Post originally written by Marisa Constantinides. Just helping spread the word on the new #ELTchat website For the last – well, almost two years now, since September 15 2010, #ELTchat has kept us on our toes and forged hundreds of professional and personal relationships amongst its followers who turn up on Twitter every Wednesday to talk about topics they have suggested and voted on – a community of peers which was created by a small group of colleagues – which grew and grew some more and became something that counts as an important part of our continuous professional development. Like many great ideas, it didn’t hit just one person but several. And that is how #ELTchat was created. The website to keep up the communication of its members, a base and repository of our ideas was one of the first things we all thought of creating – the wiki came later. Andy Chaplin was keen to join the moderation team and help with podcasts and technical stuff; he was quick to buy eltchat.com and announced the good news to us after the fact. A few months later, right after TESOL France 2011, he suddenly disappeared – some say for reasons of health. We never found out for sure. We never received a single word of response to our emails. eltchat.com was and still is registered in his name. And yesterday we lost it. On August 8 the domain expired and we have no way of taking over unless it goes up for sale again; it was very sad that Andy Chaplin did not find it appropriate to renew. The news is really upsetting. The work we have put in on this website cannot be told in a few simple words – but it has been a labour of love and we have got so much out of it that we have never regretted one single moment We are pretty upset at the behaviour of this individual – disappointment is one big understatement. But we trust that our community of #ELTchatters, our PLN for short, will again gather round the new domain which we have purchased – eltchat.org It will take us a few days to put the website back on its feet And all will be as it was before – all the posts in place all your thoughts and comments, all the polls and great summaries which got us on the shortlist of the ELTon Awards nominations. We will be back with a vengeance. We are not just a website – we did not get on the ELTon awards shortlist as just another website!!! We are a great community of teachers and we have a Plan B! See you all in September!!! Marisa Constantinides –Shaun Wilden
P.S. We would greatly appreciate it if any of you belonging to this great community of teachers, teacher educators, bloggers, #ELTchat followers, reposted this on your blog. If you decide to do this, please add your name to the post under ours.
Well, after more than a week, and since it’s never late, I’d like to summarize myIATEFL experience in Glasgow as a participant and speaker. I hope it will encapsulate not only what I got in terms of knowledgebut what it meantto have met a warmth and friendly PLN.
Even though I am not using mobile technologyas much as I would like to in the classroom (I have used it for some other academic activities: announcing meetings, recording events, contacting speakers). Also, it’s true I have used it in an online course I moderate for the British Council (Learning Technologies (LTs) for the Classroom course) to send task or WizIQ session reminders, but once again not as part of the tools participants should use to become familiar with mlearning. My first impression on this pre-conference: its organization and far as I understand Graham Stanley was behind all this. Kudos! One of the things I found interesting while I was listening to speakers about MALL (Mobile Assisted Language Learning) is that myPLN does keep me well informed on what’s going on about mlearning(just read the e-Moderation Stationand you will see what I am talking about). By the way, Shelly Terrellreferred to this in her eloquent presentation called Evolution of the conference: the internet's impact on professional development. However, there's no denial that there's always something new to learn and reflect upon from F2F conferences. The short but rich participation of the speakers in this LTSIG pre-conference kept us all glue to our seats them -figuratively speaking- throwing at us valuable key phrases, notions, insights that complemented or added new information about mlearning. Just from Gavin Dudeney and Gary Motteram I got some that are still swirling in my head sort of accommodating, complementing, and expanding what I have heard/read about tablets and smartphones before. Here they are in the shape of a word cloud:
Another thing mentioned in this pre-conference that called my attention was the use of ESL-EFL apps in contrast with the use of rich media content (Youtube, Skype). It seems to be the latter may have a more positive effect on language learning than the first one. This might be true. However, I still believe, and might be wrong about it, this is not a decision to be made by the teacher only. I am almost certain some EFL students would appreciate a dose of apps to practice grammar and vocabulary on their smartphones or tablets. I do remember showing this Wordshake app to a group of students and they were fascinated by it. As an EFL learner myself, I’d never discard apps or "discreet" exercises that may help in one way or another to practice something about the target language.
