Tuesday 27 October 2009

Language Teaching and Technology Events: November 09

One-day Conference on Technology Enhanced Language Teaching and Learning, SOAS, University of London, 12 Nov 09:
http://www.soas.ac.uk/events/event53702.html

Virtual Round Table Conference on Language Learning with Technology, 12-13 Nov 09:
http://virtual-round-table.ning.com/page/conference-1

ICT Show and Tell Day for Teachers of Modern Foreign Languages, 14 Nov 09:
http://joedale.wikispaces.com/MFL+Show+and+Tell+09

I'll be there, face-to-face or virtually!

Graham Davies

Friday 23 October 2009

Using presentation software and online communites in the classroom

Two useful videos at the Teachers TV site

Improving your presentations
http://www.teachers.tv/video/37335
The Teachers TV website describes the video as follows:
Year One primary teacher Lise Bosher is challenged to improve her presentation skills using ICT. Presenting to pupils is something teachers do on a day to day basis, yet many are still nervous about incorporating ICT into their presentations. Lise meets Joe Dale, a middle school French teacher, who is already using ICT technology to enhance his own presentations. After observing one of his classes, Lise returns to her own classroom to put the presentation technology she has learned into action.

Online Communities in the Classroom
http://www.teachers.tv/video/37336
The Teachers TV website describes the video as follows:
Secondary French teacher Marie Guyomarc'h, investigates how to make use of online communities in her classes. Online communities and social networks are often shunned by teachers because of negative publicity and online safety surrounding certain websites. Marie meets with Lisa Stevens, a primary Spanish teacher, who relishes using social media websites for teaching purposes. Lisa explains the benefits of using websites such as Twitter and Voicethread, and demonstrates how you can use them in the classroom. Later, Marie faces her challenge of taking back what she's learned and using it in the classroom.

Graham Davies

Friday 16 October 2009

EUROCALL 2009: Videos of plenary speakers

Videos of the plenary speakers, their PowerPoint presentations and handouts are now available at the following link:

http://eurocall.webs.upv.es/eurocall2009/speakers.php

The conference blog is still active at:
http://virtualeurocall09.blogspot.com

The blog records the impressions of a number of people reporting on the parallel sessions, and it also includes embedded live coverage using a package called CoveritLive. CoveritLive is really useful for reporting on conferences as it enables live reports and feedback to run while the conference sessions are actually taking place - and then each "event" can be replayed at any time. Twitter feeds are also embedded into the blog page. These tools are invaluable for people who are unable to travel in person to a conference but still want to "take part".

Friday 9 October 2009

Three new EUROCALL Nings

EUROCALL has three new Nings for the following Special Interest Groups:

EUROCALL Computer Mediated Communication SIG: http://cmcsig.ning.com

EUROCALL Teacher Education SIG: http://eurocallteachereducation.ning.com

EUROCALL/CALICO Virtual Worlds SIG: http://virtualworldssig.ning.com