Minecraft Monday usually takes place on the first Monday of every month at 8 PM in Virginia. But Virginia is 4 hours behind UTC so this is on Tuesday throughout the Old World and Africa, all the way through Asia and Australia. So this one took place on April 6 or April 7, 2020, depending on whether you live in the Old or New World.
It started with this announcement from K4sons
It’s that time again! Minecraft Monday for April 2020 will be fishing data collection. This is an idea you can replicate with your students! We will meet in survival on VSTE Place and go fishing. We will record time of day, weather, type of rods, and items caught. Everyone will tally their catches in groups of ten. There will be a google spreadsheet to enter your results. What will we learn? Do you get more fish, treasure, or trash? Do we even agree on which items are treasure or trash? Are enchanted fishing rods really better than others? Let’s find out! When you get into VSTE Place type /warp survival to meet up with us.
How to Join
To join our Minecraft server please email K4sons@gmail.com or lwalconc@gmail.com. If this is your first time, we need your Mojang Minecraft user name and your real name. Thank you for your interest! I will add you to the server in just a moment. The VSTE Place IP address is 69.175.17.26:25565 If you experience any difficulty, please let me know. As a reminder, this server is for educators. If you are using your child’s account to participate please do not encourage your child to use our server. We are currently using version 1.15.2.
To chat in Minecraft type T which brings up a line you can type in.
For voice we use Discord. Install it on your computer or mobile device. Our Discord channel is VSTE VEPLN Chat server. We can send you an invite to the channel through Minecraft the day of the meeting. If you have a discord account and have it live, just click the link we post and you will be able to join us.
In the image below you see the channel icon (red arrow), the audio channel (blue arrow), the chat window (blue box blurred), and friends list (green box blurred). This is how it looks on my PC. It looks a little different on mobile devices.
What we did here on this Minecraft Monday
When we arrived in world and got to talking in Discord we all wandered down to the pier where we found chests full of various paraphernalia. We were instructed to fetch a fishing rod from one of the chests, like the one in my hand in the picture above, and then instructed in its use. To wit, while holding it in your hand, right click to cast it, watch the floater as it bubbles in the water until it gets pulled under, then immediately right click to haul in your catch. Whatever you catch appears in your inventory.
It took me a while to get the hang of it. I failed at first to notice when the floater went briefly underwater, and you have to pull your line in at just that moment, or the fish gets away. So at first I thought maybe I should get in a boat and go out further than the pier and try.
Sometimes I’d see what appeared to be a fish swim up to my hook in a swirl of bubbles, as in the picture below, but I think I was expecting to see my floater disappear. It never happened like that. Not having the hang of it, I missed the moment when it dipped underwater, and I never managed to catch anything this way.
One nice thing about being in a boat is you can come closer to your floater and use F5 to change your viewpoint to where you can monitor your hook underwater, but here again, the floater might have dipped, but I never saw anything come up to the hook.
Eventually I got the hang of it. Cast your line, wait about minute, catch the moment when the floater sinks (and there is a sound as well) and then right click to reel it in. Your catch appears in any empty pocket in your hot bar or inventory. You can see your line extended from your rod as in the picture below. Also in the picture are one of my co-moderators Jane from EVO Minecraft MOOC, and also my wife and also co-moderator, Bobbibear.
After you’ve caught ten items, be they fish or lily pad, or old boot, you walk your catch back over to where the chests are and find one with a blank sign on it. I didn’t know how to write on a blank sign but after destroying it and picking up the pieces and getting the sign into my inventory and planting it in the sand next to my chest, someone saw what I was doing and explained that to write on a sign on a chest, you SHIFT-click on it. That’s a good trick I hadn’t known about before.
If I had been a student in a class sent out on a fishing expedition in Minecraft I think I would have learned even more from the second phase of the activity. We were directed to look in the Discord chat stream to find the link to a Google Sheet on which anyone could write, and record our first ten items caught there. The data from all the catches as well as other factors, whether it was raining or clear, night or day, etc. were there in the spreadsheet for anyone to analyze in whatever way might be appropriate for that class. Thus we participated in a good example of how Minecraft could be used to collect, record, and analyze data, for a wide range of potential learning purposes.
Here’s what I put in my chest, 10 things caught, organized into types of items so I could enter them in the spreadsheet:
Here were the instructions from Discord, and the Google Sheet where people were recording their data.
After an hour we all gathered on the pier for a group photo
As we were leaving, someone in Discord said they were on the VSTE Minecraft server almost every morning their time, and we’d be welcome to drop in if we wanted to play, uh, I mean LEARN, more. I immediately thought that we might want to get them involved in TALIN and I’ll pursue this with them later, but I left them this note Discord.
If you want to propose an event which you would facilitate but which I could host in Zoom if needed (or which could be in Minecraft and Discord, and I could try to record it), then
Click on “Request Edit Access” to the left of your profile picture at the top of the page
Wait for approval
Write in your event on the schedule. Give the time in UTC if you can, and give the time in your location also as a double check on time
You can host the event yourself, but if you want me to host it and promote it, please allow enough time to check that I am available, at least a few days in advance.
If I don’t see you there then maybe see you Monday / Tuesday a month from now for the next episode of VSTE Minecraft Mondays.
Earlier events
Mon 6 April noon UTC Vance Stevens and Michael Coghlan host weekly Webeads in Action – TALIN hangout meeting
Calling all Webheads. Join us for another Zoom meeting on Monday, April 6th at Noon UTC to talk about Life in the Time of COVID 19 – an opportunity to spend some time together and talk about how you’re spending your lockdown days. Or anything else that may be on your mind 🙂 In Vance’s Zoom Room
This was the second of what we hope will become a revival of the regular Webheads in Action weekly meetings that were held regularly for the first decade of this century in various online spaces, traditionally at noon UTC on Sundays.
These meetings tend to be free-form and are tailored to the interests of whomever turns up, but If anyone asks, Vance can explain TALIN – Teaching and Learning in IsolatioN https://tinyurl.com/talin2020
Zoom Chat Logs and screenshots
20:13:11 From ElizabethA : Some thing I saw Yesterday about the Spanish flu
20:13:27 From ElizabethA : a: more people dies than in the wa
20:13:36 From ElizabethA : It started in Arkansas
20:13:46 From Lorena Zurbano Ruiz-Casaux : yes it must have been awful
20:14:00 From Lorena Zurbano Ruiz-Casaux : did it?
20:14:11 From Chris Fry : chat is messy on an iPad
20:16:42 From Vance Stevens : Hi Chris 🙂
20:17:53 From Vicky Saumell : I think each educational level has its specific problems. I’m teaching primary at the moment….
20:18:55 From Vance Stevens : what issues are you facing Vicky?
20:21:44 From RitaZ : true, Vicky
20:23:35 From Vance Stevens : sorry, I wasn’t watching the waiting room
20:23:40 From tom : Here is a url. I made a Google doc.
20:23:41 From tom : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XUm0Gj2pyPMR_Fednr01kx_JcRoapbCiVdbGcTy2YDg/edit
20:23:44 From ElizabethA : Did you hear about “houseparty ” being called dangerous …. urban myth
20:23:46 From Helaine Marshall : YES – synchronous is priceless!!!
20:24:11 From Hala Fawzi : Can I share schools’ experience
20:24:18 From ElizabethA : that was before they started calling out Zoom
20:24:37 From nour-eddine laouni to Vance Stevens(Privately) : Hi Vance, I really would love to tell you about the situation in Morocco. I have a google classroom now . I’ll get back you with some questions regarding some shortcomings that my trainees find in google classroom – sorry I missed seeing this … next week perhaps? – Vance
20:24:47 From Michael Coghlan : Good to know Elizabeth – my nephews are using Houseparty
20:25:27 From carlaarena to Vance Stevens(Privately) : Hey, Vance. Don’t know why I can’t hear you. Will leave and get back here. I tested audio and it seems ok, but no luck!
20:25:50 From ElizabethA : Did you hear the company has offered a 1 million dollar reward to find out where the rumour started ! (now THAT sounds fishy LOL)
20:26:02 From Vicky Saumell : ha ha
20:27:11 From RitaZ : thank you, Tom, will take a closer look at what you shared
20:27:46 From RitaZ : I do believe G Classroom is a great option
20:28:14 From ElizabethA : It’s incredible how Zoom is holding up ! So many people are using it
20:28:33 From Michael Coghlan : Yes – quite amazing!
20:28:34 From Chris Fry : https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/ an open source alternative to zoom. I only heard about it this morning
20:28:43 From Vicky Saumell : Yes, Elizabeth, I’ve had minor crashes only
20:28:49 From RitaZ : Skype is also good now…, getting more reliable
20:28:56 From Susan Marandi : Hi everybody! 🙂
20:29:03 From Vance Stevens : all urls posted here will be shared in the archive at https://learning2gether.net
20:29:11 From Vicky Saumell : Keeping a routine is important
20:29:12 From Vance Stevens : Hi Susan
20:29:13 From Susan Marandi : Once again, I’m fashionably late! 😉
20:30:28 From Vance Stevens : at least you’re using the right camera 🙂
20:30:42 From Susan Marandi : LOL, don’t remind me! 😀
20:31:05 From Susan Marandi : Not wearing jammies today, just in case …
20:31:35 From Hala Fawzi : Hello Suzan
20:31:49 From Susan Marandi : Hi Hala; missed you soooo much! 🙂
20:32:12 From Hala Fawzi : Same here dear, sooo much missed
20:32:41 From nour-eddine laouni : Hi everyone
20:32:59 From Vance Stevens : welcome Nour-eddine
20:32:59 From ElizabethA : CARLA ! CARLA !
20:33:10 From Michael Coghlan : Hello Nour – where are you?
20:33:18 From Susan Marandi : Hi Nour-eddine, welcome!
20:33:21 From nour-eddine laouni : Thank you Vance
20:33:28 From Susan Marandi : yes
20:33:29 From Sus Nyrop : my younger granddaughter age 8m is on a private school following the ideas of Celestin Freinet where students are supposed to make their own personal schedule. She is doing amazingly well!
20:33:34 From Susan Marandi : yes
20:33:55 From Teresa : hi clarinha!
20:34:08 From Vicky Saumell : That’s very interesting Sus! Would love to hear more about it
20:34:30 From Chris Fry : I’m trying to put extracts from the notes I take about all the webinars I attend about teaching onlin https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g9CucoAODZStuzDytlkyMg39KKhQjcOi32unpIba3Sw e
20:34:31 From Hala Fawzi : Hello Carla 🙂
20:34:39 From Susan Marandi : I agree, Vicky
20:34:42 From Vicky Saumell : Thanks, Chris
20:35:13 From Vance Stevens : There’s been a request for more about this from Sus, Celestin Freinet where students are supposed to make their own personal schedule.
20:35:52 From Hala Fawzi : LOL
20:36:24 From Michael Coghlan : Good doc Chris – correct URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g9CucoAODZStuzDytlkyMg39KKhQjcOi32unpIba3Sw
20:39:58 From Vicky Saumell : Hi, Carla!
20:40:02 From Susan Marandi : That sounds like so much fun! Won’t they have any standardized tests later on?
20:40:17 From Teresa : ola carlinha!
