IATEFL Manchester 2015

I have booked my train ticket to Manchester and I will spend 2 days there, more or less.  I haven't attended a live international conference like this since IATEFL Brighton 2011, when I presented as well. The past few years I have kept extremely busy attending and presenting at online conferences, and I have to admit, the experiences have all been just as exhilirating and exciting!!
 
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I wrote a few blog posts about my time in Brighton:

IATEFL Brighton 2011 Rocked! http://civitaquana.blogspot.it/2011/04/iatefl-brighton-2011-rocked.html
The King & I at IATEFL Brighton 2011: http://civitaquana.blogspot.it/2011/04/king-and-i-iatefl-brighton-2011.html

The question is: does attending a conference in person have the slight edge over an online conference?  Well the obvious advantage is that you can physically meet and greet someone, you can have coffee, lunch or drinks with them, you can go dancing, you can share jokes, you can take group photos, selfies, swop business cards, swop stories and so on.

However, believe it or not, at an online conference, you can do all of the above, virtually, 24/7.  In 2nd Life I have attended a virtual drinks party and lots of food was present, and dancing too!  In online webinars I have shared virtual food and drinks from around the world, and attended farewell parties, the EVO Podcasting webinar, being one of the most amazing and memorable ones.  Also singing and dancing along to rap tunes at an online conference closing ceremony springs to mind....

So, what is the verdict??

I can't wait to meet members of my PLN on Saturday April 11th and Sunday April 12th!!  Please do come up and say 'Hi' if you see me!! I am very excited about the chance to catch up with so many people!!  It will be a dream come true....

I will be meeting members of The Consultants-E team on Sunday!

You can find out more about this great international event by clicking on the image below:


 http://www.iatefl.org/annual-conference/manchester-2015

Spring Blog Festival - Slides for A Blogger's Story: Top Ten Topics

I thoroughly enjoyed presenting at the Spring Blog Festival 2015 on Saturday March 21st.
Below you can see the slides for my session.  I do hope you like them.  There is a full list of resources from the session and they can be found on the last page of the slides via QR codes.



I was able to attend three wonderful presentations and learned a lot from them. 

1. SBF15: Halina on Competence in Communication and Interpersonal Skills 

2. SBF15: María J. García San Martín and From eBookEVO to CLIL eBooks

3. SBF15: Blogging and Logging conversations among educators

Hopefully I will view the other presentations as soon as I can :-)

I would like to thank Dr Nellie Deutsch for organizing such an uplifting day of bloggers showcasing why they blog, and also thanks to Maria Jesus for moderating my session and Brian Boneham for providing lots of links during the session..  Thanks also to everybody who attended my talk.  It was lovely to see you all.  Sorry you couldn't see me, but I think I could be hard loudly and clearly :-)

Spring Blog Festival!

I am delighted and very honoured to be one of the presenters for the Spring Blog Festival on Saturday March 21st. This free annual event is hosted by Dr Nellie Deutsch and it will be a day-long extravaganza of bloggers highlighting the ways blogs can be used in education and much, much more!  It is hosted on WiZiq platform and you simply need to register, details below.



My talk will be based around my main Janet's Abruzzo Edublog, and I will highlight how it has helped me to develop both professionally and personally.  I hope to see you there!

Link to class: https://www.wiziq.com/online-class/2605177-sbf-a-blogger-s-story-with-top-ten-topics

More information about the event from the official WizIQ blog: http://www.wiziq.com/teachblog/spring-blog-festival/

Below, the notes from the WizIQ site, kindly reproduced with permission:

Join the Spring Blog Festival
You're invited to join the 2nd annual 12-hour Spring Blog Festival on March 21, 2015. Just click here to get the live online sessions and recordings, the content, and a chance to view the recordings when the event is over. You will also have a chance to connect with the presenters and other bloggers in the course feed.