• What is your favorite platform?
• What is the one indispensable tool/webpage?
• What is your most unexpected source of information about CALL?
• What was your favorite CALL creation?
• What are you working on now?
• What area would you like to see developed/researched?
• In a sentence, what advice would you give to a newbie starting out in CALL?

I hope you enjoy this space to compare experiences, share advice, nurture inspiration, and make connections within our community.

Please e-mail me at Suzan Stamper if you have suggestions or contributions to "Making Connections."

José Antônio da Silva

José Antônio da Silva holds an MA in TESOL from Oklahoma City University. He has been an EFL teacher for over 25 years and currently teaches at Casa Thomas Jefferson in Brazil where he is part of the EdTech Team, and as such, is constantly training teachers in the use of computer assisted language learning.

E-mail: joseaokc@yahoo.com

Affiliation: Casa Thomas Jefferson, Brazil

Years in the CALL-IS: Indirectly since 2006 when I started taking sessions in the EVO. In 2014, I attended my first TESOL Conference on a scholarship and gave two presentations at CALL.

Q: What is your favorite platform?

A: Google Apps for Education because it includes Google Sites, Google Forms, Google Slides, and so on. (See https://www.google.com/edu/products/productivity-tools/)

Q: For you, what is the one indispensable tool/web page?

A: A wiki is an indispensable tool. It is the ideal place for collaboration.

Q: What is your most unexpected source of information about CALL?

A: One of the most unexpected sources for me is Flipboard (https://flipboard.com/). It is my daily news and I always find out about improvements in old tools/platforms and new developments while reading my feeds on it.

Q: What was your favorite CALL creation?

A. My favorite CALL creations so far have been my wikis on PBworks (http://www.pbworks.com/) for my students. I am also very proud of one I co-created while taking an online course at http://eflreading.pbworks.com/

Q: What are you working on now?

A. Right now, I am working on a flipping project and mobile learning. I am also involved in the maker movement and I am trying to mix digital and physical making.

Q: What area would you like to see developed/researched?

A: I would like to see more development in platforms for augmented reality.

Q: In a sentence, what advice would you give to a newbie starting out in CALL?

To those just starting out, I would say “Be fearless and dare to explore all the possibilities CALL offers to you.”

Katie Mitchell

Katie Mitchell develops CALL materials at Rosetta Stone. Before working at Rosetta Stone, she received her Masters in TESOL and taught adults in the United States and abroad. She is currently on the CALL-IS steering committee. She is interested in second language writing instruction, educational games, digital literacy, and computer assisted language learning.

E-mail: kmitchell@rosettastone.com

Affiliation: Rosetta Stone

Years in the CALL-IS: 5 years

Q: What is your favorite platform?

A. To be honest, I’d have to say mobile. It’s amazing what we can do with our smart phones now. I have to work very hard not to be glued to my iPhone.

Q: For you, what is the one indispensable tool/web page?

A: The ability to self publish is so powerful. That can mean wikis or Google sites or so many other things, but together they let students and teachers be more in control of the content.

Q: What is your most unexpected source of information about CALL?

A: Games. Although I’m not an avid gamer, I find myself often inspired by them.

Q: What was your favorite CALL creation?

A: I developed a vocabulary component for an Academic English program in Germany. It used (manual) spaced repetition and had an extensive online component with corpus-based activities and other practice.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I am working on a business English reading course. I’m geeking out about tools that help determine text difficulty. It’s amazing that one of the first of these, the Gunning Fog Index, was developed in the 50s, but there’s still so much room for improvement.

Q: What area would you like to see developed/researched?

A: Simulations and games. I think there is so much potential to capture both the short bursts of activity people have on their phone and the hours of serious gaming people do in their free time.

Q: In a sentence, what advice would you give to a newbie starting out in CALL?

A: Write to the CALL-IS Listserv. There are so many people on there just waiting to discuss anything related to CALL.

John P. Madden

John P. Madden is an associate professor of applied linguistics at St. Cloud State University. His interests include listening comprehension, computer-assisted language learning, service learning, and teacher education. He's a past chair of the CALL-IS.

E-mail: jpmadden@stcloudstate.edu

Affiliation: St. Cloud State University, Department of English, Minnesota, USA
Years in the CALL-IS: Not sure -- possibly since I joined TESOL in 1996, so that would be 18-19 years.

Q: What is your favorite platform?
A: Mac, but I like Windows and Linux, too.

Q: For you, what is the one indispensable tool/web page?

