Friday 23 March 2012

IATEFL Glasgow Online - The Final Impression!

It's been a fabulous learning journey and a LOT of fun the past few days attending Glasgow Online. Thanks to the online Team and Technical Support for making it all happen, and bringing Glasgow into my home in Abruzzo!!

I couldn't attend the conference in Glasgow in person this year, but I feel that I have got a huge amount from attending virtually and I've enjoyed it so much. I wasn't free to watch everything, as of course, that would have been impossible!! I really liked flitting from the Twitter stream, to the LiveStream recordings, to the forums online and to the blog posts that were being written by the super team of Glasgow Online Registered Bloggers.

I was able to attend the ELTChat Symposium yesterday in parts. I was a little bit disappointed that there was no live streaming of the event, due to a technical hitch, but the lively ripartee amongst the virtual attendees in the Chat Box, more than made up for the lack of seeing it happening live. I was very grateful to all the people who were actually present at the Symposium who were tweeting step by step what was being said. By all accounts, the event was a fabulous success and the ELTChat moderators did a fantastc job of discussing all the topics.

#ELTChat has been nominated for an ELTONS Award. Many congratulations to all the team!! Well done and best of luck!! You can click on the image below to go to the ELTONS home page to find out more information about this prestigious English Language Teaching award.

Pecha Kucha Part 1
One of the highlights out of many from Glasgow 2012 was the Pecha Kucha event last night. It was a fantastic event hosted by Jeremy Harmer, who was brlliant at organising all the slides and introducing the PK presenters. The people doing the PK all did brilliantly, as it's a very nerve-wracking thing to do. Below is a screenshot of all the presenters at the end on the stage together.

The videos in two parts are embedded below for you to view at leisure. They are great fun!

Vicki Hollett talks about living in America and gives a fascinating insight into the different culture there.
Willy Cardoso talks about Teaching at the Edge of Chaos, an excellent talk! You can see Willy below in the screenshot as he is getting ready to perform.

Shelly Terrell talks about her Love of Technology and about the Apps you need to have in your life, all presented in her very enthusiastic and charming way. Below you can see Shelly in action!

Barbara Sakamoto talks about how she ended up in Japan and teaching in the country, all presented in a very entertaining manner.


Watch live streaming video from iateflonline at livestream.com


Pecha Kucha Part 2
John Stenter talks about Alcoholinguistics, a new branch of linguistics for alcohol related language. For example, there is EAP - English for Alcoholic Purposes! Below you can see a screenshot of this very amusing branch of linguistics!!

Vicky Saumell from Argentina on The Power of Choice, a fantastic talk on how she gives her teenage students choices on a variety of tasks.
Helena Gomm the editor of English Teaching Professional on the difficulties of being an editor, called "Don't shoot the editor!" It was very interesting to see how some topics can't be included in various coursebook markets around the world.
Herbert Puchta, author and former IATEFL President talks about The Real Secret of Teaching Teens Successfully and it's a very entertaining talk ndeed..

Watch live streaming video from iateflonline at livestream.com


Below you can see the full ToonDo cartoon that I have created especially for this blog post on IATEFL Glasgow.

I don't think I've finished this series of posts from Glasgow yet, as I would really like to embed a few more video interviews as soon as I have viewed them, so please do watch this space!!

Below is a widget of the library of recorded videos for you to enjoy!

Watch live streaming video from iateflonline at livestream.com


IATEFL Glasgow has been a rollercoaster ride from beginning to end and today is the final day. Thanks to everyone who has made it possible for me to keep up with events, even though I am thousands of miles away. The Glasgow Online team have worked round the clock to ensure that the conference was a huge success. Well done to everyone on the team.
Also many thanks to all the tweeters who worked very hard for our benefit!! Also thanks are due to the Glasgow Online Registered Bloggers site with so many fantastic feedback posts. Fab work everybody!!!

Addendum
I would lke to add Sandy Millin's presentation notes on "Go online - getting your students to use Internet resources. Sandy has included her Powerpoint slides with audio via Brainshark, and her very thorough presentation notes. This is a very detailed acount of the results of the action research that she carried out especially for the presentation, and provides an excellent resource for teachers! Thanks Sandy.

I have just come across this great feedback post on Mike Harrison's IATEFL presentation by Laura (@lauraahah). It's a must read post!! It is called No Words: Using Sound and Images in Class. Thanks Laura!

5 comments:

Sharon Hartle said...

Great post Janet, and you were a very visible participant of the online conference :-).

Janet Bianchini said...

Hi Sharon

Thanks so much for your kind comment. I wish I could have had more free time to participate more actively in the online conference! Anyway, it's fantastic that all the video recordings and interviews are readily available for me and everybody else who couldn't attend to view at leisure.

Tara Benwell said...

Fantastic post, Janet. Now I don't need to write a blog post about my IATEFL online experience. I can just link to yours. :) There was one day there, where I almost forgot I was in Canada, not Glasgow (and just about forgot to pick up my kids at school!). A huge thank you to all of the tweeters who kept us involved. #ELTChat symposium, PKs, and special guest interviews were the highlight for me. I wish I could have been at Carol Read's session. Hopefully it was recorded. I'm on my way to TESOL Philly in a few days. Hope to meet some amazing teachers.

Anonymous said...

Hi Janet
Thank you for your amazing work on reflecting the conference, I am going to read your posts once again to brush up the highlights of the conference and to see what events I had missed there! Being a delegate, I certainly was not able to attend all talks and presentations I wanted. Do you have a photoalbum attached to your blog? If you don't mind I could send you some photos of the events and Glasgow sights. I especially enjoyed the last plenary by Fish who was a pleasant surprise to see at a theachers' conference:))

Janet Bianchini said...

Hi Tara

Thank you for your kind compliment here! Like you, at times I almost forgot I was in Abruzzo, as the excitement during the live sessions was so palpable! I loved the "chit chat" and camaderie that was going on in the background, just like at the real event I expect!!

Yes, a huge thanks to all the amazing tweeters who kept us posted throughout the conference!!

Best of luck for TESOL Philly and I am sure you will meet the most amazing teachers and presenters and conference-goers in general. Have lots of fun!!!

PS You'll have to get a photo taken of you wearing your #eltchat T-shirt :-))