My reflections/questions at the end of this valuable pre-conference revolved around how willing an EFL teacher from my country (Venezuela) could be in integrating mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) in his/her classroom. I reckon this will depend on certain issues like safety (Is it safe for students / teacher to carry their own devices to the classroom?); affordability(Can all students/teachers afford having a mobile device? What the BYOD?); connectivity (Is there wireless or decent broadband connection at school/university?); compatibility (Can you use same apps or any other content rich media in all mobile devices?); training (Are all teachers willing to use and/or be trained to learn how to use mobile devices in the classroom?); pedagogy (Are there clear examples on the use of mobile devices in language learning?). For my part, I finally managed to get a smartphone last year. I am exploring apps and how to use them first (before taking the plunge into integrating mobile devices in my EAP class), although I am really tempted to try one of the activities suggested by Nicky Hockly in her blog e-moderation station.
Next days: Tuesday 20th, Wednesday 21st, Thursday 22nd, Friday 23rd
Presentations
Some of the presentations I attended and enjoyed/learned a lot during these days were:
1.How to Reflect on Research Talks at the Conference. Simon Borg
2.It’s all very well in theory, but... Penny Ur
3.Technology speaks volumes: enhancing integration, participation and speaking abilities. Bruno Andrade
4.52: a year of subversive activity for the ELT classroom. Lindsay Clandfield & Luke Meddings
5.Tools for digital storytelling. Russell Stannard
6.Who needs a teacher’s book? Olwyn Alexander
7.Dialogue in teacher training: a sociocultural perspective. Willy Cardoso
8.How to create a Personal Learning Network (PLN). Nik Peachey
9.What’s in your blended teaching toolkit? Valentina Dodge
10.Teaching English in technologically-challenged environments. Dafne Gonzalez & Rubena St. Louis
11.Teaching Business English with technology in Latin America. Jennifer Verschoor
12.Evolution of the conference: the internet's impact on professional development. Shelly Terrell
13.What has #hashtagging ever done for us?Shaun Wilden
14.ELTCHAT and reflective teaching. Sharon Hartle
15.Continuous professional development through social networking. Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto
16.Creating your own interest-driven professional development path using social media. Bernadette Wall
17.TeCH-achers: get your one-way ticket to tech islands!. Isil Boy & Beyza Nur Yilmaz
18.No words: ideas for using sound and images in class. Michael Harrison
19.Supporting the teacher as innovative learning design. Diana Laurillard (Plenary)
SECC-Clyde Auditorium
As for my presentation, well, it was a really interesting, bit nerve-racking experience. I may not knock it out of the park, but all in all I think it was an important lesson as part of my professional development. Talking for the first time in an International event like IATEFL F2F to ESL-EFL teachers was really something. And I am still thankful to the British Councilfor having given the chance to participate in this event. A small, but nice crowd attended my presentation among them Russell Stunnard (really supportive and a super great person - speaks Spanish amazingly fluently!), Sue-Lyon Jones (what a nice and lovely Lady!), Vicky Samuell (kind and sweet), María Muller (Nik Peachey’s wife – so great to have a Venezuelan listening to my presentation) . I do, do really thank them for having attended my session (the sound for videos didn't work, but was able to finish it just in time!). Last but not least, it was great to have had Luz Ortuñoz (British Council Project Officer in Venezuela) helping during this presentation and Carlos Mayora’s participation from Universidad Simón Bolívar. My presentation was called Technologies for ELT learning in Venezuela: Benefits of Screencasting and was presented on a Wednesday afternoon in the SECC-Clyde Auditorium, Gala 2.Here's my presentation:
From day one till the last one Surreal! Having met part of the people I follow/follow me in Twitter/Facebook in Glasgow was really something…You know pictures, tweets, words, audio, video turned into flesh and bones to put it some way…This impression of meeting them and seeing how friendly, warm, supportive they are was really amazing…This tells quite a lot about the connections we make online and how powerful and permanent they can be in spite of what some people may perceive as an impersonal, cold, detached way of connecting, keeping updated, being informed or even making friends… In my humble opinion, online networks simply replicates in an amplified and different way what we do F2F (and what we have been doing for centuries: networking) reaching further than the local networks we (naturally) create in the place we live in (family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances). Here are the people I met in person and had the chance to greet or listened to their presentations:
Click on their pictures and start following this amazing PLN! You won't regret it.Some pictures of myself with part of this fantastic PLN:
Left to right: Barbara Hoskins, Sue-Lyon Jones and myself
Left to right: Jennifer Verschoor, myself, Shelly Terrel and Cecilia Lemos
Now one of the things that was really unexpected, but super pleasant at the same time was attending Valentina Dodge's presentation, What’s in your blended teaching toolkit? , and meeting a participant from a course I was a support tutor and Valentina the main one 5 years ago! This is a Consultants-e course and the name of the participant is Margret Udo. Valentina Dodge assertively and clearly summed up the experience like this:
"Love the way this conference and this photo blend the online and face to face experience into a unique experience :-)"
Left to right: Valentina Dodge, Margret Udo and Myself
They kindly gave me more feedback from this session (this time F2F). It does really encourage me to keep on moderating online. Something I did not learn out of the blue. I had one of the best tutors in the E-moderation: A Training Course for Online Tutors (2007) offered by the Consultants-e: Carl Dowse and also had the chance to work as support tutor with experienced e-moderators like Valentina Dodge and Anna Falcao. I did learn a lot from them and it all started from a sponsored place Gavin Dudeneygave me as a token on one of the courses offered by the Consultants-e after his one-week seminar delivered in Mérida, Venezuela, back in 2006.
Fun in iATEFL!
Ferry party and Pecha Kucha night!
And not everything has to be that serious in IATEFL. Among the evening events, people danced to Scottish music and had a good laugh listening to funny, but serious brief talks facilitated by Jeremy Harmer in PK night. An here's a taste of it.
Ferry Party (Wednesday 21st)
Pecha Kucha (Thursday 22nd):
Right to left: Jeremy Harmer, Herbert Puchta, Willy Cardoso, Vicki Hollett, Shelly Terrell, Barbara Hoskins, Geoff Tranter Vicky Saumell and Helena Gomm
Barbara Hoskins and Shelly Terrell
Venezuelans on board!
Last but not least, it was fun to have shared these days in Glasgow with these wonderful Venezuelans!
Right to left: Rubena St. Louis, Elvina Castillo, Dafne González and myself. (Carlos Mayora's picture)
Right to left: Luz Ortuño (British Council), Miguel Mendoza (UCV) and Carlos Mayora (USB)
PS. Glad to have seen and talked to María Muller and Evelin Ojeda.
Pictures and videos by Miguel Mendoza. Videos using FlipCamera. Pictures Sony 35. Images from PLN taken from their Twitter pages, About me webpage and Podcasting for the ESL-EFL classroom Photo album.
This is the second year in a row that I co-moderate the Podcasting for the ESL-EFL Classroom session. This is one of 13 free teacher training sessions offered by the English Village Online (EVO) this year. This year I had the pleasure to share the co-moderation with Evelyn Izquierdo and Teadira Pérez. In 2011, I co-moderated it along with Evelyn Izquierdo and José Rodríguez.
This session aims at providing basic notions and tools to: 1. understand what podcasting is 2. create podcasts the easy and difficult way (Stanley, 2006) 3. become familiar on ways to use podcasts in the ESL-EFL classroom 4. create a podcast project
The session is addressed to beginners or - as we have noticed- to teachers who are familiar with tools like Audacity but have never succeeded in using it since, it seems to be, they are daunted by its sometimes unfriendly interface, apparent threatening look or complicated layout. At the end of the session, they realize how easy it is to use and they can get hooked to this free software to create simple but very creative and almost professional podcasts.
EVO sessions run for five weeks from January to February. The Podcasting for the ESL-EFL Classroom uses as a major platform the old, but really helpful and reliable Yahoo Groups. We use it to communicate, announce the start of each week session, answer participants’ queries and welcome newcomers. We also use it, as part of tasks, to share recordings and blogs as well as to keep a record of participants’ information and photos. The other platform we use is Blogger for the Session blog, the Activity blog and the reading blog. Participants use Blogger to create their own e-portfolios.