20:40:47 From Michael Coghlan : https://ecovillage.org/solution/freinet-pedagogy/
20:41:23 From Michael Coghlan : Helloooooo Carla 🙂
20:41:39 From RitaZ : thank you Michael
20:41:42 From Susan Marandi : Hi Carla! 🙂
20:42:29 From Nina Liakos : Celestin FREINET
20:42:32 From Chris Fry : I’m trying out the idea of using my mobile phone to chat, as on my ipad the chat covers most of the screen
20:42:59 From Nina Liakos : Chris, you can adjust the size of the chat screen once you’ve detached it.
20:43:40 From Nina Liakos : Get out of full screen view first
20:44:25 From Susan Marandi : Congrats!
20:44:32 From Chris Fry : I can’t on my ipad or at least I can’t see how. On a computer it’s all easier
20:46:12 From Nina Liakos : True, I always forget that
20:46:13 From Helaine Marshall : All I can discover is that you can maximize the chat – and then pull it to make a vertical strip the full height of the screen
20:46:47 From Nina Liakos : Yes that’s what I’ve done, I have it running along the entire right side of the screen
20:46:54 From Sus Nyrop : I want to add that the Freinet school was early on adapting technology, such as tape recurring and photography, sending books and pictures to other s friendship schools around the country (and other parts of the world). lMuch later France was rashly on having a teletext based info and exchange system, meaNING THAT ORDINARY PEOPLE AND SCHOOLS WERE SO READY TO ADAPT THE INTERNET IN THE CLASSROOM.
20:47:05 From Lorena Zurbano Ruiz-Casaux : This a link to Sir Ken Robinson’s podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5BX8jtzLTw
20:47:13 From Sus Nyrop : (TAPE RECORDING, sorry)
20:47:28 From Susan Marandi : Thanks, Sus
20:47:45 From Hala Fawzi : This interesting, Carla
20:48:16 From Vicky Saumell : Carla, is it for all the subjects?
20:48:48 From Sus Nyrop : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9lestin_Freinet
20:49:28 From nour-eddine laouni : How can we as teachers benefit from your programs of professional development ?
20:49:52 From Susan Marandi to Vance Stevens(Privately) : Vance, whenever the time was appropriate, I’d like to briefly share some news about my own uni.
20:50:17 From nour-eddine laouni : Hi Carla , How can we enroll in one of your programs
20:50:47 From Vicky Saumell : The TPACK
20:50:55 From nour-eddine laouni : TPACK
20:51:12 From Vance Stevens : TPAC link?
20:51:43 From nour-eddine laouni : Agree
20:51:45 From RitaZ : sorry, guys, need to go, have another meeting with a sponsor I have, to start a series of webinars in Spanish, on Google Classroom
20:51:49 From Vicky Saumell : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_pedagogical_content_knowledge
20:51:56 From Susan Marandi : Bye Rita!
20:51:59 From Michael Coghlan : Bye Rita 😉
20:52:05 From RitaZ : will hopefully see you soon again!
20:52:12 From Vicky Saumell : Bye, Rita!
20:52:15 From nour-eddine laouni : Can I ask you a question Carla?
20:52:17 From Vance Stevens : bye rita
20:52:55 From Vicky Saumell : http://www.tpack.org/
20:53:01 From Vance Stevens : 🙂
20:53:24 From Chris Fry : What sort of ratio of work offline to work online?
20:54:09 From Hala Fawzi : Bye Rita
20:54:49 From Vicky Saumell : to standardize the process
20:56:09 From Hala Fawzi : Vance, why don’t we have session only for Carla to tell us more about this project? This is of interest to many here
20:56:27 From Claire Siskin : Portuguese would be fine, Carla!!
20:56:31 From Michael Coghlan : Sustainability goals – https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/28253732953/in/photolist-K3FLsM-KZ25gn
20:56:35 From Vance Stevens : Laine is giving a presentation for TALIN on April 4, TALIN – Teaching and Learning in IsolatioN, https://tinyurl.com/talin2020
20:56:53 From ElizabethA : Having been out of teaching for some 4-5 years I am having difficulty trying to teach ONE forteen year old !!!
20:57:01 From Claire Siskin : Vance, it is already April 6!
20:57:11 From Nina Liakos : I’m with you, ELizabeth.
20:57:18 From ElizabethA : Just finding short (repeat short) videos to talk about
20:57:48 From ElizabethA : TRYING to find approriate short videos to talk about
20:58:03 From Vance Stevens : more info about Laine’s talk at the TALIN site
20:58:45 From tom : That’s very NYS of you! 🙂
20:59:06 From Susan Marandi : SOFLA?
20:59:24 From Hala Fawzi : When is the webinar?
20:59:31 From nour-eddine laouni : What are the steps plz?
21:00:05 From nour-eddine laouni : the link plz?
21:00:05 From Chris Fry : Elizabeth, film English by Kieran https://film-english.com/
21:00:12 From Susan Marandi : playposit?
21:00:14 From aiden yeh : she’ll talk about it on her webinar
21:00:15 From Nina Liakos : playposit?
21:00:34 From aiden yeh : interesting
21:00:45 From Hala Fawzi : https://go.playposit.com/
21:00:54 From Vance Stevens : more about SOFLA, http://learning2gether.pbworks.com/w/page/32206114/volunteersneeded#Tue14April1400UTCLaineMarshallpresentsSOFLAnbspSynchronousOnlineFlippedLearningnbspApproach
21:01:04 From ElizabethA : tom – still trying to work out NYS
21:01:13 From Vance Stevens : nice?
21:01:26 From ElizabethA : thx chris – site marked
21:01:52 From Helaine Marshall : playposit.com
21:02:05 From Helaine Marshall : http://playposit.com
21:03:05 From ElizabethA : repeat “That’s very NYS of you! :-)” ????
21:04:07 From Claire Siskin : applause for Susan!
21:04:27 From Hala Fawzi : Mbrook Suzan
21:04:43 From Susan Marandi : Thanks, everybody! 🙂
21:05:12 From Helaine Marshall : anyone heard from Daf?
21:05:13 From tom : NYS = New York State TESOL
21:08:31 From Hala Fawzi : Link, please?
21:08:35 From Hala Fawzi : To the podcst
21:08:42 From Hala Fawzi : podcast
21:09:19 From Anne Fox : foxdenuk@gmail.com to be on the absolutely-intercultural.com podcast
21:10:58 From aiden yeh : if you’re free Wednesday evening 11 UTC you could join me online and my small group of national athletes- runners, learning English
21:11:02 From Claire Siskin : either day ok with me
21:11:06 From Hala Fawzi : lol
21:11:35 From Susan Marandi : I have French classes Sundays, so Monday is a bit better
21:12:23 From Susan Marandi : what’s the venue, Aiden?
21:12:38 From Vicky Saumell : Interesting! can you share the link>
21:13:15 From Vance Stevens : TALIN – Teaching and Learning in IsolatioN, https://tinyurl.com/talin2020
21:13:37 From Hala Fawzi : I need to go, sadly
21:13:50 From Claire Siskin : Bye Hala!!
21:13:52 From Hala Fawzi : It was great to met you all tody
21:13:54 From ElizabethA : BYE Hala
21:14:00 From Hala Fawzi : See you around 🙂
21:14:09 From Susan Marandi : Bye Hala!
21:14:13 From Hala Fawzi : Stay safe!
21:14:40 From carlaarena : Carla Arena – Brasilia, Brazil
21:14:41 From Vance Stevens : Penang Malaysia
21:14:41 From Teresa : Lisbon, Portugal
21:14:42 From Hala Fawzi : Bahrain
21:14:43 From Michael Coghlan : Adekaide, Australia
21:14:44 From Nina Liakos : Gaithersburg Maryland (outside of Washington DC
21:14:45 From Chris Fry : Spain, Barcelona
21:14:46 From Claire Siskin : Claire Bradin Siskin: USA (Pittsburgh)
21:14:48 From Susan Marandi : Susan Marandi, from Tehran, Iran, Alzahra University
21:14:52 From Helaine Marshall : White Plains, NY USA
21:14:53 From ElizabethA : ELizabeth in Grenoble , France
21:14:53 From aiden yeh : Kaohsiung, Taiwan
21:14:54 From Lorena Zurbano Ruiz-Casaux : London
21:15:03 From Heike Philp : hi
21:15:04 From Vicky Saumell : Buenos Aires, Argentina (but you know that)
21:15:25 From Heike Philp : Heidelberg, Germany
21:15:31 From Heike Philp : I know I am an hour late
21:15:34 From tom : Hirakata, Osaka, Japan
21:15:36 From Heike Philp : had an issue…
21:15:44 From nour-eddine laouni : Dr Nour-eddine laouni- Teacher Trainer . Morocco
21:15:47 From Hala Fawzi : Tom is from Hirakata, Osaka, Japan
21:15:49 From Susan Marandi : Hi Heike, nice to see you! 🙂
21:15:50 From Hala Fawzi : lol
21:16:35 From Susan Marandi : Thanks, Vance!
21:16:42 From Susan Marandi : Bye everybody; great to see you! 🙂
I will be there, too. I have an online class “Instructional Technologies in ELT” (an MA Class with 10 graduate students) just before the meeting. We will talk about Elizabeth Hanson-Smith’s chapter in Teacher Education in CALL book.
Hanson-Smith, E. (2006). Communities of practice for pre- and in-service teacher education. In (Eds.) Hubbard, P., & Levy, M. Teacher Education in CALL.
As you can guess, it is inevitable to talk about the Webheads as the best example if we are talking about the online communities of practice.
It will be great for me to join you just after this class.
By the way, if there is someone who would like to join our discussion for my class, you are welcome.
Sedat said he would share with me video of my visit and when he does I will fill in more show notes here – Vance
This will be easier to reproduce once I have access to the video, but in talking with Sedat’s students, I started with http://webheads.info and went looking for places where Sedat had interacted with us.
On Friday and Saturday, April 3 and 4, 2020, the Best of EVO 2020 – NOT cancelled! Moved ONLINE!! was held in Zoom, inviting moderators of EVO sessions to present for 20 minutes on their 5-week workshops held in January and February of this year. Moderators convened in three separate webinars, one on Friday, and two webinars on Saturday 12 hours apart, schedules and presentation details at http://tinyurl.com/best2020evo
Best of EVO 2020, Electronic Village Online, presented online
Electronic Village Online (EVO) is an annual event where participants and ESOL experts engage in collaborative, online discussion or hands-on virtual workshops of professional and scholarly benefit. This happens every year, for five weeks in January-February, since 2001. For more information see http://evosessions.org.
This “Best of EVO 2020” session highlights all the outstanding sessions from EVO 2020 which took place earlier this year. Originally scheduled to be held as a blended event at two time slots in the Technology Showcase: Exhibition Hall at the annual TESOL conference at TESOL 2020 in Denver, the Best of EVO is being organized this year as an ONLINE event by Electronic Village Online (EVO) Coordinators and session moderators Vance Stevens and Jane Chien on behalf of all EVO Coordinators and EVO session moderators
What is this about?
Coordinators, moderators, and participants in Electronic Village Online speak about their EVO 2020 sessions and about how EVO functions. Moderators will overview their sessions, and participants are invited to describe their experiences as members of the EVO online community. Panelists will explain how to become involved as moderators or participants next year.
