I was genuinely shocked and saddened at the news this morning that Graham Davies, founder of Eurocall, ICT guru and omnipresent voice in the global languages community had unexpectedly lost his fight with long term illness. His encyclopaedic knowledge of computer assisted language learning was second to none and his willingness to share his expertise via a myriad of online media was greatly appreciated by many he connected with over the years. Graham's dedicated altruism and honesty touched colleagues from all over the world and his legacy speaks for itself
Throughout my teaching career and beyond, Graham Davies has been there, contributing to debate, challenging opinions and giving support. I contacted him many times asking for advice on a range of issues and he always helped and encouraged me. I know he did the same for many others too.
I was lucky enough to meet Graham in person four times, at a Japanese Conference at Oxford Brookes in 2007, The Language Show 2007, Eurocall 2011 and finally at the Digital Kitchen event at the Institut Français last October where he gave a talk on the history of CALL and we had lunch together with his colleague and friend Scott Windeatt. He was a kind, warm and approachable man with a great sense of humour and an affable nature.
A life 'post Graham' is hard to imagine such has been his contribution. My thoughts and best wishes go to his family and friends at this difficult time. If you would like to pay your respects, The Association for Language Learning has set up a tribute section to Graham on their Facebook page where you can leave comments. Alternatively you may like to add your thoughts to this TES thread I started this morning after hearing the terrible news.
Rest in Peace GroovyWinkler, GroovyGuzi, DaisyBundle ... Graham. Your unique voice, understanding and generosity will be sorely missed.
The core idea for the project came from a Skype conversation between Joel Josephson from the University of West Scotland and e-learning consultant Shelly Terrell following the 2009 Virtual Round Table conference where Shelly showed Joel how to maximise his use of Twitter to connect with like-minded educators from around the world. Inspired by the effectiveness of this form of online mentoring, Joel decided to put together a bid to the Life Long Learning Programme along with seven partner institutions from across Europe and was fortunate enough to receive around 280,000 euros!
Here are two short recordings taken from the Virtual Round Table webinar referred to below where Joel introduces the project and talks about the value of having a PLN.
With the funding in place, each team was assigned different responsibilities or work packages and began creating resources to support their different roles. Calls for associate partners were made in January 2010, and a year later the aPLaNet project website officially launched, followed by a Facebook page, Twitter account and Ning shortly afterwards. Using social media to build a community of like-minded educators around the project has resulted in over 140 institutions (associate partners) from 33 countries getting involved already!
It seems the aPLaNet team are using these drivers in the following way:
Facebook - a directory of related news, events and blog posts
Ning – a place to meet make connections, join sub-groups and access downloadable resources
Twitter – a vehicle for sharing conversations and crowd-sourcing information from the community.
There is a Google+ site too and this duplicates some of the Facebook content.
Colleagues from the seven partner institutions have met up face to face three times so far in Barcelona, Athens and Brno and each time they have fedback progress to the associate partners via video-conference. To access these webinars, click on the following links. Please note you will need to sign up for a Wiziq account.
You can access the recording from here and here is Marisa Constantinides' prezi about PLNs.
In July 2011, the team carried out an online survey regarding the use of social networks amongst language teachers in the EU. The feedback collected using a Google Form was used to improve and extend the resources and methodologies being prepared and give an insight on how educators are currently using social networks.
One of the project's objectives is to make it easier for teachers to identify useful ICT tools for language teaching and to help teachers in this area, there will be guides, video tutorials and face to face training opportunities for them to get involved especially with respect to a PLN. Joel Josephson and his team are also going to create a Twitter tool called Language Resource Filter Application (LRFA) which will collect tweets containing the hashtag #lrfa.This could be a useful way of pooling resources although as Graham Davies points out curating the content may be time-consuming.
Another core objective is to facilitate a mentoring system via the Ning subgroups whereby volunteers choose to either mentor newbies or be mentees themselves. If they prefer, it is possible for mentees to go through the materials on their own as a self-access pilot and have a series of tasks to complete with a final evaluation. Please note due to the nature of the EU funding for the project, mentees have to come from Europe, but mentors can be from anywhere in the world.
