Task for 02.11.2009

Hi all,

Our topic for this week was one of the paragraph types - classification paragraph. In our course, you teleported to some places and interviewed with the users of Second Life. At the end of these interviews, you created categories about the use of SL and wrote a paragraph in classroom.

For next week, you will write a classification paragraph about METU students and try to categorize them into groups in terms of different perspectives. After that, you will write a paragraph to your blog. In addition to this, there is no need to mention that you have to write two comments to your friends' blogs.

Next week, we will have a reading text as well and I will publish it here or at Tapped In in a few days. Follow our blog page for the announcement.

See you on Monday,

Best wishes,

Sedat Akayoglu

Task for 19.10.2009 (Reading Text)

As you all know, there were some problems about the sections and our course. Finally, sections were created and teachers were assigned and Section 1 and Section 4 are in my list. This term, we will go on with these sections.

In section 1, we have completed descriptive paragragh and there should be 3 paragraphs on your blog pages (Introduction - SL Snapshot and its description - description of your friend).

In section 4, we have just completed paragraph and there should be only 1 paragraph which is the introduction.

Next week, on 19.10.2009, we will have a reading text and you should come to class having read this text. In order to download the text, please visit our group page at Tapped In. Download and print it out. Students in both sections are responsible for this task.

As for your tasks, I noticed that your introduction entries are too informal. For example, one them starts like "Hey youngssss". You should keep in mind that you will be evaluated for these paragraphs and if you are asked to introduce yourself for a course assignment, you should be more formal. Moreover, I gave information about the content of your introduction paragraphs. Please take this into consideration.

If you still have some questions about anything, you can also send comments to this entry. I will try to do my best to help you.

Best wishes,

Sedat Akayoglu

Introduction

Hi all,

Welcome to our department and METU. You will be here for four years and at the end of this period, you will all be successful English teachers. I hope you also enjoy this four-year period.

My name is Sedat Akayoglu and you can find more information about me when you click on my name. We will be together in FLE 135 Advanced Reading and Writing I course. I will teach two sections of this course this term and we will be in Z-25 which is a computer lab. There is a reason for having this course in a computer lab. You will use computer and the Internet very often in this course. If you ask what kind of tools we will use, I can say a few words about them:

Second Life: This environment is very crucial for us because we will have meetings in this environment and sometimes you will have to log in this place at your home or dormitory. This is a 3-hour course and one hour will be allocated to SL.

Blog: Blogger is also very important because I will not collect your written assignments but I will check your blog page to see whether you have completed your tasks or not. The first thing you should do is to create a blog page with your name. For example; http://yournameandsurname.blogspot.com. It is very easy to create a blog page and you will get used to using this tool very quickly.

Tapped In: Tapped In is one of the multi user environment. This place will be used as chat environment both in class and after school. The most important thing about Tapped In is that you should send me your chat logs if you use this place.

There may be some other tools to use for this class but we will decide on this later.

I think it is enough for the introduction. Please do not forget to visit this page regularly.

Best wishes,

Sedat Akayoglu
URL: http://www.ibu.edu.tr/akademik/sakayoglu