This is the building of the School of Education, at the University of Carabobo in Valencia, Venezuela, where I teach English and where I am the coordinator of the Computer Lab.
Hi! My name is Gabriela. I teach English in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I work in a Secondary school and in a Language school.
I started a blog for this course. No posts yet, just something about the name and links. I’m used to blogger, it’s difficult to adapt to a new layout. It’s like moving houses, I’m still bumping into the furniture.
I hope to learn, have fun, and be in contact with lots of teachers.
I’m very happy to be in this group! I’m Laura from Italy and I teach my mother tongue (not English :D) so first of all: thanks for accepting me and let me add that I’m sure it will be a very useful experience for me!
Laura, one of the things I have always liked about the EVO sessions is that they are open to anyone. You don’t have to belong to TESOL or even teach English. We can all learn a lot from each other! I look forward to working with you over the next few weeks!
Hello Friends, my name is Carmen and I live in Italy. I’m a teacher of English and also a teacher for students in special needs in a secondary school. I teach a Lab Call in a specialized course for Technologies and Language Didactic ate the University. I’m happily working on educational projects in Second Life (LanguageLab, free Babel Italian Classes and a "Café Italia", dedicated to explain, in an informal way, several aspects of Italian Culture).
I live fully, working, living, playing and loving in Second Life. However, my first life is very busy. I’m interested in:- language learning and teaching - non verbal communication.My interests are also: cinema, music, travelling, literatureI’m not going to tell you all about myself but I prefer the art of conversation. I’m happy to take part in this session.
Hello, well.. this looks interesting. First off, I notice a colleague is also enrolled— Hello Nancy!! fancy meeting you here.
I teach Semantics and Literature at the Universidad Nacional de La Rioja, but I live in Córdoba. I also teach at a virtual university that is truly virtual—the admin, staff, curriculum development team and faculty are located in various countries around the globe.
Hi everybody! I’m Gladys from Escobar, Buenos Aires. I work in a bilingual school in Pilar. So good to find colleagues from Argentina! This is all very new to me, I’m looking forward to learning tons from all of you.
On January 13th, 2008 Sus Nyrop (not verified) said:
Hi fellow Electronic Villagers, I’m Sus, a veteran webhead from Denmark and just wanted to say that I just joined this course, after listening to the Grand opening session on Worldbridge. Pleased to meet old and new friends
Hi everyone
I see the party has already started! It’s good to see a few people I know as well as many other new names.
I’m Illya, one of the co-moderators of this group and I’m looking forward to a great session with all of you :-)
Hi everybody! I swore I won’t join more than 1 EVO session this year (am already in the BaW team), but couldn’t resist coming here after attending the Kick-off earlier. Nice to find so many familiar faces here :-). I am looking forward to learning with you,
On January 13th, 2008 sarahbraxton (not verified) said:
Hello everyone!
I am from central Pennsylvania, USA, where I am a 7 - 12 grade public school librarian in a small (350) rural school. I recently completed certification to teach ESL, but in my school there are no students (well - one, but she does not receive support). This session appeals to me because I am constantly conflicted between the need to protect students online and to let them communicate and create using exciting social media tools. Thank you for allowing me to be part of this group! I hope to be able to advocate better for social media tool use as a result of this experience.
One question, if our new week starts on Monday, when should I have the objectives met? In another online course, I found that it was important to finish tasks by Friday because much discussion took place on Saturday and Sunday. How should I pace myself?
Sarah
Charles Cameron here, I’m a Brit living at the moment in beautiful Sedona, Arizona, USA, under some of the most gorgeous red rock formations you could wish for.
I’m here to introduce my HipBone Games, which we’ll be playing a few weeks from now, and right now to invite you over to the GamePlay section where you can pull up a (virtual) chair and join a couple of us in an "ice-breaker game" I’ve called Magical Chairs.
Hi everyone! I teach English in Rosario, Argenina. I started two blogs last year, but I want to improve them and learn how to teach better with them. see you
I am a German and English teacher at a secondary school in Portimao. I have been using computers and the Internet since 1993 and I have learned a lot about the computers’ hardware and software by myself. I even was once responsible for the maintenance of the computers and network at my school when I was the vice-president of it back in 1998.
It was the time of Windows 98 which was the operating system I knew more about. After that, I got a bit tired of knowing about how computers worked and got more interested in knowing about how to use them as an effective tool in my teaching practice. I had been using them for all the teaching work outside the classroom but I wanted to learn how to use them with the students and for the students. I started hearing about Web 2.0 in 2003 and soon I realized that these technologies could be of great value for teaching. At this time I started my masters’ studies in Educational Informatics which I finished in December 2006. I met the webheads early in 2007 and they encouraged me to start using social web tools like blogs with my students. I started using blogs with my classes in September. It’s been an interesting experience and I have learned a lot from it. I setup a classblog at http://klassenblog.bloxio.us .