To become a mentor or mentee, you need to sign up to the Ning, fill in your profile and join the mentor or mentee group. There are three ways in which mentors and mentees can find each other
Look for someone who is listed as wanting help in the mentees group. Contact them and offer to be their mentor
Be approached by a prospective mentee looking for someone to mentor them.
Be recommended by an aPLaNet partner to connect with a mentee or mentor
As a mentee, you will be expected to fill in a questionnaire so your mentor can analyse the areas where you need support. The job of the mentor is then to use SMART criteria to set objectives and provide the appropriate support so mentees don’t feel overwhelmed and can manage their time effectively. This could involve for example learning how to use tools like Twitter, Facebook and Ning so mentees can make connections with other like-minded teachers and in time become autonomous. Ultimately, the idea is to have an on-going cycle of mentees who become mentors themselves once they’ve been through the process.
Guides for being a mentor or mentee will be made available on the Ning very soon.
Different levels of blog badges from bronze to platinum will be awarded to mentors according to the number of mentees they have. Mentors can have as many mentees as they feel they have time for.
The British Council in Barcelona is responsible for the mentoring side of the project and the first orientation meeting took place on 23rd November 2011. It was delivered by Graham Stanley from the Brno meet up and the webinar can be accessed here.
At the end of the session, we had the opportunity to make comments and I suggested it would be a good idea to encourage mentors and mentees to record their exchanges so they could refer back to useful conversations and possibly share the highlights with the community.
The mentoring pilot begins January 2012 and resources will be available in Bulgarian, Czech, Greek, Spanish, English, Romanian, Turkish, German, French and Italian.
Here is an example mentor presentation from one of the partner institutions and this clip filmed in Brno gives a nice overview of the project to date.
Undoubtedly, one of the challenges to the success of aPLaNet will be encouraging enough mentees to sign up. Joel Josephson recently wrote a guest post on Shelly Terrell’s blog concerning this very issue. He feels the two main reasons why teachers don’t use social media to connect with other educators around the world is time and privacy. Trying to reach people who don’t know about the power of PLNs or who feel they don’t have the time to engage with social media may be problematic. I hope not, as I think the premise of the project is fantastic. Time will tell though.
Joel describes a PLN as being:
"like a language teachers staff room and a supportive educational authority in one. It is a global community of language educators, just like you, that have come together to support and help each other improve and update their language teaching by using and sharing the resources that are constantly being developed on the Internet." (Joel Josephson 2010 - taken from the Associate Partner form from Graham Stanley’s post)
"I am now involved in many exciting new collaborative projects, simply by being part of this global conversation. For example, by engaging with my peers on Twitter, it has become possible for me to work on aPLaNet, a major EU funded project which aims to help teachers in their autonomous professional development through the use of such social networks as Facebook, Twitter and Nings." (Marisa Constantinides Autumn 2011)
Anne Foreman, another of the official partners described PLNs as "Do-IT-Yourself Professional Development" in her presentation REAL TICE | Making sense of chaos | Madrid which I love! I also liked the text chat comment from RaquelEFL in the Virtual Round Table session where she quoted Alexander Graham Bell and described the following as a PLN Mantra!
"Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds."
In conclusion, I encourage you to listen to this 50 minute podcast interview I recorded over Skype with Graham Stanley from the British Council in Barcelona (No 2 in the picture above!) as it gives a comprehensive overview of the aPLaNet project and fills in any gaps I may have missed in this post!
