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Dear CALL-IS community,
Despite struggles both inside and outside of our virtual, hybrid, and face-to-face classrooms, over the past year, I have been amazed by the ingenuity and resilience English language teachers around the world have demonstrated. By engaging with several online communities of practice—including the myTESOL and CALL-IS communities—I have learned from the many innovative ways that teachers in diverse contexts are applying tech tools to meet the needs of their learners.
The CALL-IS community has offered virtual teacher professional development in several formats over the past months. For instance, the Electronic Village Online (EVO) team hosted a series of e-learning events that shared effective practices and lessons learned from the 2020 EVO sessions, which are available in this playlist on the CALL-IS YouTube channel. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the EVO, this initiative offers multi-week professional learning sessions each January and February. The sessions are developed and moderated by international TESOL experts; they are free and open to all educators. The 2021 EVO featured 19 sessions on topics ranging from digital design to flipped learning to Minecraft in ELT. Learn more about the 2021 sessions here. Of note, the EVO is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year! Thank you, EVO team, for providing high-quality, inclusive e-learning for two decades.
CALL-IS has also recently delivered several webinars. We were proud to partner with the U.S. Department of State’s Office of English Language Programs to co-host two “Tech Tips for Teaching Today” sessions in December 2020 that featured CALL-IS experts Martha Ramirez on flipped learning and Justin Shewell on online classroom management. These engaging sessions reached over 8,000 unique participants in more than 90 countries! We also partnered with colleagues from across TESOL International Association in January to offer “Open Educational Resources 101: Finding and Using Free Resources in Your Classroom,” which informed TESOL professionals about options for locating and adapting freely accessible instructional e-content. These webinars (and more!) are available on the CALL-IS YouTube channel—subscribe to the channel to receive updates about new content.
Last but not least, the TESOL 2021 Virtual Convention is just around the corner, and we have a inventive lineup of new Electronic Village (EV) events planned! A full schedule will be shared soon, but, for now, here is an overview of some of the exciting EV opportunities that will enable you to learn with TESOL members around the world:
- EV Tech Fairs – Short, practical tech tips videos grouped according to four themes: Making Your LMS Work for You, Tools and Activities for Synchronous Virtual Instruction, Tools and Activities for Asynchronous Virtual Instruction, and Tech Fair Classics. There will be options to meet live with the presenters, too!
- Best of the Electronic Village Online 2021 – Celebrate the outstanding work and lessons learned during the 2021 EVO sessions through live and recorded events
- What’s on Your Mind? – Daily asynchronous Jamboard discussions about current ed tech topics for TESOLers
- Tweet-up with CALL-IS – Daily live-tweet sessions—learn how to use Twitter for interactive professional development
- We’re CALL-ing on You! – Daily e-polls related to convention ed-tech topics; results will be shared via CALL-IS social media and may inspire our future professional development offerings
- Virtual Worlds for ELT: Live Demos – How might you use platforms like Minecraft and SecondLife for language learning?
These events will be both synchronous (live, at a variety of times) and asynchronous to accommodate global participants’ schedules. Resources and guides for how to access the platforms and tools we’re using, as well as ideas for adding them to your teaching toolbox, will be available before and during the convention. CALL-IS convention news will be shared on Facebook and Twitter, so be sure to follow those accounts. We can’t wait to connect with you in the #TESOL_EV during #TESOL2021!
In closing, thank you TESOL educators and CALL enthusiasts for all that you’re doing to support your students and to share what you’ve learned with each other!
With best wishes,
Heather Benucci
CALL-IS Chair, 2020-2021 |
