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More about TESOL 2022
Helaine W. Marshall’s keynote on Creating Fertile Spaces for Instructional Innovation in a Digital Age
Skip down to Earlier Events that happened since the previous Learning2gther post

Wed 23 March 11:00 – noon UTC – Best of EVO –
EVO Minecraft MOOC and Immersive Building in Virtual Worlds

Recording https://youtu.be/rNzBjFHb9Hs

Slides

This is the link to the EVO Minecraft MOOC slides with working hyperlinks
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IRfWzcvro5IKPq2PF-7URzLY2V8DL-LlmEMGTjNlPB4/edit?usp=sharing

And this is the link to Heike and Doris’s presentation slides on Immersive Building in Virtual Worlds
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Oaol8aLd-eoI9C8Q3meyy4UFwWQsrMptLXiw8W_D-W0/edit#slide=id.g6d588ed403_0_120

Feedback

Doris Molero posted this happy Zoomfie

Thanks so much to all participating in our session Best of EVO2022. That was fun!

Jane posted hers

You can view all the Best of EVO recordings on the CALL-IS Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChnWYx1ZGtHnzzpV5t98J4Q

https://sites.google.com/view/electronicvillage2022/home

More about TESOL 2022

Tue-Fri March 22-25 TESOL 2022 in Pittsburg and online

Hybrid, live in Pittsburg and virtually wherever you are

https://www.tesol.org/virtual-convention-2022/

The Electronic Village (EV) 2022 was online: https://call-is.org/ev/, hosted by TESOL’s Computer-assisted Language Learning Interest Section (CALL-IS)

The Electronic Village (EV) took place virtually during the hybrid 2022 TESOL International Convention from Thursday, March 23 through Saturday, March 25. The online program contained both synchronous and asynchronous interactive professional learning content. Events included:

• Innovate and Implement: Practical Tech-Supported Instruction Tips: Short, practical tech tips videos grouped according to four themes: Innovative Tools and Activities for Synchronous Virtual Instruction; Innovative Tools and Activities for Asynchronous Virtual Instruction; Tools and Approaches for Overcoming Classroom Management or Instructional Admin Challenges; and Tools and Activities for face-to-face (F2F) environments
• Let’s Learn Live!: 20-minute live, interactive presentations on topics related to tech-supported learning and the 4Cs- Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Communication-and 21st Century Learning; no audience size limit
• Tinkering with Tech Workshops: Live 60 or 90-minute workshops that include hands-on activities with presenter support and may utilize small-group work in breakout rooms
• Best of the Electronic Village Online 2022: Celebrate the outstanding work and lessons learned during the 2022 EVO sessions through live and recorded events
• We’re CALL-ing on You: Daily asynchronous Mentimeter interactions that will generate and share ideas about current ed tech and pedagogical innovation topics for TESOLers….and more!

There was no fee to attend or present in the 2022 Electronic Village; it is an open-access program. 

• For examples of the exciting events that take place in the Electronic Village, please visit the EV 2021 site. You’ll find a wealth of free, openly accessible ed-tech for ELT resources…our EV 2022 website will be available soon.
• Live EV presentations were listed in the main TESOL convention scheduling app along with the full EV program, so information will be centrally located and easy to find!

Want to learn more about the Computer-Assisted Language Learning Interest Section? … follow us!

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/call-is-youtube
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TESOLCALLIS/
Twitter: @TESOLCALLIS
Web: https://www.call-is.org

Helaine W. Marshall’s keynote presentation on Creating Fertile Spaces for Instructional Innovation in a Digital Age

On Friday, 25 March 2022, at 8:00-9:00 am US ET, Laine Marshall gave a keynote presentation live from the TESOL convention in Pittsburg, and streamed live as part of the virtual program.

Laine’s talk is now on YouTube, https://youtu.be/UVj6O_J7CvU, enjoy

At the end of her presentation, she honored the Webheads in Action / Learning2gether and associated (e.g. TALIN) communities by speaking for a few moments on this slide:

The slide and notes are included here with permission.

Earlier Events

Tue Feb 8 from midnight UTC – EVO Minecraft MOOC 1-day conference on language learning

https://learning2gether.net/2022/02/08/evo-minecraft-mooc-1-day-conference-on-language-learning-held-in-minecraft/

Sun 13 Feb EVO 2022 ends  with the Closing Ceremony/Summary from all lead moderators

EVO 2022 ends on Sunday, Feb. 13 with the Closing Ceremony/Summary from all lead moderators on their sessions. Jane Chien presented on behalf of EVO Minecraft MOOC.

The correctly queued video link for this presentation is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hn1p8Y1Vf0&t=859s and that’s 14 min and 20 seconds into the recording.

Fri 25-Sun 27 Feb 1400-2300 UTC CO22 Live Online Conference

Schedule Available https://docs.google.com/document/d/15Oz5FMMJSXVwAFAW235U61S-qxlhuqJZ2TxRovVudCU/edit?usp=sharing. Join the conference area https://integrating-technology.org/course/view.php?id=97 to get access to the conference ZOOM meetings and receive your certificate for taking part at the meetings.

NYS TESOL Webinars free-to-all scheduled for February 18, 19 and 23

NYS TESOL Webinars are free and open to all. Check out our impressive lineup of international presenters and innovative topics.  We provide certificates of attendance/presentation as a member only benefit.

NYS TESOL is committed to diving deeper into strengths-based, inclusive practices with each webinar we bring to you! You are cordially invited to submit a webinar proposal for the above Webinar Series. All topics are welcome! See how to submit a proposal here.

Each webinar requires a separate registration. Click each hyperlinked event to register.

We look forward to seeing you!

Upcoming Webinars in February

2/18/2022

More than the Label Tells: Agency and Community Resources of “Long-Term English Learners” with Dr. Huseyin Uysal

2/19/2022

Examining diversity and criticality in English language teaching through reflective practice: Language teacher beliefs, attitudes, and experiences.

2/23/2022

Asset-based Teaching: Changing Perceptions to Create a Sense of Belonging with Dr. Ilene Winokur

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is July 30, 2022 08:00 UTC

Navigation

See our promotion and feedback for this event
Skip down to Earlier Events that happened since the previous Learning2gther post

On Tuesday, February 8, all day from midnight UTC to bedtime in Malaysia, EVO Minecraft MOOC held its 1-day conference on language learning, the first such conference that we know of to be held in Minecraft!

https://www.screencast.com/t/uLf6ctIf8
Download pdf: EVOmc22conf_Feb08.pdf

Conference portal: https://bit.ly/evomc22conf

The full program with stream and connect-live links were developed through crowd-sourcing and maintained prior to the conference here, https://bit.ly/evomc22program

We had nine presentations, all recorded, and all listed in the archives of our evomc22 live events page
http://missions4evomc.pbworks.com/w/page/146869656/2022_Live_Events

I have often pointed out that our community is a MOOC in the sense of ‘miniscule open online course’, and our conference was enthusiastically and appreciatively powered and enjoyed by the small number of passionate individuals who contributed either by attendance or by presenting to make it happen. If you missed it, every effort has been made to make it re-playable.

Midnight to 0050 UTC Conference Grand Opening and Train Ride

When the conference started, we gathered in Zoom to use voice for our conference opening, and screen shared what we were doing in Minecraft as we warped to our conference venues. At /warp conf22, we explored an extensive rail system created by Dakotah,  dealt with housekeeping, then moved over to the VSTE server

Facebook created a permalink here
https://www.facebook.com/10159658213579719/videos/643012126910936

The zoom video was uploaded to YouTube, https://youtu.be/gyz-IQMknyI

0100 to 0150 UTC VSTE Minecraft Monday networking event

We then moved over to the VSTE Minecraft server. VSTE Minecraft Mondays had invited us to join them in exploring lush caves found in forested biomes

https://youtu.be/82DA-JvPIBU

This was their initial promotion of the event:

February 7th, 8 pm EST (This is Tue, Feb 8, 2022 1:00 UTC)  VSTE will venture into our new world, version 1.18 together, and look for the evasion Lush Cave. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jPPepwzvGI

If you are whitelisted you have the server information. That has not changed. If you need more details, please register with the conference and your details will be passed to the K4sons, Kim Harrison, at VSTE, for whitelisting.

The event will be streamed on YouTube for those who want to watch in real-time, https://youtu.be/82DA-JvPIBU

From a notice sent out just prior to the event

This month, February 7th at 8 PM EST the EVO Minecraft MOOC will be our guests on the Minecraft server, kicking off their “first-ever, free EVO Minecraft MOOC 2022 1-day conference on Language Learning starting midnight Feb 8, 2022 [UTC]. As far as we know it is the first such professional conference to be attempted in Minecraft.”

Our goal will be to find a “Lush Cave” on our newly updated version 1.18.1 server while chatting and enjoying each other’s company.

Lush Cave

The VSTE Virtual Environments PLN is proud to maintain a Minecraft world for educators who want to learn more about Minecraft for teaching and learning and for educators who just love to play in Minecraft. We meet nearly every month on the first Monday of the month from 8 to 9 PM eastern time. The server is open all the time.

We started our adventure on the USS Dakotah

Basic directions to join VSTE Place, VSTE’s Minecraft world

You must have a computer Minecraft account from https://minecraft.net/en/ to join. There is a one time fee of $26.95. Download and install the software. Choose multiplayer and add a server: Name VSTE Place IP: minecraft.vste.org:11002. Our server is protected. You will need to be whitelisted to enter. Email Kim Harrison at K4sons@gmail.com from an educational email address with your real name and Minecraft account name.

Discord

Discord is a voice and screen sharing application that will run on your computer or mobile device. Download and install it for free. Create an account. Many of us use the same name for our Discord account as our Minecraft account to keep things simple. Our channel is https://discord.gg/cp9tsWz  It helps us to be able to play Minecraft in one screen and listen via Discord with earbuds or headphones.

0200 to 0250 UTC James York leads discussion on Ludic Language Learning Pedagogy

https://youtu.be/Svz8b1XB6j8

James York & LLPeers – Q&A on how to teach with games

We then moved back onto our EVO Minecraft MOOC server where James York was awaiting attendees at the first ever Conference on Language Learning to be attempted entirely in Minecraft to join him and ask questions aimed at teachers that are actively using games and play in their teaching contexts. We found him via or dynamic map, which you can see at the left of the screen in our videos. He was holding court at Sura’s phantasmagorical desert build at /warp conf22 on our server.

Discussion questions included:

• Why should we care about teaching with games?

• How can we teach with games? (pedagogical focus)

• How have we (guest speakers) used games in our own contexts?

• What are best practices for teaching with games like, but not limited to, minecraft)

• What are the barriers to entry to teaching?

While we talked, Dakotah Redstone created, on the fly and in Minecraft, a meeting table and surrounded it with chairs, a subtle invitation for us to all have a seat there. That was only one unique aspect to the venue. Jane pointed out another in this Facebook post:

0300 to 0350 UTC Robert Remmerswaal and Robert Dykes – Minecraft as a Self-Access Learning Tool

After James’s lively discussion, which we streamed in Zoom, we changed horses in mid-stream so to speak and used OBS to stream Robert Remmerswaal’s and Robert Dykes’s presentation – Minecraft as a Self-Access Learning Tool, streamed on

https://youtu.be/rbMcGlZv9DE

According to plan:

These teachers are using Minecraft in the Self Access Learning Center at their university. They will discuss what they’ve done in phase 1 of the project and the current plans for phase 2

The floor will be opened up to the audience to share ideas about activities for students, some great plugins or mods, or to share any other ideas they might have to improve our instance of Minecraft and increase student engagement.

