On the Ed Tech Radar - Free Online Professional Development Opportunities in October

Stay at the comfort of your home or keep yourself comfortable in your office, but don´t miss two great professional development opportunities that you can access from wherever you are in the world for free.

October 12th - TESOL CALL-IS & IATEFL LEARING TECHNOLOGIES SIG Online Conference

It starts at 2pm GMT / 3pm London time / 7am Pacific/ 11 am Brasilia time with fabulous guest speakers like Prof Carol Chapelle, Shaun Wilden, Gavin Dudeney, Nicky Hockly, Deborah Healey, Phil Hubbard, Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou, Paige Ware, Elizabeth Hanson-Smith, Christel Broady and a closing joint session at 8pm GMT / 9pm London / Pacific 1pm/ 5pm Brasilia Time.

From October 11 to October 13th - The Reform Symposium Online Conference

The 4th annual Reform Symposium Conference (RSCON), a free online three day event bringing together educators, students and innovators from around the world, will be held October 11th to 13th in conjunction with Connected Educator Month. 

The Reform Symposium Conference is a global community initiative to transform teaching and learning. The Reform Symposium Conference will be a highly inclusive and engaging event that will encourage students and educators around the world to share and learn about transformative approaches to learning and teaching. To attend this year's conference and to be kept informed of the latest conference news and updates, check http://www.futureofeducation.com/page/2013-reform-symposium. There will be

• 10+ international keynotes
• 3 panel discussions featuring distinguished experts
• 100+ presentations by educators around the world

There are no excuses for you to invest in your professional growth, learn from educators around the globe and connect with a great audience!

Digital Curation for Business English Teachers - IATEFL BESIG

Last Sunday, Aug 4th, I had a great time interacting with Business English teachers all over the world in BESIG-IATEFL very well-organized online events.

Here are the slides:

Digital Curation for Business English Teachers - BESIG IATEFL from Carla Arena

We mainly explored http://cowbird.com for engaging personal stories related to the workplace, business world.

We talked about ways of using Pinterest for Business English classes by encouraging teachers to create topic board for students and inviting them on a Web Safari. Also, it would be wonderful if students created their own boards and shared with other students. The comment area in Pinterest has great potential for emergent conversations among a group. The teacher can also decide for one group collaborative board by inviting students to the topic board. It is just a fantastic collaborative approach to learning where you give choice, control and agency in the hands of students.

I was surprised to realize that not many teachers knew about http://getpocket.com , a place where you can add all the posts, articles, resources that you find online and want to keep  "in your pocket" for later use. It is just very helpful to curate great content. From there, you can share resources with students and even encourage them to keep their "pockets"and share resources with the group. What I love about it is that it is totally crossplatform, with easy access on the web and any mobile device. Plus, to add resources to Pocket, you can install firefox and Chrome plugins to save them on the go.

Talking about cross platform, one tool that I feel has great potential for Business English teachers is http://newsmix.me . There you can create magazines with different topic feeds. It might help with authentic resources for students. Again, it is web-based as well as mobile device accessible.

Then, we moved on to learning playlists. Again, great potential for the classroom with platforms such as http://mentormob.com, http://learn.ist and http://theemefy.com . All worth the exploration with this great concept of giving more control for the students in their learning process.

Any other curatorial tools you'd add for the Business English Teacher?

IATEFL Conference 2013 Ed Tech Highlights

IATEFL was just some days ago, but things get so hectic when we get back that it seems that it was so long ago... The highlights of an international conference like IATEFL is always related to the people you meet and talk to and the networking that takes place everywhere, on the streets, on Twitter, in the Convention Center corridors, during break time. It's always time to connect, talk, discover, experience.

If you ask me about specific things I've paid attention to and took notes, here are they in my Notes:

Learning Technologies Pre-Conference Notes

Notes Day 1

Notes Day 2

Notes Day 3 and 4


Also, there were some amazing bloggers who would post the summaries of the presentations almost real time.

Graham Stanley's summaries mainly related to Learning Technologies.

Chia Suan Chong's summaries


And the grand finale with our wonderful App Swap. In the corridors of the Convention Center, we exchanged fun and serious apps for personal use and for the classroom. Ana Maria Menezes did a wonderful job compiling all of them!

App Swap IATEFL 2013

View more lists from Ana Maria Menezes

Amazing days of learning and connections.