See and hear Christine Bauer-Ramazani talking at the EVO 2020 closing ceremony Feb 16, 2020 about the Best of EVO event being organized here, and about the 20 years of EVO anniversary celebrations coming up with display of the EVO flag in Denver, and the actual coming of age birthday party at TESOL 2021 in Houston, Texas, in this video: https://youtu.be/pL0Z-CtAahw?t=1161 (embedded above),
You can find this recording-along with recordings of other IS webinars and convention sessions-here on the CALL-IS YouTube channel: https://tinyurl.com/call-is-youtube.
Cancelled events
Here are some events that WERE canceled Apr 1 – Fri Apr 3 TESOL 2020 in Denver due to COVID-19
These are all events that the writer of this blog post was due to take part in. I’m just parking them here in case I need to refer to them again.
Wed Apr 1 – 1 pm to 2:45 pm – Creating materials in a digital world – Panel at TESOL 2020 – canceled
“Creating Materials in a Digital World,” has been included in the TESOL 2020 convention program, held on 31 March – 3 April in Denver, Colorado, USA.
I was to be a panelist in this event to be held on
April 1st, 2020, 1:00 PM – 2:45 PM in 402 at The Colorado Convention Center.
About the panel
It’s an Academic Panel Session hosted jointly by the Materials Writers Interest Section, in conjunction with Career Paths Professional Learning Network. They issued a call for panelists “who have experience adapting, creating, and using digital materials to teach English and train English teachers. … Such experience may include, but is not limited to, blended and hybrid learning, online learning, gamification, differentiated learning, building online learning communities and teacher education. Each panelist will be given between 10 and 20 minutes to share their expertise.” – from the proposal form, https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdbP-X8PieeYLt3Bw6SQE9UnD2BloPIK-GuWcqqrtDSnT2zw/viewform
“Creating Materials in a Digital World,” has been included in the TESOL 2020 convention program, held on 31 March – 3 April in Denver, Colorado, USA. We invite you to attend the convention and present your session on April 1st, 2020, 1:00 PM – 2:45 PM in 402 at The Colorado Convention Center.
The abstract that appeared in the program booklet is:
As the world becomes more dependent on technology ELT professionals find ways to adapt. This presentation shows participants in all stages of their career paths various ways they can adapt, create, and develop materials for digital learning in a variety of contexts for language teaching and teacher training.
Title of the presentation by Vance Stevens Adapting to whatever happens: Transitioning suddenly from blended learning to having to go online
I have taught ESOL using digital materials for four decades and recently received a lifetime achievement award for my work in CALL. My involvement in creating digital materials for students began in the late 1970s but with the advent of the Internet in teaching ESOL my focus shifted into working through communities of practice. I maintain several communities to help teachers bring themselves up to speed through applying the affordances of networked digital tools for creating environments and materials for working with students in blended learning environments.
In my segment, I intend to use myself as an example of how I have remained current by continually fostering communities of practice (CoPs). This is critical for maintaining current skills but especially important when faced with having to cope with pandemic conditions, in which many teachers are discovering they must suddenly acquire new skills they didn’t already have.
Teachers who already have skills in online teaching have likely benefited from working in distributed communities of practice, which afford natural opportunities to practice with community members to boost each other’s skills. We see today how important it is for teachers and materials developers to form communities of practice in order to learn what they need to know about acquiring connectivity skills, and how to apply them with greatest effect to today’s learners.
For two months spanning January, February, and March of this year I was invited as an English Language Specialist to prepare a set of workshops in Thailand on various topics, which I based at http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/. One of these was entitled
Becoming a model teacher: Using multiliteracies and 21st century skills and tools in your own professional development
It had four units, the last designed for practice, so the three units with the content were these:
The second of these workshops was extended into an eLearning course entitled Learning How to Create and Use a Blended Learning Classroom, https://tinyurl.com/blended2020. The course ran for three weeks, and was meant as an opportunity for participants in the blended workshops in Thailand to pursue their knowledge of the tools for creating and using blended learning classrooms in greater detail, but in a completely online environment.
Ironically, or sadly as the case may be, many participants in the workshops were starting to find themselves in that exact predicament in their real-life teaching situations, and we saw that teachers who had already been blending their classrooms were in much better position to cope with classes having to meet virtually (just add Zoom as one webinar guest told us). This realization evolved over the course, until by week 3 we were addressing it directly. http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/138718179/Blended_Learning_Classrooms_Week3
These workshops and subsequent eLearning were all mounted in free and open spaces online, and I plan to introduce them as a resource that can be utilized by all. What is especially unique about them is that they were prepared help teachers understand blended learning settings by modeling one for them, and when requested to move to a fully-online environment, I ended up modeling what teachers were in some cases going to have to do quickly in their own contexts as schools closed in response to the global pandemic.
Thu Apr 2 – 3 pm tp 4:45 pm – Minecraft and EdPuzzle – FabLabs at TESOL 2020 – canceled
I was also scheduled to take part in these events at the Electronic Village …
Earlier events
Mon 30 March 11 am UTC – Michael Coghlan convenes Webhead in Action Reunion – helps Vance Stevens launch TALIN
Wed 1 Apr 2000 Dubai time – Large-scale Dialogue around COVID: A Planning Call
Large-scale Dialogue around COVID: A Planning Call Open to All Facilitators (Wed, Apr 1, 2020 at 8:00pm Asia/Dubai Time) This is an invitation for my American friends and colleagues. I’m sharing it on some international lists of dialogue facilitators, because there are probably efforts in other countries that are far ahead … More Info: (Posted by Lucas Cioffi.in QiqoChat)
Wed 1 April noon and 2100 UTC – Free Webinar 3 of 3 by National Geographic Learning for English Teachers who are new to online teaching
TESOL Global Partner National Geographic Learning is offering a Free Webinar Series for English Teachers who are new to online teaching featuring online teaching experts Dr. Joan Kang Shin and Dr. Jered Borup from George Mason Unviersity.
In fairness, you can opt out by sending them an email having first agreed to the digital storage and distribution among corporate entities of your email and demographics. Not Scott’s fault, but I really wish they wouldn’t do that. It’s not just me, there’s been some blow-back on social media over the issue.
With Australia having just gone on lockdown, Michael Coghlan wrote this in an email to Barbara Dieu and I on March 22, 2020.
I think I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that for the first time in my adult life I cannot go whenever I want whenever I want! And I think it’s time to put the skills many of us picked up years back back into good use. To that end: I was wondering whether we might rekindle the weekly webheads meeting till this crisis is over. You said you still have access to a (Blackboard) Collaborate room. What do you think? Not to teach English obviously 🙂 – but just a place and time to give any webhead who wants to come and chat about whatever’s on their mind. Or just hang out for an hour … Seems silly not to use the technologies and skills we have to help us all through this…
Then one week later, he asked me in Facebook chat if I could meet “now”. I told him I was about to attend another online meeting, but how about tomorrow. He agreed. Time? About this time. So it was settled.
On 30 March 11 am UTC we convened a 20 year Webhead in Action Reunion. We announced the event in various Webheads channels and met in Zoom;
recording here https://youtu.be/eieCKZj3C-I
The idea for TALIN was prompted by suggestions in numerous cross-fertilizing communities of practice that there was needed a space where members of these CoPs could meet online and talk informally to one another about how they are dealing with changes in their personal and professional contexts and what they are doing to help others in this trying time of pandemic.
Aiden Yeh, Anisoara Pop, “Bee” Barbara Dieu, Chris Fry, Clair Siskin Doris Molero, Elizabeth Anne, Heike Philp, Laine Marshall, Mbarek Akaddar Michael Coghlan, Mike Kenteris, Nina Liakos, Saša Sirk, Sedat Akayoglu Stella,Sus Nyrop. Susan Marandi, Teresa Almeida d’Eca, Tom Robb Vance Stevens
Nina Liakos : Hi everyone. I lost my audio
Michael Coghlan : chat here
Heike Philp : Captain’s log Corona Stardate 79
Anisoara Pop : Hello everyone
Vance Stevens : chatting here, feel free to unmute and go on web cam if you wish
Vance Stevens : hi anisoara
Elizabeth Anne : Hi Anisoara 🙂
Anisoara Pop : Hi Elizabeth, Hi Teresa, Heike, Nina
Teresa : hi Anisoara!
Nina Liakos : Hi Anisoara
Elizabeth Anne : I get more people on my phone when I swipe left 🙂
Vance Stevens : cool
Basia : Hello, good morning! Basia is Barbara in Polish. I have used Zoom with the family, that’s why the name there.
Teresa : hi Basia and Aiden!
Vance Stevens : hi basia
Vance Stevens : welcome
Vance Stevens : bee
Vance Stevens : /basia
Vance Stevens : 🙂
aiden yeh : hi there
Vance Stevens : Hi Aiden, good to see you
Teresa : hi Sasa!
Bee : Hello Sasa!
Sasa : hi all
Teresa : Hi Bee!
Bee : Beijinhos Teresa 🙂
Teresa : beijinhos back 🙂
Michael Coghlan : – Sus is trying to get in but is being asked for a PW
Heike Philp : I didnt need a pw
Sasa : i wasn’t asked for one…
Heike Philp : what if she just adds the number – zoom.us
Heike Philp : 253 507 955
Michael Coghlan : wbhat number is that Heike?
Heike Philp : or the mobile
Michael Coghlan : OK.
Heike Philp : or try this K2tBbDBQR05Qb0xZOVFuWDBtYUsxUT09
Heike Philp : as a pw
Heike Philp : https://zoom.us/j/253507955?pwd=K2tBbDBQR05Qb0xZOVFuWDBtYUsxUT09
Vance Stevens : what is that? (answering my own question, it’s the Zoom link I gave out with password encrypted, so no one would need to type it in)
Heike Philp : there seems to be a pw to the link
Heike Philp : can she try this link?
Bee : Sorry, I must go guys, just popped in to say hello. I have a meeting with the school board in 15 minutes and must get my stuff ready (show them I have been working…). Let’s meet again! Hugs to everyone.
Elizabeth Anne : Yes Great to see you all – I have to good too. Really pleased 2 have seen you all. BIG HUGS.
Anisoara Pop : bye Elizabeth
mbarek akaddar : Hi everyone! whohoooo
Heike Philp : haha
Heike Philp : Mbarek
Vance Stevens : woohooo mbarek
Vance Stevens : here is that document I mentioned, meant for heike https://tinyurl.com/covid19teaching
Heike Philp : is she Stella Maris Berdaxagar ?
Laine Marshall : Tapped In
susnyrop : Hello in the txt chat!
Heike Philp : must go now…
Anisoara Pop : bye Heike
Michael Coghlan : http://michaelcoghlan.net/webheads/WEBHEADS%20THEME%20%232.mp3?
aiden yeh : Susan, nice jammies
Susan Marandi : sorry, everybody. just realized my front camera is working
Michael Coghlan : 🙂
Susan Marandi : i’m guessing you’ve been watching my feet! LOL
Michael Coghlan : We weren’t sure!
Vance Stevens : we see your head now, frozen though
Anisoara Pop : No… just some flower
aiden yeh : no need to apologize, things like that happens when you’re live online 😉
Susan Marandi : still fooling around trying to figure this out
tom : Sorry, folks, I’ve gotta go. Great to see you all!
csiskin : by tom!