A: Anything that supports communication and interaction --- such as the Internet, word processors, web browsers, audio and video recorders/players -- while supporting users' privacy and freedom of action -- would be close to indispensable.

Q: What is your most unexpected source of information about CALL?

A: All sources are welcome. I read and listen to popular and scholarly sources. My students, colleagues, friends, and family all give me good information, too.

Q: What was your favorite CALL creation?
A: I don't really have a favorite. As above, anything that supports interaction and learning, while being useful, and supporting users' privacy is a potential favorite. Typically on my home and school computers, I have word processors/office suites (Open Office, MS Office, Apple's iWork), a sound recorder (Audacity), and web browsers with plugins. I'm also interested in corpus analysis (AntConc, by Lawrence Anthony), qualitative data analysis (TAMS Analyzer, by Mark Weinstein) and quantitative analysis (I'm working on learning more about R.). But I don't have a favorite.

A: I'm interested in digital literacy and how that relates to how we learn language and come to understand each other.

Q: What area would you like to see developed/researched?

A: How do teachers develop digital literacy?

Nina Liakos

Nina Liakos grew up in the pre-computer era in New Jersey; went to college in Rochester, NY; lived for three years in Paris, France (where she started teaching EFL); and taught in various intensive English programs in the Washington, DC area from 1974-2015, mostly at the University of Maryland's Maryland English Institute. She first became involved with CALL after participating in the EVO 2006 session, "Becoming a Webhead" (BaW06).

E-mail: nina.liakos@gmail.com

Affiliation: none (I just retired)! Former affiliation: University of Maryland, Maryland English Institute

Years in the CALL-IS: 8 years from 2007 – 2015

Q: What is your favorite platform?

A: I guess Blogger (https://www.blogger.com/) and WordPress (https://wordpress.com/website/). I created my first blog during the BaW2006 session and have since created thirty Blogger blogs, including class blogs, blogs to support conference presentations and EVO sessions I participated in, a travel blog, and team blogs for webheads attending the annual TESOL convention (see the most recent one here). In addition to these mostly temporary blogs, I also maintain two on-going WordPress blogs: my reading blog and my nature diary.

Q: For you, what is the one indispensable tool/web page?

A: See above (Blogger and WordPress). But my favorite website is TED (http://www.ted.com/), both for myself and for students. Students can scaffold talks with judicious use of captioning and their L1 and in English; with practice, they can dispense with the captions and just listen. It's great listening practice, plus you always learn something new, interesting, or funny.

Q: What is your most unexpected source of information about CALL?

A: I don't know about unexpected, but recently I have learned a lot from Vance Stevens' newest adventure in free online professional development, Learning2gether. Almost every Sunday and many other days as well, Vance arranges webinars, interviews, and conversations with webheads and others who are doing interesting things with technology in educational settings. (If you can't make the live webcast, you can always check out the recordings afterwards.) It's informal and fun; listeners can take part in a free-wheeling conversation with Vance and his guest(s) in a Google hangout or other venue.

Q: What was your favorite CALL creation?

A: I suppose it was the first "Webheads & Friends" blog that I created for the TESOL Convention in Seattle in 2007, where I first met so many webheads face to face. Unfortunately, most of the photos that made the blog so lovely vanished when BubbleShare went offline. For teaching, I have created many blogs and wikis to support classes; one of my favorites was the one I made for a beginner's reading/writing/grammar class at Maryland English Institute in 2013, which drew heavily on YouTube videos to support grammar lessons <http://001rwg2013spr.blogspot.com/>. Sadly, most of the links and embedded videos no longer work.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Although I'm now retired, I am still a member of the EVO Coordination Team, which I led for the past two years. The EVO pioneered open, free professional development before anyone had ever heard of MOOCs, and we are still one of the best PD opportunities in the ESL/EFL universe! Those who participate actively in an EVO session can learn so much while getting to know colleagues around the world.

Q: What area would you like to see developed/researched?

A:I t looks like the coming thing is all about mobile devices. I finally broke down and got my own smart phone last December, but never used it for teaching (and being retired will probably not have the opportunity to do so). I know there's a lot of potential there, and all students here have smart phones (both adults and college-bound students).

Q: In a sentence, what advice would you give to a newbie starting out in CALL?

A: Technology doesn't make anybody learn better--but it can make learning more fun, and as teachers we need to help our students develop multiple literacies so that they can use technology safely.

NOTE: This article has not been copy edited due to its length.

Suzan is Senior Lecturer and English Language Team Leader at Yew Chung Community College in Hong Kong. She has been a CALL-IS member since 1995.