Dear HEIS Interest Section Members:

Annually in January and February, the Electronic Village Online (EVO; a project of CALL-IS) offers 5-week professional development sessions on a variety of topics for teachers from around the world. The EVO serves as a kind of extension to the Electronic Village at the land-based TESOL convention, but it is free and open to all, TESOL members and nonmembers alike.

I am writing to inform HEIS members about an EVO session entitled "Dream Act: What Teachers Can Do." We hope that some of your IS members will take part in this or another session. It is a wonderful professional development opportunity and a way to help your members feel connected to the land-based TESOL convention, even if they can't attend.

As we are still engaged in the moderator training, the 2015 session page and sites are not yet complete, but the abstract is below:

If you are a U.S. based PK–12, adult ed, or higher ed ELD professional, join our interactive learning space to explore the DREAM Act alongside colleagues and undocumented students known as DREAMers. Many young people note that their English teacher was their first confidant in the US. What does this mean? What can teachers do to support DREAMers and move others to action?

It looks like we are offering 12–13 sessions this year (though we can't be sure until the mods training ends and the pages and syllabi are complete), and about half of them are brand new ones, so if you have checked us out before and not found anything to your liking, you should check again.

The call for participation will be public in mid-December. The site is evosessions.pbworks.com, but right now all visitors will find is the Call for Proposals.

Again, thanks very much for your support, on behalf of the DREAM Act team and the entire EVO community of coordinators, moderators, and participants.

Please don't hesitate to write to me if you have any questions.

Nina Liakos

On behalf of the EVO Coordination Team

Note: The Higher Education Interest Section is proud to sponsor the EVO Session “Dream Act: What Teachers Can Do.”

Nina Liakos taught EFL in France 1972-3 and has taught ESL in the U.S. since 1974. She got her Master’s in Applied Linguistics from Georgetown University in 1978 and has been a lecturer in ESL at the Maryland English Institute (University of Maryland College Park) since 1981. Involved in the Electronic Village Online since 2006, as a participant, co-moderator, coordinator, and now lead coordinator.