As has been the case for the past several years, institutional funding being consistently refused, I have lately been paying my own way to TESOL conferences, as well as to most others I attend. As of last summer, I’ve no longer had an institution to apply to, but I was never concerned in any event, as going to conferences each year is one of my strongest connections to my profession, a chance to hook up and network with valued colleagues, and a passion I cannot resist.
This year I participated in 4 events at the recent TESOL conference in Atlanta. Having presentations accepted and being of service to the CALL Interest Section and its activities taking place at the Electronic Village, are two main draws; being involved in webcasting at the Technology Showcase is one of those services. Connecting with old (and gracefully aging) friends is another.
Apparently my friends appreciate my efforts; as Christel Brody posted:
I hope that this post might go some way to explain why I take the time and expense to be at the annual TESOL conference whenever I can make it there.
At this conference, I was involved as a speaker and animateur of 4 events, but the one that I specifically announced in advance as Learning2gether episode #404 took place on Friday, March 15, at the Electronic Village.
Fri Mar 15 1430-1520 – Vance Stevens presents Learning2gether Episode 404 in the EV Classics Fair at TESOL Atlanta
EV classics are presentations of ongoing projects that have been well received in the Electronic Village at previous TESOL conferences. I was invited to present on Learning2gether in the 2019 EV Fair Classics in the Electronic Village in Atlanta, Georgia.
These presentations are done in two sittings over the course of a 50 minute session. The presenters sit at numbered computers and participants use their programs to select the presentations they’d like to observe, or they just mill about and drop in on anything that looks interesting to them. After the first 25 minutes a buzzer sounds and everyone is exhorted to “rotate”, meaning move on to another session. The conference wifi was weak and my Zoom disconnected toward the end of the first rotation. In order to prevent a repeat of that I ran the second rotation on my more robust T-Mobile Metro mobile hotspot. This resulted in two separate recordings for the two 25-minute segments.
Learning2gether to model collaborative learning for teachers to use with students
Learning2Gether is a wiki and podcast where teachers have organized over 400 free online professional development seminars since 2010. Those present f2f in the EV can interact with online participants in a live Learning2gether episode where they can learn how Learning2Gether came about and sustains itself, and how it expands participants’ personal learning networks and models peer-to-peer informal lifelong learning. Workshop participants are encouraged to join such networks or create their own.
Vance Stevens, Learning2gether, Malaysia (vancestev@gmail.com)
Wed Mar 13 noon PT – Library 2.019 mini-conference on Shaping the Future of Libraries with Instructional Design
The first Library 2.019 mini-conference: “Shaping the Future of Libraries with Instructional Design,” was held online (and for free) on Wednesday, March 13th, from 12:00 – 3:00 pm US-Pacific Daylight Time (click for your own time zone).
This is a conference for librarians, instructional designers and educators to share their work and challenges, as well as for those who believe in the value of integrating instructional design into their practice to help them innovate and evolve library services for the future.
This is a free event, being held live online and also recorded. REGISTER HERE
If you registered (or can still register), you can view the recording
The event recordings are now on Library 2.0. You need to be registered (free) and logged into the Library 2.0 network to view them. The link to the recordings page is at the top of the front page, and also in the side and top menus.
Instructional Designers, technologists, and online learning specialists are in high demand across all levels of education as it shifts online. In 2004, the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community was established to promote the adoption of instructional design and technology as a vital skill set for librarians seeking to more deeply integrate their teaching and learning initiatives into the curriculum and community. Since then, instructional design and dedicated staff positions to support it, have become more commonplace in and critical to libraries, particularly at colleges and universities, but they are by no means ubiquitous.
This edition of Library 2.019 will bring together the community of librarians, instructional designers and other educators whose work happens at the intersection of instructional design, educational technology, learning, and libraries. This is also a conference for those wanting to learn more about how instructional designers are advancing the educational mission of their libraries and institutions, how the latest innovations in educational technology are being applied in libraries and classrooms, and what we can expect as instructional design and technology transitions from a peripheral to core function within libraries. While the future of libraries may be uncertain and unpredictable, this is an opportunity to explore how library professionals and their colleagues can shape it through the application of instructional design and technology.
Participants are encouraged to use #library2019 and #libraryid on their social media posts leading up to and during the event.
As one of the coordinators of Electronic Village Online (EVO), I organized a pair of marathon blended events on the last two days of the conference where moderators of EVO sessions, some physically present in Atlanta, but many tuning in at a distance through Zoom, came together in the same virtual space that we orchestrated from the CALL-IS Technology Fair in Atlanta and streamed out on YouTube.
The presentations were held over two time slots
Where?
Virtually in Zoom
but physically in the Technology Showcase:
Exhibition Hall at the annual TESOL conference in Atlanta
YouTube does not allow embeds of streamed videos. However there is a helpful link in the video-not-available error message that invites you to “Watch this video on YouTube.” And the direct links above should take you there as well.
