END OF THE TERM FAREWELL

 Hello, sweet followers of my sweet blog🥰🎉

 Don't forget that I love you all and drink lots of water on these hot summer days ☺️. Today, I am both happy and sad because we have come to the end of another term. Of course, this is my reason for joy, but at the same time, I am sad to be leaving you.  As you know, I opened my blog for my Instructional Technologies and Material Design in English Language course.  But now I'm very used to you and frankly, I want to continue blogging.  We will see you in other blogs, do not see this post as a farewell. 

There are things I want to tell you today, so I'll proceed in a conversational mood. Fasten your seat belts, here we go 🥳 First of all, this period has been very tiring in general, and I don't want to leave it without mentioning that.  Associate Professor Gökçe Kurt gave us our Instructional Technologies and Material Design course. I consider myself very lucky to be taking lessons from such a cheerful teacher. Throughout the semester, we focused on the integration of technology into education and lessons, and we did this with contemporary materials. Of course, my ideas were very similar to the course content, but on the one hand, I thought that technology integration was a risky and unrewarding endeavour because not everyone had the same opportunities to access technology. To what extent can someone living in a village in eastern Turkey live a life intertwined with technology? Of course, there are interactive whiteboards in the classrooms, but their use is limited during the lesson. On the other hand, I think that if a person wants to achieve something, he creates opportunities for himself. Because we are truly in the 21st century, and there is hardly a single area without technology anymore. For this purpose, we can send a letter to the relevant ministries stating that there are no necessary technological devices in the classroom and requesting that these be provided to the school. For example, if a village school does not have a computer that students can use, it should at least be provided by the provincial or district national education directorate. In other words, I think the lack of technological opportunities can be reduced with the efforts of the teachers. 

This course really contributed a lot to me. I knew technology integration was important, but I learned that it was a systematic, orderly process. I learned that there are seriously many opportunities ahead of us in terms of technological applications and AI.  Normally, I knew this, but I didn't expect there to be so many and that it would progress so quickly. For example, even in infographic assignment, I realised that it is actually used in many areas, for example, in brochures for language courses. This surprised me. I don't think I created a good recording for the podcast assignment; I didn't like my voice recording at all. But actually, if I had known beforehand that I could create my voice recording in different ways with AI tools, I would have at least presented more professional work. But it ended in disappointment for me.

My favourite assignment in this course was the digital story. Because I think my imagination is wide, and if I could find a group, I would come up with a better assignment. The assignment I like least is the interview using Magic School's Character Chatbot. In fact, even thinking that I talked to Atatürk, whom I interviewed, makes me happy. But the chatbot does not reflect Atatürk's completely real thoughts and gives us general information that we can find anywhere on the internet. In this respect, the content is not of very high quality. Frankly, I do not have any suggestions for this course because our teacher has been giving assignments in this way for several years, and it seems that he has completed all his shortcomings. But if only we had the chance to experience more in class, this time the class time limits this situation. Another deficiency is that presenting the parts we have experienced to the class would make the lesson more productive. But as far as my teacher says, we will be on stage as teachers next year. 

It was a very productive and fun period. I love you, my followers. I wish you a nice holiday. You can share your questions, opinions, and suggestions in the comments.