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.
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.
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.
___________________________________________________________ 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/
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.
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.
Immersive learning has been a buzz word in the field of education for the past several years as an increasing number of affordable consumer devices and free/proprietary apps become available. Among various types of immersive learning solutions, virtual reality (VR) has gained much attention among educational technology researchers and developers worldwide. In this workshop, the presenter will show how to use Engage (https://engagevr.io/), a proprietary virtual reality app accessible on VR and non-VR devices, to create immersive learning materials for on-demand purposes and to conduct synchronous online classes. Given that VR headsets are not yet available to the majority of learners, this platform specifically designed for education can be a promising tool as it is compatible with PCs, iOS and Android mobile devices as well as major VR headsets. Although the freemium version has many features, a paid account is more beneficial for professional content creation and real-time use. The participants of this workshop are requested to download the app on their device in advance.
The first speaker I attended gave a basic overview of virtual worlds and then demonstrated her VR app,
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.
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
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
Teaching online makes it challenging to encourage student engagement and interaction. In this workshop, I will share how I utilized Nearpod, an online teaching platform, to enhance my online English teaching practices. Research has shown that using Nearpod in English classes aids in promoting active learning by facilitating collaborative participation between students, teachers, and lesson content (Amasha et al., 2018, Hakami, 2020). My workshop will showcase how Nearpod can be used for effective discussions, reading activities, vocabulary activities, student-paced assignments, informing future instruction through its post-class reports feature, and more. Teachers will receive opportunities to test the functions as well. Finally, I will share the results of a quantitative opinion survey of 197 students’ self-reported perceptions of Nearpod, which indicated they felt an overall positive effect on their motivation and interaction in classes. Regardless of teaching online, hybrid, or face-to-face, the Nearpod lesson platform contains plenty of tools to increase interactivity and engagement in language learning. It is my hope that educators will leave this workshop feeling more confident in their ability to use this technology to facilitate interactive classes.
In this study, the effects of web-based, gamified vocabulary instruction (through Quizlet’s Match activity and online leaderboards) on assessment scores and student motivation are examined. The primary features of gamification present in this study include ‘conditions for victory’ and leaderboards. Japanese English language learners from two online Listening and Speaking courses at Kyushu Sangyo University took part in this experimental study. The control and experimental groups initially received identical vocabulary instruction, and in week 8, both classes took a vocabulary recall assessment (75 words). Afterwards, gamified vocabulary instruction (via the Quizlet application’s Match game) was introduced only to Class B (the experimental group). At the end of the semester, a second vocabulary recall assessment was administered to both classes (75 new words). Previous studies have claimed that gamified instruction increases a learner’s motivation to (a) study a second language and (b) study second language vocabulary. Results of the final assessment indicate that gamified vocabulary instruction through Quizlet’s competitive Match game and the use of a public leaderboard have a positive effect on vocabulary assessment scores. However, quantitative student feedback from this study suggests this manner of gamified instruction may not affect Japanese English Language Learner’s (ELL) motivation to study English or English vocabulary.
This session was one of several poster sessions scheduled in the same Zoom room, each with it’s own breakout room. This in theory would have emulated the ability of participants to move from room to room to listen in on what each presenter was saying, as if they were wandering from poster to poster. In the one I attended, the presenter essentially made a presentation, complete with slide show, and I didn’t notice that other participants wandered in or out to any significant degree. The presenter held my interest so I stayed the whole time whole time with the one presenter.
In 2020, in order to give university students encouragement during a difficult time while also providing free educational content, a teacher at a university created a series of daily comics that introduced study tips, vocabulary, educational ideas, or just entertainment value. The goal of the series of strips evolved over time, as did the format, as various kinds of comics were explored, such as “yonkoma” comics, single-panel comics, and later a series with a recurring main character. The strips were not used for a specific class, but were available for students to access free on the school’s social media, often in both English and often in Japanese. This presentation will explore the design decisions used for the art, the jokes, the educational content, and how those concepts evolved over the course of the year, as well as how text, questions, and tags were used to support the goals of the project. The comics remain free to use online, and the presentation will also explore further directions for the creation of online comics for education.
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.
Pandemic-era teaching takes many forms: online, face-to-face, hybrid, and hyflex, among others. Teachers must be prepared to transition rapidly among these modes, depending on local conditions and the whims of administrators. Where will language teaching with technology go from here? In this talk, I make four predictions for Japan and provide my recommendations for optimizing this future. First, I predict that online instruction will quickly fall back to prepandemic levels—that is, unless we make efforts to prevent this. CALL experts are well suited to argue for the effectiveness of online learning, where appropriate. One area where we may be able to make progress is in virtual international experiences, such as online study abroad. Second, most institutions will adopt bring-your-own-device policies. This will bring significant advantages for the use of technology in language classes but also present challenges when students’ devices are not uniform. Teachers will need more tech literacy to meet these challenges. Third, our institutions will recognize a growing variety of learning differences among our students and rely on us to accommodate them. To support all learners, universal design will become standard. Fourth, although most instruction will return to the physical classroom, we will need to be constantly prepared to shift instruction online again. This will apply not only during the current pandemic, but is also necessary preparation for future public health or natural disasters that prevent face-to-face instruction. Emergency remote teaching will no longer be adequate; instead, we will need to provide high quality online learning experiences. To prepare to meet these challenges and optimize the outcomes, we need quality professional development (PD). Although current offerings from our institutions are inadequate, CALL experts can help to fill some of the unmet needs. In conclusion, I encourage CALL experts to push for the future of technology in education that they would like to see. We have the power to make change in the use of technology through our research, our exemplary teaching, and the PD we provide to our fellow teachers.
One of Betsy’s slides made that point that we have been reinventing the wheels of online learning repeatedly since 1994 (but if I may be allowed an aside, TICCIT and PLATO were operational in the 1970s) Stevens, V. 1983. Software review of English lessons on PLATO. TESOL Quarterly 17,(2), 293-300. http://www.vancestevens.com/papers/archive/1983Stevens_PLATO.pdf
Based on these responses, the PD sessions studied don’t appear to be very effective.