Manifesto for Conference Presenters

Dear presenters,


We are your audience.

We came from every corner of the globe to watch YOU. Not anyone else. From a comprehensive range of options, YOU were the elected.
Show confidence, even when you are shaking inside.
Say that you care by carefully preparing for your presentation. Be respectful to your audience.
Slides are powerful. Overloaded slides are distractors.
Think design. Instructional design and the pure beauty of good design.
One piece of information on a slide is great. With an image, even better.
Forget clipart! Most of it look unprofessional.
Bullets points? Dump them! A visual cue with just some words are powerful. Remember, we came to hear you talk with passion and encouragement. Reading slides? No way!
Background matters. In doubt, chose plain colors. White will do. Dark colors are fine. If you are on the audacious side, play with colorful ones, but watch out. What needs to stand out is your message, not the wrong colors.
We all have friends that are design-conscious. Asking for advice is OK for a long-lasting good impression.
Your content should faithfully reflect your professionalism. Rush not when time seems to speed.
"Running out of time?" Never mention it! Act naturally. Prepare for emergency exit, without letting your audience notice it. The secret? Have exit points that won't harm your carefully prepared presentation. 10 slides in a minute won't get you there. Playing videos, showing examples are fine. Trying to load 10-minute movie segments on spot is not. Time is a precious commodity for presenters. Don't waste it.
Content is king. A smooth transition between concepts and real-life application is essential. Surprise, engage, have a conversation with your audience. Connect.
Bring up something that WE, your audience, will take with us and carry it around the world in ripple effects within our educational circles. Inspire. Let us dream of a new classroom, a fresh approach to our pedagogical practices.
Simple is more. Why animations and transitions if you are the one to cheer up your audience and move from one concept to the next? Your plain well-designed slides will impress more than the slide show fireworks of sounds and movement.
We chose you to spend time with. Show us that you care. Make your presentation a unique experience to be remembered, to be retold, blogged and twitted.
Make your presentation last by being part of our memories.
Let it travel the world by being retold over and over again.
We chose to watch you for a reason. And the reason is you and all that you have to teach us.
Next time you present, bear this in mind and how your audience value your every word and move.

p.s.: This post was inspired by a great in-depth discussion during the IATEFL Conference 2013, in Liverpool, with great educators Mabel Castro, Vini Nobre and Paulo Machado.

Filtering Relevant Information for the EFL Classroom through Digital Curation

This is the time of the year that I get totally thrilled. Convention time. IATEFL, Liverpool. Promising. My second time in one of the best EFL teaching conferences in the world with wonderful professionals willing to share best practices, research, classroom ideas that can really make a difference in our classrooms.

Digital Curation for Educators from Carla Arena

I'm pleased to be presenting about a topic that has been dear to my heart for the past years, and now I've been exploring its many facets more in depth, Content Curation. Though I've presented it twice, I've revamped it a bit, not its essence but some interesting tools I've been using lately. So, if you are around Liverpool, why not joining us for a chat about how to make sense of this world where information more than abounds?

   Any curatorial tools that you've been using lately that you think have made a difference in your efficiency and productivity as an educator? I'd love to hear about it.

My latest experiments have been with http://newsmix.me/carlaarena . Still finding my way around, but enjoying playing around with it.

Here is some background on digital curation that you might find useful:

Here's Graham Stanley's summary of the presentation: Graham's summary

mLearning Resources

It is a great pleasure to present for the IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG about mlearning and ways to transform our classrooms.

mLearning Resources from Carla Arena

Here are some spaces that you might want to check if you are interested in mlearning and its latest developments:

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/08/29-ipad-resources-tutorials-and-guides.html

32 Interesting Ways to Use an Ipod Touch in the Classroom

http://www.scoop.it/t/elearning-mlearning 

https://www.diigo.com/user/carlaarena/mlearning

http://pinterest.com/carlaarena/mlearning/ 

http://pinterest.com/carlaarena/byod-classroom-ideas/ 

http://mthatlearning.blogspot.com.br 

IATEFL Recording - Collaboration: Going Beyond the Teacher's Room

Knowledge management. This is an essential topic when we consider an educational system. I work for a language school with around 200 educators.

Here's the recording of my presentation in IATEFL 2011, in Brighton, which is my account of failures and successes in helping our teachers make the move to a collaborative endeavor beyond the teacher's room through a wiki. The road has been bumpy, but full of nice surprises and mind-blowing results.