Meet on the EVOMC22 server at /warp conf22ship where there is a wall and books prepared to collect ideas from the audience. Server members can post live or after the event at any time.

While the presentation was in progress, Dakotah Redstone was flying overhead and sprucing up the open-air venue with a roof and giving it a more aesthetic aspect (illustrating as always one of the affordances of working in an always-on readable and writable collaborative space). Voilà le résultat!

On visiting the venue some days later, I also noticed that more activity suggestions had been posted on the collaborative wall, that the notices had been highlighted in dye making the lettering easier to read, and that a few more had been posted.

See the follow up with Robert Remmerswaal’s and Robert Dykes’s Minecraft as a Self-Access Learning Tool, as reported by Jane Chien in May, 2022, in the feedback section below.

0900 to 0950 UTC Heike Philp – EXCALIBUR – a new EU funded project

From there our conference took a short break while Heike Philp prepared to come online with her trio of presenters. Heike managed her own streaming through Vance’s EVO Minecraft MOOC video channel (with Vance’s assistance starting and stopping the streams). She also recorded the individual Zoom presentations, and uploaded them to YouTube.

When she was ready, Heike started with her presentation of EXCALIBUR – a new EU funded project;; Zoom recording uploaded to https://youtu.be/iYT5dm32HY0

EXCALIBUR stands for EXpanding Content And Language Integrated Learning through BUilding a Sustainable Future in Realtime in immersive environments and is 2-year an EU funded project which takes place in Minecraft (3/22-2/24)

EXCALIBUR continues from GUINEVERE (2017-2019) and Heike Philp presented some of the deliverables of the GUINEVER project, see
https://www.letstalkonline.com/deliverables

1000 to 1050 UTC Chris Binder – Minetest as an open source alternative for Minecraft & the BLOCKALOT dashboard

Chris Binder – presented on Minetest as an open source alternative for Minecraft & the BLOCKALOT dashboard, Zoom recording uploaded to https://youtu.be/Xch8TZ9kNqU

Minetest (minetest.net) is a free block building game. Due to an active community and its LUA modding capabilities, the gameplay can be customized to the needs of educators

BLOCKALOT (blockalot.de) is a web dashboard that allows teachers to create online maps. It comes with features like user/rights management and custom maps for educational purposes. Despite being in Beta, BLOCKALOT is already used by many teachers. Chris had provided us with a tutorial in advance, How to install Minetest tutorial but none of us had noticed or read it.

Still all three participants , Heike, Robert, and Vance were able to install Minetest and join Chris in his world and follow him around as he explained the affordances and pleasures of this open-source project.

1100 to 1150 UTC – Andrea Benassi – At school with Minecraft: a large scale experience from Italy

Andrea Benassi was the last of Heike’s network presenters, and he gave a remarkable presentation on At school with Minecraft: a large scale experience from Italy. Andrea works with INDIRE, the research institute of the Italian Ministry of Education, and has been working with schools for a number of years. He presented on some of their projects, providing one answer with copious evidence to James York’s earlier question as to who was actually working with students effectively using Minecraft.

The Zoom recording was uploaded to
https://youtu.be/wXif8ysRRpQ

The full stream: 3 presentations back-to-back

The above presentations were streamed all three together consecutively in one long video,
https://youtu.be/h3BHX5fbZj4

1400 to 1450 UTC – Jane Chien – An analysis of Minecraft in-game activities: beyond vocabulary learning

I shared copies of the Zoom recording files with each presenter for whom Zoom recordings had been made. Jane uploaded hers to YouTube here, https://youtu.be/ibjnbbPYaww

After another break, we met Jane Chien online and streamed in Zoom to hear her Analysis of Minecraft in-game activities: Beyond vocabulary learning

Facebook permalink:
https://www.facebook.com/10159658213579719/videos/536125570831469

The presenter discusses the different types of activities conducted on the EVO Minecraft server and how she has used them in the course of her experiences with EVO Minecraft MOOC

1500 to 1550 UTC – Walton Burns – Beyond Adventuring: Tools to teach in Minecraft

We then warped on our server to /warp pagoda to meet there with Walton Burns, who showed us around his neighborhood and then screen shared from other devices he had at hand his in-world presentation on Beyond Adventuring: Tools to teach in Minecraft

The presenter demonstrated numerous ways he’s used elements of Minecraft (redstone, NPCs, command blocks, books, etc.) to practice language in fun engaging ways.

Facebook permalink: https://www.facebook.com/10159658213579719/videos/2148909801916228

Promotion and Feedback

How did the first-ever, free EVO Minecraft MOOC 2022 1-day conference on Language Learning come about?

In our EVO 2022 proposal,
http://evo2022proposals.pbworks.com/w/page/145719849/EVO_Minecraft_MOOC_2022 

it says for Week 3: Jan. 24-30, 2022

Network – Continue meeting in Minecraft and learning how to work with one another. Expand your horizons and contacts in Minecraft by meeting educators from, and in, other communities (including by means of a one-day professional conference on our EVOMC22 server).

This is something Vance Stevens mooted in an article published recently in TESL-EJ
Stevens, V. (2021). Virtual worlds at virtual conferences. Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal (TESL-EJ), 25(1), 1-32. https://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej97/int.pdf

(please scroll to the end here, http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume25/ej97/ej97int/ )

The rest is history

And here’s more of that history, a follow-on to Robert Remmerswaal’s and Robert Dykes’s presentation – Minecraft as a Self-Access Learning Tool, as reported by Jane Chien on Facebook, May 4, 2022

How exciting! Twenty-four students from Sojo University and NTUE attended this Minecraft Protect the Village event hosted by professor Robert Remmerswaal! Four teams competed against one another protecting four different villages. Team A and B built fancy walls and farms, Team C built an artistic walk to the sky statue, and Team D built a tall watchtower up on top of the hill to overwatch the village. It was wonderful to have our students team up with Japanese students, communicate in English and complete this fun mission! I would like to thank our EVO Minecraft MOOC community and Vance Stevens for hosting the Minecraft for Language Learning Conference back in February 2022 because that was where I learned about Robert’s Minecraft Self Learning Center project at Sojo University. Here’s the recording:

Earlier Events

Fri 17 Dec 0500 UTC Vance Stevens workshop on Tag games

https://learning2gether.net/2021/12/18/vance-stevens-workshop-on-tag-games-at-the-glocall-2021-virtual-conference/

Sun 9 Jan 1400 UTC – EVO 2022 Kickoff Webcast

EVO 2022 Kickoff Webcast

Time: Sunday, Jan 9, 2022,14:00 (2 PM) UTC (9:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Recording: https://youtu.be/TXku9CRXE-U

EVO Coordinator for 2022 Jane Chien posted:

and on FB Jane added

Zoomfies at TESOL CALL-IS EVO2022 Kickoff! Over 790 signed up for the live zoom kickoff, and approximately 200 participants were present throughout the presentations! Caught some funny photos! Let the fun begin! Enjoy your sessions! #EVO2022 #TESOL #CALL

This one seems to have the best likeness of me (top row, far left)

EVO 2022 Call for Participation
http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/146983095/Call_for_Participation-EVO2022

Call for Participation SMORE
https://www.smore.com/k2jpz-evo22-call-for-proposals

Slides
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fe1v0_HqUduwMmwbK_cJxT7-BUqi3T0Kqi725W2Gh8c/edit?usp=sharing

Tue Jan 11 and Sun Jan 16 1400 and 1500 UTC – Two fish fries on the EVO Minecraft MOOC server

http://missions4evomc.pbworks.com/w/page/146869656/2022_Live_Events#Sun16Jan15001600UTCOfficialWeek1kickoffforEVOMC22FishFryserverpartyat/warpwellwell

and

http://missions4evomc.pbworks.com/w/page/146869656/2022_Live_Events#Tue11Jan1400to1600UTCUnofficialFishFryRehearsalEVOMC22OpeningKickoffDinnerfortherealopeningnextSunday

NYS TESOL Webinars free-to-all scheduled for January 25, 26, and 28

NYS TESOL Webinars are free and open to all. Check out our impressive lineup of international presenters and innovative topics.  We provide certificates of attendance/presentation as a member only benefit.

NYS TESOL is committed to diving deeper into strengths-based, inclusive practices with each webinar we bring to you! You are cordially invited to submit a webinar proposal for the above Webinar Series. All topics are welcome! See how to submit a proposal here.

Each webinar requires a separate registration. Click each hyperlinked event to register.

We look forward to seeing you!

Upcoming Webinars in January

1/25/2022 – A Multimodal VR Approach for Immersive Learning Using Storytelling with Amany Alkhayat

1/26/2022 – Trauma Informed SEL Support for English Language Learners with Dr. Jordan González

1/28/2022 – Writing hurts: How a process of writing guides us toward inclusivity, healing, and humanization with Ethan Trinh

Sat 29 Jan TESOL CALL-IS Webinar: with Prof. Grazzia Mendoza – Engaging Teacher Training through Virtual Formats

TESOL CALL-IS Webinar: “Engaging Teacher Training through Virtual Formats” with Prof. Grazzia Mendoza

Date & Time Jan 29, 2022 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Sat Feb 5, Free VSTE Virtual Conference

FREE, ONE-DAY CONFERENCE

Recipes for Success: Gather. Measure. Blend. Repeat.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2022

#BlendVirginia

NYS TESOL Webinar free-to-all scheduled for February 6

NYS TESOL Webinars are free and open to all. Check out our impressive lineup of international presenters and innovative topics.  We provide certificates of attendance/presentation as a member only benefit.

NYS TESOL is committed to diving deeper into strengths-based, inclusive practices with each webinar we bring to you! You are cordially invited to submit a webinar proposal for the above Webinar Series. All topics are welcome! See how to submit a proposal here.

Each webinar requires a separate registration. Click each hyperlinked event to register.

Upcoming Webinars in February

2/6/2022 – A Real life Approach to Authentic Assessment with Eman EL Difrawy

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is May 5, 2022 02:00 UTC

Navigation

Skip down to Day 1 of the GLoCALL Conference, Thu Dec 16
Skip down to Day 2 of the GLoCALL Conference, Fri Dec 17
Skip down to Day 3 of the GLoCALL Conference, Sat Dec 18
Skip down to Earlier Events that happened since the previous Learning2gther post

Live online workshop video URL https://youtu.be/4xUo98p6Sz0

The GLoCALL 2021 Virtual Conference took place from Thursday through Saturday December 16-18

https://glocall.org/
Permalink to the 2021 conference: https://glocall.org/course/view.php?id=32

Download this poster from the GLoCALL 2021 site https://glocall.org/course/view.php?id=32
Direct link: https://glocall.org/pluginfile.php/2665/block_html/content/GLoCALL-2021-flyer.pdf

Fri 17 Dec 0500 UTC Vance Stevens workshop on Tag games

As I always do in my presentation, I created a portal https://bit.ly/vance2021glocall
and created a mnemonic link shortener for my slides as well.
The slides have active hyperlinks https://bit.ly/glocall2021vance

I recorded a dress rehearsal video Dec 16, 2021 – https://youtu.be/TDjLtwBllfY

The workshop was scheduled as: Fri Dec 17 Workshop (55 minutes) 13:00 – 13:55 in Kuala Lumpur
https://glocall.org/mod/data/view.php?d=21&rid=633

Presentation title

Tag games: How to use #tags in professional and language development

Abstract

This session introduces the concept of #tags and empowers participants to exploit their power in professional and language development. The session presents examples where #tags are used in language learning, and by teachers pursuing professional development; notably by using them effectively at conferences such as this one.