Taking questions and appreciative feedback from the audience
The Covid-19 pandemic has popped the online teaching genie out of the bottle into the spotlight. One of the great challenges language teachers now face is finding ways to help learners engage each other through the computer screens in different areas as opposed to the traditional face-to-face method in a unified classroom. One method that has proven successful is the adapting of popular games and activities from exclusively face-to-face versions to computer-based models. This presentation will introduce a variety of games and activities that can be used with Zoom or other online learning platforms in either paper or digital form. Furthermore, this presentation will demonstrate how you do not need exotic software nor a high level of computer expertise to use these games and activities. This presentation will be highly interactive and participants are asked to bring writing materials that will allow them to make written notes that can be seen by the other members when held up to the camera. Activities will include online versions of the American TV game shows “Match Game” and “The 20,000 Pyramid” as well the murder-mystery game “Clue.” Materials for these activities will be available in the form of PDF files for anyone interested using them in their classrooms.
The point of this presentation, by example, was that learning language is less a focus on form than on providing stimuli for communicative opportunities, and that utilizing this observation might promote engagement through what is possible with Zoom. At the end of this session I noted that the presenter had modeled not only how to use these stimuli to engage students in remote learning spaces, but also to reshape how this might work in webinars in teacher professional development, which Betsy had mentioned in her keynote in the previous session.
Since schooling has been affected by the pandemic, educators are beginning to be more open to distance learning and might become more open to immersive virtual worlds, such as Minecraft (Cleave & Geijsman, 2020; Egbert, 2020). However, in order to integrate new technology into their practice, teachers need to be provided with training that promotes the development of their Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). This study identifies the level of TPACK teachers need to integrate Minecraft English teaching by investigating twenty-nine elementary school English teachers who created Minecraft English lessons after receiving Minecraft professional development for 16 hours in two months. A Minecraft TPACK instrument for English teachers was developed based on Schmidt et al. (2009) and Bagheri (2020) and administered before and after the training. Five Minecraft English lessons were created as a result of the training. The results showed an overall improvement in Minecraft TPACK scores. The English teacher’s Minecraft content knowledge gained from M=1.98 to M=3.79, Minecraft Technological Pedagogical Knowledge gained from M= 1.86 to M=3.6, and the TPACK mean score gained from M=2.5 to M=3.93, indicating that they are more knowledgeable of how to teach English through Minecraft. In the presentation, the results of the study will be discussed with a focus on an analysis of the content, technology, and pedagogy incorporated in the Minecraft in-world lessons and supplementary materials using Kahoot, Bamboozle, and Nearpod that the English teachers have created. Also, the merits, affordances, and challenges for teachers to integrate Minecraft as a language teaching environment will be discussed.
“Your students are more motivated than yourself” – Jane
‘I only know one thing about the technologies that await us in the future: we will find ways to tell stories with them.’ (Jason Ohler). The technology in question for this presentation is a virtual world called OpenSim, which is similar to Second Life but more suitable for education. We present the main challenges addressed and the outcomes produced towards inspiring the participants to transcend previous achievements throughout our workshop “Immersive Storytelling In Virtual Worlds”. For five weeks earlier this year, with moderators and 110 participant English teachers, our EVO session focused on the skills, methods and techniques required for promoting the use of VWs for Immersive Storytelling in the new classroom. The affordances of a 3D user-created virtual environment such as OpenSim can prove indispensable to the language teacher, educator, tutor, course designer or trainer moving their classes online or resorting to hybrid and blended practices, at any stage of the Educational system. The process of recreating popular narratives in Virtual Worlds can effectively accelerate immersive language acquisition by motivating learners to take charge of their own education with an avatar, in a creative, imaginative and memorable way. In addition to the workshop outcomes, Heike Philp presents the rich resources created by 10 universities during three EU funded projects over a period of 6 years exploring the potential of language learning in virtual worlds like Second Life, OpenSim and Minecraft.
Here, Heike zooms out to an overview of her virtual island. She pointed out that many of the builds here were freely available to be copied from OpenSim resources to be transplanted here.
Here we approach, and then enter, the gate to the castle.
When the discussion turned to appropriate innovative venues for future virtual conferences and classrooms, Yoshiko Goda shared a walk into such a space using Virbela, https://www.virbela.com/. I didn’t want to interject anything that might have been construed as self-promotional at this juncture, but knowing I could always blog it later, I can here point readers to my most recent published thoughts on virtual venues for virtual conferences.
I also mentioned to James York in chat before his presentation the following day that I was contemplating trying to organize a one-day conference in Minecraft at some point during EVO Minecraft MOOC 2022. The above article ends on that suggestion.
The use of video streaming has exploded over the past several years, in part, due to the ubiquity of smartphones and advancements to mobile network technology. However, while the topic of video for second (L2) learning has been studied extensively in CALL research, the use of video streaming for out-of-class, informal foreign language (FL) learning has received little attention. This presentation details a study that addressed this gap in the literature. Specifically, the study examined Japanese English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ practices and views concerning the use of subscription video streaming services for informal language learning. To this end, a survey was administered to Japanese students at four universities, with a total of 256 participants fully completing the survey. Moreover, 12 of these participants were interviewed to gain deeper insight into their views of subscription video streaming for informal foreign language learning. Results showed that informal language learning through subscription video streaming is a common social practice among the participants and that they had positive perceptions towards using these services for L2 learning. Additional findings and implications from the study will also be discussed in the presentation.
The past year has shown us both challenges and opportunities in education in particular socialization, collaboration and interaction for research, discussion, support, and exchange of ideas. Social distance and the inability to connect physically has created barriers to the type of communication required for learning, teaching, and researching. To help bridge this divide, institutions hastily struggled to implement a range of Learning Managements Systems LMS’s to address both teachers and students needs. The result was a collage of contradictory, conflicting and complementary platforms that greatly assisted and facilitated some endeavors but hopelessly added to the burden and confusion of others. Far from there being any logical consensus, teachers had to experiment and trial systems in this ‘wild west’ of online classrooms, finding out what worked and what didn’t, and in many cases relearning how to teach. Students were equally plagued by this inconsistency and in some cases had a different platform for each class. What did we learn from this? Will the experience of LMS based teaching have a lasting impact on education? The following will describe an “Integrated English” Program for freshmen and sophomore English majors and how it was coordinated, managed and adapted to online learning.
Presenters will discuss the results of two surveys conducted to evaluate the online learning and teaching experience. The research surveyed 280 college students and 39 instructors regarding their worries, fears, challenges and triumphs using various LMS’s ranging from Webex and Zoom to Course Power and Google Classroom.
