My posts have become more and more event related (Gotta do something about it and find the time and inspiration to write more frequently). I’d like to start this post by thanking Evelyn Izquierdo, a colleague and friend, who encouraged me and pushed me to attend TESOL 2013 in Dallas (April 21st-23rd). To be honest, I always found it quite dreadful to get a visa to travel to the States. But it's me; not them. I have got to say - and thanks to the support from wonderful people - it was sort of a breeze. It could have been otherwise. A series of unfortunate events unfold the very same day I was going to have my visa interview appointment. This was doomed to be a no no travel to Dallas. But Kindness does exist (Right? Blanche DuBois).
Now the journey from Caracas to Dallas started with delays (bad weather in Atlanta airport) making our arrival there Wednesday dawn (April 20th). We got to the Fairmont Dallas hotel safe and sound, though. A few hours to sleep, and the day started with an interesting RELO (Regional English Language Office) meeting
Dallas Convention Center
with VENTESOL members and American embassy representatives (Merilu Johnson Pizarro and David Fay) in the Dallas Convention Center. In the afternoon, Evelyn Izquierdo and I checked out the room and equipment for our presentations on Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd. Ballroom A1 and two computers available for us! The name of our presentation -longer than the Amazon river: “Podcasts, web-based recordings & videocasts: Dynamic and interactive ways to provide feedback”.
Repeat please! Thursday 21st
Day to get ready for our presentation! More than biting my nails, a bit concerned about the presentation mechanics – you’ll see why. Our presentation was part of the Electronic Village and Technology showcase (CALL interest section), Ballroom A1, Dallas Convention Center. In this event several mini presentations or workshops took place. Each presentation (not workshops) were repeated twice. One after the other; 20 to 25 minutes each round. This gives participants the chance to listen to as many presentations as they could and maybe not missing any they wanted to attend. On each side of the room, there were about 8 presentations taking place at the same time. Another interesting thing about this is the closeness or this sort of intimate atmosphere between the speaker and participants. Presenters were surrounded by no more than 10 participants (and even much less). For a shy participant like me I naturally felt driven to ask, contribute, comment (and that is really something). Being a participant and a teacher are two totally different things for me. The first one, I'm generally a bit shy; the second one, well I should get an Oscar nomination! Some people say teaching is like acting. Ok rambling already.
What did we get from this experience? New connections and a different approach to make presentations.
Two birds and Flash Gordon: Friday 22nd, webcast
Rushing! Our presentation was scheduled for 3 p.m. Suddenly, it was changed to and earlier slot, 2 p.m. This time it was going to be streamed in Blackboard with a live audience in Ballroom A1. In spite of having to login to blackboard and upload presentation in a flash, it was an interesting and successful experience. All these years of online training, few webinars here and there, F2F workshops / presentations really paid off…Someone else we would have cracked up - I reckon…We did enjoy the challenge and pressure! You can check out the recording here.
What did we get from this experience? New connections, dealing with two different audiences at the same time (online/live).
3) Creating a rubric assignment in Moodle 2.2 and 2.3. Amy Shipley. Academy of Art Uiversity. Easy way to create your own rubrics in Moodle. It might be nice idea if I decide to go LMS for my extensive reading program.
4) Using embedded Audio feedback in asynchronous online courses. Larisa Olesova (George Mason University), Luciana de Olivera and Alsu Gilmetdinova (Purdue University). It was really nice to listen to a student telling her experience on receving feedback using embedded recorded audio. It was perfect for us! We referred to this student's account in our own presentation. 5) Video to flip the English language classroom. Marsha Chan, Mission College and Sunbusrt media. An awesome character and interesting approach on working pronunciation. You have gotta to check out her PronunciatonDoctor:
Some other interesting presentations I attended outside Ballroom A1: Equipping visually impaired ESL learners with the language to thrive ( Pamela Marcus and Timothy Farnsworth. Hunter College) and ESL writing in a flipped classroom (Jhon Graney, Santa Fe College). Here are my favorite slides from these presentations.
