Pete Sharma Associates

The amazing Roadshow has come to an end. Wow. What an experience…… could I ever forget……:

Jujuy….how do you PRONOUNCE it? spell it? agonising over whether a carnivore should or shouldn’t eat cuddly animals llike llamas…can you resist llama kidneys in white wine……

Salta….agonising over whether sucking coca leaves is (or isn’t) legal….

Running (by the grace of heavenly powers, and the kindness of Maria Jose) a session from the Universidad Catolica for a conference in Madrid

Tucuman….hot,hot,hot….taping a polystyrene makeshift screen to the wall, and the world’s cutest projector…

Santiago del Estero….and the reaction to us ordering a taxi in the rain….“A taxi! ha ha – sorry, it’s RAINING!!!!” (Can you imagine that in England ha ha)

……or asking what time a restaurant will open….’Nueve y algo….” (My favourite time: neuve y algo. Can you imagine that in Germany?)

And finally, Cordoba….ten minutes before the plenary and the door is locked and you haven’t hooked up the MacAir to the projector – but am I worried? worried I am not. It’s Argentina time…..hang loose and all will be well…..and it was!

Wonderful memories of superb organsiation (thanks, Calum), great co-trainers (Ricardo / Rosa; Ceci; Ana; Lucia and Jen); sharing and input….

Here are my plenaries as Handouts:

Plenary 1 -plenary1

Plenary 2 -plenary2

Nice travelling out with Nik Peachy, and meeting Nicky Hockly and Gavin Dudeney on the way back. a truly amazing professional (and life-enhancing) experience. Thanks, British Council.

Here’s the handout with Rerefences from my Webinar for Macmillan! Happy hunting……

Conversation with Pete Sharma – Educator, Trainer and Author

Meet me aka. guest Pete Sharma on WizIQ at 11:30 AM (GMT) on 22nd Friday, June, when he talks about his life with Dr. Nellie Deutsch: listen , interact and ask questions as well.

To join us, please click here: http://www.wiziq.com/class/info.aspx?detail=879893-conversation-with-pete-sharma-educator-trainer-and-author&utm_source=wiziq&utm_medium=email&utm_content=conversation&utm_campaign=pete-sharma

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Izmir, Turkey last weekend. Hard eating choices – meat or fish? Luckily (like Blended Learning) I managed the best of both worlds.

Thanks to everyone for coming to my talk – here are the References, as promised. References

I’ll be back in Turkey (sponsored by Macmillan) in December for the conference on technology in ELT – really looking forward to it!

Pete

Once again, the British Embassy, Madrid played host to this, the second PSA symposium on digital technologies. This year, we ran a second symposium in Barcelona. Thought-provoking and inspiring, both events were successful.

Pete in action on the IWB

Pete Sharma began the morning, backgrounding the field with a picture of how much digital is changing the face of education. His session touched on some of the more exciting innovations in language teaching including the inexorable rise of the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), award-winning software, the prevalence of m-learning and the ubiquitous ‘app’.

Jim Dunne of Macmillan Training Services

Jim Dunne’s presentation title and blurb paid homage to Charles Dickens in the title: “A tale of two systems”. Jim eloquently drew the parallel – digital! It’s the best of times, the worst of times…..  Speaking on behalf of Language Training Services, he explained why Macmillan is promoting e-learning alongside its face-to-face methodology courses.

It was wonderful to explore the IWB with an IWB in the room, kindly provided by Promethean in Madrid, and by tech re-sellers Audiocerver in Barcelona. In Madrid we were able to have a hands-on with the Promethean Learner Voting devices. In Barcelona, Pete waved the latest IWB book around, mentioning its alternative title of ’400 ideas for teaching in the digital classroom with (or without) an interactive whiteboard’. A bit too much of a mouthful to catch on, maybe, and certainly not quite as snappy as ‘400 ideas for the IWB‘!

The morning was rounded off beautifully with the session from Trinity on the challenges and opportunities of digital media within English language assessment. This superbly brought into focus the bizarre spectacle of students (having grown up in the digital world) dumbing down for a test where they pick up a pen – ouch. Huge issues were raised in a superb PowerPoint showing not only the range of digital media being used today, but also the many skills used by successful language students in communication, and raised the central questions: what are we testing and how do we do it?

Carlos Bautista from Trinity Exams

As a company, we at PSA are now keener than ever to organise successful follow-ups to the events. Pete is back in Barcelona in May to meet with attendees at the same venue, the British Consulate on Diagonal. Byron Russell and Pete are back in Madrid  in June to enter discussions with schools, universities language training providers to discuss a range of services including teacher training in ICT, consultancy and bespoke materials creation.

Many thanks to our wonderful sponsors, Macmillan and Trinity, the superb support of the UK Government’s Department of Trade and Industry  in both cities and to everyone who came along to join us in this essential debate.

It was really great to meet everyone in Chile last week. I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions covering 40 practical ideas – run in Vina del Mar (Thursday) and Santiago (Friday). On the personal front, it was fabulous to have a chance to take photos in Valparaiso [left].

As promised, here is a Handout with a pdf version of the PowerPoint.

practical_ideas

Hope it’s useful guys! Don’t forget to get your school to buy our new book – there’s 360 more ideas there!!

Hasta ahora…….

Thanks to everyone who made the Teacher’s Day in Alicante last Saturday so enjoyable!

Here is a ‘lite’ version of my PowerPoint plenary presentation as promised!

alicznte-lite

Here is a handout with the references: References

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshops I attended – a great day!

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

It’s hard to overstate just how amazing  this visit to Bangla Desh was.

Tuesday saw the British Council Conference on the Innovative use of ICT in Education. I had heard about the Connecting Classrooms concept, and here it was brought to life by a series of enthusiastic, eye-opening presentations from teachers and educationalists across the country. It was great to hear about the social projects and meet such inspirational department heads.

You can read a lot more about the day, as well as the projects and presentations, at:

http://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/ict-conference-secondary-schools-bangladesh

It was the first time I had given a presentation which was translated, bit by bit – thanks to Ahsan for a great job!

On Wednesday, I headed out into the rural area north of Dhaka to see ICT in action. The teachers face some incredible challenges: will students leave their studies to become child brides? will students come in the afternoon, or be kept at home to help the family earn money?

We visited a school where one of the classroom was kitted out with a laptop computer and internet access. The internet in the class we saw was being used to enrich the learning from the course book, bringing the concept of volcanoes to life.

In the second school, the only computer was being used for admin. The ICT teachers deliver their curriculum without a computer…..

Truly memorable; humbling; inspiring. I’m sure I’ll return…….