Renewing acquaintances, awaiting the crowds to appear
In primary education, English grammar learning focuses on single-sentence formation. However, reports show that nearly half of upper-grade students in primary schools demonstrate grammatical errors in their single-sentence production. This points to the need to improve instruction on single-sentence formation at elementary schools. Since conventional English instruction relies on textbook teaching, which leads to insufficient contextual language use of target language items, this Show-and-Tell session will provide an overview of how a theme-based situated learning environment consisting of a robot and toys (R&T) supported by Internet of Things (IoT) technology was created to help elementary students use English sentence patterns. The authors will show how content-language integrated learning (CLIL) is incorporated into a R&T farm English learning game, along with embodied cognition based on sensory-based guided play and scaffolding of robotic prompts to make English syntax learning closer to real life. Specifically, the audience will be shown two design-based research (DBR) cycles of the Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate (ADDIE) model. The first DBR cycle focuses on (a) the needs analysis stage concerning the English learning needs of middle- and upper-graders in Taiwan, (b) the implementation of the R&T game on farm English with 15 fifth graders; and (c) the evaluation stage with learning outcomes based on pre- and post-test measures and interviews. The second DBR cycle, which involves the R&T game enhancement and pilot testing with six upper-grade students, will also be presented. Suggestions and principles for the R&T English learning mode will serve as content to take away from this presentation.
In this presentation, the presenter will demonstrate how teachers can transform their classroom into an engaging and collaborative hybrid-learning environment with the help of Showbie, a classroom management tool. Showbie is a cross-platform application used by teachers to assign, collect, and review student work. However, it houses a myriad of features that go far beyond simply assigning and turning in work digitally. Showbie gives users the ability to store and share documents that can be annotated utilizing a digital pen, text boxes, and embedded voice notes. Using the Pro version of Showbie, teachers can host online discussions, create private group chats, and have students collaborate on projects both synchronously and asynchronously. Furthermore, Showbie is incredibly user-friendly making it easy for even the least tech-savvy teacher to create an account, invite students, and share a digital assignment with their entire class in just a few minutes. The presenter will give concrete examples of how Showbie can help educators to achieve a truly paperless curriculum that will both enhance and transform language learning.
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.
Here is a folder setup with assignments not yet added to folders
He can watch students work in real time
Students can share presentations and add voice notes to each slide
Another way to share slides with video voice over and access to annotation and highlight tools
Students, as well as the population as a whole, often suffer from debilitating levels of presentation anxiety. Public speaking phobia can have a negative impact on students’ ability to function in the classroom, as well as their ability to effectively acquire a second language. This talk will discuss an ongoing investigation into the best methods for reducing this anxiety in students, including virtual-reality and imagination-based home practice, as well as course work and exposure to in-person speech acts. This program used a combination of exposure training, mindfulness training, and interventions based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to target presentation anxiety in the Japanese university student population. Preliminary results show significant levels of anxiety reduction within the participants, consistent with earlier findings within this ongoing program. How this experiment shifted to an online format in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic will also be discussed, as will differences between participants who used more technological methods (VR) versus those who used more traditional methods for presentation practice. Participants’ comments from program interviews and surveys will also be presented to explore the nature of presentation anxiety and to help find best practices for classroom presentation activities and assessments by instructors.
Part of his PhD research: Recruited first 30 out of 50 applicants who self selected to participate. Taught 4 skills: presentation skills, emotional regulation skills, mindfulness skills, exposure training (illustrated in the icons below)
The presenter focused on VR for in-virtuo exposure training
Simulated speaking before audiences
Seem to find no differences in anxiety reduction with vr but wow factor strong
There are few studies that explore interactive fiction’s (IF) cognitive and effective benefits for language learning. Inspired by Neville (2009), we compared the effectiveness of IF in comparison to non-interactive, linear fiction in terms of vocabulary acquisition, reading comprehension and motivation in a university EFL context. Participants (n = 93) were divided into two groups. The control group read a linear story, the experimental group played through an interactive version of the same story. A pre and post-experiment vocabulary test was employed to measure the acquisition of 16 target vocabulary words. A quiz based on the actions of characters within the story was also employed to measure reading comprehension. Finally, a post-test questionnaire measured student perceptions of learning with linear and IF. This presentation introduces the results of the study which are as follows. Findings revealed no significant difference in scores between the control (linear) and experimental (IF) groups for vocabulary acquisition or reading comprehension. However, an additional analysis of the data was conducted based on learners disposition towards gaming (gamer vs non-gamer) which revealed that, in comparison to gamers, non-gamers found the interactive version of the story more enjoyable and easier to read. This suggests that students’ level of game literacy had an effect on their perceptions. We will introduce the IF tool (Twine) and offer a number of options for future research such as exploring the creation of more robust IF including more micro-level choices, choice impact on story progression, and the explicit use of target vocabulary.
Use Twine to create interactive stories, James shows coding, and then the result
This study addresses implications for professional development in the current pandemic by exploring novel practices in pre-service teacher education contexts and by emphasising future teachers’ skills and digital readiness. The study takes as an example the involvement by 22 university students (pre-service teachers of languages) at a European university in a hackathon, as part of their university curriculum. Hackathons are time-constrained events that bring together volunteers to address a problem or challenge, often with a social purpose (Gutiérrez, 2018). Adopting an action research approach (Colpaert, 2020; Luo & Gui, 2019), this study focuses on examining the student perceptions as well as the challenges in the design of a hackathon as a pre-service teacher training facility that took place in November 2020. Two mentors (university lecturers) provided conceptual and technical support throughout the process. The hackathon targeted the creation of plurilingual and pluricultural resources for L2 with an emphasis on digital activism and social participation. Groups in teams of 4 and 5 persons were engaged in this process using a variety of technologies (Slack, Google Drive, Zoom) to achieve their goals and all results were made openly available on the DigiEduHack website (cf. Solutions). The opportunities and drawbacks of pre-service teacher education (Hauck, 2015; Borg et al, 2014) through novel remote collaboration and co-creation possibilities will be discussed, as well as implications resulting from the integration of open innovation initiatives (as hackathons are) in standard university curricula and degrees.
