By Rudolf Ammann · January 17, 2008
It’s happening here on Dekita as we type: Social Media in English Language Teaching (SMiELT) is a six-week workshop sponsored by Tesol CALL IS and conducted as part of the Electronic Village Online (EVO) sessions. It runs from January 14th to February 24th, 2008.
The course is designed for teachers who already have a level of familiarity with blogs, wikis and related technologies and who would like to review, extend their technical/pedagogical knowledge and develop a critically reflected understanding of social media, focusing on their use and implications in language teaching.
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By Barbara Dieu · December 02, 2007
Larry Ferlazzo’s blog Websites Of The Day For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL has been nominated as Best Resource Sharing Blog in 2007 the Edublog Awards, organized by Josie Fraser with James Farmer’s Edublogs support
Larry, who teaches beginner, intermediate, and advanced English language learners (as well as native English speakers) at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California, has written a number of articles on community organizing methodology for ESL teachers, classroom strategy and leadership. Every month, the ELL/ESL/EFL Carnival highlights blog posts teachers around the world have found particularly useful and insightful.
These kind of initiatives, enabled by social media (pdf file), federate and feature the work and creativity of talented educators, who would otherwise remain closed and isolated in their own institutions or contexts.
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By Barbara Dieu · January 03, 2007
EVO stands for Electronic Village Online, a CALL IS professional development project and virtual extension of the TESOL annual Convention, which this year will take place in Seattle.
It is open to all interested parties and offers free 6-week workshops during which participants can interact online with peers, tutors and experts while engaging in hands-on experimentation with different online tools.
Among the many sessions offered from January 15th to February 25th 2007, you will find one which focuses on Webpublishing in Open Participatory Environments.
This will be an advanced level workshop for teachers who have already experimented with blogs and podcasts either for their own use or with classes and who would like to extend their technical and pedagogical knowledge of these social tools, RSS and tagging to help learners interact with the web at large and create networks according to their own interests.
At Dekita, we are interested in highlighting and connecting this thriving community of ESL/EFL learners interested in sharing their own multi-media productions, like blogs, photos, audio, and video.
Put professional development and creativity on your list of good resolutions for 2007. There are sessions for all levels and interests. Registration for the EVO has started and goes until January 14th.
Happy New Year!
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By Barbara Dieu · June 27, 2006
Carla Arena, a dynamic EFL teacher and, according to her own words, “a fearless explorer of the wonders of technology” has been creatively incorporating some of the latest social tools in her classes at Casa Thomas Jefferson in BrasÃlia.
International Exchange brings together Brazilian and Dennis Oliver´s ESL students from the Estrela Mountain Community College in Arizona, USA.
Samba EFL features interviews, discussions of up-to-date topics and Brazilian cultural aspects while Brazil and Brazilians brings us closer to the hopes, fears and impressions of our people about the 2006 World Cup.
In the group stage, we played against Croatia, Australia and Japan and managed to secure our position. In an hour, we will be playing against Ghana. It´s the knock-out stage. Will we be able to laugh, samba and shout Dekita Brazil at the end of this game?
Run Brazil, score!
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By Barbara Dieu · April 18, 2006
Isabel Teixeira and her class of intermediate students at CILT in Taguatinga, a satellite town 40 km from BrasÃlia, have just created a class blog, on which they posted their introductions and very creative minisagas . They would love your comment on them.
Isabel, an active iEarn leader, will be talking about her blogging project during the next meeting at the Blogstreams Salon, Tappedin on May 7th (first Sunday of May) at 21 GMT. See you there!
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By Barbara Dieu · December 07, 2005
It is very gratifying to know other people value our work and engagement in intercultural communication and webpublishing and we are honoured to have been mentioned in the Edublog list. We would like to thank all those who have nominated us for the Best Group Blog category in the Edublog Awards 2005 and cast their vote.