I’m an ESL teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada. I am really looking forward to exploring a variety of social media tools and collaborating with everyone in this session.
Welcome all! Good to see long-time colleagues and new participants. Make yourselves comfortable in this environment. If you have any doubts please shout out in the Helpdesk forum.
Sarah, our weeks begin on Monday and finish on Sunday. Each week has a number of activities which should normally be finished before the other week starts as we build up on them. Discussions are ongoing in the Forums and so are the comments on different blog posts and the personal reflection in your own blog :-)
Hello fellow travellers. I work in the vocational education and training sector (sometimes called technical education or vocational colleges in other parts of the world). My background is in teacher professional development and my interest is in technologies and culture.
It’s great to see you here! I didn’t know that you are also a teacher of German. I personally agree with you that it’s more interesting to know how to use the computer as a tool, but then I’m sure others may argue that you need to know how it works before you use it. Great blog you have going!
By the way,everyone, don’t forget to open a blog on Wordpress for your reflections on this session :-)
I´m Suzi Reis, from Brazil. I´m a teacher of english and I´m here to share with you my experience related to CALL and also to learn a lot. I hope we can have good discussions and that we can learn a lot together.
Nowadays, I´m taking my phd in Languages and I´m interesting in discovering new ways of teaching writing with technologies..if you have any article or suggestion..I will be really happy to receive and read it.
I am one of the moderators for this session. A few words about myself: I teach ESL in Toronto, Canada (I recently realized that there are a number of cities called Toronto in the USA) at York University. I teach mostly international students who come here for a year or two to improve their English; they are mostly from Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Some from South America.
I started my journey with CALL a couple of years ago when I discovered blogs and online discusssions. Then, last year, I wored with wonderful Bee on Social Media session for EVO07 and discovered more possibilities to open up my classroom environment. I have also experimented with video making and digitial story telling with my students.
I am always interested in what other people do and I am looking forward to this session to learn about your experiences and what your ideas on how to use technology in language learning.
"I´m interesting in discovering new ways of teaching writing with technologies..if you have any article or suggestion.." See our section with a List of Readings
Also, check myBibliography in-progress on various topics. You may find something useful there...
Good to see you here - we never met, but I’ve heard a lot about you from Konrad. Thanks for the book about Australia you sent us last year :) Will come for a visit one of those days :)
I think we met in Tapped In (a while ago!) for the WiA07 online convergence :) Good to see you here, Sasa! I believe we used to be close neighbours once :)
Hi, I’m Kirsten. I teach education classes to pre-service teachers at the University of Pristina satellite campus in Prizren, Kosovo. I also teach a scholarship class of high school students and do seminars for in-service teachers. It’s a pleasure to read everyone and I am looking forward to gleaning some excellent tips and ideas from you!
Hi everyone, it’s nice to meet you all. Truth is I’m so senile that by the time I’ve scrolled down the page to get to the comment box, I’ve already forgotten most of what I read on the way, so please forgive me!
I’m originally from Leeds in the UK but now live in Israel, used to teach EFL now tech coordinator working together with the 6th grade EFL teacher in our elementary school. I have a couple of blogs and websites and am member of way too many Ning Networks, won’t bore you with a list. My biggest project is Edureshet a Ning site for Israeli educators, which I translated and customized to work in Hebrew.
Bit worried about SecondLife assignments, when I tried second life at the beginning of the summer it just didn’t like my computer.
I identify with Gabriella about getting to know a new blogging platform, I chose blogger originally because I felt more comfortable with it.
It’s wonderful to see posts from such a variety of places (including one from Sedona and one from Las Vegas!). It’s even more wonderful to see some familiar names. It’s obvious that this is going to be a terrific place to strengthen bonds with contacts made previously and to establish lots of new contacts as well: let’s hear it for networking!
My goal is to be an active participant in SMiELT, but my time and energy are both a bit constrained at present, so I’ll probably be a lurker much more than I’d like. I hope I won’t be too passive, however, because I know full well that meaningful connections only result from meaningful interactions.
Hi! I guess I should introduce myself, too. I'm Nancy, another of the co-moderators of this session. I started blogging with EVO2005 and have been at it ever since. I currently teach English to adult immigrants to the US, but I have taught everything from pre-K to university. I have taught in the US, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and China. I really look forward to working with oyu all and learning form you as we move through the weeks.
I am impressed by this Drupal site. Congratulations to the organizers and thanks for your effort. A lot of familiar names. Nice to meet you here too. Currently involved in a teacher training program and with little time to participate. I’ll try because this is a wonderful team of moderators and participants.
Hi, JoAnn and Jose Luis! It is great to have you here. Time is something we all struggle with, isn’t it? I hope you will enjoy whatever time you are able to be with us.