There are often delegates attending conferences who use #tags to share content conference-wide with others following the tagged feeds, often in Twitter. The presenter will show participants how they can use #glocall2021 at this conference to share commentary across parallel sessions and create back-channels for discussion throughout the conference.

To illustrate, we play a number of “#tag games” to create a set of tagged objects that participants can retrieve instantaneously through techniques learned at the workshop. We then extend our games to show how this can extrapolate to language learning; e.g. a project where teachers around the world had their students blog content online, and then find one another anywhere in the world using the tag #writingmatrix.

Through exploration and using the tools to recapture what they have learned, teachers will leave the workshop with a greater understanding of tagging and its possibilities in language learning and in their networked professional development.

Promoted on Facebook, in posts tagged #glocall2021

• Learning2gether – https://www.facebook.com/groups/learning2gether
• Learning with Computers – https://www.facebook.com/groups/6577061586
• Multiliteracies – https://www.facebook.com/groups/evomlit
• Teaching and Learning in IsolatioN – https://www.facebook.com/groups/talin2020
• Webheads in Action – https://www.facebook.com/groups/webheadsinaction

Feedback on the session

Deborah Healey and I were in touch today, and I mentioned to her that
“You can hope to make a change in the world, but change in behavior is what you are looking for to see if your hard work has paid off.”

One of the bullets on the next to last slide of my workshop deck, slide 9, says
We’ll know you found this valuable when we find your posts tagged #glocall2021

Sharina was the GLoCALL docent for the session. She didn’t play the tag game during the workshop, but I see now that she reflected and tried out the tagging technique the day after the workshop, posting on both Facebook and Instagram:

At this link, https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/glocall2021, anyone can find

and at https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/glocall2021/

As Cristina Costa @cristinacost once told Etienne Wenger when he joined us in one of our WiAOC, Webheads-in-Action online conferences, when he asked her about her participation in the Webheads community of practice, how did she know when she was in a CoP? Her answer, “When I noticed my practice had changed.”

Sharina commented at the end of the workshop that the session had been an “eye-opener” for her, and she has reciprocated with the most appreciated kind of feedback, evidence of change in practice.

Day 1 – Thursday, 16th Dec, 2021

 09:00 – 10:00, Deborah Healey gave a plenary workshop on Digital Storytelling

I posted the event on Facebook, tagged #glocall2021

with a screenshot from BBB (Big Blue Button)

Other plenary workshops on Day 1 were:

10:10 – 11:10

Workshop: The relevance on Nation’s “Four Strands Model” to online teaching (Robb)

11:20 – 12:20

Workshop: Creating a 4-skills online assessment tool using the Moodle LMS (Bateson)

Day 2 – Friday, 17th Dec, 2021

All registered participants were sent this notice from the organizers, through GLoCALL Moodle portal

We would like to cordially invite you all to the opening ceremony of the GLoCALL 2021 conference, which is scheduled for tomorrow, Dec 17, 2021 (Friday), between 9.00 to 9.55 am (Malaysia time, GMT+8).  All presenters are kindly requested to attend the opening ceremony compulsorily and to join the session on time, not later than 9.00am.

Please note that this is a public event, and it is open to all invited guests as well. No username or password is required to join the virtual opening ceremony session (Opening ceremony access link provided)

This is what all delegates were kindly requested to attend:

This was followed by parallel sessions (I tweeted the first one)

https://twitter.com/VanceS/status/1471663963603492865

and a Plenary: ICT in Malaysian Education: Trends and Challenges (Wong)

My workshop by Vance Stevens was in the following set of parallel sessions, and was followed by

Fri 17 Dec 0600 UTC GLoCALL Plenary: Mark Pegrum – Going Global, Going Local, Going Mobile

I tweeted a few screenshots from Mark’s plenary, all tagged #glocall2021: Going Global, Going Local, Going Mobile

This followed by another round of parallel sessions, including this one –
Language learning in immersive virtual reality: An exploratory study of Chinese college nursing students in a simulated operating room, by Junjie Gavin Wu

and a plenary: Social Media and the Innovations in research: Opportunities and Challenges (Krish)

Day 3 – Saturday, 18th Dec, 2021

The morning started with a round of parallel sessions
and then a plenary by Deborah Healey
Growing up Digital: Intelligent Use of Technology

The rest of the day was

• 12:00 – 13:25 Parallel sessions
• 13:30 – 14:25 Plenary: Testing 4-skills online: What is Possible? (Bateson)

14:30 – 15:55 Parallel sessions

16:00 – 16:25 – Closing Ceremony

Earlier Events

Fri Dec 3 1500 UTC – Vance Stevens interviewed at the start of Eduverse Online Festival

https://learning2gether.net/2021/12/03/vance-stevens-interviewed-at-the-start-of-eduverse-online-festival/

Sat-Sun 11-12 Dec OpenSim Community Conference

https://conference.opensimulator.org/register/?mc_cid=c6d2f053df&mc_eid=b25185f014

Once registered (there is a free option) See the Login Info page for instructions and more information about how to connect to the grid. https://conference.opensimulator.org/login-info/

LOCAL ACCOUNT LOGIN

After downloading and installing the  64-bit Firestorm viewer , it will need to be configured to connect to the OpenSimulator Community Conference Grid:

• Launch the Firestorm viewer
• Click the Viewer->Preferences->OpenSim button at the top left of the screen
• You will see a ‘Add New Grid’ field.
• Paste this link into the field:  http://cc.opensimulator.org:8002
• Click the OK button

Now that your viewer is configured to connect to the OpenSimulator Community Conference grid, you should be able to log in with your local account information.

• Enter your FULL AVATAR NAME in the Name or Username field.  This should be your First and Last Avatar name, separated by a space.  Example:  Jane Doe
• Enter your password that was emailed to you when your account was created.
• In the Grid pulldown menu, select the OpenSimulator Community Conference grid
• Click the Login button

You should arrive at a Landing Zone region with maps and signage to attend the conference.

I arrived in random female body parts, but Mary passed me a schedule, https://conference.opensimulator.org/schedule/

Morning in Malaysia, but night time in at the OSC, so Mary suggested I visit a musical event

Hmm, breakfast or dancing … I opted for the former

Anyway, clear and easy setup instructions and friendly and personalized meet and greet. I’ll check back later.

Meanwhile, here’s the program for Sun Dec 12

Start time the next day was 11 pm here in Malaysia

End of screenshot, but there’s more of course.

Meanwhile, some feedback …

Tue Dec 14 1800 and 2000 JST – Raquel Ribeiro and Karen Price on AI, the language teacher’s friend or foe?

More info and registration at https://www.tiltal.org/ (but SOLD OUT!)

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is December 24, 2021 00:00 UTC

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On Friday, Dec 3 (a little late for me, 11 pm my time) Vance Stevens was a part of a panel that kicked off the Eduverse Online Festival

My (Vance’s) contribution

I’d been thinking in terms of a conversation on ‘transversing’ the Eduverse from Web 1.0 to 3.0 and how we were dabbling in the metaverse even last century, until now, coming up on on Feb 8, we have a conference planned in Minecraft, which we think will be a first  on that platform specifically on Language Learning https://bit.ly/evomc22conf.

In “preparation” I created this little recollection of the Eduverse at the turn of the century, https://bit.ly/eduverse2021vance

The event took place in the Streamyardverse

The event was staged at https://streamyard.com/

The cast of characters

Fedor Sokolov (Dj Boom Boom), Jason Lavine (Fluencymc), Mark Barnes, Nik Peachey, Vladimir Splvakovsky, and y.t. Vance Stevens

In the text chat, I shared these links

• Three round-the-clock for three days Webheads in Action Online Convergences (WiAOC), 2005, 2007, 2009 – http://vancestevens.com/papers/evonline2002/wiaoc_index.htm
• Heike Philp and Helena Galani about to explain Innovative teaching through Virtual Worlds – at the OpenSim SYMPOSIUM in 2020 – https://youtu.be/O9TTDshnmso
• A slide show by Doris Molero from 2016 on  Role-playing and Emoting for Language Learning in Virtual worlds: Setting Scenarios and Writing Stories  https://www.slideshare.net/doris3m/roleplaying-and-emoting-for-language-learning-in-virtual-worlds-setting-scenarios-and-writing-stories
• Doris Molero’s VWBPE2021 Presentation in Scribd https://www.scribd.com/document/500749826/VWBPE2021-presentation

Video links from Discord

The schedule for the day was divided into four “episodes” as shown here
https://www.screencast.com/t/1WZ25wjpAPBV

The schedule was shared with us as we settled into the opening conversation.
Beforehand, I had had yet to see a schedule.

Videos for the 4 segments were posted in Discord as follows:

Episode #1 took place from 10-11 a.m. EST, with Mark Barnes, Nik Peachey, Vladimir Splvakovsky, & Vance Stevens, The EduVerse

Episode #2 took place from 11 a.m.-noon EST, with Bree McEwan and David Bozetarnik
The EduVerse: Episode #2

Episode #3 took place from 12-1 p.m. EST, with Shelly Terrel, Jennifer ESL, and Marek Tkaczyk

The image above was posted in the ELK Discord chat

Episode #4 took place from 12-13 p.m. EST, with Raquel Ribeiro and Stacey Roshan
The EduVerse: Episode #4

Promotion and Feedback

Promotion came in bits and drabs right up until the time I was scheduled to join the opening session. Consequently, I wasn’t sure how to announce the event on Learning2gether. However, when it came together, it came together well.

We were told to please share the link with our communities! https://www.elk.education/eduverse.

I could never find any widgets there that worked well enough to actually send me a ticket, and in the end, Streamyard is a tool that is convened on the fly, so unless you were attuned to this community elsewhere, I don’t know how you would have joined. The following widget was carried at the bottom of the link above:

The was also a widget there inviting participants to join the community via Telegram: https://t.me/s/eduverse_channel

But that widget sent our invitations to the Discord channel: https://discord.gg/CG2gJfnY

(As I post this, a week after the event, there is a link at the bottom of the main link that indeed directs you to join the Telegram community)

All a little confusing, but a pleasant and powerful experience in the end.

