life, his or her avatar appears at "Orientation Island". Here, residents participates in a tutorial, learning how to navigate through Second Life, communicate with other residents and how to use menus and commands. The resident also learns about the places he or she may venture. Geographic spaces in Second life include the mainland, estates, islands and parcels.
New Second Life users selects their avatars from generic male and female templates. Although a resident could use an unmodified template, everyone else would know that she or he was a new user who doesn't know how things work. Most residents customize their avatars a little before leaving Orientation Island.
The inventory holds hair, skin, objects, animations and body parts and has an infinite capacity. A user can open his or her inventory and choose to put or remove items, like clothing or hairstyles. Residents can add to an avatar's inventory at any time, creating a practically limitless number of avatar customization options. You can change your avatars' appearance as often as you like.
Residents can even build houses and other buildings.
Avatars can get around Second Life by walking, flying, teleporting to their destination. Residents make their avatars walk around by using the arrow keys. Pushing the up arrow key makes the avatar walk forward, for example. Moving the mouse changes the position of the avatars's head, making it look around.
Residents can choose ways to communicate with other users. They can opt to use the Voice feature, which allows residents with microphones to talk to one another live. Residents can also use a chatbox, which opens a window in which users can type messages. Chat box conversations are broadcast to everyone in the immediate area, so for more private conversations, residents can instant message another user.

credit to: https://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/networks/second-life.htm

MY EXPERIENCE:
I also logged on to Second Life and created an avatar to find out more about it. Since our university has its own created place, I decided to go there. It was fascinating. At first, there were nothing to look apart from a land with nothing on it. But, after that I decided to fly and after a 2 or 3-minutes of flying, I landed. The land I came was more realistic and decorated.
It was created for the students who came to our university, Istanbul University- Cerrahpaşa- with the ERASMUS exhange program. It was such a well-designed area for them because everything was created accordingly. I wandered around and observed. All the information they need was there. They can even send a message to our university's office.
I think using Second Life is very helpful and effective.
Not just for making an information and gaming place. Using SL for education also can provide good materials. Besides, SL already has educator locations. You can find out more by looking "Destination Guide" to explore more about "Educator Locations".

MY AVATAR

Using Video Games in Education

Videogames have great positive potential in addition to their entertaintment value and there has been considerable success when games are designed to address a specific problem or to teach a certain skill.

The Educational Benefits of Videogames:

1- A common example of the educational value videa games offer is core English skills. Multiplayer, cooperative games can help students learn English as a second language through context, play and social interactions. 

Examples of video games to improve and learn English: For begginners: Influent, Professor Garfield: Reading Ring

For intermediate: 21 Days, Fable

For advanced: FluentU, Fallout 3, Tropico 4

2- It improves concentration and focus. For example, Minecraft has proven an incredible outlet for people with authism, or people with ADHD. This game helps nurture creativity and provides a strucutured, calming environment for neurotypical and neurotypical people. 

3- It is productive. The New York Institute of Play has used video games principles to teach and guide kids in a multitude of disciplines. Turns out breaking tasks down into quests and rewarding successes-just like games-is a good idea.

4- It teaches how to learn from failure. By encouraging students to view failure as a chance to learn, rather than a sign of something lacking with the student, they succeed. Education should be as effective as possible at teaching, guiding, and nurturing young people and video games provide great chances to educate. 

5- It revolutionizes learning. In order to push education, we need to teach people in ways they can learn and learning through play is an amazing way to get kids invested in knowledge, their future, and scholastic topics. 

6- It improves confidence. It gives us the chops to succeed and the confidence to keep succeeding. 

7- It can be used as research and measurement tool.

8- It attracts participation by individuals across many demographic boundaries such as age, gender and ethnicitiy.

9- It can assist children in setting goals, ensuring goal rehearsaş, providing feedback, reinforcement and maintaining records of behavioral change.

10- It can be used when examining inndividual characteristics such as self-esteem, self-concept, goal-setting and individual differences. 

11- It is fun and stimulating.

12- It can provide elements of interactivity that may stimulate learning.

13- It allows participant to experience novelty, curiosiity and challenge. 

14- It may help in the development of IT skills. 

15- It can act as simulations. These allow participant to engage in extraordinary activities.

16- Videogame play can facilitate discussing and sharing, following directions, giving directions and answering questions.