@Susan and Gabriela. I had the same problem. My computer would freeze everytime I tried to enter SL; it wasn’t able to handle it and I had to switch to a faster machine. There is not much about SL in this session though as we decided not to focus on it. The only exception will be the first week’s guest who, I belive, are doing their talk in SL. This will be recorded though for those who can’t acces SL.
@Dennis in Phoenix. Great to see you here with us, Dennis! Always looking to your wonderful input. I was very impressed with the blogging you had done for Carla’s students. Fantastic work! :)
Michael Shade here, from Lewes, UK. I thought I’d introduced myself here but I can’t find my post in the forum so perhaps it doesn’t exist. I do, though. I teach Spanish at the University of Brighton, and have been involved in things to do with the Web and Language Teaching for a number of years, but am a relative newcomer to Web 2.0.
I caught the tail-end of EVO last year, and have been hooked ever since, although it sometimes feels as though I haven’t made all that much progress. I hope to manage a step or two forwards here.
I started a WordPress blog yesterday - I’ve used Blogger for a few months but not WP - and have (as usual) spent a frustrating few hours trying to work out how to do various things with it, with varying success. And I haven’t even started on RSS feeds - I’ve never been able to work out what they are or why I should use them, let alone how - or Bloglines (??). So - much to learn. And that’s just for this week.
Welcome Michael and do not despair :-) Things will fall in place and you will get there - one step after the other. When posting to the forum, you have the preview option first and then you need to submit. Maybe you wrote your introduction and just previewed it without saving.
There are a number of tutorials for Wordpress if you feel lost - and there is always the helpdesk forum where you can scream!
Have a go at the Magical Chairs game so we get to know you a bit better.
It’s great to have you here with us and I hope you will get what you expect out of this session.
I just saw that you asked a question which hasn’t been answered yet.
One question, if our new week starts on Monday, when should I have the
objectives met? In another online course, I found that it was important
to finish tasks by Friday because much discussion took place on
Saturday and Sunday. How should I pace myself?
Since I don’t know how much time you have, but you might want to check each Sunday what will be going on the next week and then alot a bit of time each day to going over the tasks and what’s been going on. You can reflect on discussions and what you’ve been doing and learning on your blog. As most discussion will take place on the indiviual blogs, don’t forget to add them to your blogroll, see what others are saying, and comment on them as well.
I’m a semi-retired teacher of ESL. Do teachers ever really retire? I now teach distance learning classes on Educational Uses of the Internet in the Classroom. The annual EVO courses are extremely helpful because they challenge me to stay up to date on the latest, most effective tools.
My biggest dilemma each semester is what to include in my own course and what to let the student spend a lot of time on. We explore del.icio.us, connectivism theory, rss, blogs, webquests, and podcasts. There is also one mod where the students can explore and report on tools of their choice from a list and create and report on them in a wiki.
We use Will Richardson’s book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. I can highly recommend it.
I’m looking forward to learning and sharing with all of you.
Hi, Maryanne! Your distance class sounds great! Do a lot of students take it? And I am glad you mentioned Richardson’s book. It is a wonderful introduction to blogs, wikis and the like.
Michael, why don’t you start with google reader instead of bloglines? When I started I found it much easier to use. As you start using it you’ll discover how useful it is.
I’m glad to be part of the EVO sessions again. Last year I learned a lot and I’m already using new tools in these sessions! I’m from Perú and have been teaching for several years already. It’s amazing how technology is developing so fast and I want to be able to fully use them with my students and colleagues.
@Michael and Gabriela. I have used both but I find Bloglines easier to navigate and easier to use. Michael try both and see which works better for you. I definitely agree with Gabriela that an RSS reader is very useful to have.
@Michael. Imagine Bloglines (or any RSS reader) to be your personal news digest that gets updated automatically (everything is hot off the press) without your going into the trouble of spending hours going from one Internet news website to another. It saves time and it’s really practical.
For this session, we have around 30 participants. It would be extremly exhausting to bookmark all their blogs on your computer and go through them one by one every day. With Bloglines, your digest gets updated automatically whenever one of the participants posts a new post. That way you just check the blogs that have new posts added to them.
@Carolina. Glad to have you here with us. We are repeating some exercises from last year’s session, but we have also added some new tools and content for this year’s session. Happy exploring! :)
Hi. I’m Ann and I work in Bilbao (English language teacher for British Council, teacher trainer, mainly in ICT and developer of online educational web resources). Have set up a wordpress blog but at the mo it’s dolefully empty so if anyone wants to see more of what I’m up to, best to go to my ecouraging learner autonomy blog.
Was at EVO last year and learned a lot. Thanks to the organisers for putting the show on the road again this year.
Sorry for the delay in the reply but i have been on holidays and qithout access to a computer. I work at an institute in Ramos Mejia called Challenge education and I study at the teacher training college Joaquin V gOnzalez. I live in Ramos Mejia, where do you live?