In recent years the increase in the availability of computerized speech recognition and speech synthesis has lead to exciting possibilities in the field of foreign language learning. Computerized speech essentially represents a final stage in the development of a human-computer interface, and in this context, it offers substantial advantages over traditional touch-based interfaces which can eschew language altogether. One activity where this is particularly pertinent is in spaced-learning activities where traditionally students do not need to vocalize their responses, and indeed the responses are often not available to instructors at all. Speech Recognition has further benefits in that every utterance is immediately displayed for students, giving them a more accurate indication of their success with the tested language constructs. The advantage to instructors is in the ability for utterances to be stored as text in a database allowing computer analysis of speech patterns to discern common errors. As the 3rd year of a four-year cross-institutional research grant from the Japanese Government (Kakenhi), this paper will present a speech recognition and speech synthesis system developed by the author within the context of a spaced learning program. We will further show (a) a pattern analysis of the accuracy of the system and patterns of learner usage, (b) an analysis of the effectiveness of spaced-learning using online speaking on student outcomes over 3 institutions, (c) student feedback and reactions on speaking to a machine, (d) how the system deals with pronunciation.
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
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:
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
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
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
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:
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.
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/
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:
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.
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.
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
___________________________________________________________ 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 22:30 UTC
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.
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)
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.
___________________________________________________________ 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/
On Wednesday, May 19, 2021, Vance Stevens was invited, in conjunction with GDGoenka Uplearn Academy (in association with GDGoenka University) as a resource person from Education, to speak about Communities of practice for teachers: From Webheads in Action to EVO Minecraft MOOC as a part of their webinar series https://gdgoenkauniversity.com/school-of-basic-applied-sciences/gd-goenka-uplearn-academy/
This comment appeared the day following the webinar on the GD Goenka School of Education Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/soegdgu/
“Learning happens between and across communities, not just within them and is a continuous process…To create small scale change work through cohesive communities; to create big scale change, build a movement, by creating bridges between disconnected communities.” -Helen Bevan
Today’s economy runs on knowledge, and most companies work assiduously to capitalize on that fact. They use cross-functional teams, customer- or product-focused business units, and work groups—to name just a few organizational forms—to capture and spread ideas and know-how. In many cases, these ways of organizing are very effective, and no one would argue for their demise. But a new organizational form is emerging that promises to complement existing structures and radically galvanize knowledge sharing, learning, and change.
To bind together the shared expertise and a passion for a joint enterprise towards learning, School of Education at GD Goenka University organised a “Live Webinar for Specialized Learning – Communities of Practice for Teachers: From Webheads in Action to EVO Minecraft MOOC” in collaboration with GD Goenka Up Learn Academy on 19th May 2021, as a growing number of people and organizations in various sectors are now focusing on communities of practice as a key to improving their performance. The session was facilitated by Mr. Vance Stevens, Founder and Coordinator of Learning2gether.net, Penang, Malasia and Dr. Aabha Sharma, Head, SoEd, GDGU as the Moderator for the session.
The session explored the vast spread of trends transversely coming through in last 20 years and has witnessed new paradigms in education, addressing to how EdTech is disrupting the way students learn and introducing them to blended learning. On the other hand, skilling and entrepreneurship have become the buzzwords of education infused into the school curriculum and HEIs. The focus overall is on strengthening the innovation ecosystem and making education learner-centric.
A special focus on the strength of communities of practice as self-perpetuating. As they generate knowledge, they reinforce and renew themselves. That’s why communities of practice give you not only the golden eggs but also the goose that lays them. The farmer killed the goose to get all the gold and ended up losing both; the challenge for both the students & learners these days is to appreciate the goose and to understand how to keep it alive and productive.
Reflecting on the trends of the past and how they have impacted the modern world of Learning & Development helps us better understand the current learning environment. Integrating the successful trends which have now become mainstays in the different areas of learning allows teachers to keep their finger on the pulse and ensure the execution of a relevant learning program.
All you need to participate is a device with an internet connection. Once you sign up, instructions for joining the conversation will be emailed to you.
Fri 07 May 0100 UTC TESOL Career Path Development PLN hosts Lyzyl Lopez-Banuag – Flexible Teaching & Learning
Please join us for our next webinar with Dr. Lyzyl Lopez-Banuag who will discuss Flexible Teaching & Learning: Embracing the Better Normal in Education. This week, Thursday, May 06th at 9 PM Eastern time and Friday, May 07th at 9 AM Manila time.
Please join us for this year’s PennTESOL-East spring virtual conference focusing on the theme of “Discovering Effective Pedagogical Strategies for Today’s Language Learners.” This event is free and open to all. We will also be holding a Raffle, giving away 5 free TESOL Memberships to individuals who have never held a TESOL Membership or have not done so in the last five years! We hope to see you there.
Pre-Registration is NOT required for this event.
To enter the event on Saturday, May, please use the following link:
The only way they could improve on this would be if they would post the recordings afterwards!
___________________________________________________________ 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/
A dungeon in Minecraft is basically an air pocket near a cave containing a spawner and, usually, chests containing treasures of. They are generated naturally in the overworld through the game algorithm. The link above shows the picture here.
If you’ve been playing Minecraft for any amount of time you’ve likely come upon a spawner in a room like this. If there is only one spawner, and if you can successfully deal with whatever it’s spawning (like skeletons, zombies, spiders) you can plant a number of torches on or around it to neutralize it before looting whatever’s in the chests.
The dungeon we visited was strewn with spawners and was constructed in layers. A glass roof had been placed over the top and there was a stairway leading down to the first layer. There were boxes near the top containing diamond armor, diamond weapons and pickaxes, torches, buckets of water and milk (for dealing with blazes and spells), totems of undying (a charm you could carry conveying you its assigned power), food, and other things you might carry with you in case you survived long enough to manage to use them.
There were also beds at the top and before setting out we were advised to choose one and sleep in it so that your respawn point would be near the supply boxes and entrance to the dungeon, so you could re-equip and head back down if so inclined.
Before heading out, we all lined up for the requisite ‘those who are about to die’ selfie
As the hour wore on the boxes at the top became gradually depleted, but when players died in melee, whatever they were carrying or wearing would remain behind in a pile on the floor, and the ever helpful Dakotah Redstone was scooping these things up and taking them to the first level where he was putting them in chests there, so we could go there to resupply once the boxes at the top ran dry.
Dakotah set up a resupply station at the first level so that dropped items could be collected and recycled here
I think the first layer was meant to be benign but one of our group had spawned a few shulkers there so that when we started our adventure we came immediately under attack.
Creeper_Slayer was accused being caught in the act of spawning shulkers at the first level
Shulker bullets follow players they are aimed at, changing their trajectory at right angles. When they find their mark, the player loses some hearts and levitates. Since there was a glass ceiling overhead to prevent uncontrolled levitation, the fall when the levitation wore off was not serious.