Activities or tasks have been planned in a graded manner, step by step sort of approach, to help participants become familiar with Audacity (the difficult way – Stanley, 2006) along with web-based podcast services (the easy way- Stanley, 2006). Creating blogs start from Week 2 all the way up to Week 5 when participants showcase them in the Podcasting Fair in Wiziq. Readings also start from understanding basic notions related to podcasting, how it is used in ESL-EFL (Weeks 2-4) and reviewing a pool of websites about podcasting collected by Wesley Fryer (Week 5). Furthermore, tasks are planned to try to encourage participants to work on their own without depending that much on the moderators especially after Week 2. Tutorials come in handy to explore and learn all the tools introduced all along the session. They are also used to clarify certain technical problems participants report in the Yahoo groups. Here’s a quick overview on how the content is organized for this session. (Click on image to enlarge).
You can also hereto read a description of each activities done during each week.
One of the things we have learned while moderating this session is that we should take into account:
1. Operating systems (e.g. Linux, Windows, Leopard) 2. Browsers (Internet explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome) 3. PC and Mac users 4. Participants’ IT skills or expertise 5. Best time to plan synchronous sessions in international teaching training development sessions like EVO 6. Moderator’s support (e.g. immediacy , close support)
As for the evaluation, participants from the 2011 session talked about:
1. Variety of podcast tools 2. The support of tutors and colleagues 3. Moderators’ Immediate response 4. Challenging course design, but achievable activities 5. Well-planned and selected activities per week 6. Progression of activities (from easy to demanding ones) 7. The potential of some other tools used in the session like Glogster, Blogger, Google docs, Voicethread among others 8. The use of tutorials to provide support and feedback 9. Confidence to show other students and colleagues how to use podcasts 10. Having access to their own blogs (e-portfolio), session blogs and Yahoo groups even when the session is over. 11. Valuable synchronous sessions focused on review and not on empty chatting. 12. Broadening participants’ knowledge on podcast tools some participants thought they knew well.
1. Their favorite tool being to our surprise Audacity. One of the participants, however, reported it is not advisable to use by young learners since it might be a bit hard to master. 2. Some other favorite podcasting tools like Audioboo, Podmatic and Podbean. 3. Challenging course design, but achievable activities. Some participants suggested advertising it as a class. 4. Offering a session on videos as the natural next step after podcasting. They especially liked the video tutorials and how they showed a step by step way to create podcasts. 5. The potential of some other tools used in the session like Glogster, Blogger, Google docs, Voicethread among others 6. Well-planned and selected activities per week 7. The support of tutors and colleagues 8. The follow up made by tutors on participants’ work each week 9. Progression of activities (from easy to demanding ones)
As for the moderators’ feedback, it was done using screencasting. This feedback is generally given during Week 5 before participants showcase their work. It is advisable to do this to provide this boost of confidence participants need before showcasing their work in a live session. This feedback consisted in reviewing each page from the blog’s participants providing advice on adding missing information and podcasts and the project itself.
Watch this feedback for one of the participants from the 2011 session:
Watch this feedback for one of the participants from the 2012 session:
For a future session we should include some other tools like Sound Cloud and refer to the use of mobile technology to record podcasts.
Here are some participants' podcast samples made during 2011 and 2012:
Podbean (First recording using Audacity)
About me: Chris Jeffries (2011)
About me: Kerry (2012)
Podomatic:
Out my Window: Barbara Sakamoto (2011)
Out my Window: Janet Bianchini (2012)
MP3 Skype recorder:
Interview: Nina Liakos (2011)
Interview: Steve K (2012)
Audioboo
My mystery person: Maryanne Burgos (2011)
My Mystery person: Natasa Bozic Grojic (2012)
Vocaroo
Recordings for the 2011 session are not available.
Questions to e-moderators: Sophia Danesino (2012)
Chirbits
Tongue twister: Jhon Conway (2012)
Tongue twister: Marie Helene (2011)
Blog Promo
Yuly Asención(2011)
Maja Dakic-Brkovic (2012)
Here is a participant' podcast blog (e-portfolio) from 2011 session:
Here is a participant' podcast blog (e-portfolio) from 2012 session:
To check out more great participants' blogs and podcast I invite you to visit the blogs for 2011 and 2012 sessions.
