Pete Sharma Associates

 The winner of the Ben Warren Trust prize will be announced at the IATEFL conference. The announcement is due at the 9am plenary session on Wednesday 9th April.

I spent most of today being filmed demonstrating the New Inside Out Digital software for Interactive whiteboards (Macmillan).

One of the most exciting features in the software is the phonemic chart. Click on the symbol to hear the sound. Destined to be one of the most popular features on the software; it was nice to experience the ‘wow’ factor again!

Have you ever started making a booking for a flight, having spotted the ad – “Berlin for £10.00″ – only to discover that by the time you come to pay, your fare has mysteriously risen to £47.50? If so, the latest e-lesson from Macmillan could be just the ticket.

Fly now to the latest e-lesson - it is free and we guarantee there are no hidden costs!

 I am exploring a desk-top publishing package from Serif in preparation for editing the next CALL Newsletter.

So, please send your articles, book reviews, hardware and software reviews, interviews, conference reports, letters, announcements, advertisements, opinions, to me at: pete.sharma@ btopenworld. com

Please send your contributions by Word attachment and follow the guidelines on the inside cover of the last edition of CALL Review.

The title of website of the month goes to Teacher Training Videos. Run by Russell Stannard from the University of Westminister.

The site carries two main sets of training videos:

General Teacher Training Videos covers how to use the Blackboard VLE, tips for using PowerPoint, how to make and use blogs and wikis plus a number of other topics.

ELT Teacher Training Videos highlights various online resources for the ELT teachers such as websites, podcasts and online video.

Thanks to Darina Phelan for telling me about this site during a discussion about establishing a wiki for Linguarama teachers.

These are the videos we looked at which give step-by-step instructions for setting up and using a wiki.

Have you seen our ‘new look’ homepage? There are two new buttons:

1. Subscribe: click here to register interest in our Extra content. This includes a sample version of our new E-book, new teaching material and a glossary of technical terms. Coming soon!

You will automatically be subscribed to our new Newsletter for language teachers, being launched at the end of March 2008. Both services are free.

 2. Buy online: this makes it easy to buy our major titles, the Internet and Business English and Blended Learning.

There are many exciting developments in the pipeline. Please look out for more information on our blog!

I am currently taking a course on Second Life with the Consultants-E.

The metaverse is truly unbelievable. Here is a report on my latest field trip, which I did with Nik Peachy. First, we visited the Virtual University of Edinburgh. Nik spotted a large hot-air balloon, we scooted over and were uplifted (literally and metaphorically) over the venue. It was peaceful, sometimes visually stunning, but curiously devoid of people.

Nik knew of a fascinating place, dedicated to the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. We teleported there, and it was truly amazing – 3D versions of the paintings in which you could actually enter. A must-see. Virtual Starry Night Luctesa 110,127,25.

The next stop was Hong Kong Polytechnic University, School of Hotel & Tourism Management. It seemed to have potential for running courses, training people in the art of hotel management.

Finally, we visited  a  planetarium. It was like a hallucinogenic trip, much better experienced in flying mode, with models of the planets, not to scale. Lots of lights. Location: 142-239-38.

Some thoughts: maybe it was the time of day, but SL did seem deserted. That was quite an eery feeling, but exciting too. The wander though the paintings, including Starry Night, was a great example of something which could be done in SL but difficult to imagine in the real world. With a group of students, one could imagine this could be an incredible task. Is this where we are – a new experience is upon us, but we at the chalk face now need to link it to our pedagogies. Seems like the ‘skies the limit’ in terms of what we could ‘do’ with students here. Maybe good news for CLIL – what better way to do astronomy than floating around the solar system, had it been to scale.

We are delighted that Blended Learning has been chosen for the 2007 shortlist for The Ben Warren International House Trust Prize awarded for the most outstanding work in the field of language teacher education.

 The winner will be announced at the IATEFL conference in Exeter in April.