However, we feel recognition and support mean a lot more than an indication in a shortlist and the vote for a superlative. While nominations and popularity contests may highlight and unveil a few names and quality work to the community, the real award for educators is what comes from sustained conversation, spontaneous collaboration and connection among peers, when the diverse ideas that have been put forward are reflected upon, discussed, complemented and allowed to germinate in each one´s daily pedagogical practice.
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By Barbara Dieu · November 23, 2005
Are you blogging and do not have contacts in the educational blogosphere? Check the international edubloggers map and put your name down.
It’s a good opportunity to get acquainted with edubloggers around the world and support their work in the field by nominating them for the 2005 EduBlog Awards . An initiative of James Farmer at Incsub, this year under the command of Josie Fraser
Main categories:
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By Barbara Dieu · November 21, 2005
As the last sessions of the first Webheads in Action Online Convergence Bridges Across Cyberspace come to an end, I can finally get down to writing my impressions. It was a mega event, voluntarily organized by the webheads. 334 participants officially enrolled in the Convergence Moodle to attend one or a number of the 50 synchronous presentations webcasting examples of EFL/ESL practice worldwide. Chapeau to Vance Stevens (Abu Dhabi, UAE), who in the backstage, inspired all involved, created the opportunity for it to happen and herded the cats.
For those who could not turn up at our late synchronous WiAOC session at Alado last Saturday or would like to review it, we have published it online in the Dekita Article section. The slides illustrating it and the recording made can also be viewed and heard (requires WMP 9 or higher and Mozilla or IE)
Andy Pincon (Chicago, US) kindly hosted the event and Michael Coghlan (Adelaide, AU) emceed the talk. In spite of some minor technical glitches like some slides which would not move fast enough and loss of synchronicity at times (most probably due to Mercury retrograde), we had about 29 people from all over the world with us, among whom Caroline, a student of mine, who participated actively in the chat area and stayed with us until the very end.
Aaron contrasted the P2P model of network to the client-server architecture and drew an analogy between these and how our social institutions are structured. I translated the analogy to the reality of EFL f2f classrooms and online learning environments, described what P2P in EFL/ESL is like and explained how to practice this pedagogy through examples of blogging activities and other social networking tools which may help us create a more fluid and organic learning ecology online. Rudolf explained tagging and presented the Dekita Exchange Project, the soul of which is the P2P concept while the Del.ici.us tags are the synapses that send the information to the different cells allowing them to form interconnected circuits.
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By Barbara Dieu · October 27, 2005
For three days non stop (November 18-20), the Webheads in Action Online Convergence: Bridges Across Cyberspace will bring together a number of international educators around EFL/ESL and CALL related themes.
On Saturday 19, from 23:00 to 00:30 GMT, we will meet participants for a synchronous presentation at Alado to discuss the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) concept, how it can be translated to our EFL/ESL environment and how weblogging projects allied to social networking tools can promote greater language awareness, openness and cultural exchange while providing learners with the skills to use tools on their own after the formal course is completed.
We also invite you to join us asynchronously, at your own time and pace, at the Dekita forum for just a friendly chat, questions or issues you may have prior/during and after the conference.
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By Barbara Dieu · July 07, 2005
On July 20, 2005, for 12 hours non-stop, Tapped In will be organizing its sixth annual Festival, during which participants will get acquainted with the various interest groups, and the weekly meetings offered for professional development.
We would like to invite you all to participate in the event and join us at The Blogstreams Salon Group, where the resources we have collected will be displayed.
At 22:00 GMT/UTC, Aaron and I will do a live presentation, highlighting projects and sharing some class activities aimed at developing the language, critical thinking skills and promoting greater learner autonomy.
Dekita.org and the Blogstreams Salon at Tapped In strive at developing a supportive community of EFL learners and experts from different cultures who would like to engage in interaction through weblogging and webpublishing and transcend the limitations of semester and curricula.
Meet other educators/experts, discover and share resources and experience during the one hour informal Sunday synchronous chats in the Blogstreams Salon Group at Tapped In and carry on your conversation, voice your doubts, share your everyday successes in the classroom through the Dekita Group Mailing.
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