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Dear Colleagues,
I am very pleased to have joined the steering committee team
for the International Teaching Assistants Interest Section (ITAIS) in
the new role of community events organizer. I previously served as a
member-at-large, and I am glad to be able to continue with this
wonderful group of professionals for the 2020–21 year in my new
role.
As the community events organizer, I am particularly interested
in helping the group organize a series of webinars to improve our
teaching of international teaching assistants (ITAs). In fact, the
initial event I scheduled was our first prerecorded webinar (a panel of
presenters), which took place in early August and was followed by a live
Q&A session. The topic for this webinar was related to
digital-age tools that can be useful and perhaps also user-friendly for
ITA professionals to use during the pre-fall and fall semesters. You can
review the archived
Webinar to learn more.
Our second webinar event is scheduled for November, with
prerecorded presentations to be sent out on 1 November:
- Collaboration tools in online (synchronous and asynchronous) environments, by Haley Dolosic
- Using online games for conversation and bonding, by Belinda Braunstein
-
ITA teaching portfolios using Book Creator, by Bethany Iyobe
-
GoReact and EdPuzzle apps for teaching ITAs remotely, by K. Arshavskaya
The webinar discussion will be on 14 November via Zoom. Please
watch the ITA listserv for the videos and the link to the webinar.
In my role, I am also looking forward to making more
connections with regional TESOL affiliates as well as with other TESOL
interest sections. I hope that my engagement with the TESOL
Computer-Assisted Language Learning Interest Section and Intermountain
TESOL can be helpful in further promoting these collegial
relationships.
All in all, I am grateful to be able to contribute to the ITAIS
and collaborate with our leadership and members, and I am happy to
learn new ideas and insights through this group. Feel free to reach out
in case I can be helpful to facilitate any events that can be
particularly relevant at this time.
Ekaterina (Katya) Arshavskaya | 