Earlier Events

Sat 13 Nov – Vance Stevens on Leveraging language learning through the participatory culture surrounding Minecraft at the JALT CALL SIG Forum on games and play

https://learning2gether.net/2021/11/13/vance-stevens-on-leveraging-language-learning-through-the-participatory-culture-surrounding-minecraft-at-the-jalt-call-sig-forum-on-games-and-play/

Tue 16 Nov Dave Nunan – Changing Landscapes: The Future of TESOL as a Profession

TESOL International Association’s Teacher Educator Interest Section (TEIS) Webinar Series

Title: Changing Landscapes: The Future of TESOL as a Profession

November 16^th , 2021 8pm Eastern/ 5pm Pacific

• myTESOL event page: my.tesol.org/events/…
• Zoom registration info: Register in advance for this meeting: zoom.us/meeting/register/…

Abstract

In 2001, as I was coming to the end of my four-year term in the TESOL presidential line, I published an article entitled “Is language teaching a profession?” Drawing on work carried out by the TESOL Board of Directors at the time, I proposed four criteria for answering the question:

• the existence of advanced education and training
• the establishment of standards of practice and certification
• an agreed theoretical and empirical base, and
• the work of individuals within the field to act as advocates for the profession.

Twenty years on, I would like to revisit this question. Drawing on work carried out in 2017 by the TESOL Task Force on the Future of the Profession,  I will describe the forces that have had an impact on the profession over the last twenty years, issues that remain to be resolved, and the implications for those of us engaged in teacher education.

Biostatement

David Nunan is Professor Emeritus of Applied Linguistics at the University of Hong Kong, Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at Anaheim University, and an Executive Board member of The International Research Foundation for Language Education (TIRF). He has published over 100 books and articles in curriculum development, teacher education, research methods, teaching English to young learners and discourse analysis. He as also written 14 textbook series for learners of all ages. Go For It, a series for young teen is a market leader, with sales of over 4 billion.

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is December 11, 2021 02:00 UTC

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The JALT CALL games and play forum took place on Saturday, November 13 2021

Full webinar recording, speakers James York, Deborah Healey, and Vance Stevens

Vance was invited by the Japan Association of Language Teachers, by Hanaa Khamis and Brian Teaman, Program Co-chairs for JALT CALL to join the panel at the games and play forum.

Other events from the Nov 13 JALT conference preview are being posted on the JALT YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJhE5SaHY-VRHKDDgZbPAEg

About the forum 

The forum showcased the theme of games and play as a preview of the JALT CALL conference which will occur in June of 2021.  The JALT  conference in November is scheduled for online only.

The format of the forum was 90 minutes, with 3 different presentations of about 20 minutes each, allowing 30 minutes for introductions and discussion among the presenters and organizers as well as the audience.

All of the materials are available at the direct link to the forum on Edzi.la – https://jalt2021.edzil.la/session/2415

Useful links posted in the Zoom text chat

James’ slides
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_dejByzlSg82R86ZR4PlTz0bd1SINpWWyjt_jW1hQPo/edit?usp=sharing
The journal site is available here btw. If you are using games, play or other ludic activities in your teaching, please consider submitting a paper or joining our community https://llpjournal.org/

Deborah’s resources are at
https://sites.google.com/site/gamificationforelteachers
https://sites.google.com/site/onlineresourcesforeltgames
More at https://www.deborahhealey.com

Vance Stevens’s slides are here, https://bit.ly/jalt2021vance
Please bring them up if you want to follow them while watching the recordings.

In his presentation, Vance referred to : Stevens, V. (2021, April 17). Virtual worlds at virtual conferences: A keynote presentation at the first annual VirtuaTeLL conference TeLL SIG at NYS TESOL [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DPsJ6C3_tLLarXPMytSr9OBKZfmqnKd2NWItiWmkinE/edit?usp=sharing

The conference was free,
but required pre-registration on https://jalt2021.edzil.la/

Vance’s presentation on Leveraging language learning through the participatory culture surrounding Minecraft

What the talk is about

Leveraging language learning through the participatory culture surrounding Minecraft 

My focus here is on Minecraft and helping teachers to understand the participatory culture surrounding such games and how they can use this to leverage their students’ learning of the target language. Over the years the EVO Minecraft MOOC community has accumulated considerable anecdotal and some quantitative data regarding their students’ acquisition of target language occurring both in and around this challenging and enjoyable game. However, to be effective in a student-teacher dynamic, teachers have to experience for themselves the many nuances of the game as they strive to communicate to others their discoveries, as students tend to do during and after game play through a target language which, in many cross-cultural contexts, tends to be English. EVO Minecraft MOOC was conceived as an environment to foster discovery learning among teachers learning the game, and by extrapolation with their students, via critical thinking, and problem solving through meaningful play.

Minecraft tends to be highly gamified (in the sense that certain aspects are designed to hold people in the game and allow them to gain increasing powers as they master lower level accomplishments), but it also has great potential as a game-based platform for teaching and modeling content concepts in numerous disciplines, and I would want to elaborate on this a bit.

I have a number of presentations and publications on this topic, all available online, which I have created over the past 7 years of EVO Minecraft MOOC, mostly listed at https://vancestevens.com/papers/ and http://missions4evomc.pbworks.com/.

As usual my talk was written out in advance

I created a Bit.ly link for the slides – jalt2021vance
https://bit.ly/jalt2021vance
And I prepared a prose version and placed it at a Bit.ly link for the text – vance2021jalt
https://bit.ly/vance2021jalt

If you go to either link, you will find a link there for both versions of the presentation

The recording above was extracted from the recording of the entire forum, provided to presenters to do with as they liked.

Promotion and Feedback

Announcements were posted to these Facebook groups

• Learning2gether – https://www.facebook.com/groups/learning2gether
• Webheads in Action – https://www.facebook.com/groups/webheadsinaction/
• TALIN – Teaching and Learning in IsolatioN – https://www.facebook.com/groups/talin2020
• EVO Minecraft MOOC – https://www.facebook.com/groups/evomc

Earlier Events

Wed 1 Sept – Thu 30 Sept Brief reflections on Virtual World MOOC 2021

https://learning2gether.net/2021/09/30/brief-reflections-on-virtual-world-mooc-2021/

Sat 2 Oct TexLER Texas Language Education Research conference – free

On on October 2nd, 2021 will be held the 22nd annual TexLER (Texas Language Education Research) conference .

Learn more about this free virtual conference at www.texler.org.

1. Register (it’s free!) to attend by going to – www.texler.org/registration.html
2. Share the registration link with your professional networks
3. Encourage students, colleagues, and networks to get involved by connecting them with our Facebook page, Twitter, and website.

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is December 1, 2021 02:00 UTC

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Wed 1 Sept – Thu 30 Sept Virtual World MOOC 2021

The eighth annual Second Life MOOC (renamed the Virtual World MOOC in 2018) started in 2014. The current iteration, VWMOOC21, took place from September 1-30, 2021 on Moodle for Teachers https://moodle4teachers.org/course/view.php?id=114 . The theme was “Connecting in Virtual Worlds. Communities of Practice”

The MOOC strove to connect a plethora of communities in virtual worlds promoting education and learning through connecting online via web technologies such as Second Life. The MOOC focused on connecting online for collaborative learning and teaching around the world through virtual worlds like Second Life, Digiworldz, Kitely, Minecraft, or OpenSim.

The MOOC and the live online classes were organized and coordinated by Dr. Nellie Deutsch, Dr. Doris Molero, Dr. Valerie Hill, and Ann Nowak.

The live presentations were posted here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SD_K8x089JYv9oFKt7nYPyvNyN3rHcOfLdGHIY6osFY/edit?usp=sharing

There was also a YouTube playlist for the Second Life MOOC (VWMOOC21) at this link
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8JUcjyABKxk08_ezhMOydQO0DryPXiZe

I had hoped to participate more fully in this event. A complicating factor was that the sessions took place almost entirely during very wee hours where I live in Malaysia. Consequently, I tried to follow it using the option provided for any participants who reflected on 10 live sessions and filled in the feedback form at the end of the MOOC, to be eligible for a certificate of completion.

To qualify for the digital badges and for the final certificate I would have to reflect on one of the presentations of the week in this discussion forum
https://moodle4teachers.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=24036

The due date for the reflections was October 1, 2021.

I only managed two reflections, which I’ve posted below.

Reflection 1

Starting with the opening session, https://youtu.be/NQnSjUXg32A a 1-hour video, Nellie started by introducing  the other moderators with a video within a video, which included a mention of each of the presenters, to consume the first ten minutes. After that there was a thorough description of what’s on the Moodle portal: organizers, presenters, live sessions, how to enroll in the course. After 20 min. I finally skipped ahead to 30 min, which is where Doris appeared to take us into Second Life.

Doris then started a tour in SL and noted they would be including VR. Nellie pointed out that this was especially relevant for engaging learners in remote learning these days. Valerie (librarian) joined us in SL, screenshot https://www.screencast.com/t/jNcHtacYeSd.

This was the home location in SL, https://www.screencast.com/t/OvvPLb8HQ3

Doris showed us how to get a bookmark to return here from boxes on the floor. There were boxes where you can find links to previous VWMOOCs. She showed us how to get resources from posters on the wall, https://www.screencast.com/t/ncG63AxxhHn,  but she had to drop out from serious lag at 40 min.

Zoom was being used to document and stream to YouTube, but it was disappointing to realize that this event was going to be interactive-live on in SL and other VW spaces, so I would probably not be able to participate to a great extent thru YouTube videos.

Doris demonstrated that YT videos are also functional from players on the walls in SL, which is critical, because whereas intuitively you might think why bother to access them through layers more cumbersome than your browser, in this space you can “be in a room” with your students and play the videos to the group through SL, which is much more engaging than doing it through Zoom.

In the last ten minutes of the video, Doris walked us through the pleasant surroundings, where you can meet and discuss – “For language students this is a paradise.”  In the last 5 minutes we find a clown which gives you party favors and things you need for dancing, and then we see how the dancing is done.

Doris is giving numerous sessions and would be fun to work with, but all here sessions are at 4 am my time

And as Doris says at the end, if you do not do this, then you cannot teach your students how to do it. How true

https://www.screencast.com/t/tmM9cCBaDI0

Reflection 2

Nellie was particularly proud of this one and posted its recorded link widely. https://youtu.be/vNtXjzlttuo

At https://communityvirtuallibrary.org/marly-milena-music-library/ it says

This Community Virtual Library branch is a collaboration between the Community Virtual Library and Octagon: Creative Exploration. To learn more about CVL, join the Second Life Library 2.0 group in Second Life or visit our homepage. To learn more about Octagon, join the Octagon:Creative Exploration group in Second Life or visit Octagon’s website. Octagon hosts diverse events, including art, music, and therapy exercises and exhibits.

They organize a musician of the month on the 4th Saturday of every month.

Noma Falta was streamed to YouTube through Zoom, and thence into Second LIfe.

So, impressions: great music, excellent musician, great concept for SL, but from a visual and participatory perspective, there were a lot of gyrating avatars, lots of attention to clothes and costumes, probably not all of it free (you have to purchase certain gestures, and this seeds some peer competition among participants in participatory circles in SL).

Avatars can start group dances in SL and invite others, which you can accept (or you can just touch a participating avatar, e.g. “the back of Kedwin’s skirt”, to join the group dance).

Case in point on costume one-upmanship, this dancing bird character.

There’s more info at https://www.facebook.com/nomafalta; interesting stuff there, all in the interest of promoting learning in immersive worlds, where the main thing is not to be thinking, “how can I use this in class on Monday”, but “what does this suggest about the potential of immersive worlds for engaging participants in whatever you think they should be doing, among whom might be my learners”.