Susan Marandi : how nice! 🙂
Mike Kenteris : Awesome
Susan Marandi : I love this.
Susan Marandi : Brings so many memories
Susan Marandi : I really missed this
Nina Liakos : Me too, let’s do it again next week
Susan Marandi : great!
Susan Marandi : Agreed
Anisoara Pop : how do you take a snapshot?
Vance Stevens : https://tinyurl.com/talin2020
susnyrop : The link for the meeting planner?
Susan Marandi : it was great; thanks everybody!
Chris Fry : it was great to catch up with so many we heads. I must go and have lunch. Goodbye!
csiskin : Bye chris
Susan Marandi : bye chris!
Vance Stevens : https://tinyurl.com/covid19teaching
Aiden wrote: “I rushed home from my yoga class to be in this once-in-a-lifetime meeting with dear Webheads. 20 years of friendship and online teaching/learning- when technology was quite limited yet we had great collaborative online projects with our students- all with the help of the Webheads online community. Webheads was my source of Sunday happiness back in the day when TappedIn was the in thing; it was the coolest tool back then, and Yahoo messenger was our back channel. Today’s #Zoom meeting made me reminisce those days. We were already doing what first time online teachers nowadays are doing. Like what Laine Marshall said and I’m paraphrasing here ‘tools are just tools, and tools change, they always do, but it’s us (people/teachers) who make a great learning community’. We can say the same thing to our/your students.”
Earlier Events since episode 443
Wed 11 March 1400 UTC Blended Learning Classroom Showcase Event with Vance Stevens on the MOOC community space extension to the course
Thu 12 Mar 2200 UTC Immersive Language Learning Webinar by Heike Philp
Technology Enhanced Language Learning SIG is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Immersive Language Learning Webinar by Heike Philp
In Zoom, Time: Mar 12, 2020 06:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada; 6 a.m. in Malaysia)
Thu Mar 12 – ACE webinar on Swiftly Pivoting to a Fully-Remote Campus: Responding to COVID-19
Please join ACE for a free webinar TOMORROW, Thursday March 12: “Swiftly Pivoting to a Fully-Remote Campus: Responding to COVID-19.”
As COVID-19 spreads, a wave of campuses are migrating indefinitely to online-only courses. In this webinar, a panel of experts will address pressing issues, answer your questions, and share best practices to rapidly adapt regardless of the state of your campus’s online readiness. The webinar will include several breakout discussions, and one of them will no doubt appeal to the many hats you all wear. Note that we have a diverse panel of expert speakers including Kai Wang, Senior Dean of Strategic Innovations, Wake Technical Community College; Laura Niesen de Abruna, Provost, York College of Pennsylvania; and GianMario Besana, Associate Provost, Global Engagement & Online Learning, DePaul University.
The webinar will be hosted on the ACE Engage(r) platform. Click here for information about the webinar – if you’re not already registered for ACE Engage, just click “sign up” and you’ll be able to register, login, and access the webinar.
Just a note. I was blocked from signing up with my Gmail address. I tried putting in my last institutional address and this cleared the blockage (but I no longer get mail there) – Vance
Fri 13 March 1100 AM to 1600 UTC ALIS Webinar: TQ Authors Talk
The forum would be available only to TESOL members but the invitation to the event states that all interested are encouraged to attend, so I am copying the announcement here:
DESCRIPTION
The aim of this webinar series is to connect the authors of popular TESOL Quarterly articles with TESOL practitioners. We hope to bring theory and practice closer together by encouraging researchers to tell the stories of their studies. In our first webinar, we feature the authors of one of the most downloaded TQ articles in the last few years: “Native and Nonnative Teachers of L2 Pronunciation: Effects on Learner Performance.” Those interested in pronunciation instruction and applied linguistics research are encouraged to attend. Webinar participants will have the opportunity to interact directly with the authors.
Levis, J. M., Sonsaat, S., Link, S., & Barriuso, T. A. (2016). Native and nonnative teachers of L2 pronunciation: Effects on learner performance. TESOL Quarterly, 50(4), 894-931.
PRESENTERS
John Levis, Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESL at Iowa State University, studies second language pronunciation and speech intelligibility, with a focus on how second language pronunciation research affects the teaching of pronunciation. He is the founder of the annual Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching conference and is the founding editor of the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation. He is co-editor for the Phonetics & Phonology section of the Encyclopedia for Applied Linguistics, and two books, Social Dynamics in Second Language Accent (DeGruyter, 2014) and the Handbook of English Pronunciation (Wiley, 2015).
Sinem Sonsaat Hegelheimer received her PhD degree from the Applied Linguistics and Technology, Iowa State University in 2017. She is the editorial assistant of Journal of Second Language Pronunciation and an assistant professor at TED University in Ankara, Turkey. Sinem’s research interests include pronunciation teaching, materials evaluation and development, and computer-assisted language learning. She published her work in TESOL Quarterly, CATESOL Journal, and The Routledge Handbook of English Pronunciation.
Stephanie Link is an Assistant Professor of TESOL/Applied Linguistics at Oklahoma State University. Her research involves technology-mediated language learning with a focus on development and use of automated writing evaluation tools and intelligent tutoring systems for second language writing and written scientific communication. Her work can be found in top journals, such as CALICO Journal, Language Learning and Technology, System, and Journal of Second Language Writing. She is also the co-editor of Assessment Across Online Language Education (Equinox Publishing, 2018).
Taylor Anne Barriuso received her Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Utah, where she used an online implementation of high variability phonetic training to look at whether learners are able to implement target contrasts in a lexical task in parallel with perceptual gains. More recently she collaborated with John Levis’s team to investigate whether having a “golden speaker” model voice raises learners’ awareness of their non-targetlike pronunciation to a greater extent than other model voices. She is an instructor and undergraduate linguistics adviser at Iowa State University.
ALIS feartured some articles from presenters it was planning to have speak at the conference in Denver in April, now canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, in its newsletter here
She hopes to have better success than she had with her students on Friday. But just in case, she also created a backup on Zoom session for an hour later,
I was unable to make the GoBrunch recording and wrote Nellie to ask how it went. Here is her reply
I was disappointed to learn that the MP4 only recorded the moderators’ webcam, if that was open, and the mods audio. I guess you have to screenshare to have ssomething else showing. An hour after the GoBrunch session on Self-care for Educators, I had a session with the same title on ZOOM.
I’m not happy with GoBrunch right now. I’m in touch with Richard, the CEO because he wants to learn how to improve it.
Nellie as given her permission for me to archive her remarks here.
Tue-Wed 17-18 March 1400-2300-1800 UTC – TESOL virtual town hall meetings
I’m not sure if this restricted to members only, but this comes from a mail sent out to TESOL members March 14, after cancelation of TESOL Conference in Denver this year. The links below take you to GoToMeeting.
TESOL will be hosting several virtual Town Hall meetings where you will have the opportunity to ask questions and share your thoughts and ideas with the Board and staff. We invite you to participate in these discussions and hope you will join us as your schedule allows.
I’m not sure if this is available to the public, but for TESOL Members
To view each of the three virtual town halls, please visit TESOL’s YouTube channel
Wed 18 March 0001 UTC next ISTE Virtual Environments Network regular Tue meeting in SL
The International Society for Technology in Education’s Virtual Environments Network meets regularly for planning, exploring, socializing and more at this Eduisland HQ. Visit often, especially on Tuesday evenings at 5 p.m. (Pacific) which is midnight Wednesdays in UTC
Wed 18 March noon and 2100 UTC – Free Webinar 1 of 3 by National Geographic Learning for English Teachers who are new to online teaching
TESOL Global Partner National Geographic Learning is offering a Free Webinar Series for English Teachers who are new to online teaching featuring online teaching experts Dr. Joan Kang Shin and Dr. Jered Borup from George Mason Unviersity.
Christine Rosalia, Ph.D. Associate Professor of TESOL
Department of Curriculum and Teaching
Hunter College/CUNY
Sun 22 Mar 1400 UTC TESOL CALL-IS hosts Rob Howard – Chalk and Talk vs. Skype and Swipe: The Need for Proper Training of Teaching Technologies
TESOL CALL-IS cordially invites you to attend the webinar “Chalk and Talk vs. Skype and Swipe: The Need for Proper Training of Teaching Technologies” with Rob Howard.
Date: Sunday March 22, 2020.
Time: 10:00 am (EDT) / 2:00 pm GMT
Please join this webinar from your computer, tablet or smartphone by going to the CALL Interest Section-TESOL YouTube Channel.
Live Online Virtual Engagement (LOVE) is an 8-week free online course that aims to provide you with practical know-how on how to connect and interact with your students, family, business associates, colleagues, and others in a live online class. You will learn how to use ZOOM, WizIQ, GoBrunch, ezTalk, Google Meet, Microsoft Team and other free web tools.
Dr. Nellie Deutsch and other experts will discuss free platforms and tools you can use to engage your audience.
Later Dr. Deutsch informed us that
The meeting “Free Tools for Online Instruction and Learning ” at Sun, Mar 22, 2020 12:00 PM EDT has been cancelled.
I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
As far as I know the course it was introducing will go ahead as planned. – Vance
Mon March 23 2020 Learning Revolution online conference starts and goes on for 2 months
In a slight shift on the concept of free conferences, this one is free to attend. However, access to recordings will cost $99.
This puts presenters in a quandary. When you sign up to present at a conference like this you might get a handful of participants in your live presentation, but the recording of that presentation goes online, formerly on free access. You could yourself point to the freely available link on the free and open Internet where all your work was encapsulated.
In the old system of share and share alike, people were happy to contribute their time and effort. Under the new scheme, it remains to be seen what will happen. For me personally, this could be just enough of a bump in the road to prevent me from traveling down it, as a presenter.
I’ve written Steve about it and he’s replied. There is a complicated set of concerns here, some financial, and he deserves to be supported. And if you want to attend for free, you can still do that.
The 2020 Learning Revolution online conference will be an historic event. Conference sessions on all aspects of teaching and learning will be held daily over the course of two months, all free to attend live.
A calendar will list all sessions as they are scheduled on a rolling basis, and a daily email will give the final schedule for each day. The sessions will also be recorded. Access to the archive of recordings will be available for $99.
The call for proposals opens on March 23rd. Presentation acceptances will be made on a rolling basis almost immediately, and presenters will be given the opportunity to choose a presentation day / time that is convenient to their own schedule.
The technologies of the Internet and the Web are reshaping when, where, and from whom we learn–and even how we think about learning. As the boundaries of these learning worlds increasingly overlap, we believe these conversations will be critical to framing and preparing for the learning revolution starting to take place.
The conference is being hosted by my Learning Revolution Project. I’ve held over 100 online and physical learning events during the past 10 year, and I have a combined audience membership of 160,000 educators, administrators, librarians, students, and parents.
Mon 23 March thru Apr 22 – First of 6 free PRISM workshops on Moodle begins
This was sent out in email to PRISM Members, with the suggestion that
If you know someone who may be interested in the courses, feel free to pass this email along to them.
PRISM are offering six FREE online Moodle training courses this spring. They offer Professional Growth Plan (PGP) points for each course.
Basic Moodle for Teachers (10 PGP Points) – A basic introduction to the Moodle LMS. You will learn how to build a classroom course and populate it with files, assignments and quizzes.