introducing the aPLaNet project and explaining what the acronym stands for
explaining the reasons for launching the project as a way of bridging the gap between those language teachers who use social media and those who don't
promoting the concept of using a PLN and particularly Twitter as a professional development tool and showing the benefits of doing so
piloting a mentoring and self-access approach
explaining what is a personal learning network, the origin of the concept and the value of having a PLN
maintaining contacts and support through a PLN instead of being tied to a PLE, VLE via an institution
ways in which PLNs can help professional development
the target audience for aPLaNet - language teachers who are experienced and inexperiend users of social media
the challenge of finding mentees
involving colleagues through face to face workshops as well as online mentoring
becoming a mentor or mentee by joining the aPLaNet Ning and going on to the next step
explaining the self-access option and carrying out a webquest
translating the resources into a variety of languages and encouraging MFL teachers as well English teachers to get involved
making the Ning the hub of the project
where the idea for the aPLaNet project came from
bringing together seven partner institutions for the eu bid
asking for associate partners in January 2010 and seeing a great reponse
the benefits of the partner institutions meeting up face to face and agreeing on the first steps
preparing for the life of aPLaNet after the end of the project in order to make it sustainable for years to come
explaining the resources in more detail: (Mentor and Mentee support guides, feedback questionnaires, teacher diary template which can be completed online or on paper, 150 page teacher reference guide, series of online workshops which will be recorded, webquests, video tutorials)
explaining the differences between the mentor and mentee questionnaire and the importance of collecting data about the use of social media by language teachers to update resources and improve the effectiveness of the project
explaining what are the markers of success?
creating a cycle of mentees who become autonomous mentors themselves
presenting the results of the project at an aPLaNet themed conference in Istanbul in September 2012 and feeding back on what has been achieved
following the progress of the project and involving associate partners via webinars to maintain interest
the importance of creating a community spirit around the project and drawing on members' PLNs
creating a report on the use of social networks amongst language teachers based on the feedback from the July 2011 survey which fed into the section on social networking in the teacher guide
crowdsourcing colleagues for recommend resources and links before creating the mentor guide and seeing a great response
drawing upon the "generosity and volunteer spirit of all of these wonderful language teachers all over the world"
clarifying that during the life of the project, mentees are expected to be from the European Union due to the nature of the funding, but mentors can be from anywhere in the world
rewarding mentors with different blog badges (bronze, silver, gold and platinum) which denote the number of mentees each mentor is supporting
giving a t-shirt prize to the first mentor who mentors eleven mentees and achieves platinumn status!
presenting aPLaNet at the Virtual Round Table conference 2011 and trying to connect with as many language teachers as possible and keep their interest
explaining how the Language Resource Filter is designed to work as a way of crowdsourcing useful language specific resources and making them available on the Ning
finishing off with some thoughts on quotes from Joel and Marisa about the value of PLNs
seeing a PLN as a virtual staffroom full of connected, helpful and sharing language teachers
giving a heads up to the MFL Twitterati!
find a world of opportunities arising by simply posting on Twitter
getting involved in the iTILT project about helping language teachers make the most of interactive whiteboards
being asked to speak at a conference through Facebook
using Twitter can open up a whole new world to language teachers and broaden their horizons exponentially - they can find answers to pressing questions 24/7, help another colleague in return, gauge opinion and discover a neverending stream of useful information from their online community
concluding remarks
I hope you've enjoyed learning about the aPLaNet project and hearing testimonies of others on the value of personal learning networks.
Here are a couple of presentations which may just do the trick if you're not convinced already!
I encourage you to get involved with the aPLaNet project. It could be a wonderful opportunity for you. Developments in the new year are sure to be out of this world! Follow that pilot!
If you can't wait until then though, check out this Scoop.it! magazine I've curated which focuses on PLNs and Twitter as professional development tools. Enjoy!
The idea of Edutalk Radio is twofold, first to live stream random selections of the existing bank of audio collected on the Edutalk site and secondly to offer educators the opportunity to call or Skype into a live phone in and chat about topics of their choice.
The topic of discussion last Thursday was educational podcasting and Stephen Reid from A Higher Place kicked off proceedings brilliantly by calling in on his smartphone live from his train carriage using a 3G connection while David and John endeavoured to patch the audio through into the live stream!
