Interview with Ozge Karaoglu Ergen

On July 2, my 4^th day in Istanbul, I met with Ozge Karaoglu Ergen. Sitting at a café overlooking the Bosporus River we discussed her career as an English teacher and her adventures with instructional technology.  You can read Ozge’s bio on her blog at http://ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org/. But what you can’t read in her bio is her excitement about what she is doing. When I asked Ozge about her blog and her career she immediately talks about why she started blogging. She said that she wanted to find a way to connect with people and pass along her knowledge about web 2.0 tools. As a result of her endeavors, this year she received the New Writing Award by the English Speaking Union, which she received from Duke of Edinburg Prince Philip in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace. In addition this past February she gave a TEDx talk at  Sabanci University in Istanabul. The theme for her talk was, "Yes, I can do it! " And believe me, she can. Ozge wants to be role model for future teachers, and demonstrate how hard work and patience allow you to follow your dreams. 

For Ozge technology helps her make a strategic shift for learning in her classrooms because it provides students with choices. For example, students can journal using traditional pencil and paper or they can go to pencil.com and submit their journal digitally. She has successfully used Vocaroo with her students to encourage them to speak English. But Ms. Karaoglu has taken this a step further and engaged her students as creators of the Daisy & Drago and Bubble & Pebble cartoons, and now she is developing the app! She says that technology acts as a tool for motivating students to speak and write.

It was truly a pleasure meeting with Ozge and I look forward to her future insights on  teaching, learning, reflecting and being a 21st century learner & teacher.