Earlier Events

Learning2gether about the nether: Immersed in a VSTE Minecraft Mondays nether world community gaming adventure

https://learning2gether.net/2021/06/08/learning2gether-about-the-nether-on-a-vste-minecraft-mondays-nether-world-community-gaming-adventure

Recording https://youtu.be/D4heuGSEvNY

Thu 17 June from 1600 UTC 2nd Library 2.021 mini-conference on Reinventing Libraries for a Post-COVID World

I copied and pasted this from promotional email. It is a free event.

The second Library 2.021 mini-conference: “Reinventing Libraries for a Post-COVID World,” was held online (and for free) on Thursday, June 17th, 2021, from 12:00 – 3:00 US-Pacific Time.

The recordings of the sessions have been posted at https://www.library20.com/reinventing-post-covid.

You need to be a member of Library 2.0 (free) to access them there.

Please join the Library 2.0 network to be kept updated on this and future events.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, librarians have been faced with all manner of challenges as they have worked to bring their service, resources, and events into the virtual realm. Unsurprisingly, librarians have not only met this challenge but thrived in bringing new dynamic digital content, engaging virtual programming and instructional events, and exciting online such as virtual book clubs, gaming tournaments, and even makerspace activities to their patrons. Please join us as we discuss the ways librarians have adapted and evolved their service offerings for a post COVID world.

This event was organized in partnership with Ellyssa Kroski, the Director of Information Technology and Marketing at the New York Law Institute as well as an award-winning editor and author of 60 books. Everyone is invited to participate in our Library 2.0 conference events, which are designed to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing among information professionals worldwide. Each three-hour event consists of a keynote panel, 10-15 crowd-sourced thirty-minute presentations, and a closing 30-minute keynote. A mini-conference FAQ (frequently asked questions) page is here.

Participants are encouraged to use #library2020 and #librariespostcovid on their social media posts about the event.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
THURSDAY, JUNE 17th – 12:00 – 3:00 PM US PACIFIC TIME

 (Click the link on any session title to see the description and/or to correspond with the presenters. The actual Zoom session links will be emailed to registered attendees the day before the event.)

12:00 PM (NOON) US-PACIFIC TIME(Click HERE for Other Time Zones)

• OPENING KEYNOTE PANEL (one hour, see the speaker bios below!)

1:00 PM US-PACIFIC TIME(Click HERE for Other Time Zones)

• Creating Community in the Cloud, IdaMae Craddock, Albemarle County Public Schools
• Getting the most out of your virtual programs (and the case for keeping them post-pandemic!), Kelly Williams, Supervisory Librarian, Gwinnett County Public Library
• Learning from the Pandemic: Mechanics of Post-Pandemic Programming, Sasha Kinney, Adult Services & Reference Librarian, Sacramento Public Library | Bryan Duran, Materials Manager, San Francisco Public Library | Brittany Garcia, Adult and Teen Services Supervisor, Rancho Cucamonga Public Library | Shamika Simpson, Associate Professor & Librarian, Long Beach City College | Ashleigh Torres, Youth Services Librarian, El Dorado County Library
• Library Preparedness and Pandemics: A Documentation and Project Management Approach, Elizabeth Szkirpan, MLIS, Director of Bibliographic Services, University of Tulsa McFarlin Library
• Submerged librarians living in a virtual world: embedded effort builds on instructional collaboration, Denise A. Garofalo, Librarian, Mount Saint Mary College

1:30 PM US-PACIFIC TIME(Click HERE for Other Time Zones)

• Lights, Camera, Action at a Distance: Two and a half ideas for family programming with the doors closed, Matthew D. Thompson, PhD, Community Engagement Librarian, Suffolk Public Library
• No Trivial Matter–Virtual Trivia nights as “stealth” outreach to the public, Robyn Russell, University of Alaska Fairbanks Rasmuson Library | Paul Adasiak | Genova Brookes Boyd
• Preserving and sharing local history through digitization, Michelle Skinner, MLIS | Chickasha Public Library
• Transforming Library Engagement in a Virtual Landscape, Rosa Y. Rodriguez, Outreach Coordinator, California State University San Marcos, University Library
• Virtual Programming Development, Emily Mroczek (Bayci), Freelance Children’s Librarian

2:00 PM US-PACIFIC TIME(Click HERE for Other Time Zones)

• A Triumphant Return to the Library: Tips & Tricks for Our New Normal, Molly Virello, Head of Children’s Services, Southington Public Library & Museum
• Engaging Adult Gamers during the Pandemic Year, Edward Mayberry, San Antonio Public Library | Lorin Flores | Yanel Cepeda
• Libraries in Virtual Reality Environments, Dr. Valerie Hill, Community Virtual Library
• Flexible Work Arrangements: Managing Remote, Bridgit McCafferty, Dean, Texas A&M University-Central Texas University Library | Lisa Hopkins, Assistant Dean and Head of Technical Services
• Use the Librarian Skill Set to Demonstrate Value to Your Post-COVID Organization, Carol Ottolenghi, Director of Library Services, Office of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost

2:30 PM US-PACIFIC TIME(Click HERE for Other Time Zones)

• CLOSING KEYNOTE by Chris Jacobs (30 minutes)

Sat 26 June 0200 UTC – TEFL Kuwait Colloquium: Optimizing English Language Education: Practical Takeaways

Join us for yet another magnificent lineup of speakers at TEFL Kuwait Colloquium: “Optimizing English Language Education: Practical Takeaways”

Date: Saturday, the 26th of June

Time: 5.00 PM AST, GMT+3 Hrs

It’s a free event

Click here to register: https://algonquincollege.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcscO2przsjGNYBw7dmGnMZbzbfHLEN4jIb

Fri-Sun 6-8 Aug MMVC21 – 10th Anniversary MoodleMoot Virtual Conference

The 10th annual Free MoodleMoot Virtual Conference (MMVC21) for 2021 took place from August 6-8, 2021.

The purpose of the conference was for educators to engage in learning best practices and challenges involved in teaching and learning face-to-face and online (blended and fully online learning) using Moodle and other technologies. The theme of MMVC20 is teaching and learning with and without technology.

Enrol

https://moodle4teachers.org/enrol/index.php?id=249

to get access to the live sessions, content before and after the conference, your badges and final certificate for reflecting and presenting.

See the presentations scheduled

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j5VYDDuxlhPdqdu1hbXYssVSdGRBlI4HWyVRGW6nJ2E/edit

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is November 15, 2021 03:00 UTC

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This VSTE Minecraft Monday event was promoted as a Nether Adventure on the VSTE Minecraft server. It took place on Monday evening, June 7, 2021 in the USA (hence ‘Minecraft Mondays’) which is Tuesday morning June 8 where I am in Malaysia. You can find out more about VSTE here: https://vste.org/

The join instructions were simple: “We are going to explore the nether, it’s biomes, some scary structures, and a blaze farm. Dakotah, Jazmar, and K4sons have this all set up for you. You don’t need to prepare at all, just show up!”

You can see what happened when we showed up in the video recording. First we rode a minecart to a gathering point at the end of the redstone powered rails and strolled together over to an elaborate build where we climbed a stairs and followed a maze through a series of iron doors where we had to press buttons to keep them open and then duck through, to arrive eventually at an elaborate hall full of beds, shokur boxes, and footlocker chests. Our first task was to divest ourselves of anything we had on us (that we didn’t want to lose) and put it in the shokur box. Then we needed to break the shokur box, which we could pick up off the floor with our possessions intact inside and put the shokur box into the foot locker where we could retrieve it later. Finally, we put signs on our beds to claim each as our own, and right click on the bed, so that our spawn points would be set back to our bed (in case of death, not that it would necessarily happen, just sayin’).

Next we wandered around to the dispensers placed at either end of the room and pressed their buttons to get them to spew out armour of the best quality, which we could gather off the floor and don, including gold items to wear so piglins would ignore us in the nether. Some dispensers had powerful weapons and tools, others potions to allow night vision (for up tp 8 minutes; it could be dark in the nether) and magic totems to carry in our shield hand to protect us (up to a point) from death (so we needed to get more than one, in case the spare would come in handy). There were golden apples which kept us on a constant high, restored health hearts quickly, and possibly provided some protection. We scooped up all these items and prepared ourselves for descent further into the maze where we would find and step through the nether portal that would transport us to a land of lava and dangerous creatures inhabiting phantasmagorical biomes not found on the overworld.

If you want to experience this with as little frustration as possible, and (if you’re new to this) with some hope of lasting long in this hellish environment for as long as an hour, then you are fortunate if you can travel in groups like this composed of community members who can help and support you, look after your scattered things if you succumb to mobs, and give you a place to teleport back to so you can retrieve them and continue into the fray. It can be chaotic and confusing, but if you don’t take in-game death personally, then the object is to rise to the challenge, enjoy it, and bounce back to persist in the tour so skillfully laid out by our friends and mentors Dakotah, Jazmar, and K4sons.

The recording was made in OBS by Vance Stevens, founder and coordinator of Learning2gether.net. This was episode 521 at https://learning2gether.net/ Some of the participants present were also moderators of EVO Minecraft MOOC http://missions4evomc.pbworks.com/.

Promotion and Feedback

Mon 7 June 2355 UTC –  VSTE Minecraft Event – Nether Adventure

Nether Adventure!

Time: Monday 8 PM June 7, 2021 = Tuesday 12 Midnight June 8, 2021 UTC

We are going to explore the nether, it’s biomes, some scary structures, and a blaze farm.

Dakotah, Jazmar, and K4sons have this all set up for you. You don’t need to prepare at all, just show up!

Basic directions to join VSTE Place, VSTE’s Minecraft world.

• You must have a computer Minecraft account from https://minecraft.net/en/ to join.
• There is a one time fee of $26.95.
• Download and install the software.
• Choose multiplayer and add a server: Name VSTE Place IP:minecraft.vste.org:11002.

Whitelist

Our server is protected. You will need to be whitelisted to enter. You could email k4sons from an educational email address with your real name and Minecraft account name and she will whitelist you.

Discord

Discord is a voice and screen sharing application that will run on your computer or mobile device.

• Download and install it for free.
• Create an account. Many of us use the same name for our Discord account as our Minecraft account to keep things simple.
• Our channel is https://discord.gg/cp9tsWz

It helps us to be able to play Minecraft in one screen and listen via Discord with earbuds or headphones.

Earlier Events

Fri 4 June  – Sun June 6 – Learning2gether with JALTCALL 2021 3-day annual online conference

https://learning2gether.net/2021/06/04/learning2gether-with-jaltcall-2021-3-day-annual-online-conference/

Wed-Fri 7-9 Jul ‘International Conference on Technology-enhanced Language Learning and Teaching & Corpus-based Language Learning and Teaching

International Conference on Technology-enhanced Language Learning and Teaching & Corpus-based Language Learning and Teaching

(TeLLT & CoLLT 2021) [ONLINE VIA ZOOM]

7 – 9 July 2021, Hong Kong

The joint conference ‘International Conference on Technology-enhanced Language Learning and Teaching & Corpus-based Language Learning and Teaching (TeLLT & CoLLT 2021)’. TeLLT & CoLLT 2021 aims to bring together academics from around the world to report on their various research work related to technology-enhanced language learning and teaching (TeLLT), and corpus-based language learning and teaching (CoLLT). Given the current unforeseen circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference will be held virtually via ZOOM.