Dates: March 23 – April 20
Intermediate Moodle for Teachers (10 PGP Points) – A continuation from the Basic Moodle for Teachers course. Choose this course if you already have Moodle experience and would like to learn how to use some of the more advanced features like wikis, databases, lessons, and RSS feeds.
Dates: March 24 – April 21
Advanced Moodle for Teachers (10 PGP Points) – A continuation from the Intermediate Moodle for Teachers course. This course will take the Intermediate level course a step further as participants learn advanced grade book features, groups and groupings, conditional activities, and the workshop activity module.
Dates: March 25 – April 22
Crash Course Activities and Resources for Moodle (8 PGP Points)
This course focuses on learning how to use the Moodle activities and resources to develop quality lessons for students on the online Moodle platform. Teachers will learn how to grade assignments and other activities more efficiently and provide feedback to students in a secure online environment.
Dates: March 23 – April 20
Crash Course on Gradebook & Grading for Moodle (8 PGP Points)
This course focuses on learning how to use the Moodle grade book. Teachers will learn how to add, edit, and update grade items in addition to advanced grade book topics.
Dates: March 23 – April 20
Crash Course on Quiz Question Types for Moodle (8 PGP Points)
This course focuses on learning how to create and use the various Moodle quiz question types.
Dates: March 23 – April 20
Special Note: The Crash Courses are meant to be an introduction to the Moodle LMS and these specific features. These courses are intended for existing Moodle users looking to enhance their existing courses.
Let me know if you have any questions or would like more details about the courses. All of the courses are completed online at your-own-pace.
If you would like to register for a course, please visit the PRISM website (www.rose-prism.org), log in (create an account if you need one), and click the ‘Event Registration’ link. Use the drop-down menu to select the appropriate course. You will see a complete description of the course. To sign up, scroll down, enter your information, and click the ‘Submit Registration’ button. You should receive a confirmation email.
Wed 25 March noon and 2100 UTC – Free Webinar 2 of 3 by National Geographic Learning for English Teachers who are new to online teaching
TESOL Global Partner National Geographic Learning is offering a Free Webinar Series for English Teachers who are new to online teaching featuring online teaching experts Dr. Joan Kang Shin and Dr. Jered Borup from George Mason Unviersity.
Wed 25 March 1500 UTC International Association for Blended Learning QA on transitioning courses online
Everyone is cordially invited to the free webinar that Chadia Mansour, Past Chair of TESOL EFLIS 2019-2020, is co-moderating with Rima Al Tawil to answer questions about transitioning courses online. This webinar is organized by the International Association for Blended Learning (IABL). Bring you questions and join us!
We are expanding our planned Library 2.0 special broadcast webinar for librarians to a special mini-conference, being held in conjunction with PCI Webinars and Andrew Sanderbeck. Please note the new expanded times.
RECORDINGS: We’ve posted the a video recording, an audio-only recording, and the chat lot for each of the four sessions. Additionally, where provided, we’ve posted presentation slides and handouts. All are available at https://www.library20.com/page/crisis. You do need to be a member of Library 2.0, but there is no cost to join.
DATE & TIMES: Thursday, March 26th, 2020 | 1:00 – 6:30 pm US-Eastern Time (4 one-hour sessions with 1/2-hour breaks) From 1 am in Malaysia
COST: Free
REGISTRATION: To register for the mini-conference, please join Library 2.0. Those who are already members of Library 2.0 do not need to do anything.
ATTENDING: The schedule with the live session links will be sent to all members of Library 2.0.
PLATFORM: The mini-conference platform is Zoom. To make sure your computer or mobile is configured for Zoom, please visit zoom.us/test.
SESSIONS:
1. SELF-CARE DURING A CRISIS: BREATHE, THINK, AND GROW
1:00 PM US-Eastern Daylight Time
Click here to see in your own time zone
As libraries deal with the global crisis of 2020, staff have many difficult choices to handle every day. From deciding whether to stay open to managing the constant flow of information, the work can be all-consuming. In this webinar, we will talk about how to take time out of your day to focus on yourself and to nourish your own growth.
Participants will:
Learn methods and exercises for staying in the moment and remaining mindful while dealing with stress and uncertainty
Spend time discussing their challenges and how they are working to handle them, while planning mindfully for the future
Focus on healthy self-care activities
Cari Dubiel
Adult Learning and Information Services Manager at Twinsburg Public Library
Cari is the Adult Learning and Information Services Manager at Twinsburg Public Library. She is also a writer, teacher, and podcaster. She is a former Library Liaison to Sisters in Crime, an organization of 3600 crime writers and readers nationwide.
2. WHY AND HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR ONLINE SERVICES DURING THE QUARANTINE
2:30 PM US-Eastern Daylight Time
Click here to see in your own time zone
We are certainly “living in interesting times” … and working in them too. Even if your building is closed, your library is still offering services—but are you telling people that?
While it’s tempting to look at these pandemic-related closures as much-needed downtime, librarians don’t have that luxury. People still need you. In fact, people who haven’t used libraries in years need your boredom-breaking services and your long-trusted guidance, too. So it’s vital to keep marketing your libraries now, for three reasons: 1) telling people what’s available online and how to get it; 2) being the trusted source of info that people expect; and 3) proving your value to retain funding after the crisis.
In this webinar, specially created to help your library be as useful as possible during the current Coronavirus pandemic, library marketing maven Kathy Dempsey will share her best advice on these topics:
Working at home (Dempsey has worked at home for 10 years)
Turning today’s chaos into a Crisis Communications Plan in the near future
Exactly what services and products to promote (some might surprise you)
How to get the word out, beyond your own social media followers
How to approach messaging in trying times
Why today’s promotion will help secure next year’s library funding
Why to scratch out mini marketing plans to make your work effective
Resources for self-care and for social sharing
In a time where everyone is inundated with information, the world still needs their librarians and librarians. The “new normal” will likely have super-tight budgets, so proving how essential you are during this crisis may well determine whether your organization survives the virus.
Kathy Dempsey wrote the popular how-to tome The Accidental Library Marketer and founded her own marketing consultancy, Libraries Are Essential. Her work is dedicated to helping librarians and information professionals promote their value and expertise in order to gain respect and funding. Kathy has been the Editor of Marketing Library Services newsletter for 25 years, and was formerly Editor-in-Chief of Computers in Librariesmagazine. She also blogs at The ‘M’ Word. She’s a member of the New Jersey Library Association, and Founder of the Library Marketing and Communications Conference, which she chaired in 2015, 2016, and 2017. This writer, editor, and marketing maven has been giving presentations across the U.S. and Canada for 20+ years, always sprinkling them with humor to make marketing concepts more interesting and accessible. She continues to fight the stereotypes that librarians are boring and that “marketing” is a dirty word.
3. SERVING PATRONS IN A CRISIS
4:00 PM US-Eastern Daylight Time
Click here to see in your own time zone
Helping people make decisions based on facts and evidence is what libraries of all types do everyday. With libraries closing to the public and reducing services because of COVID-19, how can we continue to provide the facts in this fast-paced changing environment? And how can libraries provide the services that their communities will need to remain vital to the health and welfare of their communities?
This interactive and informative webinar will help attendees find the latest resources and information available to help them serve their patrons and communities, as well as looking into how libraries are responding to community needs of today and will focus on the work ahead as we shape the future of library services after the pandemic passes.
Andrew has been developing and conducting training programs for libraries and library organizations for more than fifteen years. He has presented Web-based, On-line, and Face-to-Face sessions on Management and Leadership, Customer Service and Communication Skills in the U.S. and numerous countries around the world. He is a board member of the Haywood County Public Library and a monthly donor to EveryLibrary, advocating for libraries everywhere that support is needed.
Kathy Zappitello
Executive Director of the Conneaut Public Library in Conneaut, Ohio
Kathy has worked for fifteen years in Ohio libraries and is currently the Executive Director of the Conneaut Public Library in Conneaut, Ohio. Kathy serves on the National Board of Directors for the Association for Rural and Small Libraries and is co-chair of the Partnership committee. Locally, she produces educational content for one of Ohio’s cable access channels that provides programming to households in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.
4. PREPARING YOUR DIGITAL BRANCH FOR INCREASED USE
5:30 PM US-Eastern Daylight Time
Click here to see in your own time zone
As libraries engage in social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are placing new emphasis on our online services. Is your organization ready?
In this interactive and Informative program, we will discuss how to prepare your digital branch for an influx of users, and examine best practices for virtual reference and digital collections as you work to meet your community’s needs.
Nick Tanzi
Assistant Director of the South Huntington Public Library
Nick Tanzi has been incorporating emerging technologies into the library as a children’s librarian, the founding member of a digital services department, and most recently, as the Assistant Director of the South Huntington Public Library. During this time, he has spoken in the U.S. and abroad on topics ranging from social media marketing to 3D printing. He is the author of Making the Most of Digital Collections through Training and Outreach (2016), and Best Technologies for Public Libraries (2020). He writes “The Wired Library” column for Public Libraries Magazine. Tanzi was named a 2017 Dewey Fellow by the New York Library Association, and currently serves as President of its Making and STEAM Round Table.
CONFERENCE CO-HOST ORGANIZATION:
With current and ex-library staff members located throughout the USA, PCI Webinars has one simple mission: To be the leading provider of quality webinars and online programming for library employees and library organizations.
We serve individuals, public and academic libraries, regional library systems, library consortiums and state libraries providing quality live and on-demand programming from some of the most respected experts in our profession. https://pciwebinars.com/
Thu 26 March – Sat 28 March 13th Virtual World Best Practices in Education
This was STREAMED! No excuse now not to at least check it out 🙂
And each YouTube stream link becomes the archived recording when the session is done! https://www.vwbpe.org/watch
The 13th Virtual World Best Practices in Education takes place on March 26-28 2020
Theme : STELLAR
The VWBPE Conference is a completely virtual conference that is conducted using simulated environments. Participants experience the conference through a virtual reality type setting including conference rooms, theatres, exposition halls, meeting spaces, and other types of venues similar to a brick and mortar type conference.
The conference is free to attend. The cost of the conference is covered by sponsorship and donations.
Check how you can get involved and mark your calendar.
If you have never been in a Virtual World and you are interested in learning more, reach out. https://vwbpe.org/
9:00 am Spotlight: You Don’t Have To Go To Space for Effective PD!
10:00 am Spotlight: Boldly Go – Celebrate Success & Cataclysm Stories
11:00 am Keynote: Lessons Learned from the 2020 Educators in VR Conference
12:00 pm Spotlight: Soul of A Charioteer in Virtual Orbit Around Mars
1:00 pm Social: Second Squares
2:00 pm Above the Book: Catching up with the Thinkerers
3:00 pm Spotlight: Virtual Reality in Education: Intentional Immersion
3:00 pm Spotlight: Reflections from three-dimensional immersive digital environments
6:00 pm Closing Ceremony and Thinkerer Award
Sun 29 Mar 12 noon UTC Nellie Deutsch hosts Facilitating Learning Online
Teaching and learning online would be more effective, if we adopted a non-coercive attitude to instruction and learning. There are many erroneous ideas an practice on what to do online. Do we give online assignments and continue as usual or do we step up and change the way we teach and learn?