Shulker bullets head for you but when you move they take a right angle turn and line up on you again
The goal of our adventure was to drop down through the layers of the ‘dungeon’ as many levels as possible. If you were among the first into a level you would find it dark and be set upon by whatever mobs were spawning there. I was an early arrival at the level shown in the picture below (second or third; I don’t remember exactly). The mobs came swarming at me before I was able to get down off the ladder I was descending. At first I tried fighting off the spiders and zombies, but their spawner is right there, on the right in this picture. Realizing I couldn’t fight off so many at once, in this picture I’m trying to eat to keep my hearts from going down to zero.
I’m carrying a totem of undying (on the left in my quick bar) but it seems that you can lose it when really near death, so possession of one of these just prolongs the inevitable.
In this picture, taken less than a minute after the one above, I’ve lost my totem and I’m being attacked by skeletons, blazes, something that is causing pink bubbles of dizziness, and the zombie at my elbow on my right.
I don’t have the combat skills to ward off so many adversaries at once. In these pictures, I’ve resorted to eating to restore my hearts (strength) while attempting to teleport to Bobbi Bear, who was in a safer place :-). However I must have been forced to move and the teleport didn’t work. Meanwhile I was set afire by blazes and being tormented by zombies.
In the end, I succumbed to a shulker bullet that’s teleporting right at me.
Once a number of players had visited a level, they tended to have placed torches for better lighting and culled out the monsters so they were not so numerous; which is to say you had a chance of spending a few minutes there before being overwhelmed. If you survived the few minutes and found the way down to the next level, you could proceed.
Here are a few obstacles I encountered along the way
I’ve attacked the first skeleton and caused it damage but I’m realizing don’t have enough hearts to sustain that effort through all 3 of them, so I’m scrolling through my quick bar items trying to find food (and taking pictures as well 🙂
DarkNight is sporting a quill of skeleton arrows, has been set afire in a blaze attack, and is about to be sent back up top by a creeper
I’m carrying ten torches. I’m going to lose them anyway. I should have placed them all over this spawner.
The piglins across the water are ignoring me because I am wearing gold boots. If you wear any item of gold armor, they leave you alone. The lone piglin on my side of the water can’t join the others because they can’t swim and will drown if submerged. Piglins spawn naturally in the Nether, so I don’t know what they are doing here. We don’t appear to be in the Nether, so they must have escaped from the Nether to the Overworld (happens sometimes) or been spawned here for our entertainment, by someone with a sadistic bent, or a sense of humor, or both.
In the larger picture on the left above, I am coming under attack from blazes on the left,. shulkers in the middle, and there is a skele walking around on the right who doesn’t seem to have noticed me yet.
In the pictures below I’m under attack from at least half a dozen blazes (framed in this one screenshot), and taking fire damage, in addition to being fired on by shulkers.
And at the end of all that, it’s time to enjoy the sunset with a little rest and recreation among friends back at the top, who would not be back there had they not suffered fates similar to mine.
Some Facebook reflections
VSTE promotion of the event
This started out with the normal confusion over what day it would be. VSTE always announces it for Monday:
Monday, May 3, 8 PM Eastern Daylight Savings time, though K2sons has got quite good at working out the time in the part of the world east of the Atlantic
Come to the Aster server when you get connected by typing /server Aster
Jazmar and K4sons will help you with armour and weapons if you come early!
When you arrive on Aster be sure to type in text that you want to be part of the VSTE event!
Type /tpask Jazmar or /tpaskK4sons to join us
We will head to a cool dungeon that we have unearthed for you to see clearly. You can stand on the glass ceiling and watch or help us clear it and share in the loot!
Don’t be late. This is super fun!
There is a limit to how many people can be on this server at once so come early if you are interested.
Fri 30 Apr noon UTC Q & A with Vance Stevens on the importance of learning about blended / hybrid / eLearning through engagement in communities of practice
Episode Abstract: This show will explore evolving notions of openness in the field of education.
David Wiley, Co-founder and Chief Academic Officer, Lumen Learning, has been a leader in the open education movement for over two decades. If an interesting or ground-breaking open education project has happened, David likely is aware of it and perhaps even participated in it to make it so. Want to learn about open textbook research? Why not? David and his colleague, John Hilton, have conducted tons of it. OpenCourseWare advocacy? Here too David led the charge. MOOCs? Well, now, prior to the MOOC craze in 2009, David opened up his classroom to the world community and gave out certificates to those who joined. Open educational resources entrepreneur? As per his bio, there is no other like him. Organizer of the openness movement? David founded the Open Education Conference. Come to this session and find out how you can get involved in helping the world become more free and open for learning. You will likely learn about unique resources created for this open world as well as new trends and possibilities.
Brief Bio: David Wiley is Chief Academic Officer and Co-founder of Lumen Learning, an organization dedicated to increasing student success and improving the affordability of education through the adoption of open educational resources by middle schools, high schools, community and state colleges, and universities. In addition to enhancing student success, Lumen is dedicated to reinvigorating pedagogy and improving the affordability of education using a combination of open educational resources, learning analytics, continuous improvement, and professional development.
David has been a Shuttleworth Fellow, Education Fellow at Creative Commons, and an adjunct faculty member in Brigham Young University’s graduate program in Instructional Psychology and Technology. He has received an NSF CAREER grant and was a Nonresident Fellow in the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School as well as a Peery Social Entrepreneurship Research Fellow in the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University. As a social entrepreneur, Dr. Wiley has founded or co-founded numerous entities including Lumen Learning, Degreed, and Open High School of Utah (now Mountain Heights Academy). In fact, in 2009, Fast Company named me one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business. David is adjunct faculty in Brigham Young University’s graduate program in Instructional Psychology and Technology, where he is part of the Open Education Group (and was previously a tenured Associate Professor). Notably, he recently became President Elect of AECT. He enjoys hiking, running, amateur radio, listening to and making music, reading, and playing basketball.