Educational Video Games: 

Scribblenauts

Civilization

Magic School Bus

Endless Ocean

LeapFrog Leapster

Professor Layton Series

Dora the Explorer

Big Brain Academy

LittleBigPlanet

Reader Rabbit

IF YOU WANT TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY MINECRAFT, YOU CAN CLICK THE LINK

⇊

https://www.instructables.com/id/Perfect-Way-to-Start-Minecraft-Quick-Start-GUIDE/

credits: 

a) https://blog.gamersensei.com/article/gaming-and-education/

b) https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/family-tech/tech-for-kids/10-educational-video-games-your-kids-will-love10.htm

c) https://www.fluentu.com/blog/english/english-video-game/

d) https://sheu.org.uk/sheux/EH/eh203mg.pdf

My Certificate for "The Psychology of Criminal Justice"

I have completed my course on edX, but since I have to pay 99$ to get a certificate, I can only post my screenshot here. 

If I talk about my course, The Psychology of Criminal Justice, it was very good. 

I have already had an interest in this topic- criminal profiling- so it was very interesting and entertaining as well as educational for me. 

The instructors are very intellectual and they know what they are talking about. 

From the begining of the course, we have seen a crime that is commited, to the end of the course, while getting information we tried to solve the case.

I really liked the idea of being the criminal profiler here. 

Also, at the end of each section, there is a forum where we can discuss what we think- who is the offender and why?- .

I really recommend this course who has an interest in this specific field.

You won't be disappointed at all!

Here are the images that prove my completion of the course:

Sutori

Sutori, previously known as HSTRY, is a collaborative presentation tool for the classroom for all age groups and content areas. It provides the ideal canvas for assignments and lesson plans. 

Sutori is easy to learn with an intuitive user interface and straightforward functionality. Privacy is not a concern on Sutor, their revenue comes from subscriptions, not ads, and thus all the information is kept private and nor shared with any third party. Overall Sutori is an accessible site which support most screen readers, but contains some user interface elements that screen readers struggle to read.

How to Use Sutori?

1. Go to the Sutori website: https://www.sutori.com/

2. Click the "Sign Up" button.

3. Once you logged in, it will take your dashboard. To create a store click on "Create Story".

4. Choose if you want to create an empty story or strat from a template.

5. Type the title for your story.

6. Hover the mouse underneath the title to add new elements such as text, video or image.

7. Once you choose an element, fill out the element with the appropriate information. 

8. Click away from the element to save the edit and move onto adding more elements.

9. Once your Sutori is done, click on share to share it with peers or the instructor.

credit: https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/learner-centered-tools/sutori/

MY STORY 

⬋                        ⬊

https://www.sutori.com/story/dover-beach-poem-analysis--qV8zXns5ApDrfFwcSYuanRPe

Thinglink

What is Thinglink?
Thinglink is a product identification tool that makes it easy to add clickable tags to any image on the web and share the tagged images on social networks. Any publisher or brand ca distribute tagged images to bloggers and other publishers and still receive traffic back to the original image source.

Who is Thinglink built for?
Any publisher of digital images can use Thinglink to make the objects in their images clickable and drive traffic to their desired destinations.

Why should I tag my images?
To drive traffic. Pictures invites clicks.

What kind of images should I tag?
Your images can contain anything: fashion, sports, interiors, news, a map. Products are most commonly tagged but Thinglink is being used by publichers tagging garden plants.

Can I add tags that link everywhere?
Your tags can lead anywhere: link to an online retailer you have an affiliate partnership with, or an article containing more information.

What kind of images are taggable?
The tags work on any standard image. If your browser can show it, it can be tagged.

How does the tagging tool work?
Simply copy yppur image url from your website and paste it on the Thinglink tag editor to add tags. When finished, copy the embed code Thinglink provide in the editor and paste it to the html of your website. It's like embedding a YouTube video. Your image file remins untouched.

Ways to Use It for Teaching and Learning:
1- Use Thinglink as a multimedia curriculum launcher
2- Use Thinglink to introduce a tecchnology tool
3- Use Thinglink for professional development
4- Use Thinglink to publish student work
5- Use Thinglink to create interactive student reports

To find out more about Thinglink, you can visit this site ⇒ https://www.gettingsmart.com/2012/08/5-ways-use-thinglink-teaching-learning/

MY INTERACTIVE PICTURE

⇘ ⇙

https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1182288513387724803