The conference fee is HK$300, around $40 US.

Conference keynote speakers

• Professor Jozef Colpaert, University of Antwerp
• Professor Glenn Stockwell, Waseda University
• Professor Gu Yueguo, Beijing Foreign Studies University
• Professor Chen Haojan, National Taiwan Normal University
• Professor Randi Reppen, Northern Arizona University
• Professor Alex Boulton, University of Lorraine

Organiser: The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Conference themes: technology-enhanced language learning and teaching (TeLLT), corpus-based language learning and teaching (CoLLT)

For more details, please refer to TeLLT & CoLLT website.

For enquiries, please write to us by email at telltcollt2021@eduhk.hk.

https://www.eduhk.hk/lml/tellt&collt2021/

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is June 8, 2021 08:00 UTC

Navigation

Day 1: Friday June 4
Skip down to Day 2: Saturday, June 5
Skip down to Day 3: Sunday, June 6
See promotion and feedback regarding this event
Skip down to Earlier Events that happened since the previous Learning2gether post

As announced by the organizers:
JALTCALL 2021 is happening online once again from June 4 – June 6. We’ve learned a lot in the last year and this will be a chance to share ideas and see great presentations outlining so many of the innovative ideas that the last year has necessitated in the online sphere.

Schedule (register first) https://jaltcall2021.edzil.la/schedule/index 
Join JALTCALL 2021 Online Event

This post is one participant’s perspective on JALTCALL 2021, the latest of its friendly, free-wheeling online conferences held on Fri 4 June  – Sun June 6, 2021.  I attended JALTCALL 2020 last year, blogged it here, and found the conference to be an excellent example of how many social media tools can be “loosely joined” (Weinberger, 2002) to present a smooth and easily intuited interface for participants. I was keen to repeat the experience this year. The organizers were kind enough to waive registration fees for me in a spirit of mutual appreciation through professional courtesy and I decided to pay forward by archiving my experiences in the sessions I attended.

This is my personal account of my enjoyment of JALTCALL 2021. Over the three days I encountered many friends whom I had met often online as well as at international conferences of educators throughout the globe over the years. It was great to renew acquaintances and keep abreast of how so many good professional friends were themselves refining their skills in addressing challenges of remote teaching in these times of pandemic.

In this post I’ve bookmarked the three days of the schedule and included program details of the presentations I attended from the https://jaltcall2021.edzil.la/schedule/. I did not include any presentations I did not myself attend.

Friday, June 4

Immersive learning with Engage, a cross-platform VR app

Fri, Jun 4, 18:00-19:15 in Tokyo

She made use of the Engage advanced communications app here: https://engagevr.io/

Here she is showing us what it looks like to configure her world.

Here she showed us a classroom in her simulation. It struck me as odd to apply such a powerful tool to a traditional setting where students were being introduced to basic elements of a lesson, until she suddenly …

Until she suddenly … made the walls dissolve and took the students out into the virtual open air, where they were able to apply the concepts in more imaginative and language rich setting than had been apparent in the virtual classroom.

Designing materials to boost language learners’ reading skills with Clilstore

Fri, Jun 4, 18:00-19:15 in Tokyo

Ana Gimeno / Caoimhín Ó Dónaill

This workshop will present the work of the EU-funded CLIL Open Online Learning Project (www.languages.dk). Since 2018, the project team have been updating and expanding the functionality of clilstore.eu – an Open Educational Resource which serves as a repository of open access materials and an authoring tool that enables educators to create multimedia learning units combining audio, video, text, images and Web 3.0 applications. Learner autonomy is underpinned by the way the authoring software treats embedded texts, that is, verbatim typescripts of audio or audiovisual recordings are automatically linked word for word to a nexus of online dictionaries that helps boost their reading skills.

This workshop will introduce participants to the ways in which Clilstore can support Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and language learning generally. A selection of sample learning units showing how Clilstore.eu is currently being used to good effect will be presented. Participants will then be given a hands-on demonstration of how to author a new teaching unit containing: video/ audio content, transcript with all words linked to online dictionaries in over 100 languages, and embedded learning tasks. Participants will also learn how to use Clilstore’s inbuilt portfolio and personal vocabulary tools. The Clilstore user interface is currently available in the following languages: Danish, English, Spanish, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Italian.

Here, Ana is walking us through the Clilstore back end

And here we have a view of the user interface

Language Learning in this New Hybrid Era: Things that Change and Things that Don’t Change

Fri, Jun 4, 19:30-20:45 Asia/Tokyo | Main Room

Yoshiko Goda

Like any other learning subjects, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound, significant effect on language learning. Remote teaching is now common, and both teachers and students are getting used to learning via technology. This presentation has two parts. The first summarizes language learning before the pandemic and since it began and proposes things that do and do not change. Those that do not change include (1) the significance of design, (2) increased student input and output, (3) practice of the four skills, and (4) in-class and outside-of-class learning activities. The things that do change include (1) lesson series designed to include synchronous and asynchronous learning activities, (2) new input and output methods, (3) four skills training that uses control of information and media, (4) more learner-centered learning, and (5) a balance of data-driven and knowledge (theory)-driven approaches. One of the biggest differences between the traditional and the new hybrid era is that data collection has become easier and the types of data available are more varied. These learning data can enable our teaching to include more evidence-based interventions and just-in-time facilitations. The presentation’s second part focuses on the larger vision of technology-enhanced language learning. Technological advancements enable us to be more creative and innovative as instructional designers and teachers. The presentation discusses the further development of recent technologies and proposes their potential applications in the near future. Let’s imagine and discuss the possible directions of future language learning and some strategies for overcoming concerns.

The presenter started us off in Miro, whose link she had provided in the conference Discord.

Miro has a way of attracting participation

Participants start moving around Miro immediately, registering comments

She pointed out how input and output methods were changing dramatically

She said this was everyone’s favorite image, an infographic on social presences:

Research findings showing peak use time right before deadlines and at other junctures indicated

The Miro board was still active next day

Saturday, June 5

Increasing interactivity with Nearpod: Strategies for effective online teaching

Sat, Jun 5, 10:00-11:15 Asia/Tokyo

Here is a sampling of features shown

The effects of gamified instruction on Japanese English language learner vocabulary recall

Sat, Jun 5, 10:45-11:15 Asia/Tokyo | Room E

Teaching and entertaining with online educational comics

Sat, Jun 5, 11:30-12:15 Asia/Tokyo

In his presentation, the presenter traced how he developed his of his skill with cartoons particularly in the teaching of English idioms, and how he had modified his techniques through experience. He ended with reflections on his technique; e.g. strengths and weaknesses of his approach, but also wondering how he could generate stronger evidence of student enthusiasm for his work.

Optimizing the future of language teaching with technology in Japan

Sat, Jun 5, 13:15-14:30 Asia/Tokyo | Main Room

Sunday, June 6

Has a video to show how to set up the Showbie app in Japanese in just a few minutes, shows features in video, hard to screenshot   Very informative and excellent well choreographed video tutorial.

Promotion and Feedback

Here’s an attractive document you can print out and display on your office bookshelf:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11374u3SsjOZx71BNZdwRTiyasDsugz-Q/view?fbclid=IwAR0HIqgSS7yJV2UOmBYnAD9Q6bOLWhqFpj_-EVwjblhMWlWRQutTIV3YAxo

Housekeeping

I found it easier to navigate into the conference the second time around. They had added Discord channels though that can be a welter because Discord spaces tend to be organized on how someone envisages how everyone else’s minds might work, but with familiarity the patterns promoted by the organizers become clearer. I posted to #introductions.

There were live and static schedules where you can filter events by day, There was even an view of what was taking place at a given moment. With the feature, presentations and correct Zoom rooms were just a click away, and everything worked smoothly after that. 

The organizers announced that they were using the same platform in 2021 “which has a beautiful new look as before so you don’t need to create a new user. Just join the event space and get a ticket. We also have free hardship tickets for those from developing countries. Please contact us at the above website if you, or you know of anyone who would benefit from attending.”

The registration page https://jaltcall2021.edzil.la/ gives the price of tickets (approximately $25 and $35 respectively)

There was a catch. Until you are able to register, the Student ticket option takes you in an endless loop to the same page. The only other option is to ‘contact us’.

That option informs you that you must be a logged on the JALTCALL site in order to use the contact form.

When you try to Join the space, if you have an academic address your good to go (I guess).

I am retired, acting as founder and coordinator of Learning2gether.net, so I have no academic address.

I next saw this screen

So I finally submitted a note and asked if there were any MOOC price tickets in exchange for my track record in promoting freely sharing of knowledge with colleagues on a quid pro quo basis.

I received this response …

This is the point at which I decided to extend my benefit in being accepted on these terms into the conference milieu by blogging it as Learning2gether episode 520.

Recordings

All the sessions are being recorded to the cloud. The recordings are being made available for download to the presenters. Presenters have a choice on whether or not to share a recorded version after the conference, but they will have to download the files and upload them to YouTube themselves (too overwhelming a job for the conference organizers). Once the videos are online they will be added to the JALTCALL YouTube channel here: https://youtube.com/c/JALTCALL or they can be uploaded on their private channels.

Earlier Events

Thu May 27 1000 UTC Vance Stevens speaks on Blended learning and communities of practice for the ELC PD Committee at U of Tech and Applied Sciences Ibri Oman

Learning2gether episode #519; renamed

Tag games: Vance Stevens revisits practicing blended learning in communities of practice for the ELC PD Committee at UTAS, Ibri, Oman

https://learning2gether.net/2021/05/27/vance-stevens-speaks-on-blended-learning-and-communities-of-practice-for-the-elc-pd-committee-at-u-of-tech-and-applied-sciences-ibri-oman/

Sun 30 May 1700 UTC TESOL Gulf hosts Amany Alkhayat – AltspaceVR tutorial

Recording: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2944769308907551/permalink/4319031751481293/

Tue 01 June 2300 UTC IDEA informal networking session

Sharon Tjaden-Glass deserves kudos for setting up these sessions. Not only does she share the live event announcement but she provides a link to a YouTube playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLqYX_uge5bz_lE2Csu1G2yoABHo1M4Jy where the recordings of these sessions will end up, and you can see videos from the sessions that have gone before. That’s a great IDEA. It’s what I do with all my presentations, and it’s a model I wish that others would follow as a matter of course.

Are you an educator who is experiencing teacher burnout? Are you seriously considering another career path that builds on your current skills as a TESOL professional? Ever heard of “instructional design?”

Please join us for one or all of our informal networking sessions between instructional designers and educators, known as IDEA Networking (Instructional Designers and Educators Alliance.) Since August 2020, we have welcomed 30+ current instructional designers–who were once educators–to share their stories of how the moved from the field of education into the field of instructional design. Each session begins with 20 minutes of guest speakers, 25 minutes of breakout room with guest speakers, and 15 minutes of whole group Q & A.

We will have three sessions over the summer on the following dates:

Tuesday, June 1st, 7-8 p.m. EST: Registration Link

Tuesday, July 6th, 7-8 p.m. EST: Registration Link

Tuesday, August 3rd, 7-8 p.m. EST: Registration Link

Agendas with the names of guest speakers for each session will be emailed to registrants several days prior to the event. All sessions are free and recordings will be shared with registrants who are unable to attend live.