Join me in a discussion on “self-determination theory”, my personal and professional experiences as a teacher in the public school system (K-12 and higher eduction) and how they relate to the theory, your views on the topic, and what other stakeholders think of rewards and punishments.
On Wednesday 11 March my turn as an English Langage Specialist ended for the year 2020 when I hosted this final Blended Learning Classroom Showcase Event with Sharon Graham and Jane Chien about their experiences with online teaching in coping with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and with me introducing the MOOC community space extension to the course toward the end of the webinar.
This was Learning2gether episode 443 and the last live event of the course on Creating and Using a Blended Learning Classroom at https://tinyurl.com/blended2020. The course started on Feb 20, 2020, and officially ended with this closing webinar on March 11, on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/e91cDKYp2_c. I had anticipated making it an opportunity for participants to come together and show each other what they’ve learned through their creations.
Sharon Graham was supposed to be teaching in China by now but instead she is teaching the students there online from her home base in Hayes, Kansas. She showed us a number of the tools she uses; for example, VidGrid, https://www.vidgrid.com/, a platform designed to engage students in video content making them active interactants with the videos, rather than simply passive viewers.
Jane is meeting her students in Taipei face-to-face but she has one student from mainland China who is unable to travel now, and whom she is trying include as a participant in class. We talked about how she could do that by turning her computer / web cam out to the class. It turns out that among the students is where she likes to be in classes, and as she was checking in to our zoom chat from her cell phone, its seemed she could better include this student if she set up a Zoom meeting on the class computer on one account and joined it from her own account on her cell phone. Then the students would be “face to face” on the computer screen, and her absent student woud see his classmates and better experience the context of the class.
Before turning out the lights on the eLearning course, I made preparations to flip the course into MOOC / Community mode by creating an extension to the course in the form of a MOOC / Community space, with more information in the Green Folder in the Schoology portal here, https://app.schoology.com/course/2362600716/materials?f=183558388.
Participation in or enrollment in the Schoology course is optional; in other words you don’t have to be interacting there in order to participate in the MOOC Community. I have set up spaces outside of Schoology for that. But if you wish, you CAN enroll in the Schoology course. It’s set up to run to the end of the year and I can renew it then if I wish.
Also, in setting up this space, my main purpose is two-fold. Fold one is to model how a community could be managed as an extension to a course, if there were sufficient interest in that, and fold two is to see what happens :-). Maybe a community will form there, maybe not. Either way, another possibility of blended online classrooms, the possibility of perpetuating them as community spaces, is modeled.
The last half of the 3-week course coincided with a time when schools were closing in unprecedented numbers over concerns with the COVID-19 outbreak. This has sent an equally unprecedented number of teachers into a search for stratgies they can use to transition their classrooms online. Going from face-to-face straight to online is a daunting transition, and one that requires some kind of portal space that will attempt to center the course and provide coherence to activities that cannot be simply explained in class.
This course has been focused on helping teachers conceptualize and create that center space. When teachers have to come up with components for such spaces on limited funds and resources, I call this DIYLMS, or do-it-yourself learning management systems. For teachers who have already been running blended learning classrooms, that center space was already there, and the shift to a totally online environment is simply a matter of layering syncronous activities onto the existing asynchronous ones.
With more schools worldwide closing suddenly almost every day now, many teachers have been stretched to come to grips with the demands of their situations, and many others not yet in that situation are doing what they can to level up and prepare for whatever contigency.
Accordingly, the last week in our course we were hearing from teachers who were having to come up with strategies for dealing with meeting students purely online. Jeff Lebow, who has been working online for years and, like me, incorporating what works online into blended environments for his students, showed us how he had already set up classes for his whole department in blogger and now all they had to do was just add Zoom. In our penultimate webinar we talked with Suzan Stamper and Bonnie Calanchini, two teachers from Hong Kong, about how they were coping in international schools with kids and in the tertiary setting with adults. And in this webinar we discussed with Sharon Graham and Jane Chien how the outbreak has impacted them and what they are doing about it.
Since this is a dynamically developing situation, and as there is a chance that we in this community could both learn from and contribute to the ongoing conversation, I have created a kind of static extension to the course in the form of a MOOC / Community space, with more information in the Green Folder in the Schoology portal, as noted above.
In this webinar, I came online to talk more about that, and wrapped up the course on Creating and Using Blended Learning Classrooms in the company of Sharon Graham and Jane Chien, who both joined in Zoom
Here is the text of the follow up announcement I posted to the above spaces:
The #blended2020 Learning Classrooms online course ended Mar 11 with a webinar attended by Sharon Graham & Jane Chien. and archived as #Learning2gether episode 443.
Tue 10 March 1200 to 1500 PST Library 2.020 Wholehearted Libraries
WHOLEHEARTED LIBRARIES | A 3-hour mini-conference
March 10 | Free | REGISTER HERE
Hosted by: Library 2.0.
This is the first of the popular Library 2.0 mini-conferences of the year, and organized in partnership with iSchool Associate Professor Michael Stephens. He writes: ” We should bring our hearts to work, and qualities such as open-mindedness, emotional intelligence, and reflective action are all part of this process. Services steeped in humanism, compassion, and understanding should be the cornerstone of what we do, and why we do it, for all members of our communities, including the underserved. Not only do libraries need high tech, they also need staff who approach their work with a wholehearted attitude.” The mini-conference will explore the human side of 21st-Century information work. We will define what soft skills are, how and when to use various soft skills, types of training that can improve soft skills, and how to share emotionally engaging stories. Learn what libraries are doing now to extend services, create welcoming spaces, and engage users with soft skills such as compassion, empathy, creativity, curiosity, and finding balance. Sessions will focus on how we can nurture a positive mindset in our employees, use the power of stories to promote understanding, and extend our reach into our global communities. Soft skills are heart skills.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE:
(Register to get the actual session links)
Opening Keynote Panel
Michael Stephens, Associate Professor in the School of Information at San Jose State University | Loida Garcia-Febo, International Library Consultant | Christian Lauersen, Director of Libraries and Citizens services, Roskilde Municipality, Denmark | Rivkah K. Sass, Library Director + CEO, Sacramento Public Library
On Monday 9 March, 2020 English Language Specialist Vance Stevens hosted a webinar as the next to last live event in the course on Using and Creating Blended Learning Classrooms on the topic of “What if your school closes?” Officially, it was the 7th office hour of the course, intended to explain or to help anyone with how to set up some kind of portal or activities in their own Blended Learning Classrooms. But for this one, Vance invited special guests from Hong Kong Suzan Stamper and Bonnie Calanchini, both of whom returned from their Chinese New Year holidays at the end of January to find that their schools were declared closed until further notice, and that was 6 weeks ago.
This webinar will be especially relevant if you are in the position of having to jump like a lemming into teaching online, since it focuses on this one particular ramification of the COVID-19 outbreak relevant to the course on blended learning, where schools have been forced to close in so many countries worldwide, and teachers have had to suddenly transition from developing blended learning classrooms all the way to going totally-online in one challenging leap.
Teachers caught in this situation are doing what they can to engage students at a distance in the curriculum, and Bonnie and Suzan came online to discuss with us how they and their colleagues have managed this leap after their respective schools were closed weeks ago.
Bonnie Calanchini, a American teacher who works (from home now) at the Canadian International School of Hong Kong as an Inclusion Specialist, primary level. Her school has been closed since Chinese New Year in January, and she and her colleagues are going into their 6th week of home learning. Bonnie’s take: “I can say that my school is doing a fantastic job implementing distance learning and the kids are responding well.”
Suzan Stamper teaches at Yew Chung College of Early Childhood Education where she’s a Senior Lecturer of English and the English Language Support Leader. Her school made the sudden announcement to go online in February, and it is expected that classes will be online until at least after Easter. Suzan’s take: “Going online at the tertiary level has raised challenges for students and teachers.” She notes that her school faces unique struggles with teaching adults at the tertiary level, and teachers have had to go online with little preparation.
We were also joined by Don Carroll in Japan and Nergiz Kern in Turkey, with a cameo appearance from the course beautiful assistant Bobbi Stevens, on YouTube at https://youtu.be/B7R3lZqPcuI
Nergiz Kern : Hi Vance and all. I’m in Turkey right now, but teach mainly Chinese Uni students in the summer in the UK (pre-sessional courses). Barbara Stevens : classin is at https://www.eeo.cn/en/ Barbara Stevens : Hi Nergiz, welcome to our course. Suzan Stamper : Yes, that is the link for Classin Barbara Stevens : Our sons who are teaching in Qatar have been told today that they have to stay home and teach online starting tomorrow…no notice Barbara Stevens : I wonder how art and music teachers are teaching online. Barbara Stevens : I think that online teaching part-time and then part-time class attendance makes sense. That would help the environment as well if students don’t have to drive to school each day. But still have the classroom experience. Nergiz Kern : I agree Barbara, that would be ideal. Barbara Stevens : I wonder if cheating is easier for online learning.
Suzan Stamper : A clever student response: https://mashable.com/article/wuhan-kids-app-coronavirus/ Barbara Stevens : Marijana Smolčec just shared this on Facebook: https://www.theedublogger.com/teaching-online-school-closures/
Suzan Stamper : @Barbara – Thanks for the link
Barbara Stevens : Bye everyone. I have enjoyed listening.
Our theme for Week 3 in the course on blended learning is focused on how so many countries are trying to contain a global pandemic in part by delaying the start of school terms, putting teachers worldwide in the position of having to set up online learning for their students on short notice, or at least give serious consideration to the possibility. http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/138718179/Blended_Learning_Classrooms_Week3
Posted on Facebook by one of the members enrolled in the Schoology course on Creating and Using a Blended Learning Classroom
Announcements of this event were made on these Facebook Groups
The text of the latter announcement read as follows:
The webinar coming up tomorrow is interesting if you are in the position of having to leap like a lemming into teaching online since it focuses on one particular ramification of the COVID-19 outbreak relevant to the course, where schools have been forced to close in many countries worldwide, and teachers have had to suddenly transition from developing blended learning classrooms all the way to going totally-online in one challenging leap.
So on Monday March 9 in Zoom at 13:30 UTC we look forward to welcoming two teachers in Hong Kong, Suzan Stamper and Bonnie Calanchini, when they will discuss with us how they and their colleagues have managed this leap after their respective schools were closed weeks ago. Suzan incidentally, has been a longtime participant in Webheads in Action.
All are welcome. You don’t need to be enrolled in the course to participate.
After the event
Same text, more characters added, and posted on Facebook
Video and show notes from yesterday’s #learning2gether episode 442 webinar in the #blended2020 course on Using and Creating Blended Learning Classrooms can be found here: https://learning2gether.net/2020/03/09/vance-stevens-hosts-penultimate-using-and-creating-blended-learning-classrooms-webinar-what-do-you-do-when-your-school-closes/. The discussion lasted for 1.5 hours and ranged from how teachers are coping with having to go suddenly from f2f to online due to #caronavirus #COVID2019, through portals they might use, including SeeSaw, Classin, and Second Life. Thanks to Suzan Stamper and Bonnie Calanchini in Hong Kong, Don Carroll in Japan, Nergiz Kern in Turkey, and beautiful assistant Bobbi Stevens in Malaysia, for taking part in this stimulating and informative event.
