reflections on evo 08

Time really flies when you are busy and so my reflections on the 08 smielt session is much later than the actual end.

I certainly learned a lot about moderating, as it was my first time doing it, and I would definitely do it again.  The role of moderator isn’t the same as of instructor, so I was confronted with people who had more experience in some areas than I did. This meant taking a guiding role rather than an authoritative role. The participants all had their experiences to share and so the profit was global and immense. This makes me think about the role of the teacher in the classroom. How much authority is necessary? How can we as educators include our pupils (YL) or students in the decision-making process of what they learn and how they learn it?

And, of course, there was the discovery of different tools and how they can be used. Twitter was especially interesting with quite a bit of scepticism, and at the same time enthusiasm. Like with blogging, I was reluctant to see any use for it, but in the meanwhile I enjoy using it and even keep up private contact through Twitter.

Flickr was another tool that was much discussed, with good ideas flying about. Much sharing and enthusiasm.

The end was Charles’ Hipbone game. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm seemed to taper out before the end of the game. Nevertheless, it was a highly enjoyable experience and a great brain-wracker.

Now a final thank you to all who contributed to the session! It’s been wonderful following your thoughts on your blogs and I hope to keep up the discussions 🙂

EVO 08 Kick-off

This evening was the great EVO 08 kick-off where the different groups presented themsleves. I must say I was awestruck by the number of participants in the chatroom, and even more so by the number of listeners on ustream, listening to it live. The number of listeners never went much under 100 at any given time. And despite the technical difficulties (oh, what would we ever do in a perfect world without technical difficulties!?) there was a great feeling of belonging and excitement.

Now SMiELT is about to get rolling, with the colors in place (thank you Rudolf 🙂 ), game chairs ready, and people already getting to know or re-introduce themselves. I’m certainly excited too.

So, let the show begin!!

connecting

I’d like to tell you about one of my co-moderators blogging about evo 2008.

We had only met during the last evo session, and yet a bond has tied us together and shown us many common interests.

Now after only a year, we are friends and working together, and how glad we are to have each other!!

This is Jennifer Verschoor’s, blog.   My Integrating Technology journey

We are currently working together as co-moderators for the coming evo session

Thanks Jenny for helping me forwards- it’s been a pleasure doing the same 🙂

quote:

This year I will be contributing to the EVO Session Social Media in ELT. I will write about SMiELT in another blog post. What is EVO?

“INTERNATIONAL TESOL PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION INVITES PARTICIPATION IN ELECTRONIC VILLAGE ONLINE (EVO).
This is a professional development project and virtual extension of the TESOL 2008 Convention in New York. The intended audience for this project includes both TESOL 2008 participants and those who can participate only virtually. You do not need to be a TESOL member to participate in a free, six-week, wholly online session of the EVO, Jan
14 -Feb 24, 2008. More info at: http://evo08sessionscfp.pbwiki.com
Enrollment between Jan 01 and Jan 13, 2008″

I took the EVO Mods Training Session from October 22 until November 25. Take a look at the training session we had to follow. Our EVO moderators made a wonderful job guiding us on how to become better moderators!!!