Hello! My name is Mary and I am an English teacher at the university level in Japan. This year, I am co-moderating the Blogging4Educators session. I am really interested in the content of this session, and hope I can find the time to participate! Most of my experience with blogging has been with Blogger, so I am looking forward to this chance to learn more about Wordpress. Thank you to the moderators for organizing such a great opportunity :)
Hello Everyone, Mark Osborne here quickly trying to get up to speed with things. I work mainly designing and developing interactive multimedia for language learning (see http://www.L2.co.uk and http://www.jonMoat.co.uk); done a fair bit of teacher training in the past, too. Currently working on an online personalised vocabulary learning system for more advanced learners, into which we plan to integrate Web 2.0 technologies/features. I’m looking forward to sharing experiences, and learning. Best, Mark
Your "learner autonomy" blog is very inspiring to me! As a teacher and a student, I appreciate the instructions for use as well as the screenshots. Thank you for sharing.
Sarah Braxton
ps - I have a new Mac and have not figured out the most efficient way to make a screenshot. Ideas, anyone?
It’s great to see you here again! I hope you will have a bit of time to follow, but I know you are quite busy with your own group. I think there is a lot we could share between the two sessions. See you over at the bloggers :-)
It`s great to have you with us!! I hope you enjoy this session and that we continue learning many things together. You will find many new features with Wordpress.
Warm Regards
Jennifer (enjoying some vacations in the mountains)
Thank you for the welcome, Jen and Illya! I am really enjoying exploring Wordpress through this session, and it is enhancing my knowledge for co-moderating in Blogging4Educators too. Let’s keep sharing ;)
Eventually, I’m in SMiELT! Thanks to Bee for helping me getting in here.
My name is Buthaina but I’m Buth when I’m online so to save time typing :) I have been an EFL and ESP instructor in the Language Center of Kuwait University for 7 years and a Webhead in action since 2002.
I’m so excited about this EVO session and sorry that I couldn’t join you earlier as I have also been busy co-moderating another EVO the Web 2.0 for ESP.
I look forward to learning more with you and from all of you!
Hello, I’m a bit behind with my active participation, because I had too much on my plate when the EVO started, but anyway, here I am back ready for the Wiki session in about 15 minutes!
I suppose that a comment here on the Wayfarer Thread would be most visible
I’ve been using wikis for many purposes, as an easy way to create pages and also for collaboration and course development. But you could always learn something new, or get a refreshment of memory, And, besides, there are SO many ways to implement and combine web 2.0 tools that I cannot imagine ever feeling bored any more in my entire life, or lse inspiration for innovative and hands on education opportunities!
This is the building of the School of Education, at the University of Carabobo in Valencia, Venezuela, where I teach English and where I am the coordinator of the Computer Lab.
Hi! My name is Gabriela. I teach English in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I work in a Secondary school and in a Language school.
I started a blog for this course. No posts yet, just something about the name and links. I’m used to blogger, it’s difficult to adapt to a new layout. It’s like moving houses, I’m still bumping into the furniture.
I hope to learn, have fun, and be in contact with lots of teachers.
gabriela
(photo coming soon)
Hi gabriela, I’m Sabrina and I’m from Argentina too. I’m from Buenos Aires, where are you from? I also work at a language school.
Kind regards
Sabrina
Hi Mariairene, Gabriela and Sabridv — welcome to Social Media in ELT!
It is nice that you have already set up your blog, Gabriela. I am sure you will find lots of things to write about during the session!
Nancy
And, to second Rudolf’s greetings, we are happy to have all of you here! Welcome!
Dear all
I’m very happy to be in this group! I’m Laura from Italy and I teach my mother tongue (not English :D) so first of all: thanks for accepting me and let me add that I’m sure it will be a very useful experience for me!
see you soon online, Laura
Sabrina, I’m from Argentina. Perhaps we know each other. I work at AACI.
cu
Laura, one of the things I have always liked about the EVO sessions is that they are open to anyone. You don’t have to belong to TESOL or even teach English. We can all learn a lot from each other! I look forward to working with you over the next few weeks!
Hello everybody, nice to be here. I’m looking forward to our journey together. Cheers.
Hello Friends, my name is Carmen and I live in Italy. I’m a teacher of English and also a teacher for students in special needs in a secondary school. I teach a Lab Call in a specialized course for Technologies and Language Didactic ate the University. I’m happily working on educational projects in Second Life (LanguageLab, free Babel Italian Classes and a "Café Italia", dedicated to explain, in an informal way, several aspects of Italian Culture).
I live fully, working, living, playing and loving in Second Life. However, my first life is very busy. I’m interested in:- language learning and teaching - non verbal communication.My interests are also: cinema, music, travelling, literatureI’m not going to tell you all about myself but I prefer the art of conversation. I’m happy to take part in this session.
