The Rocks

This rocks with the inspiring smart people's name on them in the school yard helps student to get motivated.

Gamification, Goals

With 'Geo Challenge' app we intended to use the latest technology to teach. Our second goal was to get the pupils to guess the given names of the cities and the countries so they would learn about new cities and countries by locating them.

(No) Democracy in Turkey

The elections are being practiced in Turkey since the late 19th century, if we count the last few decades of Ottoman Empire. More then a century may seem a long time for a system to settle it certainly is not for democracy in Turkey. This can be seen by several facts about Turkey. The current prime minister in Turkey is in job for the 3^rd time and there is no reason for him to be elected for another term, he may even go for being the president and make changes in legislature to gain more power while doing so. This couldn’t happen in a real democracy.

There is also the issue of freedom of speech, which is one of the most important parts of a democracy. Prisons in Turkey are full of writers, the lucky writers who are not in the prisons are always in danger of losing their jobs if they write an article critical of the government. If the newspaper or the TV channel doesn’t fire the writer the government wants them to fire, they are faced with millions or even billions in taxes.

The courts of justice are not independent, the minister of justice can effect the election of judges, there were some instances of some judges and attorneys losing their job because they of the officials they were investigating. The police are in direct control of the minister of internal affairs, and recently they displaced a score of police chiefs because of the investigation on ministers’ relatives.

International organizations often report the high level of corruption in Turkish institutions. Which is a lot higher then democratic countries.

The government believes that democracy is only about the elections. There are currently no democratic parties in the council. The representatives and candidates are selected by one person only, the party leader, while the party leader is came to position by election it is the only democratic thing in the party, the decision are mostly made only by the party leader.

With all this dark facts about the state of democracy in Turkey, I think we are still lucky compared to other countries in our region. Turkish women had the right to vote even before the citizens of United States, they have equal rights as men unlike the other Muslim countries. Turkey is often considered a bridge between western and eastern cultures, we can also say that about democracy. I think Turkey is a lot more ‘West’ then ‘east’, but we still have a long road to be a real democracy.

Gamifecation

"Gameifecation" is an entertaining way to keep children focused and involved in class. With different games for different subjects such as memory, building vocabulary the children can improve their skills.

We discussed the subject of gamification described in the previous post with a role-playing game. The format was a late night talk show hosted by Svenja, directed and recorded by Cigdem. Anthony was against gamification, I decided to be pro gamification because there were certain periods in my childhood that I enjoyed playing games and a chance of using an activity that I enjoy to learn was intriguing. In high school when I was playing basketball, I used to use computer games to make plays on offense, it helped me to play smarter in real world games. If new types of games using a similar way to help pupils to learn were developed, it would be a great supplement to school.

Here is the list of arguments summed up by Svenja, representing our discussions prior to the "Late Night with Svenja Shneider".

Pros

• Use it as a part of the education
• Useful for creativity
• Gamification can learn the kids to hold attention on a subject
• Multisenses -> it's a different way of learning
• Motivation
• Children can improve their self-confidence
• Games are for every age

Cons

• You can get addicted
• Live in your own world and not in the real world anymore
• Losing the social aspect of being in a group
• Forget how to play with simple things like lego, cars, etc.
• (Video)games make human unsocial

Even though Anthony had better arguments then me in our discussion, I think our role-playing game was a perfect example of how to use games as a part of education.

On Mind Mapping

In todays class, we organized the information about several different topics in educational studies. Because we researched and organized the information as a group we had a better understanding of the topics. Mind mapping made it possible to remembering the information by looking at the linked colorful titles.

Behaviorism Mind Map

Educational Studies

In today's class we watched an experiment - showing kids strategies to get the award . Thus we learned about their cognitive development.
In an experiment we made in class we have seen the results of being social and sharing our information.

My First Impressions

In my first classes in Denmark there were several aspects of the teaching that were surprising for me. In every class the teachers let us introduce ourselves to the class to meet with each other, we also did that back home, but only by telling our names and the cities we come from, here we learned about each others interests and hobbies. I especially liked the way our English teacher Anne Kristine made us talk to someone from another country, first we introduce ourselves to our partner and then he or she would talk about one another to the class.

I also liked the way that we discussed topics in pairs before we have a classwide discussion. This let us put our opinions in order and compare it with our classmates. But the most important thing is that even though some of us didn't talk in front of the class, we were still active and learning.

The students called the teacher by her first name, in Turkey that is considered extremely rude. But I think using first name makes the communication with the teacher easier.

The use of technology also surprised me, the website we had our curriculums and texts is very useful for not having to checkout timetables and reading schoolboards. Most students didn't even used traditional notebooks, they used laptops in every class. Back home only a few students were using computers in the class and the campus didn't provide students with internet that works as it should.

The teachers' use of presentations on projector also made it easier for us to follow the class.