6th International BelNATE-IATEFL Conference

"Teaching English as a World Language in the Information Age"

November 3-5, 2004
Minsk State Linguistic University - Minsk, Belarus

BelNATE Online Workshop

 
        

Webheads Online Presentations and Panels:

Vance Stevens, Susanne Nyrop, Dafne Gonzales: "Intro To Asynchronous Communication Tools"

Abstract: My presentation would not go into depth where there were other presentations dwelling on these subjects, such as Bee's on Blogging, but would compliment these and put them in a perspective of WHY educators would want to get themselves online (and once that was established, ok, then HOW?).  In other words, this would be an overview of the tools available and enough of an explanation with reference to further information to get participants started on any or all of them.

Teresa Almeida d'Eca, Barbara Dieu, Buthaina Al Othman: "We blog. What about you? Do you blog?"

Abstract: Among the collaborative and interactive tools on the WEB, CMS (content management systems) hosting blogs are those that have awakened greatest interest as they offer much potential in education and language learning. Not only do they allow personal control and the possibility to publish online but also to create communities of practice around projects and themes. Come and make your debut in blogosphere. During this one and a half-hour audio-conference workshop, three webheads from different parts of the world will introduce you to blogs, illustrate the different types and show you how they have integrated them into their everyday EFL practice. Time and connections permitting, we will start a blog together to continue interacting with you after the conference!

Elizabeth  Hanson-Smith: " Teaching Writing Online"

Abstract: A panel of international teachers will discuss their experiences in teaching writing online using resources accessed through a collaborative group, Webpages, blogs, interactive exercises, and other resources found on the Internet. Panelists will respond to questions from the audience via live chat from three or more different locations around the globe.

David Winet: "Motivation online - and off."

Abstract:  What motivates students to stay the course?  What makes them drop out? This problem, bad enough in offline, credit-granting, fee-paying courses, become titanic in online, non-credit-granting, online courses like StudyCom English for Internet. This presentation will talk about some ways StudyCom teachers have found to deal with the problem.

Meet the Webheads

Elizabbeth Hanson-Smith

http://www.geocities.com/ehansonsmi

David Winet

http://www.study.com

Vance Stevens

http://www.vancestevens.com/vance.htm

Susanne Nyrop

http://www.xanga.com/susnyrop

http://home19.inet.tele.dk/susnyrop/index.html

Barbara Dieu

http://the_english_dept.tripod.com/index.html

Buthaina Al Othman

http://alothman-b.tripod.com/

Teresa Almeida D'Eca

http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/

Aiden Yeh

http://www.geocities.com/aidenyeh/

Minsk State Linguistic University hosted the 6th International BelNATE-IATEFL Conference 'Teaching English as a World Language in the Information Age'. LearningTimes was pleased to provide an online home for these live sessions, which benefitted EFL instructors and specialists from all over Belarus and abroad. The recordings of these sessions can be found at:

http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=570543

To access the recordings, click on 'Enter Now'

We Blog. What about you?

A collaborative collective space opened for teachers at the occasion of the 2004 Belnate Conference to discuss and exchange ideas on how to use blogs in their classrooms.

http://belnate04.blogspot.com/

http://alothman-b.tripod.com/webheads_belnate_blogwshop.htm

BelNATE Conference Guest Map

http://pub33.bravenet.com/guestmap/view.php?usernum=2813894146

Reflections /Feedback

Susanne  writes:

"The conference room in LearningTImes worked well from the Minsk University site, as well as for the distance participants, apart from a few minor problems that did not spoil the authentic synchronous session. The overall impression was good, especially the second session about Academic Writing with Elizabeth Hanson-Smith in California, Buth Alothman in Kuwait and Aiden Yeh in Taiwan was a succes with not many glitches and many good and relevant examples on tools used for Academic student writing . The Minskies had many interesting questions and comments, and I think we could have continued our discussion for hours..."

Barbara writes:

"The first part consisted in introducing participants to blogs, illustrate the different types and show them how we had integrated blogs into our everyday EFL practice.The second part was a hands-on experience during which we assisted participants in creating their own blogs and invited them to post in the collective blog we opened for the occasion.