Cheers
Carmen/Misy
Welcome to SMiELT, Carmen/Misy and looking forward to reading about your experience in informal language learning and Italian Culture.
Hello Sarolta,
Long time to read and see :-) Good to see you back with us. What have you been up to and how’s life?
Jeff Williams, UNLaR— Argentina
Hello, well.. this looks interesting. First off, I notice a colleague is also enrolled— Hello Nancy!! fancy meeting you here.
I teach Semantics and Literature at the Universidad Nacional de La Rioja, but I live in Córdoba. I also teach at a virtual university that is truly virtual—the admin, staff, curriculum development team and faculty are located in various countries around the globe.
Great to see so many people here—
Later,
jeff
Hi everybody! I’m Gladys from Escobar, Buenos Aires. I work in a bilingual school in Pilar. So good to find colleagues from Argentina! This is all very new to me, I’m looking forward to learning tons from all of you.
Hi fellow Electronic Villagers, I’m Sus, a veteran webhead from Denmark and just wanted to say that I just joined this course, after listening to the Grand opening session on Worldbridge. Pleased to meet old and new friends
Hi, Jeff! I saw your name but hadn’t investigated to see if you were really you! This should be an interesting few weeks. Glad to have you with us.
Nancy
Hi Laura,
Nice to see you here too! Only a few weeks ago we were working on podcasting and here we are expanding and sharing other knowldge. Super!
As you know I’m based in Italy too and work online as an e-moderator as well as teaching EFL at the University of Naples.
Great to be learning and exploring more with you and the webheads,
Valentina
Hi everyone
I see the party has already started! It’s good to see a few people I know as well as many other new names.
I’m Illya, one of the co-moderators of this group and I’m looking forward to a great session with all of you :-)
Illya
Hi everybody! I swore I won’t join more than 1 EVO session this year (am already in the BaW team), but couldn’t resist coming here after attending the Kick-off earlier. Nice to find so many familiar faces here :-). I am looking forward to learning with you,
Saša
Hi everyone, I’m really looking forward to this session, getting to know new people, getting to know the "old" people better and learning and sharing.
Oh dear, I signed in with my surname, I don’t think I can change that now.
Lucy
Hi Lucy — welcome to SMiELT!
I’ve just given you permission to change your moniker, so feel free to go ahead and change it.
Hello everyone!
I am from central Pennsylvania, USA, where I am a 7 - 12 grade public school librarian in a small (350) rural school. I recently completed certification to teach ESL, but in my school there are no students (well - one, but she does not receive support). This session appeals to me because I am constantly conflicted between the need to protect students online and to let them communicate and create using exciting social media tools. Thank you for allowing me to be part of this group! I hope to be able to advocate better for social media tool use as a result of this experience.
One question, if our new week starts on Monday, when should I have the objectives met? In another online course, I found that it was important to finish tasks by Friday because much discussion took place on Saturday and Sunday. How should I pace myself?
Sarah
Hi, all!
Charles Cameron here, I’m a Brit living at the moment in beautiful Sedona, Arizona, USA, under some of the most gorgeous red rock formations you could wish for.
I’m here to introduce my HipBone Games, which we’ll be playing a few weeks from now, and right now to invite you over to the GamePlay section where you can pull up a (virtual) chair and join a couple of us in an "ice-breaker game" I’ve called Magical Chairs.
Come on over and join us!
Hi everyone! I teach English in Rosario, Argenina. I started two blogs last year, but I want to improve them and learn how to teach better with them. see you
Edita
Hi everyone!
I am a German and English teacher at a secondary school in Portimao. I have been using computers and the Internet since 1993 and I have learned a lot about the computers’ hardware and software by myself. I even was once responsible for the maintenance of the computers and network at my school when I was the vice-president of it back in 1998.
It was the time of Windows 98 which was the operating system I knew more about. After that, I got a bit tired of knowing about how computers worked and got more interested in knowing about how to use them as an effective tool in my teaching practice. I had been using them for all the teaching work outside the classroom but I wanted to learn how to use them with the students and for the students. I started hearing about Web 2.0 in 2003 and soon I realized that these technologies could be of great value for teaching. At this time I started my masters’ studies in Educational Informatics which I finished in December 2006. I met the webheads early in 2007 and they encouraged me to start using social web tools like blogs with my students. I started using blogs with my classes in September. It’s been an interesting experience and I have learned a lot from it. I setup a classblog at http://klassenblog.bloxio.us .
Joao Alves
Hello Everyone,
I’m an ESL teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada. I am really looking forward to exploring a variety of social media tools and collaborating with everyone in this session.
Yvonne C
Welcome all! Good to see long-time colleagues and new participants. Make yourselves comfortable in this environment. If you have any doubts please shout out in the Helpdesk forum.