Pamela Marcus and Timothy Farnsworth. Hunter College
Jhon Graney, Santa Fe College
Claudio Fleury and Lilian Marchezoni, Casa Thomas Jefferson
As for the EV miniworkshops I attended: "How to design PowerPoint presentations for a Student-centered approach”, Claudio Fleury and Lilian Marchezoni, Casa Thomas Jefferson. Lilian showed how creative you can be when using PowerPoint to create games for practicing speaking, grammar and vocabulary. I also participated in the workshop "Achieving oral fluency with dynamic PechaKucha prezis”, Marsha Appling-Nuñez.
Happy to see how creative presentations were using desktop / laptop based activities apart from mobile technology (Ipads, tablets, smartphones). Unfortunately, missed presentations about games and ELT.
Nina Liakos
My PLN and others
After our Thursday presentation, Nina Liakos, Webhead member, treat us to lunch at an Italian restaurant. Nina enrolled in our EVO session Podcasting for the ESL-EFL classroom session back in 2011 and she became our mentor in the same session this year (2013). What an honor! We had a delightful and fun conversation at Ravenna restaurant close to the Dallas Convention Center. I also met Elizabeth Hanson-Smith, Webhead. She attended part of our webcast session in Ballroom A1, Friday 22nd. Nice lady! I also met Vance Stevens, founder and moderator of the Webheads community of practice and Nelly Deutsch (Webhead). It was also nice to meet Claudio Fleury, Snea Thinsan, Mary Hillis and Phil Hubbard.
Left to right: Evelyn Izquierdo, Nina Laikos, Roger Druri, Chris Sauer, Snea Thisan, Claudio Felury, Vance Stevens, Phil Hubbard, Nellie Deutsch
It was great to see VENTESOL board members in this conference: Luisa Cristina Alvarez (President), Evelin Ojeda 1st Vice President, Mary Allegra 2nd Vice President, 3rd Vice President Jesús Ernesto Lisboa and Grazibel Nani Treasurer. Also, it was a real pleasure to have met our flight mate, Chinger Zapata (UPEL-Barquisimeto)
Left to right: Luisa Cristina A., Mary A., Evelin O., Ernesto L., Grazibel N., Evelyn I.
To end this experience-event-summary, it goes without saying that meeting so many other EFL-ESL teachers was really valuable; strolling a bit around the hotel or the convention center was really nice- OK, Evelyn dragged me out of my comfort zone most of the time. My plan was heading to the convention center early morning, back to hotel in the evening – Boring- yeah, I know. Hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have met a fun Vance and had a short ride by train.
BTW, we did see horses (carriage rides)…But no Hollywood giddyups were heard!
All images: Miguel Mendoza by Miguel Mendoza is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Mariel Armez (Argentina) and Michael Houton (British Council)
Last October 2nd in the afternoon I participated in the Dialogue: English and New Technologies: Teacher Development in the Policy Dialogues: English for the Future organized by theBritish Councilin Cartagena, Colombia. This dialogue was moderated by Michael Houton (British Council, Brazil) and my dialogues partners were Mariel Armez (Argentina) and José Luis Hereria (SENA-Colombia).
In this post, I will share my presentation abstract and my PowerPoint. After this, I will summarize this presentation and share my reflections on the comments made by participants and speakers including those from the dialogues related to technology: Issues and Questions (October 1st, afternoon) and Transforming Learning (October 2nd, morning).
Abstract: ICT teacher training in Venezuela
A personal experience as a freelance ICT teacher trainer courses offered by the British Council and the Electronic Village online will be briefly described in this presentation. This will serve as the basis to reflect on aspects such as course delivery, content, course length, participants in Venezuela. Currently, promoting and offering F2F and online courses to help EFL teachers integrate Learning technologies in the language classroom does not respond to an arbitrary or capricious fad. It is a fact that: 1) our students learning outside the classroom in a different way; 2) technology is pervasively present in our daily activities; 3) a literate person does not only read and write well, but he/she must have digital literacies; 4) we are becoming a “connected” society allowing for possibilities for professional development not only locally but abroad. Taking into account this, teachers should be trained to integrate technology in a principled manner and learning to how keep updated online (PLNs). How will this be done? It should be carefully reviewed by policy makers, local school or university authorities taken into account teacher’s work load, resources and clear information on the duration of the course, teachers’ own commitment to ICT teacher training courses or workshops.