Buthaina has immediately collected all the newly created URLs and posted a page featuring them online (cannot find it now...will link it later or else this will stay in the draft area for ages again). This just shows how easy it is to open an account with a blog provider. Posting later and keeping it updated is the hardest part :-)"

http://beewebhead.blogspot.com/2004/11/belnate-conference.html

Buthaina writes:

"I am so grateful to you for providing such a great learning experience where the presenter is also learning, together with the audience.
 
I have enjoyed the experience and had great fun. The Belarusian teachers were amazing; they were so friendly and professional! I am really glad that you all have found the presentation useful. And yes I managed to save the chatlog but not the ppt slides as I believe Bee or Tere did that."

Teresa writes:

"I'm so glad that the Belnate Conference was such a success! We had very enjoyable sessions on both days with lots of interaction on your side. It's great that we were able to get the "community" message across.Thank "you" for having given us the opportunity to take part in your conference. It's a first timer for Webheads regarding your part of the world, if I'm not wrong, and we hope it won't be the last. We also hope that Minskies will keep the interaction on blogs and any other topic of interest going in the Belnate blog."

Yaodong writes:

"Congratulations to you and your colleagues on the huge success in the conference.I do admire you for your beautiful job!Hope to have more online sessions like yours.Greetings from Yaodong in Liuzhou!"

Norbella remarks:

"Yesterday, I had the opportunity to participate in my first synchronous web conference.  It was held in a conference room of Learning Times.  This presentation was part of the 6th International BelNATE-IATEFL Conference 'Teaching English as a World Language in the Information Age".  There were about 12 people in the computer lab of the Minsk State Linguistics University and several webheads from different parts of the world. 

Teresa Almeida d'Eca (Portugal), Barbara Dieu (Brazil), and Buthaina Al Othman (Kuwait) did a very well prepared training on blogs.  They explained what blogs are; their historical background; some blogging jargon; basic characteristics; pedagogical base; advantages of using blogs in ESL/EFL classes; how they can be created and used;  and things to consider when creating them.  They also provided a useful taxonomy and perhaps most important, each presenter showed real examples of how they're using blogs.

Although a newbie on web conferencing, I felt at ease during all the presentation; all participants very friendly, and the different tools in the conference room were not difficult to use.  The conference provider was Elluminate.  I was amazed by its different tools:  It has a pubic whiteboard that all participants can use (people even drew pictures of themselves, as part of the introduction-How nice!).  There is also a text chat place, which we
used to write comments or ask and answer questions.  Participants have also the opportunity to use a voice chat.  Something that called my attention was the fact Elluminate offers presenters the chance to take all participants to different websites."

Teresa responds:

"Thank you for such a comprehensive personal perspective and with such
flattering words on the presenter trio. It was a wonderful experience for me
and my two very good friends, Bee and Buth. As I commented yesterday in a
private message to them, I felt that we were well synchronized and
complemented one another in a natural way. I was also very happy with the
enthusiastic Minskies (such a sweet and cute word coined by Sus!) and with
all the interaction in the text chat area going on in the first presentation, and real enthusiasm and excitement in the second part. And Iloved that last slide in which they wrote their comments. Very gratifying!!!"

Jonathan writes:

"We are so glad to hear that the conference was a success.  Congratulations on the results of your hard work.  It was our pleasure to support your important efforts."

Teresa adds:

"Apart from the fact that the three of us felt very happy about the Minsk and Webhead turnout and how it went, I felt very excited about the enthusiastic response from the Minskies and how committed they were to creating their first blog. Proof is Buth's great page created "while in session" and surprisingly
presented before it was over! That *is* multitasking! Hurrah for Buth!!!"

Susanne adds:


"A terrific and enlightening workshop run by three amazing webheads, Bee Buth and Tere, After great long tour de blogosphere, the second session was hands-on practice where participants were helped to create their own first blogs, and to send their emails to the moderators so that they could be invited to the collaborative workshop blog - well, I also made one myself to see how Blogger works on mac. "

Mercedes writes:

"Congratulations! It seems to work seemlessly. And your work is really professinal. I'm absolutely delighted with this presentation..."