As you will hear, it did work and Stephen was able to share his expertise with the hosts and of course the listeners. He talked about the key messages he likes to convey to teachers when training them on the power of podcasting and how he tries to dispell their misconceptions through practical examples. I loved the way he added how pupils just go for it in his experience and don't seem to share the same concerns.
My section was recorded through Skype too and you can hear the difference in audio quality between the iPhone's microphone and my Samson CO3U below.
Pioneers of educational podcasting in Scotland, John and David have been experimenting with the power of audio in and out of the classroom for the past six years with projects such as Radio Sandaig and Booruch. In 2009, they came up with the idea of encouraging delegates attending the Scottish Learning Festival to reflect on the event by using their mobile devices to send audio feedback to a Posterous blog. SLFtalk was born.
As John explains in this short interview I recorded with him at the time, he was pleased with this first attempt of gathering the voices of educators together in the same place and the seamless way Posterous coped with the task. Using social media platforms like Twitter certainly helped to spread the word as well as specially-produced SLFtalk cards with detailed instructions we gave out over the two days.
Buoyed by this initial success and Edublog award nomination, David and John launched Edutalk, an extension of the SLFtalk idea and a further opportunity for teachers, pupils and educational professionals to capture their thoughts on a mobile device and share them with a wider audience 24/7.
To help build up a bank of user generated content, the duo challenged people to post a new recording everyday and this certainly got the ball rolling.
Not content to sit on their laurels, David and John then decided to start up Edutalkr, an online panel discussion featuring specialists in their fields such as Professor Stephen Heppell and other learning enthusiasts wishing to debate the educational issues of the day from their mobile phones, landlines or SkypeOut.
In August 2010, the TESS published the article Audio explorers right on track which catalogued the progress of the project to date and acknowledged its impact in its first year.
A month later, the team presented their findings at the Scottish Learning Festival in the session Edutalk - Mobile audio publishing by educators. I was lucky enough to be there in person and to record proceedings including the iPadio + Skype conference call test involving willing volunteers scattered around the exhibition hall!
Book by the end of this month for the amazing early bird rate and start sorting your transport and accommodation now!
Come along too to the free MFL Show and Tell event on the Saturday night at The Highfield House Hotel where everyone is welcome to speak, sing a song or play the ukulele, if you fancy (at no additional cost)!
For those arriving on the Friday, we will be having a get together at Ceno restaurant as well. Would be great to see you there!
Check out this Google Map for more details and contact Zena Hilton on [email protected] or call 023 8059 9135 if you have any queries. Follow #ililc2 on Twitter too to find out about the latest developments!
This is the week we’ve all been waiting for! The Language Perfect World Championships have started. The biggest language learning competition there has ever been in history! Do you and your pupils want to be part of history? Oh yeah!
Countries competing against countries, schools competing against schools, pupils competing against pupils all with the same aim: to appear as high as possible on the championship scoreboard. 2.5 million questions have already been answered in the first day of the competition. With 6 days to go who knows what the final total will be?
This now is our challenge to compete with the rest of the world. We mustn’t slip behind as we’ll never catch up. Don’t forget in last year’s European Language Olympics, the UK topped the scoreboard, but now we are against the world people! Time to step up!
I am personally in charge of coordinating the UK attempt on the crown! (No pressure there then) and with your participation, I’m sure we can do a sterling job!
If you haven’t done so already, you can use the code (JDALE) when registering to receive 50 places for FREE and if you are a member of the Association of Language Learning, an official partner of Language Perfect, you can additionally use the code (ALL) for an extra 50 FREE places. Anyone can use my code not just schools from the UK so what have you got to lose?
To see just how much learners are loving the competition to date, check out the Language Perfect Facebook page which is awash with positivity!
Check out too the news page on the main site where CEO Craig Smith, myself and other members of the Language Perfect World Championships committee will be posting regular updates throughout the week.
To celebrate your school's achievements further, you can also send an email to [email protected] and attach images such as your position on the scoreboard, audio or video clips and some accompanying text about how you are finding the competition. Contributions will appear on this Posterous blog embedded automatically and accessible to all.