Challenges
This was a very challenging presentation to organize and put on. To organize it I created a Google Doc here, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yvdqSlQzduE2-VCmk-L4_Luv-N96kgqaVCryuKjVcQU/edit?usp=sharing, opened it to anyone with the link to VIEW it, and invited anyone wanting to present to join as credentialed editors. This created a messy document at first, but as with a sculpture, the long-range vision of the artist and incessant fine tuning cleaned up the mess as we headed toward showtime. A Table of Contents widget helped with organization and created a timetable that proved very useful on the day.
The main challenge with putting it on, converting what is proposed in the Google Doc into a show that will be attractive to a live on-site audience and recorded in YouTube and streamed to a live online audience, is that you don’t know precisely what tools you have to work with and how they will fit together until you arrive at the conference (and discover something you were counting on has not been delivered, or it was there but is being used somewhere else). Yet another challenge is that the tool sets change from year to year in seemingly minor ways, so solutions envisaged from one year’s experience might not apply to the next, and you might not know what has changed that was truly relevant to your plans until you get to the conference and then find out. Finally, once these are known, there is very little time to adapt what you find on hand to achieve the desired result. One relies on faith in others to pull together toward the best outcome possible, and eventually we cross the finish line and give each other well earned high fives.
In previous years, the webcasting team had broadcast to the stream using Zoom to share what was being projected to the room crisply in the stream. This was implemented on the fly at an earlier conference where we had previously tried to show projected slides via web cam. The slides had not been clear to the stream, so someone suggested we use Zoom, and that seemed to be the solution.
So assuming that Zoom would be running on the podium computer, I started my own Zoom on my laptop for the participants to join our session. I was sorry I had done that when I learned that the webcast team was no longer using Zoom for projection purposes, because running Zoom on a computer separate from the presentation one meant that my Zoom room audio was separate from the conference room audio and therefore was causing audio feedback crescendos to the room if I tried to speak to distant presenters in Zoom. On the other hand, running Zoom from the presentation computer would not have been practical because the presenters needed that computer for their live presentations while we needed to manage the distant zoom presenters on a separate computer, sometimes in blended presentations where one speaker was at the podium in Atlanta and the other should join the live presenter at a distance using Zoom as seamlessly as possible. What to do?
Once we got started (Christine Bauer-Ramazani speaking from the podium, Martha Ramirez on deck to join at a distance) we found that due to that serious constraint on audio, our presenters in Zoom didn’t know when it was their turn to speak (you may notice this in the videos). So we worked out hand signals that they could see on my webcam in Zoom.
We had by then realized that the distance presenters were expecting the program to be running in Zoom, where they could not hear us (again, because we couldn’t speak there), so we had to tell them in Zoom text chat, our only way of communicating with them, to tune in to the stream so they could follow our program in Atlanta. We also had to tell them when they did that to mute the stream when they were speaking, because they heard us on a delay which, if they didn’t mute the stream, got fed back to us via their mics so we would hear ourselves a few seconds out of synch as well as their voices in the present moment, which was terminally distracting to the live audience. Eventually we found a way to make the program run smoothly.
At the end of the day I sent out the following message to the presenters for Friday:
There are some things you should understand if you are joining us in Zoom.
The “show” is in YouTube, not in Zoom. We are using Zoom only to bring YOU to us HERE in Atlanta. The participants will be watching you and listening to you. We are simulcasting on YouTube. To hear us you need to monitor the stream here http://tinyurl.com/call-is-youtube
When you speak to us in zoom you need to MUTE your stream, or we will hear it in a delay in the auditorium and we’ll have to stop your webcast until you correct it.
We have Zoom running for us to SEE on a projection computer. We cannot use that computer to manage Zoom. I have it running on a separate computer where I can interact with you via CHAT and hand gestures which you can see on my Zoom webcam
When I use audio on my computer in Zoom it creates loud audio feedback. There might be a solution, but that’s the situation at the moment.
So, yesterday, I managed Zoom without being able to speak in it. I can cue you when to speak. You need to watch my web cam for cues and zoom chat for instructions, and monitor the stream to know what’s going on, and TURN THE STREAM OFF or mute it when you unmute your Zoom to speak to us.
You can enter Zoom at any time. You should play your web cam there so we can see you are there. MUTE your mic until we ask you to unmute.
A tech specialist appeared on Friday with a solution to the issue: a box that we could use to funnel room mic to my laptop to replace my mic audio input. This way, I was able to manage Zoom from my laptop but in such a way that I could speak using room audio and they could hear me in Zoom. The only problem then was that they had the box wired to the sound mixer, wired in turn to my laptop, so it was tethered to the mixer on the webcasting table, inaccessible from the presentation computer on the speaker podium at the front of the room, where I needed to be when feeding projection to the stream.