Recent Interview as President Elect of AECT (Association for Educational Communication and Technology)
Recent open access publication:
Bonk, C. J., & Wiley, D. (2020). Preface: Reflections on the waves of emerging learning technology. Educational Technology Research and Development (ETR&D), 68(4), 1595-1612. DOI 10.1007/s11423-020-09809-x. Available: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11423-020-09809-x.pdf
___________________________________________________________ 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/
On Friday, April 30, 2021, Vance Stevens gave a presentation on the importance of learning about blended and hybrid eLearning through engagement in communities of practice
Vance Stevens lives in Penang, Malaysia. Founder/coordinator of Webheads in Action and Learning2gether.net, he has produced over 500 podcast episodes since 2010. He has been On the Internet section editor of TESL-EJ since 2002. and has over 150 publications, many available at http://vancestevens.com/papers/, dealing with students using computers to learn languages and teachers learning to teach using technology by engaging in communities of practice and in participatory cultures. He has co-coordinated TESOL/CALL-IS Electronic Village Online (EVO) since 2003, and has co-moderated EVO Minecraft MOOC for the past 7 years. He was recently awarded the 2019 CALL Research Conference Lifetime Achievement Award.
You can follow the presentation slides here: http://bit.ly/blue2021vance Results from the Poll Everwhere survey and from the Padlet wall are included in the slides.
It was good to see Mike Kenteris and Benjamin Stewart there.
20:08:34 From Vance Stevens : http://bit.ly/blue2021vance 20:11:10 From Vance Stevens : https://pollev.com/vancestevens602 20:17:48 From Mona Zubi : Could we get all the links in the chat please? 20:17:58 From Mr Mike KEDU : http://bit.ly/blue2021vance https://pollev.com/vancestevens602 20:18:07 From Mona Zubi : Thank you! 20:18:33 From Sundos Ismail : I can’t have an access to the links 20:19:01 From Blue Ocean : try the one Mona put on FB 20:20:17 From Mona Zubi : You might need a VPN 😊 20:20:52 From Sundos Ismail : Okay… I’ll try thanks 20:28:53 From Benjamin : personal learning network 20:53:28 From Vance Stevens : https://padlet.com/vancestev/ebh7f8uhx7q9bkqa 21:05:49 From Mr Mike KEDU : https://msp2l1160225102310.blob.core.windows.net/ms-p2-l1-160225-1023-13-assets/18261_8%20Learning%20Communities%20and%20Support_v3_en-US.pdf 21:09:33 From Benjamin : Thank you Vance for a great talk! 21:10:10 From Benjamin : To be autonomous: build a personal learning network. 21:11:02 From Benjamin : Perhaps those in your PLN are those you work with while others might come from building professional relationships with those outside your workplace. 21:11:20 From Benjamin : A PLN involves setting personal and professional goals. 21:12:26 From Benjamin : Connecting with others and sharing and reflecting on your own teaching and learning practice is key. 21:17:26 From Benjamin : Thanks everyone!
Promotion of Blue Oceans webinars, and Feedback
April 16-May 7 – 2nd international online TESOL conference – Blue Ocean Language School in Damascus
The second international online TESOL conference organized by Blue Ocean Language School in Damascus with many international speakers in the line-up took place in Zoom, hosted by Safwan A. Kadoura
Wed 28 Apr noon UTC – Claire Bradin Siskin on Demystifying Digital Literacy and Autonomous Learning
The ELC PD Committee at University of Technology and Applied Sciences-Ibri, Oman cordially invites you to join a webinar on Wednesday 28 April 2021 at 04:00 pm Oman Local Time (GMT+4)
Claire Bardin Siskin (USA) will speak on the topic: Demystifying Digital Literacy and Autonomous Learning
___________________________________________________________ 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/
Sat 17 April 1400 UTC Vance Stevens Keynote on Virtual Words at Virtual Conferences
I’ve been asked to speak at the VirtuaTeLL conference TeLL SIG at NYS TESOL #vtcon2021. The conference theme is: Equity, Access, and the Digital Divide: Challenges and Opportunities for Language Learning and Teaching. The event is scheduled for April 17th from 9 am to 7 pm EST virtually.
I was told I was invited to present because “Your EVOs on Minecraft have always been inspiring to many attendees”
Title of my talk
Virtual Words at Virtual Conferences
Summary
With the onset of COVID-19 and the continuing need to move both teaching and professional encounters online, novel approaches providing effective ways of doing both are gaining increased attention. One such approach is an exploration of alternative online environments, such as virtual worlds. There was of course considerable work being done in virtual environments long before COVID-19 became a factor, but now it is becoming the norm for conferences once held exclusively face to face to be moved entirely online, as is the case for classroom environments. As should be obvious, development in classroom approaches to remote teaching can be modeled for teachers in virtual conferences, and vice versa as regards virtual classrooms providing models for how virtual conferences might most successfully be run.
Taken from these perspectives, this talk takes a look at online versions of major conferences, in particular the TESOL 2021 Virtual Conference just ended, and its parallel track implemented and managed by the CALL-IS Interest Section in TESOL.
The focus of my discussion will be the Virtual Worlds presentations offered in the CALL-IS Electronic Village venues, with presentations and tours in Second Life / Open Sim and Minecraft. This talk will suggest that, apart from how such presentations are aimed at showing language teachers how they might incorporate virtual words into their online or blended teaching, organizers of major conferences would do well to borrow from what presenters are modeling at their events.
Slides I encourage participants to follow my presentation slides online, and click on the hyperlinks during my presentation http://bit.ly/vtcon2021vance
___________________________________________________________ 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/
Getting Started in Minecraft: Surviving and Thriving
This live demo shows where to get Minecraft, how to set it up, and then how to cope with the most daunting moment newcomers to Minecraft will likely face when joining a survival server for the first time: arrival in a strange world without resources, making shelter, crafting tools, surviving the night, and thriving thereafter.
Even on servers with protected spawn points, players may face this challenge when moving into the world beyond. You’ll learn about arrival, survival, and developing strategies for thriving in Minecraft by finding food and wool for a bed to return you to a predictable point after mishap, and keeping materials there to avoid having to restart from scratch. With a successful strategy, the game becomes enjoyably challenging. All you need now is a community where you can scaffold one another into becoming ever more proficient in understanding the depth of this powerful learning platform and how you might apply it to your professional context.
After explaining the difference between Java and Bedrock versions of Minecraft, and how to obtain and configure the Java version, I demonstrated in my demo how to arrive in world for the first time, chop trees, make a crafting table, craft a pickaxe, mine cobblestone, make a furnace, create charcoal from a tree log, make torches, complete my shelter, put a door on it, and light the shelter with torches — all in the ten minutes I had to work before nightfall. That left Bobbi Bear and I safe for the night in our secure shelter where we would be just fine until we starved (players have to eat) or gone outside, had an accident, and had to respawn. Respawn means you return to the game, but lose whatever you were carrying before your demise, and you respawn to a random spot somewhere near our original spawn point. But to get control over where we respawned, we could make a bed and put it in the shelter so that we would respawn each time inside the safe shelter.