The country which accumulates the most points wins the Trevor and Rose Trophy, named after Craig's Mum and Dad!
What a great way to enthuse your students at the start of the school year.
Speaking at Eurocall for the first time was a great experience and opportunity to meet educators from around the world interested in technology and language learning. I've been aware of the conference for years now and have followed from a distance thanks to the virtual strand but attending in person was a first.
Like Helen Myers in 2010, I thoroughly enjoyed the event and found it fascinating to hear many engaging presentations delivered by university colleagues and PhD students based on their academic research as well as their classroom practice. It was also interesting to see a designated ten minute slot included for questions at the end of each session for a very techno savvy audience to discuss the concepts conveyed by the speaker more deeply and offer feedback.
I was glad to have had the chance to have experienced this format first hand for a day before speaking myself so I could streamline my presentation accordingly, cut out the fluff and concentrate on the key messages due to the imposed time restrictions (like a TeachMeet on steroids!).
Championing the MFL Twitterati was a no brainer and as in previous live tweetouts I was delighted with everyone's response as it proved yet again of the power of having a personal learning network which you can draw on 24/7.
I also really enjoyed Nicolas Guichon's session where he fedback a plethora of interesting data culled from high school students from all over France on their use and perceptions of digital technologies. It would be great to do a similar study in this country ;-)
There was a wonderful session on podcasting and learning Indonesian from Ms Indrianti where she described how she had integrated podcasting into her practice and what were her students' reactions to it.
I enjoyed all the keynotes, particularly Gillian McLaughlin's who gave a stirring and amusing talk on the lifelong learning programme, the history of EU funding for language activities and her adventures in organising tech-based conferences in the early nineties!
The final session I attended before heading home was about the European funded project SpeakApps which is examining the potential of audio and video feedback from students from a range of countries using a special WordPress plugin. It was great to hear that this plugin will eventually be made freely available as Open Source for anyone to install. You could always explore the potential of a Posterous Group to achieve a similar outcome if you can't wait though!
Here is a slideshow of all the pics I took. I am now looking forward to hearing more of the parallel sessions which were recorded and will be published online in the future.
In light of the current economic downturn and the difficulty teachers have of getting out of school to attend courses, I felt it was apposite at this year's Language World to promote the myriad ways colleagues can improve their own continuing professional development by taking advantage of powerful online tools such as Twitter to nurture a personal learning network.
In an ideal world, it would be great to receive training during the school day in a centre or hotel paid for by your school, but in the current climate, these opportunities are simply becoming less and less viable. Finding alternative sources of CPD is becoming increasingly important and teachers need to be more pro-active if they want to keep up with the latest developments in their field.
To finish off, I'd like to quote primary deputy headteacher Julian S Wood from Sheffield who in May delivered a thought-provoking TeachMeet presentation about PLNs in which he concluded that
Last month, I had the fantastic opportunity of delivering a talk at The American Association of Teachers of French convention in Montreal and championing the trailblazing efforts of MFL colleagues from the UK about their use of new technologies to enhance language learning and improve continuing professional development. I firmly believe we are leading the way in this area and it was a pleasure to convey this message to like-minded colleagues across the pond.
As you can see, I chose to video my presentation as well as slidecast and podcast it this time. I hope I have catered to your preferred learning style and you find the information useful! All the links I refer to are included below as well as on this Posterous blog I set up so delegates could access the resources and download the PowerPoint immediately following the presentation if they wanted to.
I was delighted with the audience’s response both during and after the talk and I was made to feel very welcome. One kind soul left this comment which made the whole transatlantic trip worthwhile in itself!
“Your workshop alone was worth the whole conference! I received so many ideas, not just for my classroom, but also for my AATF chapter. Now if I could only invent a way to make more time......” (Robin Jacobi July 2011)
Here is the formal written feedback I received later too, once back in Blighty which in the main is equally positive. (Go fullscreen to read properly).