But the solution found for Friday was an improvement over what we had faced on Thursday, and we’re hoping that some of the lessons learned will apply to the next “Best of EVO” event scheduled for Denver in 2020.
I was on the panel for CALL-IS Academic Session proposal number 1020-004276, titled, “SMALL: Research, Practice, Impact of Social Media-Assisted Language Learning,” which was included in the program proper of the TESOL 2019 convention in Atlanta. You can find it in the program on Wednesday, Mar 13, 2019, from 1300-1545 UTC
The panelists were Elke Stappart, Maria Tomeho-Palermino, Susan Gaer , Vance Stevens, and Sandy Wagner. We appear here backstage getting ready before taking center stage.
There were two recordings because streaming computer crashed in the middle of our presentation, and there were also audio issues, choppy audio that is slightly distracting but is still comprehensible.
YouTube does not allow embeds of streamed videos. However there is a helpful link in the video-not-available error message that invites you to view the video “in YouTube.” And the direct links above will take you there as well.
In that space, we provided information about our presentations (in the order presented)
Sandy Wagner talked on
Research on Social Media for Language Learning and Social Engagement
Presentation entitled SMALL: Large Impacts on Language Learning and Social Engagement
Social Media_Assisted Language Learning (SMALL), grounded in the tenets of connectivism, offers “new virtual ecologies that afford language learning and socialization.” (Valnecia, J., 2016). Research provides deeper insights into these “new virtual ecologies” and offers a plethora of justifications, proven results, and recommendations for integration into language teaching and learning. The presenter highlights the spectrum of research-based rationale that opens the doors for greater student engagement, motivation, and interactions.
Vance Stevens (Learning2gether.net) talked on Thinking SMALL: A Case for Social Media-Assisted Language Learning
Vance’s contribution to this panel covered:
Results so far from a survey aimed at gauging educators’ perceptions of certain aspects of using social media with each other and with students
(see Vance’s presentation in Google Slides)
Elke Stappert (The New York Public Library/Englishyoyo.com) talked on Impact on Learning: Success Stories and Potential Drawbacks
Elke talked mainy about Whatsapp, with brief mention of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. She covered
Why Whatsapp? and how to set up a group
Different types of groups (by class, multiple same level classes, by topic. Set up by T or Ss)
from T involvement in the group to independent S communication
Successes (show examples / snapshots from Whatsapp groups)
Challenges (show examples / snaphots)
Conclusion: Choose best format for YOUR learning environment and set up clear rules
Susan Gaer presented on Social Media/Network Practical Examples
In a cleverly conceived video presentation, Susan demoed her ESL low beginning class from 2017 using Facebook Groups. She talked about the process she went through, how she used FB groups, and the benefits that she saw in terms of student engagement, extension and enhancement using Facebook Groups with ELL immigrant adult students at the low beginning level https://www.facebook.com/groups/381821352193550/
I started engaging students in online spaces around 1998 with my online course Writing for Webheads which introduced features that presaged many introduced by Moodle in 2002 and Facebook in 2004.
In 2002 WfW morphed into Webheads in Action, a community of practice of language learning practitioners that formed to model for one another how to bring Web 2.0 to bear on teacher professional development. Web 2.0 was being gradually introduced to the popular zeitgeist before Tim O’Reilly made the term mainstream at the Media Web 2.0 Conference in 2004.
Principles worked out by WiA were put into action in three worldwide Webheads in Action Online Convergences in 2005, 2007, and 2009.
By 2010 I had converted the 72-hour webcastathon model to a more manageable weekly event called Learning2gether, which has just completed its 400th podcast.
I started mooting replacing the acronym CALL with SMALL, Social Media Assisted Language Learning, at the 2009 TESOL Conference in Denver.
Meanwhile colleagues identifying with Webheads were actively engaging in the CALL-IS Interest Section and in the TESOL Electronic Village Online. EVO sessions perpetuated the movement to bring educators up to speed with Web 2.0 and social media by helping them through their personal paradigm shifts and tool kits to utilize with their approach to their students.
One example was the EVO session Multiliteracies, which started out as a certificate course in the TESOL Principles and Practices of Online Teaching program. Multiliteracies increasingly took on elements of cMOOCs, following the emergence of connectivism as a learning theory for a new age, and itself merged into an EVO session called MultiMOOC.
Introducing gamification into the mix, I co-founded and have helped nurture and develop EVO Minecraft MOOC for the past 5 years.
Accordingly, my contribution to this panel covered:
My involvement in social media assisted language learning since last century, before Moodle and FB were invented, before the terms Web 2.0 and MOOC were coined, as explained in his 2014 article Connectivist Learning: Reaching Students through Teacher Professional Development
My consistent promotion of the term SMALL since his presentation at TESOL 2009 in Denver, at a session celebrating 25 years of CALL-IS
Preliminary results (60 responses so far) from a survey aimed at gauging educators’ perceptions of various aspects of using social media with each other and with students.
