Pete Sharma Associates

What a venue! It was a good idea to arrive early just to soak up the plenary room, rarely opened, I believe. All that history, a fitting place to signal the move into Teaching in the 21st Century and the move to digital. If you would like a six page handout [.pdf] of the presentation, please click here:

plenary-barca-lite

If you would like a one-page handout of the references, please click here:

References

Thanks to Lindsay Clandfield for taking these great photos. I will always remember the face to face part of the plenary! Barca – I’ll be back!

An excellent conference at International House London on Saturday, as Business EnglishUKorganised their trainers’ day. The weather was appalling, which made being at the conference even more attractive! The opening plenary by Evan Frendo dealt with specificity and the complexities of teaching ESP (including the reluctance of many teaching organisations – for a variety of reasons – to carry out thorough needs analysis for clients and individuals).

Thanks to IH London for the use of their facilities

My own session, a Tale of Two Platforms, discussed choosing an appropriate LMS – so it also centred on needs analysis – but in this case the importance of deciding what your priorities were, whether an LMS was really suitable for your institution and if so how to prepare for making the choice. We offer consultancy and advice in doing just that, so if you’re thinking about an LMS get in touch!

Immediately afterwards Cleve Miller spoke on Three Principles for Blended Learning, which referenced his own outstanding LMS, English360

The day was rounded off by a great presentation from Ian MacMaster on the importance of teaching general communication skills in BE. For the coffee and lunch breaks there was the usual publishers exhibition. I was very interested to see the latest development at Macmillan English Campus, the new Culture World plug in.

If you weren’t lucky enough to be there, full details of what you missed can be found in the programme  here. Many thanks to Huan Japes, Tom Weatherley, Sarah Wang and the other EnglishUK team members for organising such a useful and interesting event.

Byron

La Formacion de docentes de ingles en Chile

Here we go, 168 hours (give or take!) after being there face-to-face, I am delighted to post a lite-version of my PPT in .pdf and the References, as promised!

Click below for the PPT of the session: Is it possible to train teachers by virtual media? pros and cons

plenary-lite

And click on the link below for a one-page list of References

References

Thanks to everyone who came, and to everyone at the Council for organising such a great day. Did I have great time in Chile? Well, some things don’t need much thought before answering!! I hope to do my usual impersonation of Arnie, and return……

Byron and I having a fantastic time – great to see everyone and enjoy the mixture of input, frantic networking, discussion and eating / drinking. I am attending as many tech talks as possible – loving seeing the latest apps. Too frantic to write more but hopefully more will follow after a suitable period of reflection! Great to meet Tweeters face- to- face and folk from India, Bangla Desh, Greece and Argentina – the countries I’ve visited this year, as well as colleagues from Warwick Uni in a different settings. A beautiful Dawn in Glasgow and as someone says….Glasgow rocks!

I thoroughly enjoyed the conference in Oxford last weekend, not least as it satiated a long-term fascination with shrunken heads.

It was a great experience to deliver the plenary session on Saturday morning. As promised, here is the task feedback. I have simply transferred the notes to a one-page Handout without embellishment. They give a raw picture of the cut-and-thrust of the lively discussions, most of which were about the use of Smartphones and m-learning.

task-results

Click below if you would like to download a one-page list of References for the plenary – clearly, the reference to Nicky Hockly’s article and description of dimensions / scales is highly relevant to any discussion on m-learning!

References

You can also download a graphics-lite version of the PowerPoint here:

plenary-lite

This is also available on the English Uk website where you can also read Huan Japes concise and insightful summary of the event

Many thanks to the team at English UK and to all the participants who came along first thing Saturday after a night in the Pitt Rivers museum to make this such a lively, enjoyable and thought-provoking plenary!

Pro-T conference

At long last Iam beginning to catch up on myself! Here is the Handout ‘Using interactive whiteboards’

IWBs

which I promised to post in another life – at the Pro-T conference in Buenos Aires……

Wow. This was the fastest & shortest time for me at  a conference! Veni, vidi, presenti, departi…..

It was good to catch Luciano Camino for 4.5 nano seconds. It was good to watch Nicky Hockly on digital literacies

Thanks to Jennifer Vershoor who guided me through the labyrinthine complex of the wondrous mall where the Pro-T conference was held…..

Thanks to Juan Carlos Lorenzo (of Macmillan) who supplied much – needed vittals, femto seconds before my talk

Then – the classic moment from hell where I could see the background of my Mac projected behind me, but not the Promethean screen. Arrrgh….. then, it was vice versa  - when the participants could see the screen, but I couldn’t operate it from my laptop!!

So what could a poor boy do? Apart from sing for a rock and roll band, I described what would do if I could demo the technology! Inventive, or what…the only alternative – curl into a foetal ball and fall off-stage

The audience (it seemed to me) were many miles away, in the recesses of the theatre

Still, with the confidence that comes from knowing the audience were with me, the presentation picked up momentum and ended up bringing great fun!