To make a bed we would need some wool, and until we could find iron and make a set of sheep shears, the quickest way to get wool is to sacrifice a few lambs in the meadows. When you kill them with your sword, they drop wool and meat, and three of them produce enough wool to make a bed, and also leave you a bit of raw lamb meat, which you can cook in the furnace, and eat. So I Bobbi Bear and I went out into the meadows, found a few sheep, and dispatched three of them This raised a hue and cry from the participants, some of whom did not like the idea of taking out a few digital avatars representing sheep just in order to get their wool.
But we were able to craft a bed and put it in the shelter, and when I clicked on it, it became my “bed spawn”. Now we had a strategy; we could accumulate things in a chest we had left the shelter, go outside and mine minerals and accumulate more resources to expand our domain, leave some of these things behind in the shelter, carry just what you need outside, and if something bad happens to you, you end up back inside your shelter, bereft of what you were carrying, but with a chest in the shelter containing whatever you had left there against this eventuality.
Heike asked to be shown what would happen if I got killed, and I agreed to show her. It was night time and I started walking in the darkness. I expected to be caught by a zombie or a skeleton but instead I walked over a trench and ended up in the bottom of it. Unusually, there were no monsters to be found there and I could see no immediate way out (apart from hacking steps up and out, which would have taken time), and no way to commit suicide there, so Bobbi offered to teleport to me and kill me quickly with her sword.
This had the desired effect. I “died” (only temporarily) and respawned back in the shelter where I had created the bed crafted from the three pretend digital sheep we had killed earlier. Heike’s question was answered, but interestingly, there was no hue and cry from the participants this time. The slaughter of three digital sheep was apparently more wrenching than witnessing the slaughter of a digital human. That’s what TV has done to us.
Another interesting thing was that Bobbi was able to retrieve my ‘skull’ after she killed me. Here she has it in her hand and can view it in her inventory (when she mouses over it in her inventory, it tells her that it is the skull of Teacher Vance).
In the last picture she’s thrown it onto the floor where you can see that it indeed looks like me (or like my avatar). I had never seen a player’s skull in Minecraft before. In Minecraft, you learn something new each time you play (but try not to lose your head over it).
19:34:40 From Heike Philp : wow Vance you are so fast!!!
19:34:50 From Heike Philp : in only 10min you created all this?
19:34:53 From Heike Philp : incredible
19:35:29 From Georgia Maneta : Lots of homework again Heike and attendees!
19:35:52 From Heike Philp : what Vance is doing in 15min took me 3 weeks!
19:37:09 From Chris C : I can imagine it would take me 3 months! Could we ask how long it has taken Vance to become this proficient?
19:41:29 From Heike Philp : haha
19:41:56 From Heike Philp : this does not give you the right to slaughter them!
19:42:09 From Heike Philp : I am a vegan in Minecraft
19:43:26 From Heike Philp : a bed!
19:46:41 From Heike Philp : haha
19:47:04 From Andrea Kovács : I remember following my son as he was playing as a teenager with his friends. (almost 8 years ago)! I was very happy ’cause while playing, they were speaking on Skype about all kinds of serious topics and were collaborating so nicely in building their “dream house”!
19:47:37 From Georgia Maneta : Videogames DO have advantages Andrea I guess…
19:47:48 From Heike Philp : ahhh
19:51:05 From Andrea Kovács : Yes, and they were speaking in English, that was one of the advantages too! I was very happy about it, ’cause he didn’t really liked to speak with me, the teacher!
19:51:12 From Michael Birch : Vance is invancible.
19:51:30 From Andrea Kovács : like
19:54:12 From Georgia Maneta : Yes Andrea! My son managed to speak also in English!
19:55:56 From Andrea Kovács : WoW! I like the sustainability idea!
19:57:28 From Heike Philp : brilliant!
19:57:31 From Zeynab Moosavi : Thank you so much dear Vance, you are amazing…
19:57:53 From Amal Abdulhaleem Al-Hakimi : Thank you
19:58:06 From Andrea Kovács : Thank you, it was amazing!
19:59:10 From Chris C : Thanks very much for this…. really impressive to watch.
19:59:41 From Heike Philp : Ever so well done – exactly what I was hoping for – a real new user guide
19:59:54 From BARBARA STEVENS : Glad you all enjoyed it!
19:59:58 From Minnie : Great, thank you Vance and Barbara!
20:10:30 From Vance Stevens : Here is the wiki where I explain through 13 video snippets how they relate to the affordances of Minecraft which I mentioned http://evomc21classics.pbworks.com/
20:12:28 From Adrijana Rozdijevac : Thank you, Vance!
20:13:36 From Sana Nasfi : I missed yesterday session unfortunately. Where could I find the recording, please ?
She invited all to come and join her for a tools festival, app swap party and games con! Tools, apps and games for language education. We love them!
Tools for teaching and learning a language, for student engagement communication apps for parents, lesson planning software, games, apps for assessment, learning management systems, websites, webservices, professional development qualifications and much more.
Heike did a great job promoting and delivering this conference. She streamed to Facebook via Zoom and simultaneously to YouTube by capturing the stream from Facebook and streaming that out via OBS. As always she crowdsourced her program, added Zoom links, and followed that up with links to presenters’ slides and other materials as well as with YouTube recording links posted right below where there presentations appeared in the program. She placed all of the videos in an amazing resource: the 12th Virtual Round Table 2021 YouTube playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLugizRwFVygRYQHFa65q1ozFO5lRp0K-z
She also released some impressive statistics corroborating the impact of her efforts: 1598 participants – 412 in Zoom, plus 824 watching on Facebook, and 591 on YouTube.
Sat 10 April 0700 Peter Omal hosts adobe Indesign free webinar
The time given is Jamaica time, meeting in Zoom
Sat 10 April Nazarbayev University’s Writing Talks series of free webinars
Jane Hoelker was promoting the Nazarbayev University’s Writing Talks free webinars offered starting April 3 at 10:45 AM and ending at 11:30 AM . The time zone is not specified, but here is the info.
NU Writing Talks, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
Join the free professional development online lectures called Writing Talks hosted by Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. Every Saturday in April a different topic will be discussed by a new Panel from 11:00 to 12:30. (April 3rd begins at 10:45 with Welcome.)
