New Technologies in ELT

INTO University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th February 2007

An IATEFL Learning Technologies Sig event packed with hands-on workshops, hosted by INTO University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Registration

Download a registration form.

Accommodation

A page with information about accommodation in the area can be found here.

Travel

A page with information about getting to INTO University of East Anglia can be found here.

Workshop abstracts

Podcasts and Vodcasts in ELT
Paul Hullock, INTO, University of East Anglia

The term Podcasting, although originally inspired by the iPod, now tends to refer to any software and hardware combination that allows audio recordings to be automatically downloaded from the internet and listened to at a user's convenience. The tremendous growth in Podcasting (and to a lesser extent Vodcasting) over the last few years has seen a huge rise in the number of sites offering Podcasts to the English language learner. This session will give participants a hands-on guide to the good, bad and the ugly of Podcasting as well as providing a step-by-step introduction for teachers wanting to make their own Podcasts. We will also be seeking to establish some simple pedagogical ground rules for practioners wishing to create audio materials for their learners.

Paul Hullock is a teacher, teacher trainer, materials writer and learning technologist who works for INTO UEA at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. He teaches on foundation, degree and post-graduate courses. He is also involved in a wide range of teacher training courses.
Paul has been involved in Multimedia and Internet materials design and teacher training since the late 80's. He is currently working on an online ICT guide for language teachers and web 2 technologies.

Reading and Writing Online
Tilly Harrison, University of Warwick

The Internet now offers a great range of options for new types of reading and writing. Students need to be 'hyper-literate' in the sense that they need to know how to read texts full of hyperlinks and how to evaluate information instantly available from a range of sources. Webquests are a good way to encourage these skills in a fun, motivating way. Students also now have new environments in which to practise writing: blogs for personal texts and wikis for collaborative writing. This workshop will explore the language learning possibilities offered by these three tools with a chance to discuss both their advantages and disadvantages. It will be assumed that all participants have basic computer and browser skills.

Tilly Harrison works in the Centre for English Language Teacher Education (CELTE) at the University of Warwick, contributing to the teaching of Computer and Multimedia-assisted language learning as well as linguistics, language skills and English for Academic Purposes. Her international experience has involved teaching English in France, Spain, Sierra Leone and Japan. Her research interests are the use of corpus linguistics in EAP and language teaching, and the writing of second language learners.

Corpora and Language Learning
Michael Barlow, University of Auckland

This workshop covers the theory and practice of using corpora in language teaching, from the development of materials for particular courses to the use of corpus data in the classroom. The workshop consists of both demonstrations and hands-on practice of text analysis techniques using a concordancer (MonoConc Pro) and a collocation extractor (Collocate). Using these tools, we can obtain frequency information for words, collocations, and constructions and we can use simple search-and-sort techniques to provide more detailed information on the relevant lexical and grammatical patterns of language.

We will show how the results of corpus analysis can be used to create word and collocation lists for specialised language courses. In addition, we will examine a variety of ways of integrating corpus data into language teaching exercises.

Michael Barlow is Associate Professor of Applied language Studies at the University of Auckland and is the founder of Athelstan, a company that publishes books and text analysis software. He teaches courses on CALL and Corpora and Language Learning at the University of Auckland and has worked in these areas for several years.

The Interactive Whiteboard in ELT- what lies beyond the wow! factor?
Johanna Stirling, Freelance consultant

The interactive whiteboard wows, that's for sure, but what kind of real potential does it have for enhancing ELT classes? In this workshop we'll explore a wide range of possible applications and what they add to the learning process. Also, recognising that not all institutions can afford IWBs until the price falls, we will look at how some activities designed for this technology can be adapted for classrooms with only a computer and data projector. Many of the activities will require no additional software but we will also take a look at some existing published materials and discuss how these might develop in the future as the technology and pedagogy matures. The workshop is suitable for those new to the whiteboard who want to see just what it can do and also for those old hands interested in where this exciting new technology could take us.

Johanna Stirling is a freelance teacher and teacher trainer who worked at Bell in Norwich for 20 years, where she came to know and love the interactive whiteboard. She also edits interactive whiteboard software. Johanna is the web mistress of The English Language Garden at http://www.elgweb.net.

Computer-Mediated Communication in ELT
Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou, Cyprus Pedagogical Institute

This workshop will look at the basic types of computer-mediated communication and will then discuss the potential benefits which computer-mediated communication can bring to language learning. The workshop will particularly focus on synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC), although we will be flexible according to the participants' interests. We aim to look at text-based SCMC, audioconferencing and videoconferencing and encourage the participants to review some of the most common tools for SCMC by trying them out first hand. Guidelines for successful implementation of SCMC into a language programme will be discussed. Finally, participants can explore ways to implement SCMC in their own context.

Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou is a teacher trainer, researcher and materials developer. She has been involved in implementing and researching CMC for a number of years and has successfully implemented various forms of CMC both with young learners and young adults. Sophie is the coordinator of the Learning Technologies Special Interest Group.

 

Event schedule

Saturday 17th February, 2007
9:30 - 10:00Registration
10:00 - 10:15Opening
10:15 - 11:45Workshop 1a - Computer-Mediated Communication in ELT
10:15 - 11:45Workshop 1b - The Interactive Whiteboard in ELT
11:45 - 12:00Coffee break
12:00 - 1:30Workshop 2 - Corpora and Language Learning
1:30 - 3:00Lunch
3:00 - 4:30Workshop 3 - Podcasts and Vodcasts in ELT
4:30 - 5:00Summing up / wrapping up for the day
Sunday 18th February, 2007
10:00 - 11:30Workshop 4a -Computer-Mediated Communication in ELT
10:00 - 11:30Workshop 4b - The Interactive Whiteboard in ELT
11:30 - 12:00Coffee break
12:00 - 1:30Workshop 5 - Reading and Writing Online
1:30 - 2:00Summing up / closing of the event

 

IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG: http://www.iateflcompsig.org.uk
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