TappedIn Transcript, Sunday 7

http://www.tappedin.org

SergeiG: Hello there
MargaretD: Hi #Sergei
RenataS: hi bruce
VanceS waves to all
TeresaD: morning, sergei
VanceS pats Sergei on back for job well done
BeeD waves to Sergei

MichaelAC joined the room.
MichaelAC: Hi everyone
SergeiG: Hello Michael!
SergeiG hello Michael and thanks a lot

ElizabethH: A group of us just did Sergei's confernce in Minsk--it was a great experience.
ElizabethH: But exhausting--and thanks for your help, Mike, in the practice sessions.
TeresaD: fabuuuulous experience, liz!
VanceS: I thought it was great too
VanceS: three cheers for Sergei
TeresaD: yes, mike. a great help
TeresaD: yes!
MichaelAC: My pleasure - really
TeresaD: hurrah for sergei and minskies!!!  :-)
SusanneN: it was a great blog workshop Sergei
SergeiG: Thanks folks! You did the job, not me actually!
MichaelAC smiles
SusanneN: Tere, Bee & Buth makes a wonderful trio
TeresaD: did anybody record the sessions apart from sergei?
SergeiG: I wanted to ask the same Q
TeresaD smiles to sus and thanks her
ElizabethH: I wrote Jonathan--he had our practice session in the archive, not the actual presentation.
SergeiG: I checked Dave's presenattion. It is there ( LT )
TeresaD: eliz, could you sene the url for the recording so i can add it to the wia index?
SusanneN: Tere, we do not have access to record sessions unless we have a special agreeement with the LT people!
TeresaD: hum...
ElizabethH: Tere--it is the same address in LT as the conference.
TeresaD: what a shame not to have the recordings
TeresaD: tks, liz
BeeD: the only trouble with the recordings is that apparently people recorded their rehearsals as well...so you have to forward the presentation a bit so as to get the real thing.
ElizabethH: Aha--got an answer from Jonathan--someone recorded the practice session, and then the real session starts at about 2:30 into the record.

ElizabethH: He says that's how Elluminate works--no way to edit the tape.  We should have erased the practice session before starting the actual presentation.

ElizabethH: A little quirk of Elluminate.
TeresaD: thanks, liz. i can add those pieces of info in the index
ElizabethH: That's just for mine, aiden, and Buth's presentation, however.
MichaelAC: This quirk will be fixed in new version (just released)
TeresaD: another item to add to the elluminate tutorial, so to say
MichaelAC: yes
SergeiG: Could we find a spot to post all PPPs?
ElizabethH: He said we could make a note next to the launch button--maybe Sergei has access to the page and can do that??

ElizabethH: I was putting ours up on my Webpage--almost done.
RenataS: i'm off to bed now webbie friends, it's been a great week
SergeiG: Thanks  Elizabeth!
TeresaD: i'm trying to do that in the wia index, Sergei. i created a spot for the conference
ElizabethH: I might be able to re-record from the Elluminate session if I could figure out .

SergeiG: Hello Elizabeth.
ElizabethH: Hi Sergei--Congratulations on a most successful event!
SergeiG: Thank you! It was  very good!!!!
ElizabethH: Really exciting to be a part of it--thank you for inviting me.
ElizabethH: We had a wonderful group, esp, the Bloggers.
SergeiG: Great Team! Great Presenations! Great experience!
ElizabethH: I hope to see some of the Minskis in our webheads group now.
SergeiG: Yes, I'd be happy to meet them too!
ElizabethH: You wanted the address of Academic Writing:
ElizabethH: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/academic_writing
SergeiG: Sure, some people asked me about it, especially Nora, if you remember her
ElizabethH: Yes, I do--she was a very active participant
SergeiG: She is into academic writing
ElizabethH: And Maya too seemed interested.
ElizabethH: All the links to Buth's classes and her students' blogs are in AcWriting too...
































































































































































 








 

 









 








 

 

 

 

 


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