Sarah, our weeks begin on Monday and finish on Sunday. Each week has a number of activities which should normally be finished before the other week starts as we build up on them. Discussions are ongoing in the Forums and so are the comments on different blog posts and the personal reflection in your own blog :-)
Hello fellow travellers. I work in the vocational education and training sector (sometimes called technical education or vocational colleges in other parts of the world). My background is in teacher professional development and my interest is in technologies and culture.
Rose - Australia
Hi Joao
It’s great to see you here! I didn’t know that you are also a teacher of German. I personally agree with you that it’s more interesting to know how to use the computer as a tool, but then I’m sure others may argue that you need to know how it works before you use it. Great blog you have going!
By the way,everyone, don’t forget to open a blog on Wordpress for your reflections on this session :-)
Greetings
Suzi Reis
Hello, folks,
I´m Suzi Reis, from Brazil. I´m a teacher of english and I´m here to share with you my experience related to CALL and also to learn a lot. I hope we can have good discussions and that we can learn a lot together.
Nowadays, I´m taking my phd in Languages and I´m interesting in discovering new ways of teaching writing with technologies..if you have any article or suggestion..I will be really happy to receive and read it.
Hi Everyone,
I am one of the moderators for this session. A few words about myself: I teach ESL in Toronto, Canada (I recently realized that there are a number of cities called Toronto in the USA) at York University. I teach mostly international students who come here for a year or two to improve their English; they are mostly from Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Some from South America.
I started my journey with CALL a couple of years ago when I discovered blogs and online discusssions. Then, last year, I wored with wonderful Bee on Social Media session for EVO07 and discovered more possibilities to open up my classroom environment. I have also experimented with video making and digitial story telling with my students.
I am always interested in what other people do and I am looking forward to this session to learn about your experiences and what your ideas on how to use technology in language learning.
Patricia
"I´m interesting in discovering new ways of teaching writing with technologies..if you have any article or suggestion.." See our section with a List of Readings
Also, check my Bibliography in-progress on various topics. You may find something useful there...
Patricia
Hey Rose,
Good to see you here - we never met, but I’ve heard a lot about you from Konrad. Thanks for the book about Australia you sent us last year :) Will come for a visit one of those days :)
I think we met in Tapped In (a while ago!) for the WiA07 online convergence :) Good to see you here, Sasa! I believe we used to be close neighbours once :)
Patricia
Hi Valentina,
Glad you are back with us again! Looking forward to your input.
Patricia
Hi, I’m Kirsten. I teach education classes to pre-service teachers at the University of Pristina satellite campus in Prizren, Kosovo. I also teach a scholarship class of high school students and do seminars for in-service teachers. It’s a pleasure to read everyone and I am looking forward to gleaning some excellent tips and ideas from you!
Hi everyone, it’s nice to meet you all. Truth is I’m so senile that by the time I’ve scrolled down the page to get to the comment box, I’ve already forgotten most of what I read on the way, so please forgive me!
I’m originally from Leeds in the UK but now live in Israel, used to teach EFL now tech coordinator working together with the 6th grade EFL teacher in our elementary school. I have a couple of blogs and websites and am member of way too many Ning Networks, won’t bore you with a list. My biggest project is Edureshet a Ning site for Israeli educators, which I translated and customized to work in Hebrew.
Bit worried about SecondLife assignments, when I tried second life at the beginning of the summer it just didn’t like my computer.
I identify with Gabriella about getting to know a new blogging platform, I chose blogger originally because I felt more comfortable with it.
Looking forward to these sessions
SusanT
Susan, I’m also worried about SL, I tried only once and my computer got sooo slow.
Hi Illya
Thank you for your kind words. It’s a pleasure to meet you here again after we first met at one of the open weekends at knowplace.
I have already setup my Wordpress blog here http://joaocarlosalves.eu
Greetings,
Joao Alves
I have the same problem of Susan and Gabriela about second life :-(
Anyway…I’m very happy to have started my new blog, there’s not much but It will develop in the next days!
P.S. Valentina it’s so nice to meet you again!
Hi, everyone.
It’s wonderful to see posts from such a variety of places (including one from Sedona and one from Las Vegas!). It’s even more wonderful to see some familiar names. It’s obvious that this is going to be a terrific place to strengthen bonds with contacts made previously and to establish lots of new contacts as well: let’s hear it for networking!
My goal is to be an active participant in SMiELT, but my time and energy are both a bit constrained at present, so I’ll probably be a lurker much more than I’d like. I hope I won’t be too passive, however, because I know full well that meaningful connections only result from meaningful interactions.
May SMiELT be a wonderful ride for all of us!
Best wishes—
Dennis in Phoenix
Hi, I’m JoAnn from Mexico City….
I’m only taking one session this year…I hope I have time to participate…
I’m looking forward to interacting with all of you.
JoAnn Miller
Mexico City
Hello, everyone.
I am impressed by this Drupal site. Congratulations to the organizers and thanks for your effort. A lot of familiar names. Nice to meet you here too. Currently involved in a teacher training program and with little time to participate. I’ll try because this is a wonderful team of moderators and participants.
