Hello, my fellow CALLIS members,

I just wanted to introduce myself to you and give you an update on what has been happening in the CALLIS. I am the new chair-elect, meaning that I will take over the chair position in Philadelphia at the 2012 convention. Before being elected as chair-elect, I served on the CALLIS Steering Committee and was the head of the Electronic Village Fair Classics that took place in the Electronic Village at the annual convention. Outside of the CALLIS, I am in my second year of a doctoral program in educational technology at Arizona State University. I have a strong background in CALL, with more than 10 years of experience in teaching with technology. I also run a Web site for teachers with free tools that let teachers create computer and paper-based vocabulary activities.

I am very excited to be able to serve you as chair-elect and to be serving with Dawn Bikowski, the current chair, and Suzan Stamper, our past chair. One of my major responsibilities as chair-elect is to plan the Academic Session and InterSections for the 2012 TESOL Convention in Philadelphia. This is an overwhelming responsibility after seeing the Academic Session and InterSections in New Orleans. I can only hope that 2012 will be as successful. After discussions with the CALLIS Steering Committee, we have a tentative topic for the Academic Session: intelligent tutoring systems in language teaching and learning. If you have suggestions on aspects of this topic you would like to see discussed, or suggestions for panel members at the Academic Session, please don't hesitate to contact me at jshewell@asu.edu with your suggestions.

We are also planning several InterSections with the Materials Writers IS, the Speech, Pronunciation, and Listening IS, and the English as a Foreign Language IS that are going to be both informative and entertaining. As we have more details, I will be sure to share them with you in future updates.

Finally, I would encourage you to take a look at the new Community pages that TESOL has provided the Interest Sections. You should have received an e-mail from TESOL with information on how to access these pages. The Community, as it is called, is a great resource and a great way to participate in the CALLIS outside of the annual convention.

Once again, I am excited to be working with you and look forward to hearing your suggestions and comments.