I'd like to publicly thank International House for making this presentation possible through the IH Training and Development Scholarship





You can check some of our teachers' testimonials at http://brazilbridges.pbworks.com/w/page/38894742/iatefl2011

Excellence Lesson Plan

The topic is one that can inspire anyone and re-enligthen our understanding of what makes us unique, special, excellent human beings. It is a reminder of not just doing average, but really excelling and being thankful for the ones who helped us succeed. It is an opportunity to inspire our students and ourselves to go beyond, to step forward and show the world the best of us.

Warm-up Ideas

• What are the main characteristics of good leaders?
• What do you do well? Explore "I am good at/ I have a special talent for/ I excel in"
• Students make a digital poster of people who excelled/excel in their fields (sports, arts, education, science...) and have a show and tell explaining why they chose those people
• Discuss quotes related to excellence and leadership
  http://thinkexist.com/quotations/excellence/ 
• Ask students to complete the sentence: "Excellence is.../Being excellent means..."

Then, explore some famous sportsmen/sportswomen in students' country and what they all have in common.

Video Activity
Show an image of the NBA player Derrick Rose and ask them if they know something about the basketball player and why he is famous.
Remember to use Creative Commons photos!

More Creative Commons photos here.


Show the students the video of Derrick receiving KIA Award of most Valuable Player 2010-2011
http://www.nba.com/video/channels/award_nominees/2011/05/03/20110502_kia_rose_mvp_presser.nba

Explore with students

What the presenter/coach mentioned about Derrick
Who Derrick was thankful for and why
Why they think he got the prize

Then, compare their initial list/sentences/images from the warm-up part (whatever you decide to do with the group) with what people thought made Derrick an excellent/most valuable player in the NBA season.

Personalizing

Tell students that they got an Excellence Award
They imagine why they were receiving it (The Most... in...of (year)...)
They create their certificates (paper or digital) and share with the class
The students can make their speech to receive the award

Any other ideas to make this classroom activity even more meaningful?

IATEFL Bits - Beauty Lesson

Two weeks in modern life is almost a past life. I've read wonderful accounts of the IATEFL conference in Brighton, some which I experienced myself, mainly related to the interconnectedness during the days and nights there, and to the inspiring sessions I've attended. Because of a whirlwind of events and things to do just after I came back to Brazil, I've decided that instead of trying to excel in what others from my educators' network have done with such care (see here the reports), I'll go bit by bit, trying to blog about what I saw and experienced, but with a more practical approach to it. I have no idea how long I will take, but with my digital notes, which are an extension of my memory, I'm sure there will be a lot of ideas to share starting now.

Here's the first one. Inspired by Ceri Jones' presentation "Unleashing the Power of Images", I've created this Animoto about Beauty with my own Flickr photos to use it with my students, but also in the hope to inspire other educators.

In my classroom, we've already explored the concept of beauty using the quote "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Students have decided for their own concept of beauty and have chosen an object, place or person to express its beauty. In a very relaxed, informal way, they showed pictures and talked about beautiful aspects of our lives after we had explored some vocabulary beyond the usual beautiful/pretty words. With their cell phones in hand, they looked for more powerful adjectives to express beauty and came up with this list:

Amazing student written and oral production and they were consciously trying to use the new vocabulary.

During her presentation, Ceri gave many ideas to use still images, which I love. However, I decided to use Animoto to add a bit of movement and personal touch to my own idea of beauty, but having Ceri's own words in mind of using images to "trigger our students' minds", to make English as part of "the students' identity, not external learning", to help them develop a sense of "being a user of English, not a learner". So, as a second part of the lesson, I intend to send the video to my students and ask them to make their own definitions of beauty.

One approach that could be used to develop students' Critical Literacies - a topic Lindsay Clanfield explored during his presentation -  is to ask students to watch the presentation and start a discussion:

• Where do you think this person comes from? Why?

• Is the producer of this video a man or woman? How old?

• What are the key concepts of beauty for this person? What truly matters for him/her? How do you know?

• Check the photos the person used for the video production, choose one to represent your own concept of beauty. Write your beauty definition on the photo comment area. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlaarena/sets/72157626637445448/

For further exploration: The producer didn't use some of the images in the set in the slideshow presentation. Why? 

From there, students can make their own digital creations to express beauty.

Any other suggestions?