Wed Mar 13 through Fri Mar 15 – Catch the live stream courtesy of the CALL-IS Webcasting Team
Selected presentations were streamed live from TESOL Atlanta by the TESOL CALL-IS Webcasting team. Here is a list of those selected and links to their recordings: http://callis2019.pbworks.com/
I webcast myself from the Electronic Village, but for the remaining events, I was part of the webcasting team using OBS (Open Broadcasting Software) to stream from two locations at the conference. The following article tells more about our efforts streaming and webcasting from TESOL conferences for the past two decades:
Here are some pictures of the webcasting team in action in Atlanta (more when I find them):
Martha Ramirez being webcast live by Christine Bauer-Ramazani, Christine’s picture, posted here with permission. Sandy Wagner took the picture below at my request with my camera.
On Thursday, March 7, 2019, Jim Buckingham invited Vance to meet his teacher colleagues at Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman, online in Zoom to share insights into giving feedback on student writing in a digital age. We start from what the teachers are doing currently with student writing at SQU and see if any of my recent research and publications on the issue will be of relevance to them.
This presentation demonstrated techniques in providing students with feedback on their writing while utilizing Google Docs with voice input via features native to tablet and mobile devices. The presentation was in three parts.
The first part starts with a demonstration of using Google Docs with students through video evidence of its effectiveness.
The second part shows how the kind of feedback illustrated in the video can be performed by the teacher using voice tools rather than keyboard. This frees the teacher to move among the students in a classroom and provide feedback by speaking into a handheld device, while the spoken feedback shows up as comments in the student’s Google Doc.
The third part shows how teachers can encourage writing fluency by collecting student writing on paper and then speaking what the student wrote, in correct English, into Google Docs. The teacher returns the original paper to the student with a printout of what the student said expressed in correct language. On the printout the teacher has written suggestions for holistic development of what the student is trying to communicate. The student works in Google Docs to act on the suggestions for revision and improvement made by the teacher, and subsequent revision cycles address both accuracy and fluency, but with a version of the student’s work which is not bogged down in accuracy from the outset.
Here is a breakdown of the presentation
7:41 min – Introduction – 3 Parts of the Presentation are Introduced – Why Google docs is my tool of choice for teaching.
10:38 min – Part 1 – Screencast – Demonstration of “real-time” Teacher to Student feedback using Google Docs.
13:34 min – Part 2 – “Just in Time” feedback – Teacher making comments on student work
16:41 min – Live demonstration with the group on using “Voice to Text” in a Google doc comment.
25:30 min – Part 3 – Using “Voice to Text” to encourage student revision
36:00 min – Q&A – How does the technique increase accuracy?
39:55 min – Q&A – Might this have a practical application in the CPS Writing Center?
41:12 min – Comment – The technique could help students with getting feedback on writing structure
42:30 min – Q&A – Does the technique run the risk of discouraging/diminishing student effort?
45:09 min – Q&A – Did you ask students for their feedback on the technique?
46:03 min – Q&A – Can students interact with the teacher in the same way? ie. using “Voice to Text”
49:39 min – Q&A – Is it possible to insert “voice recordings” into Google Docs?
A Twitter back-channel was made available during the presentation. Participants were told they could ask questions and/or tweet about this presentation at #squvance
This is basically about using voice to make corrections in Google Docs to compositions the students are composing on their devices.
The teacher logs on to Google Docs and puts a student’s work on a data show connected to the class PC
The teacher logs on to Google Docs on his mobile device and carries it to where the students are, and advises them individually about revisions needed
While advising, the teacher creates comments in the students’ papers and speaks those comments into his/her device
The comments appear in the composition the student has open in Google Docs, and also on the data show where other students can see it
The students act on those revisions and the teacher works with them
3. How teachers can use voice to help students who start writing on paper increase fluency and possibly accuracy
Derived from
Stevens, V. (Forthcoming; 2019). Teaching writing to students with tablets using voice to overcome keyboard shortcomings. In Zoghbor, W. etc. (Eds.). Proceedings of ALLT 2018 Conference. Dubai: Zayed University Press. Available in early draft form: https://toolkit4learning.blogspot.com/2018/03/teaching-writing-to-students-with.html
In that document I left a question for SQU teachers
I am told you have PC labs that students can’t practically access, but that your students have mobiles that your teachers may or may not be utilizing. Given these conditions, how do you teach writing?
In order more me to address the issue of what is practical there I need to know how the teachers are teaching writing, what the problems are, do they use the mobiles already in writing, if so how? and so on.
The SQU context (audience)
SQU has 6 computer labs shared among 200 instructors and booked solid almost constantly so access to them is limited. However, mobile phones are everywhere and thus commonly available in the classroom.
The KBZAC context (my most recent teaching assignment)
What I was addressing at the aviation college was large classes 20 students or so, each in possession of a device. At one time they all had PCs, at the end they all had iPads. There are three issues.