I promise I WILL post a copy of the article 10 things to do with an IWB- the, er, polite printable version….

Thanks to the amazing photographer who captured me in action!

Also to Maria who kindly bought the book 400 ideas – lovely! Hope it helps you – I was happy to sign it!!

Great experience, if a bit fast – like many things in life. I have been trying to bñog this for a WEEK or more, but life keeps getting in the way! Oh well……more soon…..

Last week I was down at Olympia yet again, this time visiting what is claimed to be “Europe’s leading showcase of technology supported workplace learning” -  the Learning Technologies exhibition.

Aimed primarily at the corporate training market, language learning was much in evidence with the usual suspects such as EF and Rosetta Stone exhibiting. A slick stand showcased speexx, the latest corporate language training offering from Germany’s Digital Publishing group. Speexx offers the kind of holistic solution that companies – and increasingly universities – are looking for; content, an LMS and real teachers, all neatly packaged together as a complete solution, and beautifully marketed.

It’s a show that’s definitely worth a visit if you intend to do anything at all in the business / corporate sector. Learning Technologies happens again in 2013 on January 29-30 at Olympia 2, London.

Next year it will combine the Learning and Skills exhibition and the  Learning Without Frontiers 13: Future of Learning show. The organisers promise that this will offer “the biggest show in the entire learning sector… also the best attended and fastest growing”. I wouldn’t argue with the latter, and they had over 5,000 visitors and 230 visitors this year.

A nice freebie for all interested parties is Inside Learning Technologies and Skills magazine, which is available free electronically. It’s a tad heavy on the ads., but offers some interesting industry insights and useful articles – worth a read over a coffee.

Byron

Last Saturday saw the QLS conference, held in Athens. It was great to go back to Greece after so many years – I was  a tourist on the mainland over 20 years ago.

I was startled at the title: ‘Hi Tech, bye teacher?” Luckily, the next line was reassuring: “Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer deserves to be”, so I felt much better.

It was good to meet George Drivas who had kindly sent me a copy of his book: Education, Learning, Training in a Digital Society. George opened the conference with a talk based on his book; it was a good start to the day.

My own session provided 40 practical ideas for using technology in the classroom, although I actually only managed 36! For a graphics-lite version of my talk, please click here:

practical_ideas2

I enjoyed the whole day, including the talk by Anne Leventeris, from Burlington Books. She was showing us activities based on published digital materials, using a SMART board, and it was greta to see the IWB used confidently and competently.

The most spectacular moment of the day was actually realising where I was. We went up to the 8th floor for a wonderful view across Athens, taking in the Acropolis crowned by Parthenon.

We sped up to Patras to arrive at carnival time!

It was good to be in the streets and see everyone enjoying themselves despite the challenging economic climate. TESOL Greece sure know how to provide a fab meal.

Sunday saw TESOL Greece, Patras. The event was live streamed. It was a wonderful day, with great presentations on Art and language teaching, psychology and being popular with students, and materials from Heinle National Geographic (I hope I got that right!).

For a graphics-lite PPT version of my talk on technology, please click here:

plenary-lite-1

For a Handout with some key references, please click here:

References

A great trip. Thanks to everyone. I do hope to return to Greece again.

This week I spent several days at the massive BETT show in Olympia; always a good start to the year. Some of the stands were truly awesome in size – and cost. One primary software company I spoke to, with a smaller stand in the Grand Hall, had spent £35,000 on the space; Google must have spent well into six figures – eat your heart out, IATEFL. In 2011 over 29,000 people attended, a 17% increase on 2010, with 30% from overseas; initial indications are that this year was even bigger, with a similar UK / overseas split – yet EFL was still in meagre evidence. The big four ELT publishers had stands (though CUP’s was predominantly books – sure you’re at the right show, guys?) and there were a couple of interesting players in the primary sector.

The event was opened by a keynote speech by UK Education Minister Michael Gove, who heavily criticised ICT training in schools and stressed how much more needed to be done in the field of teacher training. Couldn’t agree more, Mike…You can read the full text of the speech here .

Of course, most of what he said was directed at the UK state educational system, but his comment that “technology is going to bring profound changes to how and what we teach. But it’s equally clear that we have not yet managed to make the most of it” applies to every market and every sphere of digital endeavour.  Costly interactive whiteboards languishing in unopened boxes; digital learning resources that are little more than pdfs on screen; learning management systems that teachers can’t be bothered to engage with; apps that vanish into the black hole of the app store through inadequate marketing; the list of missed opportunities goes on and on. The risks, from the publisher’s point of view, are huge. But the riskiest policy of all is not to engage fully in the brave new world of digital education, and in not providing a full service solution to teachers and clients – including training packages, even at the most basic level.

Byron