You can also watch recording of previous sessions at this link.

If you’d like to join the IDEA Networking mailing list to receive updates on upcoming networking sessions, please sign up at this link.

Thu 03 June 0600 UTC UTAS hosts panel on Special Needs of Students in COVID-19

Faisal Al Shamali is with Mike Kenteris and 2 others.

https://www.facebook.com/faisal.alshamali.7/posts/164718998943933

ELT Colloquium: Special Needs of Students during COVID 19

organized by English Language Center, University of Technology and Applied Sciences, Ibri-Oman

Date: Thursday, June 3, 2021.

Time: 10.00 AM GST, (GMT+4)

Check your time zone here: https://tinyurl.com/6jc58ntw

It is a free event.

Kindly click here to register: https://forms.office.com/r/7Dik2rXxMG

Email sent to participants

The English Language Centre at University of Technology and Applied Sciences-Ibri, Oman cordially invites you to join an “ELT Colloquium: Special Needs of Students during COVID 19” on Thursday 3 June 2021 at 10:00 am Oman Local Time (GMT+4)

Guest speakers:
1-      Sharyn Collins- UK
“The Etiquette of Online Learning”
2-      James Papple– Canada
“Providing Differentiated Support for EAP Students.”
3-       Dr Mike Kenteris- Greece

“Transform your Classes Using the Flipped Learning Approach.”
Cick here to join the event: https://tinyurl.com/2mxtc6z8
To check the time difference, kindly click here: https://tinyurl.com/6jc58ntw

Participants will receive a Certificate of Appreciation within 6 business days.

The “attendance and feedback” link will be shared in the chat box.

Screenshots

Sharyn Collins starts us off, followed by James Papple

Mike Kenteris delivers a wide-ranging presentation on Differentiated Support for EAP Students based on his experience as owner of and teacher in his own language school on Lesbos, Greece.

Q & A

And on Facebook

Recording

Faisal Al-Shamali has followed up with this additional information:
To watch the recording, kindly click here: https://youtu.be/anGC1rLTZlU

Faisal added in his email that James Papple is willing to share the PPTs of his presentation, though you would need to contact the presenters if you wish to have it.

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is June 13, 2021 22:00 UTC

Navigation

See our promotion of this event
See feedback on the event
Skip down to Earlier Events that happened since the previous Learning2gther post

On Thursday, May 27, 2021, I was invited to give a 35 minute talk plus 10 to 15 minutes for Q & A as a free webinar hosted by the ELC PD Committee at University of Technology and Applied Sciences in Ibri, Oman. The talk was recorded and posted on YouTube: https://youtu.be/J2zFcRHDfG4

Revisiting learning about blended & hybrid eLearning through engagement in communities of practice

Abstract
Participation in CoPs is critical for ongoing teacher professional development. Drawing from experience coordinating teachers’ CoPs for the past 20 years, the presenter illustrates the evolution of groups into CoPs, as well as how CoPs interact in distributed personal learning networks, continually leveraging their participants’ PD and modeling ways to be applied later in teaching practices. This strongly suggests that teachers must be trained not only in the use of social media, but through its use.

I had been originally asked to speak on Blended learning and communities of practice, specifically to repeat my talk given earlier, blogged here:

https://learning2gether.net/2021/04/30/vance-stevens-on-the-importance-of-learning-about-blended-hybrid-elearning-through-engagement-in-communities-of-practice/

I had since augmented that post with further thoughts at http://bit.ly/vance2021blue

I was going to have to alter my remarks anyway to adjust to the specified time-frame, so I crafted an original presentation on approximately the same theme, except that I broadened the topic to teachers learning virtually anything through their participation in communities of practice, and in turn modeling their way of learning to their students to help effect a break from pre-digital learning paradigms.

• I wrote up what I intend to say here: http://bit.ly/utaswebinar2021vance
• From that I developed the accompanying slide presentation here: http://bit.ly/vance2021utaswebinar

More information about the PD workshops in Ibri

• Announcements of recent webinars in this series (including one another announced for the day I am invited to speak) are posted on the webpage here: https://www.ibrict.edu.om/
• The workshops appear in a Twitter search on UTAS Ibri, but there appears to be no #tag used consistently or effectively in the posts
  https://twitter.com/search?q=University%20of%20Technology%20and%20Applied%20Sciences-Ibri&src=typeahead_click&f=live

Tag Games

I suggested during my presentation that settling on a consistent webinar tag would help to improve use of Twitter as a means for locating information about the UTAS series of webinars. I modeled this by posting my announcement of my presentation on the Twitter tag #utaswebinar and then showing how anything I posted to Twitter with that tag would appear in a search on that tag in Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=utaswebinar&src=recent_search_click&f=live .

I invited the audience to join me in a “tag game” and post about the webinar on the same tag and we would see their related posts appear at that link in real time. No one took me up on that while I was giving the webinar, but of course the game is still open and anyone can test the technique at any time using that tag and that search link, or since this is folksonomic classification, create their own tag and try to get tweets from many people to ‘aggregate’ around that tag on Twitter.

I was asked how this could be used practically in the classroom. I found it hard to answer that question, since the answer depends on the inventiveness of the teacher who sees an opportunity for collecting student feedback in the context of a particular learning situation. So I gave an example of tag games I’d played with students in recent workshops; I showed them the results of a tag game I had played with participants at a workshop on January 20, 2019 at Rangsit University in Thailand on the tag I had created for that group #jan20reli. That search is still viable over a year later, and can still be found here: https://twitter.com/hashtag/jan20reli?src=hashtag_click&f=live

All of the tag games I played with all the pre-service (student) and in-service teachers who attended my two weeks of workshops in Thailand in January, 2020, can be found at in the sidebar of the wiki I created for the event here: http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/

Here are the aggregations from all the workshop groupings copied from that sidebar:

Archived aggregations from all the workshops

• January 20, 2019 at Rangsit University #jan20reli
• January 21, 2nd year English major Education students at UBRU #jan21ubru
• January 22, 3rd year English major Education students at UBRU #jan22ubru
• January 23, university English lecturers at CULI #jan23culi
• January 24, university and secondary English teachers at BUU #jan24buu
• Mon Jan 27, Chiang Rai Universtity teachers #jan27crru
• Tue Jan 28, third year Chiang Rai Universtity students #jan28crru
• Wed Jan 29, teachers and students at Srinakharinwirot University #jan29swuic

The thrust of my message to attendees at this workshop was that teachers learn about such techniques through interaction with teaching peers in webinars like this one, which are offshoots of networked communities of practice. And also that the knowledge to be gained is often ineffable, which means that it must be experienced in order to be understood. So it’s hard to answer the question that prompted this reflection with an example off the top of my head, except to say “Try it,” and then you’ll see

And finally, I aimed in my webinar to point out the importance of modeling in teaching. For example, I did not specifically address the issue of blended learning per se in my talk, but the wiki I created for my workshops in Thailand was a perfect example of blended learning (by some considered to be a mode of teaching where online components are blended with face-to-face ones). In that wiki, I set out a document where anyone, and in particular my participants in Thailand, could see in retrospect what I was trying to model for them, and theoretically review the material and how we played our tag games and what the results were. So in teaching, I was modeling and demonstrating how blended learning works (being physically with them, but leaving them a live document tailored for each of their experiences with the workshop).

In learning through this blended approach, my workshop participants were left with something they could reflect on and also practice, just as any participant in the webinar I am writing about today could review what I have written here, and after reflection, decide to go ahead and try the tag game. That act of trying would be their practice.

If they feel they have learned something, having experienced the technique, they might then relate this to something they are trying to teach, and thereby model and demonstrate it to their students, who might in turn practice it, and on reflection perhaps feel they want to experiment with it in their own classrooms. From that point, the knowledge would be transferred (via me, having demonstrated the original model) on to a whole series of teacher to student relationships, and develop the concept the way memes form, as described by Richard Dawkins in his seminal work, The Selfish Gene (where he coined the word ‘meme’ in 1976).

I ended by pointing out that communities of practice encourage autonomous learning, and that in order to nurture autonomy in our learners, teachers need to themselves practice autonomous learning. I brought these threads to a conclusion borrowing slides from a talk I gave at the IATEFL conference in Exeter in 2008 https://www.slideshare.net/vances/lets-start-with-teacher-autonomy-multiliteracies-and-lifelong-learning/ . The slides were based on my article, Stevens 2007, which I had in turn been invited to Exeter to discuss as part of a panel addressing learner autonomy.

Stevens, V. (2007). The Multiliterate Autonomous Learner: Teacher Attitudes and the Inculcation of Strategies for Lifelong Learning. Independence, Winter 2007 (Issue 42).
http://vancestevens.com/papers/archive/VanceStevens_multiliterateAutonomousLearner.pdf

The presentation was carried out over Microsoft Teams, https://tinyurl.com/2ns32mhu

There was connectivity lost in the middle of it, and some of what I said at that juncture was lost, but you can refer to the write-up if you wish to know more about what I was saying. Here is the bookmark:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BobEOZTKkQn07zNB2yL-BzNnnbsrVR_NKYaLxE2sDQ8/edit#heading=h.1od1hp5vzwlh

Promotion

Announcements were posted to these Facebook groups

• Learning2gether – https://www.facebook.com/groups/learning2gether
• Webheads in Action – https://www.facebook.com/groups/webheadsinaction/
• EVO Multiliteracies MOOC – https://www.facebook.com/groups/evomlit/
• Learning with Computers – https://www.facebook.com/groups/6577061586/
• TALIN – Teaching and Learning in IsolatioN – https://www.facebook.com/groups/talin2020

By Faisal on Facebook

• Active Minds English Club – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1185526701878132/permalink/1209235719507230/
• English Teachers – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1145338085524140/permalink/4193654010692517/
• Free Webinars Philippines – https://www.facebook.com/groups/freewebinarsphilippines/permalink/524405718563264/
• Innovation Computer technology Robotics –
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/innovationcomputertechnologyrobotics/permalink/4018883054868832/
• Let’s Webinar – https://www.facebook.com/groups/letswebinar/permalink/494055975175051/
• Moroccan PhD Students – (English Studies)
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/300776884225008/permalink/580616062907754/
• Research in Applied Linguistics and TESOL –
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2489916317910087/permalink/3021117348123312/
• Webinar/Workshop/Seminar Updates –
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2682689112009486/permalink/2960095257602202/

On Twitter

https://twitter.com/UTAS__IBRI/status/1396748734017548290

Bio
Vance Stevens hosts the podcast series Learning2gether with over 515 episodes. He founded the CoP Webheads in Action in 2002 and has coordinated TESOL CALL-IS Electronic Village Online since 2003, He has been lead moderator of EVO Minecraft MOOC since 2015. He received the 2019 CALL Research Conference Lifetime Achievement Award.

Feedback

This is one of the most complementary instances of feedback I’ve ever received from a webinar participant. The name of the sender is included with permission.

The Language Center at Ibri followed up with a report on the presentation on their university website ELC homepage
https://www.ibrict.edu.om/elc-news-archive/item/1037-revisiting-learning-about-blended-hybrid-elearning-through-engagement-in-communities-of-practice

Feedback analysis

One interesting aspect of the follow-up on this webinar was that Faisal Al Shamali polled his listeners. He logged 231 respondents to his feedback form, which might mean there were that many in the webinar, or at least that many. The 229 respondents indicating where they were from listed 42 different countries. Not surprisingly, 40 were in Oman, where Ibri is, but an almost equivalent number, 38, were in India. After that, there were 14 participants from each of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, followed by 13 from Indonesia, 11 from Turkey, and 10 from Nepal.