Getting the students to write. I have always had them write in Google Docs no matter what the device, which is a great tool for a teacher to collect writing and quickly give feedback. But in large classes many let themselves slip through the cracks. Minimal effort, not much follow through on revision, with some exceptions.
When they did write, getting feedback to them. When they had PCs they had keyboards. They could respond to feedback. With iPads or mobiles I suppose, more problematic. I began looking at ways for me to use voice to speed the feedback process. When the iPads appeared I got students to start on paper and then used my voice to read what they had written into Google Docs.
Revision. I can work quickly in Docs using voice. My early work is about walking around a room and giving feedback orally on my device that would then show up on the student’s and might also be projected on the screen in front. It was effective for reading over students’ shoulders and working with students where they sat, not from the front of the room. My later research when students lost keyboards with switch to iPad showed students responded to the technique you read about. Not all of them, not the crack-slippers, they didn’t care. But if I converted what was on paper into a Google Doc, the students were in many cases willing to revise that.
If I were teaching there at SQU I could get my students to use my technique, or the more open minded to, as I did in my aviation college context. But in that context the other teachers didn’t care how I did it. Each teacher taught writing his/her way. Exam results were always abysmal for writing. Nothing was effective, the usual way because it wasn’t, my way because I couldn’t get enough students on board to provide traction, and also I tended to be shunted between classes and rarely got more than 2-3 weeks with any class of students at the time I was doing my research.
Given these ‘limitations’ on my study I was quite pleased to get the notably positive response from the students who increased their output in writing through following my technique, a sampling of whom I have documented in my results.
Wed Feb 20 12pm EST – EFLIS webinar on Conversation Analysis in the Language Classroom
EFLIS are pleased to announce the 4th and last EFLIS webinar for this year 2018-2019.
I hope you can make it! Information on the webinar and how to access it is below:
Title: Conversation Analysis in the Language Classroom
Date: Wednesday, February 20th, 2019
Time: 12 PM to 1PM EST (NY time)
Presenter: Dr. Catherine Box, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract: This webinar will explore practical ways in which insights from Conversation Analysis (CA) can enhance classroom practices. First, we will examine some of the basic tenets of CA. The bulk of our time together will explore applying CA to the Language Classroom. Specifically, we will discuss (1) how CA can be helpful to decide what to teach, and (2) how CA can help us to either create or adapt materials in order to provide students in the SL/FL classroom with authentic learning experiences. Focus will be on the practical, rather than theoretical, aspects of CA.
Presenter Bio: Catherine Box is a Lecturer in Educational Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on utilizing CA principles to inform language instruction, particularly in K-12 ESL settings. She teaches in the M.S.Ed. TESOL program, where she teaches TESOL methods and practica to budding ESL/EFL teachers. She holds an Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she served for three years as full-time faculty in the TESOL K-12 Program.
Webinar Access:
Please join my meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone.
She writes: “This is our tenth anniversary. The conference will take place online via Moodle for Teachers from February 22 to 24. Click to join the conference area so you can enter the live online classes, view the recordings, learn about the presenters and their sessions, engage with the other participants, reflect, and get your badges and final certificate: https://moodle4teachers.org/course/view.php?id=97
You may view the recordings, if you cannot make the live online classes. There will be badges and a free certificate for attending or watching the recordings, reflecting, and learning. Let the learning begin!”
Wed Feb 25 1030 ET – 2nd of 3 TESOL Webinars free to TESOL members – Exemplary Teaching with the SIOP Model
Bringing the 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners to Life With the SIOP Model
Register for FREE! (free for TESOL members; $50 for non-members)
Mon Feb 26 or Tue Feb 27 2000 EST Kim Harrison discusses Symbaloo on VSTE Island in Second Life
Kim Harrison invited the VSTE VE PLN which she moderates to an event “Tonight on VSTE Island at 5 PM SLT (8PM EST)” This was received by me “today” Feb 26, at 6:56 AM
Here is what Kim posted:
Symbaloo is not a new tool, but maybe it’s one you’ve never tried. Maybe the way you once shared URLs with your students has disappeared as devices have changed. Since the dawn of the 1 to 1 Chromebook in my district the network space we used to share jump off pages has gone away. My old friend Symbaloo has returned to rescue us in a big way.
Tonight on VSTE Island we will share Symbaloo and other cool tools that help make teaching and learning easier.
If you don’t have a Second Life account get one, it’s free. We recommend setting one up at the Rockcliffe University Consortium’s Gateway here: https://urockcliffe.com/reg/second-life/ Download and install the software. While your Second Life viewer (software) is open click this link http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/VSTE%20Island/…/104/22 and voila! Look for an avatar on VSTE Island and say, “Hey, I’m new!” We will take care of the rest.