Best wishes.
José Luis Cabello
Madrid
Hi, JoAnn and Jose Luis! It is great to have you here. Time is something we all struggle with, isn’t it? I hope you will enjoy whatever time you are able to be with us.
Nancy
@Susan and Gabriela. I had the same problem. My computer would freeze everytime I tried to enter SL; it wasn’t able to handle it and I had to switch to a faster machine. There is not much about SL in this session though as we decided not to focus on it. The only exception will be the first week’s guest who, I belive, are doing their talk in SL. This will be recorded though for those who can’t acces SL.
@Dennis in Phoenix. Great to see you here with us, Dennis! Always looking to your wonderful input. I was very impressed with the blogging you had done for Carla’s students. Fantastic work! :)
Dear Participants,
I keep reading familiar names and I already added the blogs of some of you to my bloglines account under SMiELT.
It´s great and a pleasure to have you in our session :-)
Warm Regards,
Jennifer
Welcome Dennis!
I can hardly imagine you passive! But even if you don’t have a lot of time to invest, it’s a pleasure to have you here!
Michael Shade here, from Lewes, UK. I thought I’d introduced myself here but I can’t find my post in the forum so perhaps it doesn’t exist. I do, though. I teach Spanish at the University of Brighton, and have been involved in things to do with the Web and Language Teaching for a number of years, but am a relative newcomer to Web 2.0.
I caught the tail-end of EVO last year, and have been hooked ever since, although it sometimes feels as though I haven’t made all that much progress. I hope to manage a step or two forwards here.
I started a WordPress blog yesterday - I’ve used Blogger for a few months but not WP - and have (as usual) spent a frustrating few hours trying to work out how to do various things with it, with varying success. And I haven’t even started on RSS feeds - I’ve never been able to work out what they are or why I should use them, let alone how - or Bloglines (??). So - much to learn. And that’s just for this week.
Regards,
Michael
Welcome Michael and do not despair :-) Things will fall in place and you will get there - one step after the other. When posting to the forum, you have the preview option first and then you need to submit. Maybe you wrote your introduction and just previewed it without saving.
There are a number of tutorials for Wordpress if you feel lost - and there is always the helpdesk forum where you can scream!
Have a go at the Magical Chairs game so we get to know you a bit better.
Bon courage!
Hello Sarah
It’s great to have you here with us and I hope you will get what you expect out of this session.
I just saw that you asked a question which hasn’t been answered yet.
Since I don’t know how much time you have, but you might want to check each Sunday what will be going on the next week and then alot a bit of time each day to going over the tasks and what’s been going on. You can reflect on discussions and what you’ve been doing and learning on your blog. As most discussion will take place on the indiviual blogs, don’t forget to add them to your blogroll, see what others are saying, and comment on them as well.
And just ask again if you need any help :-)
Hi Suzi,
You might like this posting http://www.google.com/educators/weeklyreader.html about various techniques for using Googledocs and Weekly Reader for teaching writing.
Maryanne
Hello everyone,
I’m a semi-retired teacher of ESL. Do teachers ever really retire? I now teach distance learning classes on Educational Uses of the Internet in the Classroom. The annual EVO courses are extremely helpful because they challenge me to stay up to date on the latest, most effective tools.
My biggest dilemma each semester is what to include in my own course and what to let the student spend a lot of time on. We explore del.icio.us, connectivism theory, rss, blogs, webquests, and podcasts. There is also one mod where the students can explore and report on tools of their choice from a list and create and report on them in a wiki.
We use Will Richardson’s book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. I can highly recommend it.
I’m looking forward to learning and sharing with all of you.
Maryanne
Hi, Maryanne! Your distance class sounds great! Do a lot of students take it? And I am glad you mentioned Richardson’s book. It is a wonderful introduction to blogs, wikis and the like.
Nancy McKeand
Thanks! Sarah Braxton
Michael, why don’t you start with google reader instead of bloglines? When I started I found it much easier to use. As you start using it you’ll discover how useful it is.
Hi everybody!
I’m glad to be part of the EVO sessions again. Last year I learned a lot and I’m already using new tools in these sessions! I’m from Perú and have been teaching for several years already. It’s amazing how technology is developing so fast and I want to be able to fully use them with my students and colleagues.
@Michael and Gabriela. I have used both but I find Bloglines easier to navigate and easier to use. Michael try both and see which works better for you. I definitely agree with Gabriela that an RSS reader is very useful to have.
@Michael. Imagine Bloglines (or any RSS reader) to be your personal news digest that gets updated automatically (everything is hot off the press) without your going into the trouble of spending hours going from one Internet news website to another. It saves time and it’s really practical.