Before the conference started, I took the opportunity to go on a visit to the Eastern Townships or ‘Les cantons de l’est’ with other delegates from the conference. We visited the vineyard L’Orpailleur, tasted some of the wine and had a lovely lunch. Santé!
We also had a look in some of the antique shops in Dunham in the afternoon and stopped off for another food break before making our way back to the hotel.
On the evening of the first day of the conference, a group of us visited Château Ramezay, one of the only remaining 18th century buildings left in Old Montreal. As part of the entertainment, our two québécois guides re-enacted three different court scenes from the period and asked for ‘volunteers’ from the audience to take part.
Being one of the only males in the room, I was lucky enough to be ‘volunteered’ to play the role of bailiff l’huissier (a word I will never forget!) and to read from a script at designated moments. For comic effect however, the guides were deliberately speaking very quickly and using antiquated French on occasion making it difficult to follow the thread, leading to great confusion and hilarity! A very memorable moment! (Unfortunately no photo graphic evidence exists of said event).
Earlier in the week, I went to Quebec City too and reminisced about my first visit to la belle province in the early nineties when I was a language assistant, thanks to the British Council programme (long may it continue). Here is a short film I made of that blistering hot day including a québécois speciality Poutine! Hope you like it.
Check out too this tripline presentation which chronicles my every movement in a visually appealing way!
My pool partner is my former flatmate Stéphane who I’ve kept in contact with for all these years through Skype, Facebook and emails. We’ve also met up face to face a couple of times when I’ve had the chance to return to Montreal and St Jean sur Richelieu where he lives.
Attending a foreign language convention in another country was a fascinating experience in many ways. For example, I was surprised to hear many of the delegates speaking in French with each other around the hotel and during the excursions despite English being their mother tongue in the main. It was clear that this was one of the convention’s convention and although it took a little getting used to I found it really refreshing once I’d become accustomed to the idea!
Talking to some of the delegates, it seems in the US, that it is more common for language departments to be smaller compared to the UK and schools may only have one teacher offering a particular language in their faculty. Therefore, I presume for many, meeting other French teachers in this way was a great opportunity to practise. Please let me know if I’m talking rubbish!
Thank you to the AATF for accepting my proposal to speak and for welcoming me to their convention. I hope this is just the beginning of a beautiful friendship, starting with Facebook!
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of working with the staff at Medina High School at one of their development days focusing on the use of ICT to support teaching and learning.
Assistant Headteacher Nick Krista kicked off the morning with an overview of how the school is currently using technology to enhance the curriculum and highlighted directions it now wants to explore. My job was to showcase examples of innovative practice and suggest where colleagues could find out more.
After my talk, I ran two podcasting workshops and showed delegates how easy it is to email their mp3 files to Posterous and subscribe via RSS in Google Reader.
Have a listen to what they produced and feel free to leave a comment.
On September 9th 2011, New Zealand firm, Language Perfect are launching the largest ever online language learning competition on the planet enabling school children from the southern and northern hemispheres to compete with each other, track their own scores and drive their school up the international scoreboard! The World Championships will last a week and be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate languages worldwide! Pupils can win prizes and earn certificates the more points they accumulate for their school!
To enhance this year's global challenge, the guys from Language Perfect have asked me to experiment with the potential of social media to spread the word and encourage as many people as possible to take part. I'm thrilled at the prospect and hope you can help. Building on the strength of feedback from last year's competition, I thought it would be a good idea to set up a Posterous blog and invite participants to email in their thoughts, share their experiences and basically get involved!
All you have to do is send your contributions via email to [email protected] and attach any multimedia content to your message. Posterous will then embed and resize everything for you! Feel free to start posting straight away and tell us what you thought of last year's competition. It would be great to hear from you!
You can also send a tweet to @languageperfect and please use the tag #lpwc so we can follow your messages.
As an extra incentive, the first 250 schools from anywhere in the world who put the code (JDALE) after their school's name when registering will get 50 student places for FREE. What an offer!
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