If you have any comments or suggestions about the course, let us know
If you are free Tue March 3, Thu 5, Sat 7, Mon 9 or Wed 11 at 1400 UTC and are in the mood for a conversation in Zoom about blended / flipped / online learning, or digital storytelling, or portals where these activities take place, I hope you will join us in one (or more) of the events described on this page, http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/138675954/eLearning_Archive
At the link above, you will find Zoom links, times where you are, and also archived recordings of past events in this series, and links to their blog posts.
There are over 40 people registered on the Schoology site and consistent participation but not that many turning out for the online webinars and “office hours” which I am holding every other day at 1400 UTC between now and March 11. You can still register for the course if you want to, but it’s not necessary and you are welcome to attend the live events as guests
The events are informal, tailored to whomever appears, and though I have been quiet here lately, as you can see from the most recent posts at https://learning2gether.net/, #Learning2gether has been hopping. Hope to see you soon at one of these upcoming events.
Sat 7 March 1400 UTC Blended Learning Classroom Week 3 DIYLMS – Office Hour 6
The 6th office hour in the course on Creating and Using a Blended Learning Classroom was intended to help anyone with DIYLMS (do-it-yourself-leaning-management-systems) how to set up some kind of portal or activity in their own Blended Learning Classrooms. Of course the instructor, English Language Specialist, can help with any other aspect of the course to date.
Present: Hala Salah Abbas, Rita Zeinstejer, Vance Stevens
I uploaded this video at midnight to YouTube without announcing it anywhere and when I work up in the morning I found this comment on it.
Thu 5 March 1400 UTC Blended Learning Classroom Week 3 Digital Storytelling & DIYLMS – Office Hour 5
The 5th office hour was intended to help anyone with the Week 2 materials on Digital Storytelling or with DIYLMS, how to set up some kind of portal or activity in their own Blended Learning Classrooms. For the first time in the course, no one attended today’s office hour.
Facilitating in a quiet online space can be disheartening. Why is no one responding? Am I doing something wrong?
But then this appeared, extracted from a DM on Twitter in such a way that it disguises the sender:
A million thanks for this! Good timing 🙂
Tue 3 March 1400 UTC Blended Learning Classroom Webinar – Weeks 2 and 3 Digital Storytelling and DIYLMS
The 3rd Webinar for the course on Creating and Using a Blended Learning Classroom is intended to help anyone with the Week 2 materials on Digital Storytelling and presage what’s coming up in Week 3 on DIYLMS, do-it-yourself leaning management systems. Once Week 2 issues have been addressed, the webinar will focus on the materials here: http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/138718179/Blended_Learning_Classrooms_Week3
Tue 3 Mar 0100 UTC Minecraft Monday March 2nd at 8 PM Eastern time
Tonight we will have a tour of villages in 1.15 on VSTE Space. We will show you what we have discovered, how we are trying to keep villagers safe, and welcome suggestions!
The sun had set over the sea and mountain jungles in orange tendrils emanating beneath darkening blue skies, which had long since transitioned to darkness in Penang, Malaysia when my old friend and long-time online colleague Jeff Lebow, himself half cloaked in darkness in his workspace studio in Pusan, Korea, popped by my Zoom chat to see how things were going with my eLearning course, Creating and Using Blended Learning Classrooms, based at https://tinyurl.com/blended2020. Jeff had caught me at one of my scheduled late-night “office hours”, midway through the 3 week course, in the middle of Week 2, which focuses on tools for digital storytelling, on the assumption that these tools can be useful in creating and augmenting blended learning classrooms.
Because of that focus, I’m trying to spin everything I post this week as a digital story, hence the scene-setting introduction above. But here’s the digital video storytelling part:
Jeff is teaching at a university which, as with many around the world, has delayed start of courses for a month due to the presence of corona virus in Korea, and like many teachers in the countries most affected, Jeff has been put in the position of having to gear up to meet classes at a distance. In his case the transition was minimal because he has for years been keeping his courses on Blogger.
Each course has a tab or category, as Jeff shows us here:
I do something similar in my PBworks site where I can archive previous courses and run the current course from the front page, but the concept is similar. Jeff can keep old courses up onine and bring the material into current courses which can then be topped up with new material. Here’s what one of mine looks like at http://vancesclass.pbworks.com/
If you were in one of my classes when this page was current you would find your section to the left of the plane, and if you clicked on your class, you’d find what you were expected to do in class that day, and in all the classes all term leading up to the present.
Classes that were completed could find records of their learning journeys with me in the archives at right, going back years from when I began this wiki. I showed this example because it’s one where the archives are at the top of the sidebar, so I could capture new and old in a single Jing screenshot. But I have many wikis like this; for example:
Jeff and I use Blogger and PBworks for counterpart purposes, as portals for our courses, where students can go for information about what’s coming up, what they didn’t understand, or what they missed. As teachers we can use these portals as repositories for materials that we can recycle and repurpose into new courses. A portal is an essential part of a DIYLMS.
Now what, you might ask, is a DIYLMS? That’s my term for a do-it-yourself learning management system. Why do it yourself, why not just buy one? Well, that would be expensive and might not meet all your needs; whereas you can utilize free tools to take the place of, or augment, an LMS portal, such as Blackboard (very costly) or Moodle (free, with the catch that it has to be hosted), or Schoology (which we are using in my current blended classroom course). As I explained in the video, even when course materials are on Bb I find it convenient to send my students to those materials via direct links in my own DIYLMS portal, where I can collate all the activities I plan to use for a given day, and the students can operate from and return to a single site order to keep straight what I have planned for them in a given class.
DIYLMS is the topic for Week 3, the last week in the blended classroom course, so while I had Jeff with me I asked him how he managed the other parts of his blended classroom environment. His first contact with his students appears to be in Kakao, a Korean company that makes social connectivity tools, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakao, and which is managed for all students at Jeff’s university by the IT department. From there Jeff gets them into a Band site, which he mentions was created by another Korean company. I had never heard of Band, https://about.band.us/, which has more information at its video channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo4nNxPug24w15_YhvYMYoQ. It appears to be completely free, functions similarly to Edmodo, and looks at first glance like Facebook.
Here’s where Jeff talks about how Kakao gives way to Band and then where Blogger and Google Drive fit into his blended learning classroom.
In keeping with the narrative of the digital story, this video is queued to start at the moment Jeff starts describing his DIYLMS, 19:10 into the video:https://youtu.be/rIm1mhlIUhk?t=1149
So far we’ve described a CMS or content management system, a space like PBworks or Blogger where materials can be stored. An LMS or learning management system hosts content but also has ways of allowing students to submit work and for teachers to track their progress. I asked Jeff how he handled that in his DIYLMS and he mentioned Google Docs, Google Forms, and Quizziz as being useful for this purpose. Schoology teams with Dropbox in its enterprise version for submissions, but I find Dropbox a little awkward to work with (and a DIYLMS assumes you don’t have access to the enterprise version) so in this course I’m asking students to mount their work online and write in the course forums or comment on the assignments (what I call missions) and then Tweet on our course tag #blended2020 the URLs where we can find what they have done.
Recap and response
Basically Jeff had always in recent memory run his university courses on his Blogger site where each course has its own tag or label, while course materials are in Google Drive. Jeff has dozens of courses, and ports from earlier ones to the more recent iterations, and changes those to keep them current. This blended learning classroom system was in place before corona virus came along and the only addition — now that students are staying home and face-to-face teaching is not possible — is that synchronous work now occurs in Zoom.
Wow – so much information. Excellent work! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
The 4th office hour of the 3-week course on Creating and Using Blended Learning Classrooms that took place on March 1, 2020 in Zoom was intended to
help anyone with the Week 2 materials on Digital Storytelling,
or catch up with the Week 1 mission on coming to grips with digital tools and how to mount a digital “poster”
or anticipate DIYLMS in the third week of the course.
When Jeff Lebow dropped in we took the opportunity to do the latter and discuss how an expert in blended and online learning creates and uses blended learnng classrooms in his current context. And I hope you have enjoyed this digital story about how he has moved from a blended environment where students usually met face to face to add Zoom so that now the students can meet in a completely online environment until regular classes resume where he works in Korea.
The free 3-week, open to anyone, online course on How to Create and Use a Blended Learning Classroom, created and facilitated by English Language Specialist Vance Stevens, has entered its second week, with an exploration of tools for creating digital stories. Digital Stories are ways that students can creatively express themselves in digital format using multimedia tools or a combination of many tools (or a single tool) to create a narrative for whatever purpose they are assigned or wish themselves to communicate. The tools involved in creating digital stories are of use to teachers wishing to set up blended and flipped learning classrooms.
In the first week of the course, participants were asked to explore a few tools useful in creating blended learning classrooms and then try their hand at getting just about anything about themselves up online. In the second week the task is similar but intended to provide scope for greater creativity: to apply known tools or any of dozens of other possible tools in conveying some kind of narrative and presenting its link online.
This task is one that teachers might assign students, but the purpose in having teachers do it is to have them explore and try out more tools that will help them create blended learning classrooms. Numerous tools and a rationale for using them are presented here: http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/138718173/Blended_Learning_Classrooms_Week2
The 2nd Weekly Webinar kicked off on Wednesday 26 February, 2020 at the usual time of 1400 UTC with Vance Stevens introducing the Week 2 materials on Digital Storytelling. The Webinar was held in Zoom, and you can see the recording on YouTube at https://youtu.be/cu6tk8v2olo
Hopefully content at that tag will continue to accumulate as the course continues over the next two weeks.
(Note that searches on hash tags in Twitter will likely default to the ‘top’ or most popular tweets containing that tag, but if you are using this as part of a blended learning classroom, you will likely want to see ALL posts on your hash tag).
Week 2 Office Hours
A sample Digital Story: Office hours Feb 28, 2020, with iTDi’s Monthly Roundup
The online course meets online every other day, beginning each week with a webinar like the one for week 2 above, and then follow up over the next four days with two consultancy office hours. So far, no one has requested a time for that meeting other than 14:00 UTC, though other times are possible if participants request them.
Accordingly following the webinar on Feb 26, there was an “office hour” on Feb 28 where I was joined by Jane Chien and Don Carroll who contributed their experience and discussed with me their approaches to blended learning environments. All such meetings are recorded in Zoom, and there is a recording of this consultancy hour (actually, almost an hour and a half) on You Tube at https://youtu.be/pDZDxo9e_P8.
I thought I would relate the story of what we did tonight (9 to 11:30 for Jane and I, and an hour later for Don, bundled against the midnight cold in his workshop in Japan) as one example of a way to relate a digital story.
Here then is the Digital Story of this event
The regularly recurring office hour today followed another event which conveniently took place at 13:00 UTC, just an hour before ours. This one, hosted by iTDi, was on a topic that, thanks to the coronavirus, is currently driving at least some participation in the course on Creating and Using a Blended Learning Classroom. I announced this as an update at my Schoology course portal:
Here was how the iTDi event was announced on Facebook:
Fri 28 Feb 1300 UTC iTDi Monthly Roundup on Making the Move to Online Teaching
🤔 Have you suddenly had to move to online teaching? Or are you about to? What are the challenges to overcome and the opportunities it might also present? ⚡️
🔸 Join the next #iTDi #MonthlyRoundup (FB LIVE) with special guest teachers from the #iTDiCommunity, Renata Todorovska and Rhett Burton, who’ll be sharing some of their experiences and insights.