For this session, we have around 30 participants. It would be extremly exhausting to bookmark all their blogs on your computer and go through them one by one every day. With Bloglines, your digest gets updated automatically whenever one of the participants posts a new post. That way you just check the blogs that have new posts added to them.
@Carolina. Glad to have you here with us. We are repeating some exercises from last year’s session, but we have also added some new tools and content for this year’s session. Happy exploring! :)
Hi. I’m Ann and I work in Bilbao (English language teacher for British Council, teacher trainer, mainly in ICT and developer of online educational web resources). Have set up a wordpress blog but at the mo it’s dolefully empty so if anyone wants to see more of what I’m up to, best to go to my ecouraging learner autonomy blog.
Was at EVO last year and learned a lot. Thanks to the organisers for putting the show on the road again this year.
Dear Ann,
I took a look at your blog and found many interesting things. Thanks for sharing :-)
I´m looking foward to reading your input in your Wordpress blog.
Warm Regards
Jennifer (SMiELT Team)
Hi gabriela,
Sorry for the delay in the reply but i have been on holidays and qithout access to a computer. I work at an institute in Ramos Mejia called Challenge education and I study at the teacher training college Joaquin V gOnzalez. I live in Ramos Mejia, where do you live?
Kind regards
Sabrina
Hello! My name is Mary and I am an English teacher at the university level in Japan. This year, I am co-moderating the Blogging4Educators session. I am really interested in the content of this session, and hope I can find the time to participate! Most of my experience with blogging has been with Blogger, so I am looking forward to this chance to learn more about Wordpress. Thank you to the moderators for organizing such a great opportunity :)
Hi Gabriela! I also use googlereader and find it useful. see you
Hello Everyone, Mark Osborne here quickly trying to get up to speed with things. I work mainly designing and developing interactive multimedia for language learning (see http://www.L2.co.uk and http://www.jonMoat.co.uk); done a fair bit of teacher training in the past, too. Currently working on an online personalised vocabulary learning system for more advanced learners, into which we plan to integrate Web 2.0 technologies/features. I’m looking forward to sharing experiences, and learning. Best, Mark
Sabrina, good for you!
I live in Almagro. About ten blocks away from the Joaquín.
Welcome, Mark! We are glad to have you here.
Nancy (SMiELT team)
Ann,
Your "learner autonomy" blog is very inspiring to me! As a teacher and a student, I appreciate the instructions for use as well as the screenshots. Thank you for sharing.
Sarah Braxton
ps - I have a new Mac and have not figured out the most efficient way to make a screenshot. Ideas, anyone?
Hi Sarah,
I press apple + shift + 3 at the same time on my Mac and this sends the pic to my desktop. I then crop it with the Preview (see tools>crop).
Bee
Hi Mary
It’s great to see you here again! I hope you will have a bit of time to follow, but I know you are quite busy with your own group. I think there is a lot we could share between the two sessions. See you over at the bloggers :-)
Illya (smielt team)
Thanks for the Mac screenshot tip, Bee!
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
If you do apple + shift + 4 you can determine the size of your frame by drag drawing the cursor, and it deposits a .pdf file on your desktop.
And thanks for your kind words about my blog!
Cheers,
Ann
AnnF, thanks for the link to your blog! I will really want to take time to study it!
Nancy
Hello Mary,
It`s great to have you with us!! I hope you enjoy this session and that we continue learning many things together. You will find many new features with Wordpress.
Warm Regards
Jennifer (enjoying some vacations in the mountains)
Thank you for the welcome, Jen and Illya! I am really enjoying exploring Wordpress through this session, and it is enhancing my knowledge for co-moderating in Blogging4Educators too. Let’s keep sharing ;)
Mary
Hi all!
Eventually, I’m in SMiELT! Thanks to Bee for helping me getting in here.
My name is Buthaina but I’m Buth when I’m online so to save time typing :) I have been an EFL and ESP instructor in the Language Center of Kuwait University for 7 years and a Webhead in action since 2002.
I’m so excited about this EVO session and sorry that I couldn’t join you earlier as I have also been busy co-moderating another EVO the Web 2.0 for ESP.
I look forward to learning more with you and from all of you!
Welcome Buthaina,
It is a pleasure to have you with us. Better late than never :-)
Jump in and share with us your experience.
Hello, I’m a bit behind with my active participation, because I had too much on my plate when the EVO started, but anyway, here I am back ready for the Wiki session in about 15 minutes!
I suppose that a comment here on the Wayfarer Thread would be most visible
I’ve been using wikis for many purposes, as an easy way to create pages and also for collaboration and course development. But you could always learn something new, or get a refreshment of memory, And, besides, there are SO many ways to implement and combine web 2.0 tools that I cannot imagine ever feeling bored any more in my entire life, or lse inspiration for innovative and hands on education opportunities!
yours, Sus, Denmark
Hello Sus,
Glad you could join us again and hope you contribute with your experience and ideas in the wiki forum and collaboration.