The Writing Center Program (WCP) at Nazarbayev University is pleased to announce the first edition of NU Writing Talks, a symposium dedicated to all aspects of academic writing and open to all perspectives on the teaching and learning of writing in English for academic and STEM research purposes. The aim of these webinars is to share experience and resources to support a wide range of learning outcomes and activities, across disciplines and institutions.
Symposium events will take place this coming April 3, 10, 17 and 24.
Recording in English, Russian and Kazakh will be made available after the live session.
Sat 10 April 1300-1500 UTC – VSTE Second Life Saturdays – repeats each Saturday
Below are directions for joining the VSTE VE PLN in Second Life and Minecraft
Basic directions to join VSTE Spaces
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/
and voila! Look for an avatar on VSTE Island and say, “Hey, I’m new!” We will take care of the rest.
Tue 13 Apr 11 am EDT Joe McVeigh and Sandra Story – Faces and Places across the United States
Here is a great opportunity for you (or your students) to practice your English and learn a little bit about the United States. On Tuesday, 13 April at 11:00 a.m. EDT (UTC-4) I will be in conversation with Sandra Story from the U.S. Department of State as part of a series called Faces and Places across the United States. I’ll be talking about my home state of Vermont and what life is like here. To be sure that the conversation is accessible to intermediate level students, we’ll try to keep the language from getting too complicated. The conversation will be held live on Facebook at this address: https://www.facebook.com/AmericanEnglishatState. I hope you can join us! If you’d like to share this opportunity with friends, colleagues, and students. In cast you aren’t free at the time of the live conversation, a recording will be made available on YouTube afterwards.
___________________________________________________________ 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/
This recording was made in Zoom by APACALL, the Asia-Pacific Association for Computer-Assisted Language Learning, at a free Webinar held on Friday, 9 April 2021 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm AEST (time in Brisbane, Australia). The webinar was organized by Jeong-Bae Son, president of APACALL, https://www.apacall.org/, who hosted the one-day conference, and webcast it via Zoom.
The screenshot below was taken at the start of the conference:
Phil Hubbard led us off, followed by Claire Bradin Siskin
And then it was my turn
Vance Stevens was invited to talk on Engaging Teachers and Learners in EVO Minecraft MOOC
I was asked to be an invited speaker for the webinar. I gave a 30-minute live talk and sat for a few minutes of Q & A afterwards.
Here is my brief Abstract:
The speaker founded the Electronic Village Online (EVO) Minecraft Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) community of practice in 2015 as a way to help teachers learn Minecraft through collaborative projects with peers. Lately, young learners have become markedly more involved with EVOMC. This talk discusses various ways we engage and learn from our younger community members.
I invited those present to follow these slides during the presentation, with all hyperlinks live: http://bit.ly/apacall2021vance
If you reach one you’ll find a link to the other, in case you forget if the bit.ly link is apacall2021vance or vance2021apacall
Either will work 🙂
Promotion and Feedback
The following announcement was posted on the Facebook pages indicated below
Just a few hours to go now before the start of the #APACALL free web conference on April 9, starting at the stroke of midnight UTC.
The program at https://www.apacall.org/events/webinars/2021/APACALL_Webinar_2021_Program.pdf features 3 invited speakers at the start of the day, Phil Hubbard, Claire Bradin Siskin, and Vance Stevens. Vance will talk about engaging teachers and learners through the EVO Minecraft MOOC community. The entire event wraps up at 08:00 UTC with a presentation followed by a panel hosted by webinar organizer, Jong-Bae Son.
Mon 29 March 2300 UTC -VSTE Swap Meet in Second Life
VSTE Swap Meet in Second Life
We will show you how to create a giver box and put in it five things you have to share. If you don’t have anything we can help with that, too. We will each get five fun things from each other and have fun exploring them.
Basic directions to join VSTE Space in Second Life
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/ When you do this your avatar’s “home” is set to be the Rockcliffe University’s sim, bypassing the normal Second Life welcome area.
Download and install Second Life viewer software. You will be directed to download the Second Life viewer but we prefer the Firestorm viewer at https://www.firestormviewer.org/. Either one will work but Firestorm has some advantages.
When you are ready to join us, while your Second Life viewer (software) is open, click this linkhttp://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Soulgiver/155/144/58 to teleport yourself to VSTE Space. Look for an avatar and say, “Hey, I’m new!” We will take care of the rest. Someone is there most Saturday mornings from 9 to 11 AM Eastern Time (Same as New York).
Sat 3 April 1300-1500 UTC – VSTE Second Life Saturdays – repeats each Saturday
Below are directions for joining the VSTE VE PLN in Second Life and Minecraft
Basic directions to join VSTE Spaces
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/
and voila! Look for an avatar on VSTE Island and say, “Hey, I’m new!” We will take care of the rest.
Sat 03 Apr 1700 UTC – TESOL Career Path Development Professional Learning Network Tea Party
TESOL Career Path Development Professional Learning Network Tea Party. Join us on Saturday, April 3rd, 1 PM ET for an informal chat to share experiences and ideas for our CPD Post-TESOL Convention 2021 Tea. All are welcome. Attend with your favorite cup of tea! No pre-registration required.
Tue 06 April 0100 UTC Minecraft Mondays Visits AZCraft (Part 1)
This takes place on Monday, April 5th 8 PM Eastern time, 5 PM SLT, Midnight UTC
We will visit a different Minecraft server that K4 and Jaz have been enjoying.
If everyone likes it maybe we can pursue bringing some of the mobs to VSTE Place: an economy, dungeons, voting for rewards?
What actually happened?
I arrived a little late for this one, and by then the crowd had all moved off to WoW (World of Warcraft)
However., they were planning to meet the following week in AZcraft, so Dakota Redstone offered to take me to the server they would be using and get me set up there. Here are some screenshots from that:
Dakota and Dragoslayer show me their humble abodes:
Dragoslayer mounts a skeleton horse in the corner of one of the builds
Dokotah and Dragoslayer kindly help me lay claim to a parcel of land and establish myself there:
I’ll be back before the next Minecraft Monday, first Monday in May.
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.
Make sure you have installed and are running version 1.16.5
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.
VSTE uses its Discord server for voice communication while playing Minecraft
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.
It helps us to be able to play Minecraft in one screen and listen via Discord with earbuds or headphones.
___________________________________________________________ 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/