PowerPoint presentation: ICT teacher training in Venezuela
Summary of my talk
I started working as an ICT teacher trainer for the British Council in 2006. First, I started training teachers F2F (2006-2008) Two F2F teacher training projects can be described from this experience. The first one was an eight-hour workshop for EFL teachers from different public universities around Venezuela to learn how to integrate technology into the language classroom. The content ranged from distinguishing between ICT and CALL definitions to how to plan and design a web-based lesson. As the last part of the workshop, teachers showcased their own online lesson based upon a task-based approach. The second project was a pilot one addressed to EFL teachers working in municipal primary and secondary schools in Caracas. 10 teachers from three different schools participated in this pilot project. They first attended a workshop (the same given to public university teachers) in the British Council computer-based lab. After that, they planned and designed a web-based lesson to showcase it to teacher trainer and some appointed students from their school courses at British Council premises. Next teachers planned and designed two more lessons this time to be used with their students in the schools they worked having the support of the teacher trainer all along. As we can see there are 2 clear stages in this pilot teacher training project: Stage 1: ICT Workshop and practical application Stage 2: Practical application in teachers’ schools and teacher trainer's support Now I believe a third stage is needed in this kind of ICT teacher training school projects: Self-Teacher training. This stage would be about showing teachers how they can continue their own professional development online. The teacher trainer can plan a session to show them how to, for example: 1) create a professional learning network (PLN); 2) participate in webinars; 3) attend free or paid courses and; 3) create a community of practice; 4) become familiar with *Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). After this last session, there should be some sort of follow-up or regular monitoring by principals, local authorities or organizations in charge of this training.
In 2011, I started moderating the online course Learning Technologies for the Classroom offered by the British Council in Venezuela. This course aims at providing basic notions and skills on the use/integration of technology - from information technology skills (eg. searching the web) to what’s ahead (mlearning). Any Venezuelan EFL teacher can enroll in this course having Moodle as the main access platform. It is paid. It lasts 2 months and have four topics with modules stemming from each one of them. The e-moderator can only create forums and send emails. To guarantee a better communication and prevent any immediacy issues several external tools were added to this course (Wiziq, Mailvu, video tutorials, blogs, and cell phone). I believe several key issues should be addressed when offering online ICT teacher development courses:
1. Requirements: teachers must have clear that a "decent" connectivity and at least an updated computer/laptop are needed (If connectivity or Internet service provider is OK, they may use an Ipad or smartphone); they should be familiar with content and duration of the course; number of hours needed to do tasks and forums. Asking teachers to do a mandatory course on ICT without them knowing about this or not having basic resources in schools or home will not be a successful one.
2. Tasks: too many tasks per week will put off any overworked Venezuelan teacher. I would advice - based on my experience with The Consultants-E as a participant and shadowing some e-moderators- no more than seven activities/tasks and two forums per week.
3. Practical applications: focusing just on the tool is not the way to go. Showing teachers how they can potentially use it in a principled way in the classroom will guarantee better (learning) results and will increase participants' motivation.
4. Duration: a course should not last more than two months. If it has to be any longer, it should be divided into different levels.
5. Synchronous: Forums are Ok. There's a lot of asynchronous interaction and input to summarize on the part of the e-moderator. However, whenever possible schedule a real time, live session.
The three stages described for F2F sessions can also apply/ be adapted to online courses.
The last experience described in this dialogue in Cartagena was my work as a co-moderator in an Electronic Village Online session: the Podcasting for the ESL-EFL Classroom (2011-2012). This is one of many free sessions offered to ESL-EFL teachers from all over the world at the beginning of each year for 5 weeks. One of the things I like from this session is that I have co-authored the content along with another moderator: Evelyn Izquierdo. This session can also be divided into three stages. Stage one is Week 1 and it aims at encouraging teachers to meet each other, getting familiar with web tools used all along the session, knowing participants' expectations and surveying their knowledge on podcasting. Stage two comprises weeks 2, 3 and 4. During these weeks participants:
1. read three required readings most of them based on experiences of teachers using podcasts. This will help them get inspiration for planning and developing their own podcast projects. 2. do tasks that they can potentially use in the classroom (eg. describing a picture) while learning how to use podcast tools (recording and publishing). Tutorials help them do these tasks as well. 3. create a blog in Blogger with three pages (About me, Podcasts, and Podcast Project) to showcase during week 5. 5. plan and describe a podcast project they may potentially use in their teaching contexts.