When I arrived at the event, I was informed that I could declare a watch party. I had never done that before, so I thought, why not, I’ll try it 🙂
To my surprise, within seconds after I did that, some of my Facebook friends joined the watch party, as you can see in the panel at right of the graphic above. One of these, Jane Chien, had seen my announcement in Schoology, was already in the iTDi chat, and had opted to watch it with me where we could carry on our own back channel chat about the event. I captured a little of our conversation here as it pertained to our own course (slightly re-arranged and redacted 🙂
This is what Jane, Don, and I were watching as we chatted as follows …
Vance Stevens – I thought Rhett’s situation was more compatible with ours Jane Chien – Yes. Don Carroll – Once again (as always) I’m concerned about the “old wine in new bottles” issue. Is the curriculum the same old “grammar” focus that reflects a “language as system” view of language. Jane Chien – Yes, indeed. Rhett would benefit from your workshop.
– Don Carroll Now that schools might be closed, everyone is trying to learn online. Vance Stevens – or we could benefit from Rhett, we’re wondering what people do when they suddenly have to go online Don Carroll – I’m all for “online” learning. I’m against perpetuating the same old ideas about language just through fancy tech tools. Vance Stevens – are you teaching online Don? (remind me) Don Carroll – No Jane Chien – So, old wine in new bottles isn’t that much of an issue anymore since kids are at home all the time. The parents wants them to learn something online. Most of the asynchronous learning may be boring, so these synchronous classes with teachers is what parents prefer now. Don Carroll – What I mean is this: If you are teaching, for example, “the verb system” online, then you are selling old wine in new bottles. Vance Stevens – in my course I’m trying to get people to DO things but most are not that interested, but 3 are SUCCESS
– but why would you teach the verb system online? You can point people to tutorials and actually deal with verbs in online interaction Jane Chien – Here in Taiwan, kids had a longer winter break because of coronavirus. Online learning has suddenly become very popular for kids…(elementary and secondary). Don Carroll – DOING is what online interaction should be about. So far I’m not impressed with what I’m hearing about iTutor. This sounds to me like traditional language teaching being presented online. Vance Stevens – but people want to be taught, they sometimes don’t appreciate when you are trying to get them to learn Don Carroll – Maybe I’m a radical, but I feel that the traditional “four skills” are nonsense. Vance Stevens – I agree with you Don, but I guess people pay to be taught, they don’t know how to learn Don Carroll – Of course, iTutor is a “commercial product” where you give the customer what they want to buy. Vance Stevens – i haven’t been listening so much about iTutor, seems kind of irrelevant to [the online course we are participating in now]
– Renata’s situation doesn’t really relate to the purpose of http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/138546024/Create_Your_Blended_Learning_Classroom I don’t think Don Carroll – I’d have to see sample “lesson plans” to be sure, but I strongly suspect that what I’d find is the “same ol’ same ol’ that constitutes 99% of the world’s EFL textbooks…basically just prettily camouflaged grammar lessons. Jane Chien – I heard people mention that iTutor doesn’t pay teachers well. Vance Stevens – no one does. Online is intensive, you can never get what you put into it in $$ only in what you learn from doing it
– I may be teaching with these people later this year, teacher training. we’ll see Jane Chien – Don, I think teaching kids in Minecraft is the best! hahahah Vance Stevens – Matti’s game was really intricate, great video, Don Carroll – Mattie creation of the game using all the language resources at his disposal is the sort of language learning that online learning should be all about. Jane Chien – Thanks for putting up with him. XD Vance Stevens – ok, over to zoom I guess
– off to there now – see you there if you’re coming
And then we reconvened in Zoom, and you can follow the story to its denouement (and coda) here:
There was not much text chat from our Zoom meeting. At one point Don was describing what he thought would be a useful tool for a blended classroom, if all participants could go to single document or whiteboard and collaborate there, in one space. This is not uncommon in many webinar tools; for example the whiteboard in Elluminate, now Bb Collaborate. I was showing him where I could share my screen in Zoom and if I was sharing a Google Doc or Drawing, or any other tool, we could all write on that tool and our changes would appear in real time in our Zoom recording. But in Zoom chat at that point, Jane did us one better:
Wed 26 Feb 1300 EST – Joe McVeigh hosts a free TESOL webinar on Needs Assessment for ELT Course or Curriculum Design
Joe McVeigh has invited his TESOL friends, and their your professional friends and colleagues, to join him for a free webinar on Wednesday, February 26th on the subject of Needs Assessment for ELT Course or Curriculum Design. This webinar will be offered at 8 a.m. and again at 1 p.m. EST (New York time)
A new course or curriculum should be designed based on the needs of the students. However, often teachers begin a curriculum or course design project without first stopping to carefully consider and assess the needs of the learners. In this American English Live event, we look at the process of needs assessment. We review several methods for learning what student needs are, including a menu of different needs assessment techniques and options. Then we consider how to use that information in course design, looking at basic steps and choices in development.
If joining via Facebook, try refreshing the page at the time the webinar begins.
Thu Feb 27 – Sat Feb 29 2nd Oxford English Language Teaching Online Conference 2020
Make sure you’re part of it. Sign up and we’ll keep you updated about event registration, speaker line up and other ways to get involved! Watch ELTOC 2019 conference webinars here
You must be a member of the Oxford Teachers’ Club to view them.
Not a member? Don’t worry. Registration only takes a few moments and is completely free.
On Sunday, February 23, 2020, Vance Stevens interviewed Nellie Deutsch at Connecting Online, the CO20 Live Online Conference. The idea for the interview was at my suggestion, the interview was recorded in Zoom and uploaded to YouTube here: https://youtu.be/ywejJikQYKc
In my promotion of the event at http://learning2gether.pbworks.com/, I wrote that I would “inventory Nellie’s projects, find out how she started out on and eventually arrived at her blend of free and remunerative endeavors, and probe her motivations and aspirations. ”
Nellie prepared in advance for these questions and came equipped with slides answering them. This made my job as interviewer one of the easiest that I have ever conducted.
After the conference, Nellie thanked her presenters, put all the videos up on a playlist, and handed out certificates to presenters. Other levels of certification are possible. You can find out more here https://moodle4teachers.org/enrol/index.php?id=97 about this — “Digital Badges will be available for introductions, feedback, and for reflecting on 5 of the live online sessions”
Sun Feb 23 noon UTC – iTDi hosts Facebook Live with Marcos Benevides talking about his upcoming course on task-based language teaching
Marcos Benevides has been involved in TBLT for nearly twenty years! And he is currently researching task-based assessment, which will also inform this course.
His most recent book is Widgets Inc.: A task-based course in workplace English, 2nd Edition. Since its original release in 2008, Widgets has been widely recognized as the first practical, truly task-based coursebook.
Marcos is also an award-winning co-author and editor of nearly fifty ELT titles! His books have been nominated for British Council ELTon Awards three times (2011, 2015, and 2019), and have won twice. He has also received the 2010 Duke of Edinburgh English Book Award and several Extensive Reading Foundation awards.
If you want to find out more about task-based language teaching, and his upcoming course, join Marcos on Sunday, 23 February at 12:00 GMT.
The opening webinar for a free, open, and online course on How to Create and Use a Blended Learning Classroom was opened by its creator Vance Stevens in a webinar on Thursday, 20 February, at 12 noon UTC.
English Language Specialist Vance Stevens and RELO Bangkok Alice Murray officially opened and introduced the course with this event recorded in Zoom. The course was originally planned to start on February 17, but the opening webinar was delayed to the 20th to allow enrollment numbers to eventually reach 30. As the course was scheduled for 3 weeks, the end date of the course was pushed back to March 11. You can read some of the back story here: http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2020/02/when-i-wasnt-dreaming.html
It is planned to schedule several more synchronous webinars and office hours at times negotiable with participants, but attendance at the webinars is optional. What is more important is asynchronous participation in the Schoology discussions. But there are no certificates offered for the course, and participants are welcome to drop in and participate in whatever capacity they feel will benefit them at any time over the next three weeks.
I (Vance) explained that the idea for the course is to practice community-as-curriculum along MOOC precepts and take advantage of this opportunity to work in consultation with an English Language Specialist (me) who developed the course following two decades experience in cultivating blended and online learning in f2f classrooms and in distributed communities of practice — and perhaps more importantly, to network with and learn from peers.
Throughout the course, I will model methods for creating blending learning environments which, if they resonate with you, you can apply in your own teaching context.
and follow the instructions there for enrolling in the Schoology course and participating in the webinars, if you are able to do so.
Please feel free to distribute this announcement to anyone you feel would be interested. Enrollment is open and the EL Specialist is available from Thu Feb 20 to Wed March 11, 2020.
But you can only reach that address if log in to your account at Schoology (free) and then access the course through your control panel. To do this you must first enroll in the course, using the access code PPZF-676N-BGXQW
Live online webinars and consultation opportunities which I call office hours were scheduled every other day throughout the course, all of them at 1400 UTC, which was the time agreed upon by attendees at the first webinar, and absent any feedback to the contrary from anyone else in the course.
Schoology has a category of materials that can be included in courses called ‘assignments‘ but I prefer to call these missions, an idea I got from Shelly Sanchez Terrell some time ago. Accordingly, the mission for the first week of the course was essentially to orient in the course and then produce a “digital poster” by which I meant just about anything you could put online that would get participants playing with the tools and showcasing their skills. By the end of the first week, three out of 40 enrolled participants had produced links to their missions, duly recorded in a Hero’s List, here: http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/138718167/Blended_Learning_Classrooms_Week1#HeroslistParticipantsuccessstories
Sat 22 Feb at 1400 UTC – 2100 Bangkok time – First Office Hour
The course on How to Create and Use a Blended Learning Classroom held its first “office hour” on Feb 22, 2020. Not sure if anyone would be there, I (Vance) started on time and dived into the back story of how the course came about. Magali from Ecuador appeared soon after and we talked about how the course can cater to her need to learn more about digital storytelling, which happens to be the topic for Week 2 of the course: http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/138718173/Blended_Learning_Classrooms_Week2
Mon 24 Feb 1400 UTC – 2100 in Bangkok – Second course office hour
At the opening webinar we decided that 1400 UTC would be a good time for our synchronous events in the coming week. Participants can also request other times in case 1400 UTC is not suitable.
As explained at the link above, this course has a webinar or office hour every other day for three weeks. We’re still in our first week with 40 people registered in the course, a dozen or so interacting in Schoology, but only a handful turning up for synchronous events.
This time it was Ti’s turn to drop by and show us the Screencast-o-matic she had produced, and we discussed how she can come to grips with her blended learning classroom by setting up her own portal linked to from the one her school provides. From this feedback I’ve decided to bring that forward in the course and talk about that AND digital storytelling in week 2. More specifically I built a unit on Twitter into the Week 2 materials, since Ti was using this actively in her existing courses. My focus in this new addition would be on the potential of tagging in Twitter as a means of aggregating everyone’s content under tags unique to the course or event within a course. http://workshops2020.pbworks.com/w/page/138718173/Blended_Learning_Classrooms_Week2#IntroducingTwitter
Earlier events
Sun Feb 16 1400 UTC Learning2gether 437 Wrap-up and closing ceremony of EVO2020
Learning2gether 