Thu Feb 28 1800 UTC Eurocall VW SIG host Margherita Berti on use of VR in the language classroom
Our first webinar presenter of the season is Margherita Berti who, on THURSDAY 28Tth FEBRUARY at 6pm GMT, will talk to us about her research on the use of VR in the Language Classroom.
Title: “You can almost feel like you are in the place presented”: Implementing Virtual Reality in the Language Classroom
Description: This webinar illustrates principles and practices regarding the use of virtual reality to foster cultural awareness in the language classroom. Findings collected during a cultural immersion experience with beginner and intermediate L2 Italian students revealed that virtual reality allowed learners to see and discover diverse cultural layers, practices and perspectives in authentic and contextualized environments. Affordances and constraints of virtual reality for language learning will also be discussed.
Bio: Margherita Berti is a doctoral student in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) program at the University of Arizona. Her current research focuses on the integration of technology tools for pedagogical purposes in foreign language courses. She has presented papers at various conferences such as ACTFL, AAAL, and CALICO and published articles and reviews in academic journals as Issues and Trends in Educational Technology (ITET) and CALICO Journal.
Details about the venue (Adobe Acrobat) will be shared closer to the date.Feel free to disseminate!Best regards,Susanna & Chris
Here’s a link to the recording for those who were there and want to watch it again, or disseminate it and for those who could not make it.
meet in discord and Minecraft as well (optional) and record the meeting to allow others to follow the discussion
Hi all. As the clock counts down on the demise of this marvelous home for our community, many of us are actively considering where we should move to. If you have any thoughts on the best all-in-one home for our continued sharing and discussion, please add them here. If you’d like to talk it over live, you can meet us in Discord at 1300 UTC on March 1. It might be fun and appropriate to pop into Minecraft while we’re at it, if that’s not too distracting, though the focus would be on the discussion.
The following is from a thread in FB which captures one part of the genesis of this proposed meeting
<Rose Bard> Vance Stevens and I talked about Moodle Livre. Now that I can work on the computer again, I need to discuss this with the team. The great thing about Moodle is that we can link the blog (wordpress) into it and use the blog as external tool to the community. Let’s have a meeting in Discord this week to discuss it.
<Jane Chien> Absolutely! Mattie Tsai will be reading this tomorrow, and he’d be touched as well. Great suggestion! Moodle is better than Google Classroom! we’ll set up a discord meeting this week.
<Jane Chien> Vance Stevens I think Friday March 1st 1300 UTC works well. I’ve checked with Olive, Rose, and Dak. I’ll ask Don and Mircea as well.
Mon Mar 4 Webinar on Error Correction: Tips & Techniques for Language Teachers
Dear TESOLers:
Please join me, the University of Missouri, and VIPKID for a free 1-hour webinar on “Error Correction: Tips & Techniques for Language Teachers” on Monday, March 4, from 6-7 p.m. EST. home.edweb.net/webinar/ell20190304
Register to watch the recording, even if you can’t participate in the live session. Become more aware of your error correction practice and develop new strategies as well! Great for novice teachers as well as experienced teachers who want to improve the effectiveness of their error correction.
—————————–
Nikki Ashcraft
Associate Teaching Professor
University of Missouri
Tue Mar 5 0100 UTC Minecraft Monday Treehouse Challenge
Kim Harrison a.k.a. K4sons has announced Minecraft Monday TONIGHT! 8 PM EST (March 4, 2019)
Our task will be to:
Work individually or in teams to create your own treehouse. Try to create a functional shelter within the branches of a nearby tree. Challenge yourself by setting a time limit. Don’t forget a ladder or stairs to get in! We can build in creative then switch to survival to see if we can survive the night!
We’ll meet at VSTE Place and use Discord so we can chat.