During the last stage (week 5), participants start tweaking their blogs to showcase in a live session in Wiziq. Before they do this, they are given recorded feedback - inspired on Russell Stunnard’s idea on screencasting- which do help them talk confidently about their blogs and projects during this last session.
You can listen to my presentation here:
Final reflections based on audience participation and speakers
1. E-Moderator / F2F teacher trainer : He/she should be well-trained, have basic e-moderation skills, should regularly use technology and - something not mentioned - obvious for some- but just in case- should preferably be an EFL or ESL teacher to provide support on one of the most important issues on integrating ICT in ELT: practical applications / pedagogical approaches/ modeling.
2. Free and paid courses: it seems to be that there’s a –maybe- valid concern about free online courses quality and certification. Concerns about quality can also apply to paid courses, though. Getting a certificate will depend on the teacher and what he/she is looking for in a online course: knowledge? being promoted? both? Another concern is the number of participants starting and finishing the course. It is true that regular attendance/participation is higher when the participant pays (or the institution pays for him/her for that matter). Free online courses focuses are maybe addressed to those who are really interested in learning, are disciplined and know how to work on their own. We should not underestimates lurkers. They also learn one way or another from free online courses. We should keep in mind not all teachers can afford to pay for a course and the schools or institutions they work for are not really willing to pay for them sometimes. In my opinion, there are options. It is the teacher the one who has to decide what's more convenient for him or her. Currently, there are many opportunities for online professional development we didn't have before (free or paid). Have you ever heard about the Electronic Village Online and SEETA? I would highly recommend paid courses from The Consultants-E (They offer scholarships). Apart from courses there are some other ways to develop professionally: webinars (TeachMeet, Reform Symposium, Virtual Round Table Conference, Free Friday webinars. IATEFL and Consultants-E have been offering some free webinars as well. There are some other great ELT communities, non-ICT-oriented, which offer great opportunities for professional development as well likeiTDi. Other PD alternatives are: professional learning networks; communities of practice; social bookmarking. 3. Mlearning: Yes, mlearning might be a rising trend in some countries. In those countries where,say, Ipads, Iphones, tablets and smartphones are unaffordable or not safe to carry, computers and laptops are still a valid and wonderful solution to integrate technology in the language classroom. As far as I know the difference between “Mlearning” and computers and laptops is mobility and comfort, but what we do on the net is somewhat the same. So I have been wondering what’s wrong with being bound with computers and laptops?. Should I have a “Mafalda” moment and run the risk of being considered a "martian" for still using my computer to moderate, design material and follow my PLN? Is learning better because it is done on the go, or learning opportunities are different since we can log on anywhere?
4. Connectivity and resources: it is still an issue in countries like Venezuela when thinking about ICT teacher training. Unfortunately local authorities, government or institutions ask teachers to participate in mandatory ICT training courses (for them to look OK most of the time) without knowing which the teacher’s context is especially those living in rural areas. How come a teacher can learn about the integration of technology if there is not a computer lab at school? If there is one computer/laptop, it sure may have connectivity problems or the teacher have to find a gap in the lab schedule to use it. How come teachers are expected to do the course at home if: 1) they don't have a computer/laptop (or at least an updated one). If they are from rural areas they might be 3-hours away from an Internet cafe. So my advice: check out first how teachers can integrate technology (there are different levels) and adapt a course to what he/she can actually do at school. 5. Articulating Learning technologies within the curriculum: universities training teachers to become EFL teachers -as it happens in Venezuela- should contemplate in their curriculum courses aimed at EFL student trainees (pre-service) to learn how to integrate learning technologies in English Language Teaching. 6. Digital Literacies:Gavin Dudeney mentioned four focus point: language, information, connections and remix. I wonder how these literacies can be developed/taught in an ICT teacher training course. As a separate course or while participants are being trained? As a by-product of teachers' participation in their PLNs? / webinars? Here's a good example on how as a moderatorMike Harrison learn how to find posts(experiential learning) in Facebook groups.
Images from thePolicy Dialogues: English for the Future, Cartagena, Colombia.
