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Volume Two - Academic Conferences

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Nazime Tuncay and Hüseyin Uzunboylu<br />

Nesibe: “I am glad there is such a course to attend. I want to congratulate the team<br />

working on the program and e-learning. I have not used such an online program to teach<br />

anything but some online sources. For primary school students online puzzles tests etc.<br />

really helped me before to keep student’s interest high. VirtualNeu homepage is very<br />

colorful and dazzling, just like an advertisement. That is the point confused me at the<br />

very beginning. I feel the need of the real guidance. There are too many stimuli on the<br />

same long page. I believe, as the time passes all the participants will get used to it. I<br />

guess every participants needs to involve and be interactive which means (sometimes)<br />

spending more time than a face-to-face classroom. However, it would be in the comfort<br />

of your home. I am glad I am participating and wishing fun for everyone.”<br />

Havva: “In my opinion, VirtualNeu is a creative programme. I become excited while using<br />

this programme and believe that my students will like it"<br />

Oytun: “First of all I would like to thank Nazime Tuncay for offering me a place in this<br />

project. My first impression about this platform was very very positive. The creator does<br />

everything very user friendly for us so it very easy to use and follow the instructions. I<br />

was looking forward to meet new people and attend online courses. It will be great<br />

experience for me. I am glad to be here thanks again.”<br />

Ozge: “I believe VirtualNeu will make us much more relaxed and enthusiastic about<br />

using technology in our lessons. It will definitely help us be more creative. I am looking<br />

forward to learning new things. Thank you”<br />

Seden: My first impression is very excited. I think we are goıng to learn more important<br />

and creative things. I think TEACHER Nazime is very helpful when we ask lots of<br />

questions. It is very interesting to take part in second life. Thank you for everything and<br />

good luck for everyone best wishes.<br />

Yıldız: “I really enjoy following the VirtualNeu website every day. Getting announcements<br />

about each new feature of this virtual platform every second is remarkable. I think that<br />

this is a perfect virtual learning environment for teachers who want to broaden their<br />

horizons about e-education and e-skills. Thus ELT teachers will be able to integrate<br />

computer assisted language learning in their lessons. I also believe that by using virtual<br />

learning websites, students will take greater responsibility in the language learning<br />

process by studying at their own pace without time restrictions. Thus e-education<br />

combined with online education will have benefits including greater efficiency in lessons<br />

and improved student achievement and graduation rates.”<br />

4. Discussion and conclusion:<br />

This paper describes an initiative in teacher education which has undergone significant piloting in an<br />

international c ontext. A s a r esult of t raining n eeds interviews, SL m eetings r esults, online s yllabus<br />

evaluations, course content evaluations, e-learning education evaluations and management<br />

expectations online s urvey and m easurement t ool VirtualNeu portal is c reated. I t includes Virtual<br />

Teacher Training Center (created in Second Life) and Teacher Share Portal (via ScreenCast).<br />

Thus, Training Needs of teachers are analysed; “VirtualNeu” is designed; syllabus is written; modules<br />

are written and uploaded into system; now it’s ready to deliver ELEM Courses. The ELEM course is<br />

announced at E ducation, Youth a nd S port M inistry web page o n J une 2 011 ( see F igure 16). T he<br />

registration of the students to the system is an on-going process and will be ended at 1 July 2011.<br />

Figure 16 Announcement on www.mebnet.net<br />

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