On Sunday, February 17 Electronic Village Online coordinators, moderatators, and participants held their 2019 closing ceremony online in Zoom, hosted by Nellie Deutsch. Here is the video:
EVO Sessions is a series of 5-week online workshops on digital skills for language educators, organised by TESOL CALL-IS
At the Closing Ceremony Jane Chien and Vance Stevens spoke on behalf of EVO Minecraft MOOC, at the link starting here: https://youtu.be/oz4UgESP79Y?t=1903
from 31:42 in the video to 38:33
Heike Philp – Presenting from a distance at the Best of EVO 2019 event
Graham Stanley – Presenting from a distance at the Best of EVO 2019 event
Randall Sadler – Presenting from a distance at the Best of EVO 2019 event
EVO MInecraft MOOC
Jane Chien – Presenting live on-site in Atlanta at the Best of EVO 2019 event
Vance Stevens – Presenting live on-site in Atlanta at the Best of EVO 2019 event
Heike Philp – Presenting from a distance at the Best of EVO 2019 event
Also on moderating team: Maha Abdelmoneim, Rose Bard, Don Carroll, David Dodgson, Kim Harrison, Jeff Kuhn, Beth O’Connell, Mircea Patrascu, Dakota Redstone, Aaron Schwartz, Filip Smolčec, Mariana Smolčec, and Bobbi Stevens
Flipped Learning
Juliana Diaz for Flipped Learning – Presenting live on-site in Atlanta at the Best of EVO 2019 event
Martha Ramirez- Presenting from a distance at the Best of EVO 2019 event
Also on moderating team: John Graney, Jeff Magoto, Katja Auffret, Carolina R. Buitrago, Juliana Díaz, Gabriela Garibotto, Birgit Jensen, and Diana Salazar (who presented live on-site at TESOL Chicago 2018)
Getting online as a teacherpreneur
Harshita Kapoor – Presenting from a distance at the Best of EVO 2019 event
Nellie Deutsch – Presenting from a distance at the Best of EVO 2019 event
ICT4ELT
Moderating team: Ayat Tawel, Jose Antonio Da Silva, Mariana Smolčec, Sneza Filipovic, Efrossini Zoniou, Sanja Bozinovic, Angiolini Tiziana, and Svetlana Obenausova
On Feb 8, 2019 the EVO Minecraft MOOC temple busting team of Abu Fletcher, Dakotah Redstone, Jane Chien, Mattie Tsai, Michiyo, and Teacher Vance applied logic and geometry (or at least Dak did) to the puzzle of getting into a desert temple by excavating around the side of it and under it, exposing and rendering harmless the TNT that booby-traps the bottom of every unexplored temple, and helping ourselves to what was in the zombie chests.
Dak got the diamond horse armor since he was most deserving and most instrumental in the excavation and had the greatest appreciation for horses in Minecraft as you can hear in the video, here:
Michiyo wanted to make ‘her house’ much nicer, with the help of +Olivetree Lighthouse, so she posted, “I explored the desert area. I have collected cactuses in order to make green things. Then collected some sands to make glasses. If I have some time to continue “my house” building, I may be in the world at around 14:00 UTC on the Feb. 7th or 8th. It would depend on how early I could get back from work. If I were there, I would. If not, next day or time.”
She wasn’t able to make it on Feb 7, but she kept her Feb 8 appointment. Meanwhile, here’s what we did on Feb 7:
Thu Feb 7 EVO Minecraft MOOC moderators Teacher Vance and Dakotah Redstone follow Abufletcher to newly-discovered temple
Michiyo was not able to make it back from work in time, so Dakotah Redstone and Teacher Vance followed Abufletcher to a temple he found buried in a village just north of the one we had all visited last week on our adventure trek. We looked it over but didn’t crack it. We hoped to find others in our community who would want to explore it with us. We posted to our Google+ Community that they could find it on the map just north up the river from our recent trek destination and inside the big grey wall Dak erected around it while we chatting in Discord. I attached this picture:
So when Michiyo appeared next day, apparently Abufletcher, Michiyo’s teacher in Japan, encouraged her to visit the new temple, which is where I met the group when I arrived, having just emerged from a cab at my apartment which had brought me from the bus station in Penang where I had just left a bus that had left Kuala Lumpur 6 hours earlier. I joined Michiyo, Abu Fletcher, Dak, Jane, and Mattie in Minecraft just as they were all about to head down the polished stone road that Dak had created leading over to the Temple Under Town that Abu Fletcher had found the previous day, where we would see if we could unlock its secrets in a systematic manner.
The event was on the 2019 EVO Minecraft MOOC Live Events schedule, which is linked from the sidebar at the #evomc19 landing page at http://missions4evomc.pbworks.com/. That link should be working far into the foreseeable future.
The event was organized on the EVOMC Google+ Community, which we’ll hate to loose after March 2019. The event evolved in these two posts, the first from Michiyo, https://plus.google.com/u/0/+VanceStevens/posts/Hp1FEvSXqbf where I had replied the day before, “+Michiyo Toshima joined us today, but not for house building. We went on a temple tour and excavated around the Temple Under Town.”
A most unusual temple!!! Come and help us explore (but not pillage) both the temple and the village on top of it! Dak is busy building a protective wall around the village (immigrants welcome).
OliveTree Lighthouse
Great find 🙂 Sorry I couldn’t join. I was fighting with command blocks and was reading and watching things online trying to get them to work as I wanted.
Vance Stevens
The /warp is templeundervillage. I had to go there to test the /warp, and I found that someone, probably one of the villagers, agitated at the recent interest shown by bothersome explorers from another dimension, placed an iron door over the entrance to the most sacred part of the temple. I guess they make iron doors in the blacksmith shop adjacent to the temple precincts. To open the door, you have to know how to operate the ‘device’. Once inside, the way is, hmmm not exactly clear, but the direction down is (whatever you do, don’t jump down there!)
In another post I invited participants to come help us “loot” this temple but I withdraw that poorly worded invitation and leave the disposal of this one to my esteemed colleague and co-moderator, Abu Fletcher.