In single digits, 9 participants came from Azerbaijan, 8 from Bangladesh, and 7 from Pakistan. Morocco and the Philippines both had 6 participants in the webinar, whereas Iraq, Malaysia, and Tunisia each had 4. Algeria, Ecuador, Palestine, and Ukraine each provided 3 participants, and there were 2 each from Bhutan, Jordan, Libya, México, Romania, and the United Arab Emirates. The remaining participants came one each from Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Gaza, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Moldova, Nigeria, South Africa, UK, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Zambia.

It’s interesting to have such demographics and to realize how many people from developing nations are taking part in these webinars. There were many from southeast Asia, Iran, and the Arabian Gulf, and from Africa. Participants came from Turkey further east from countries in the old Ottoman empire, but only one other from farther north in Europe (UK). There was one participant from Australia, but none from the Americas apart from 3 from Ecuador

All but one participant answered yes to “I highly recommend this webinar to a friend or a colleague” (vs. a single ‘no’). Participants were asked to rate 6 aspects of the presentation on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. Here were the average ratings followed by the question.

4.6 – The event was well-organized.
4.6 – The event was very useful to me.
4.6 – The concepts and ideas were presented clearly and effectively
4.6 – The event was informative and practical to me.
4.7 – The guest speaker was knowledgeable on his topic.
4.7 – Personal approach and attitude of the guest speaker in explaining and answering questions was good.

This appeared to be a gratifyingly appreciative audience. Overall they rated the presentation highly. I’m not sure what the all choices were, but I received 3 categories of response in answer to the prompt for Overall webinar evaluation:

7  – fair
87 – very good
138 – excellent

The most interesting feedback was where participants were asked to offer any further comments or suggestions. Some of these related to webinar timing, audio quality, and two complaints about not using Zoom (Faisal told me this was an institutional decision; out of his control). Some expressed a desire to have the slides and recordings shared with them. One respondent said “Keep on organizing webinars!”

Some adjectives used to describe my presentation were  ‘awesome’ (2 respondents :-), 1 ‘perfect’, 1 ‘unforgettable’, 4 ‘wonderful’, and varying degrees of good, such as ‘excellent’ (17 tokens), ‘great’ or ‘very good’ (10), milder praise such as ‘good’, ‘good work’, ‘all well’ (14), 2 instances of ‘fine’, 4 indicated ‘nice’, and 2 went as far as ‘ok’. Three said ‘I enjoyed it’.

Some commented on the utility of the session. Six used the word ‘fruitful’. Eight applied the adjective ‘informative’, one going so far as to extend that to ‘highly informative’. Two said it was ‘useful’ (e.g. “It helps me to my teaching career in the future”). Other adjective were ‘effective’, ‘insightful’, ‘relevant’, and apt (“the topic is very apt”).

Two respondents wrote “Congratulations!” One wrote “Succes” (sic). My favorite was “great learning experience.”

41 respondents wrote variations on ‘Thank you’; e.g.

• Thank you for these valuable MOOCs, Vance!
• Thank you for this event. I really liked it.
• Thank you. More power!

One participant suggested “Maybe making it more interesting and interactive so that we can follow without losing our attention.” Another said that “Technical issues became a problem but the speaker was excellent.”

The most loquacious response was “Great Session. The Event Was Well Organized & Useful To Me. The Concepts & Ideas Were Presented Clearly & Effectively. The Event Was Informative & Practical. The Hon’ble Speaker Was Knowledgeable. Personal Approach & Attitude Of The Hon’ble Speaker In Explaining Was Excellent. Such Great Points.”

Two respondents purported to speak for all, saying “We like more sessions of this type.” and “We look forward to having more webinars on Engaging students in learning.”

Earlier Events

Just this, from the day before

Wed 26 May 1300 UTC – TESOL CALL-IS webinar on EVO: 20 Years of Free Professional Development in Online Teaching/Learning for English Language Teachers Worldwide

https://learning2gether.net/2021/05/26/tesol-call-is-webinar-on-evo-20-years-of-free-professional-development-in-online-teaching-learning-for-english-language-teachers-worldwide/

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is January 4, 2022 01:30 UTC

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On May 26, 2021, TESOL CALL-IS hosted a free webinar on
EVO: 20 Years of Free Professional Development in Online Teaching/Learning for English Language Teachers Worldwide

Christine Bauer-Ramazani organized this special celebration of the 20th anniversary of EVO sessions as a CALL-IS webinar, in conjunction with the Electronic Village Online’s 20th anniversary.

This special EVO 20th Anniversary Webinar featured a panel of speakers that were instrumental in making EVO such a success over the last 20 years. As of 2020 EVO had trained almost 50,000 ELT professionals around the world! Critical in making this enormous feat of volunteerism happen are the EVO Co-founders and Lead Coordinators, who orchestrated the many activities carried out by the teams of EVO coordinators, some of whom have been with EVO for most of those years.

Accordingly, this special celebration of the 20th anniversary of EVO sessions featured the 3 EVO Co-Founders, 10 former Lead Coordinators, and Vance Stevens on a  panel of speakers. 

Vance Stevens presented for 6 minutes on
Webheads and EVO: Truly Lifelong Learning

I wanted to show how a popular EVO session I organized in 2002 led to my becoming a coordinator of EVO in 2003 and nurtured a series of Communities of Practice which have persisted and interleaved themselves in TESOL CALL-IS and in EVO to this very day.

To achieve this I prepared two versions of my slides. This link contains both versions:  http://bit.ly/EVO20Vance

The shorter version was designed to be delivered at the webinar and to encapsulate in 6 minutes what I wanted to say in an 18 minute video which I had pre-recorded to go over in greater detail what was in the longer version of the slides. The video is here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YuoOzPOPWUc

The video shows how so many participants in early versions of Webheads for EFL students, and teachers who got involved in that, became founders, coordinators, and moderators of EVO after their participation in the several communities of practice associated with the Webheads in Action EVO session I offered in 2002.

The main event
EVO: 20 Years of Free Professional Development in Online Teaching/Learning for English Language Teachers Worldwide

Christine advertised the webinar in a post sent to several ‘myTESOL’ groups prior to the event:

The Electronic Village Online (EVO) is excited to invite you to a special TESOL Webinar to celebrate the 20th anniversary of EVO sessions, the first 10 online/distance sessions held in 2001. During the pandemic, the 19 EVO 20th anniversary sessions held in January/February 2021 were especially pertinent to the 2,682 participating English teachers from 71 countries worldwide.

Presenting will be the three co-founders of EVO, Christine Bauer-Ramazani, Tom Robb, Susan Gaer, as well as the 11 lead coordinators of EVO–Dafne Gonzalez, Aiden Yeh / JoAnn Miller (Co-Coordinators), Carla Arena, Nina Liakos, Mbarek Akaddar, Nellie Deutsch, Carolina Buitrago, Martha Ramirez, and Vance Stevens–all known authorities in CALL and TESOL. They will address their contributions to EVO as well as their latest endeavors in the area of online teaching and learning.

SCHEDULE – posted on the EVO webinar wiki, and summarized below

There are 14 presenters in a 90-minute time frame.

In the first 20 minutes

• Christine will start with the purpose of the Webinar, an explanation of what EVO is, then introduce the EVO Coordinators
• Susan and Tom then talk about the founding of EVO
• Christine gives a brief walk through history, including updates on the latest data on EVO participants and countries reached. I’m hoping this can be done in15-20 minutes.

Each presenter then has 6 minutes to talk about main accomplishments during your tenure and possibly any recent endeavors in “free professional development in online English language teaching and learning worldwide.”

WHEN:  Wed, May 26, 2021 from 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM (ET)

REGISTRATION for participants: on TESOL site: https://my.tesol.org/events/event-description?CalendarEventKey=253cf6e7-fc2e-493d-ad11-fd2ff4be3cc9&Home=%2fevents%2ftesol-events

SLIDESHOW: http://bit.ly/EVO-20th-view

Wiki link for SCHEDULE & uploaded presenter slides:
http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/143188116/EVO-20th-Anniversary-Webinar

RECORDINGS

This recording was made from the Zoom cloud recording with everyone’s camera showing: https://youtu.be/JbvvIdFrOAE

There is also a version from a recording in Zoom made to computer: https://youtu.be/IKy4hOiyERE

At the end of the meeting, we all waved, smiled, and clapped at our successful completion of twenty years of thriving within our robust communities of practice and getting through 90 minutes of webinar pretty much within the allocated time frame.

Promotion

EVO and CALL-IS promoted the events here

• Smore: https://www.smore.com/5p3zm-evo-20th-anniversary-webinar
• EVO Wiki: http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/143188116/EVO-20th-Anniversary-Webinar
• TESOL landing page for the event:
  https://my.tesol.org/events/event-description?CalendarEventKey=253cf6e7-fc2e-493d-ad11-fd2ff4be3cc9&Home=%2Fevents%2Ftesol-events
• On the CALL-IS page: https://sites.google.com/view/electronicvillage2021/evo20

Announcements were posted to these Facebook groups

• Learning2gether – https://www.facebook.com/groups/learning2gether
• Webheads in Action – https://www.facebook.com/groups/webheadsinaction/
• EVO Multiliteracies MOOC – https://www.facebook.com/groups/evomlit/
• Learning with Computers – https://www.facebook.com/groups/6577061586/
• TALIN – Teaching and Learning in IsolatioN – https://www.facebook.com/groups/talin2020

A few of the presenters and coordination team members sat for a group Zoom portrait prior to the event

Feedback

Jane’s view of the closing applause

Earlier Events

Learning2gether episode 517 – Wed 19 May 1230 UTC
Vance Stevens on Communities of practice for teachers: From Webheads in Action to EVO Minecraft MOOC

https://learning2gether.net/2021/05/19/vance-stevens-on-communities-of-practice-for-teachers-from-webheads-in-action-to-evo-minecraft-mooc/

Tue 25 May 1pm ET – myTESOL Lounge Live – Nonmembers welcome 

Come together with your peers, share your thoughts and experiences, and have a little fun at myTESOL Lounge Live!

FREE and open to members and non-members, myTESOL Lounge Live! is an online hosted conversation space for English language educators.

The next discussion, hosted by Doreen Ewert and Thomas Robb, took place on 25 May at 1:00 pm ET and went into detail on how extensive reading can work in the classroom.

Resources used

OER 101: How to Find and Create Open Educational Resources in your ELT Classroom
Chadia Mansour, Charity Davenport, and Sharon Tjaden-Glass

Links from the session

• OER 101 Powerpoint Presentation
• It’s All Greek to Me! 
• OER Textbook: Introduction to Academic Writing for ESOL
• HE Commonwealth ORELT/Open Resources for English Language Teaching
  • Listening
  • Speaking
  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Language through Literature
• How to Turn a Powerpoint into OER

___________________________________________________________
This blog is written and maintained by Vance Stevens
You are free to share-alike and with attribution under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The date of this update is May 29, 2021 02:00 UTC