All,

I have thoroughly enjoyed this past year serving as your chair of the CALL-IS. Looking forward to Baltimore, we have several events planned during the TESOL convention. This year is particularly special as we celebrate TESOL’s 50th anniversary. Chair-Elect Jack Watson has been working hard to plan several InterSection panels and our academic session. You can read his letter in this issue of On CALL to learn more about these sessions.

In addition to the academic and InterSection panels, Past Chair Aaron Schwartz and our wonderful Electronic Village planning team have put together a great Electronic Village and Technology Showcase. We had more than 300 submissions to the Electronic Village this year and were able to accept more than 100 proposals. We can’t wait for you to see what we have in store for you in Baltimore.

New this year to the Technology Showcase, the CALL-IS together with the Social Responsibility IS and the environmental forum brings a special InterSection panel titled “Innovating Language Learning Through Technology for Environmental Responsibility.” In addition to this special InterSection, the CALL-IS leadership team has put together a TESOL 50th anniversary special event leadership panel. The panel, “History of the EV: Over Three Decades of Professional Development in CALL,” brings together six past CALL-IS leaders to reflect on CALL and the CALL-IS within the context of TESOL’s golden anniversary.

If you can’t make it to Baltimore, we have you covered. Once again, our webcast team has been working hard to make sure those who cannot make it to Baltimore still have the chance to participate in some of our sessions. We will be webcasting more than 10 sessions from the Electronic Village and Technology Showcase, including our TESOL 50th anniversary special event leadership panel.

Before I close, I want to thank our wonderful volunteers. Thank you to all of you who read proposals for us in June when we were selecting presentations for this convention. Thank you to our outstanding Electronic Village Planning Team. Without you we would not be able to bring such wonderful events year after year to the TESOL convention. Thank you to Past Chair Aaron Schwartz and Chair-Elect Jack Watson for putting together wonderful panels for this year’s convention. A special thank you to Justin Shewell, who has worked tirelessly to not only manage our proposal system but put together our program book. Thank you all so much.

To learn more about the events we have going on at the TESOL convention this year, check out our webpage. You can also follow us on Facebook or Twitter @TESOLCALLIS or #EVillage2016.

Stephanie

Stephanie Korslund is director of the Language Studies Resource Center in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Iowa State University. She can proudly say that she finished her PhD in instructional technology with a focus on CALL from Ohio University in December 2015.