If interested in looting a temple I can invite you to another one, if it hasn’t been looted already (I wouldn’t know for sure until I went there and tried to loot it). Sign up for the expedition in the reply area below.
Don Carroll
I’m more interested in how the temple and several village structures seem to have become intertwined. I’d like to see if we can untangle the parts before damaging anything with a “smash and grab” approach. Honestly, after looting a few temples, it all gets to be pretty routine. Often I don’t even bother.
I’ll be in-game at about 14:00 UTC.
Vance Stevens
+Don Carroll Yes, exactly, by “looting” a temple I mean to approach what lays beneath the blue and red tiles in a calm and systematic manner, avoid setting off the TNT, which we know is down there. By working systematically and on arriving safely in the space below, I suggest that we open the lids on the chests that will also be there and peek inside.
I think this is one of those constructive activities that show Minecraft in its most collaborative mode, and reveal to participants how critical language is in the process (for example when Abu Fletcher told me once, in text, DON’T STEP THERE. Step is probably a useful word in English, as is its appearance in a negative imperative.) But more importantly, the instructions to one another as we work toward a common goal are the point of the exercise.
Hope to see you at 1400 UTC if the bus I’m on reaches Penang in time.
If anyone would like to join us in the exploration of this temple and / or others, please click REPLY below.
Don Carroll
Here’s an aerial view of the temple/village (from the dynamic map).
Actually, Vance I would suggest that we entirely leave the “loot” alone. It’s really not interesting. Instead, I’d like to see us work creatively and in unison to “map out” how the temple and village structures are intertwined. For example, can we find minimally invasive ways to get into the main temple structure WITHOUT damaging ANY of the exteriors of any of the village structures?
In fact, anyone who just wants the loot is welcome to get it through a diagonal tunnel (as I have done before on many temples).
Or maybe I should just go in and grab the loot myself now so we can focus on the archeologically interesting aspects of the site. : )
Vance Stevens
+Don Carroll I liked +Dakotah Redstone’s spiral approach, as evident in the video.
The event took place on the EVO Minecraft MOOC 1.12.2 server with voice in Discord
Earlier events
Tue Feb 5 Learning2gether episode 400 – EVO Minecraft MOOC visits East Coast Miners for VSTE Minecraft Monday
On Tuesday, February 5 in Europe and points east of there, but still February 4 in the USA, Kim Harrison a.k.a. K4sons invited EVO (Electronic Village Online) Minecraft MOOC participants to visit VSTE’s Minecraft Monday, a regular monthly event hosted by the Virginia Society for Technology in Education. Dakotah_Redstone and Beth O’Connell helped plan it with her. The VSTE events are held on the first Monday of each month from 8 to 9 PM EST (New York time).
Today they were visiting East Coast Miners, a building guild for under-16s patterned on the work of Jo Kay’s Jokaydia, http://www.jokaydia.com/. East Coast Miners provided a tour of what that the teachers are doing with kids after hours.
After settling into the environment, we started recording at a turtle farm where one of the kids was raising turtles. The new release of Minecraft 1.13.2 contains an underwater environment that spawns corals and a variety of sea creatures, so after swimming with the turtles, we moved to a coral reef where we swam with dolphins and other creatures, and visited an underwater shipwreck. There DarkKnight tossed some treasure maps into the water and you can see on the video where your map shows your location and allows you to use your F3 coordinates to navigate to X-marks-the-spot, where there was buried treasure. We all went there and eventually uncovered a treasure chest full of goodies.
We then lapsed into a reflection of how this might work for learners of a variety of topics, including learning languages. Jane in Taipei related how her son Mattie was interacting with the East Coast Miners and developing his English and problem solving skills.
Here is Jane’s reflection
Thank you, +Kim Harrison for inviting us on the East Coast Miners server. Treasure hunting was a lot of fun! The coral reef and tropical fish are so beautiful! I think that kids can learn far more by collaborating and communicating with players in Minecraft than they can by taking online synchronous language lessons (Online language tutoring/learning has been a trend lately). I see a lot of creativity, problem-solving, and peer-teaching with patience in Minecraft. I was taught by Cats, a teenage east coast miner, how to fly. She gave me lots of tips and feedback to my repeated failing attempts, and with her help, I re-learned how to fly in survival mode in Minecraft!
===Info on East Coast Miners from the website: http://www.eastcoastminers.org/====
The East Coast Miners Minecraft Community is operated by two educators and one geek (engineer) in the hopes to enrich STEAM skills science, technology, engineering, art and math as well as communication and collaboration skills.
How to join the VSTE server?
You need the latest release 1.13.2
connect to server.eastcoastminers.org
We’ll all be sad to see this and so many other fruitful communities disappear from Google+, a real blow to educational collaboration when that happens.
Earlier events
Sun Jan 27 Rose Bard, Dakota Redstone, and Jane Chien host a Building Challenge on the EVO Minecraft 1.12.2 server
https://www.tesol.org/convention-2019
