PERIODS COVERED: 2019 -2018, 2017 – 2016 (below), 2015 – 2014, 2013 – 2012, 2011
Cleaning study leads to melancholic reflections
Submitted by tonk on Wed, 08/30/2017 – 16:17
The spell of minor quality summer weather we had some weeks ago motivated me to take up the longstanding challenge of cleaning my study.
Great to handle the key books that fed my special interest in CALL again. And – among simply getting rid of all sorts of dated stuff on my desk – cleaning also involved checking bookshelves on the relevance (for future (project)work or courses) of:
* archived (EU) project materials,
* conference proceedings & paraphernalia
* journal issues
* hand & (text)books & teaching materials
* binders holding a huge collection of printed journal articles
and lots more…
all with the aim to create more space and -above all – some order to facilitate retrieving specific content when needed.
It left me with mixed feelings about personal time and energy investments on the one hand (the incredible pace of tech development vs the slow uptake in educational practice ) and the realisation that apparently exploring the potential of tools and doing related action research (also if ever so small) is needed and useful to develop CALL related pedagogical insights.
Also at the personal level I got confronted with Tempus fugit e.g. thanks to my student ID card at Utrecht Uni 🙂
Results of the evaluation of 2017 KA1 Mobility application plans published
Submitted by tonk on Mon, 08/28/2017 – 21:55
Now that National Agencies in various EU countries have published the evaluation results of the 2017 CALL for KA1 Mobility application plans, we would like to inform / remind you about TELLConsult’s renewed offer of courses on a range of topics related to implementing educational technology across curriculum in primary and secondary education in general
and for teachers of Modern Languages & CLIL in particular including:
Internationalisation projects, Digital video, Telecollaborative learning, Student Response Systems & assessment for learning, Introducing mobile devices, Differentiated instruction, Using touch screens and more.
For full descriptions and (pre-)registration see the 2017 – 2018 course overview here
We gladly provide further information. Pls contact us at this email address: admin@tellconsult.eu
We also welcome requests for customised versions of specific courses (see e.g. these examples https://www.tellconsult.eu/2017/03/11/tellconsult-developed-2-erasmusplus…
Warming up for the EUROCALL 2017 Conference
Submitted by tonk
on Sun, 08/20/2017 – 23:50
To prepare for the EuroCALL 2017 conference we treated ourselves to a short retreat at the Isle of Wight
We greatly enjoyed the beautiful sceneries touring the island by car including landmark highlights such as:
the Needles in Alum Bay
and the view at Freschwater beach
and walking the coastal path from Sandown to Ryde. Find a brief video impression here
Some of the pictures during that walk (see below) brought on some reflections on life on (British!) islands.
Assuming that when on holiday one tends to focus on the attractive aspects of the location some came to mind including the advantages of the inherent small-scale dimension reflected in infrastructure, agriculture, tourism and local communities and related manifestations such as landscapes, traditions in architecture, fashion, furniture, (food) products, beach culture etc.
Finally, coming across this (imported?) 2CV collector’s item made me sentimental,
the more since it was a very popular car brand during my student days (and or rather because! affordable). And also it reminded me of how I brought my first over during my year at Sheffield University back in the sixties!
Finally on the last day of our visit we enjoyed the rustic beachlife scenes and the enormous stretches of low tide sandbanks at the beach near Ryde.
But then – at some point – with great memories of this beautiful island, the ferry took us back to Southampton while looking forward to lots of fresh input on developments in CALL and meeting (ex)project partners, colleagues, friends and new CALL adventurers.
Tags: IoW EuroCALL 2017 Wight eurocall conference Sandown Southampton
Discussion: Investing in interactive whiteboards or not, anno 2017?
Submitted by tonk
on Wed, 05/17/2017 – 15:04
The request for advice on investing in IWBs below on the Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI) list “
Hi – a number of teachers in my school are keen to spend our IT grant on IWBs. Can you please let me know your feedback pro and con for this. I personally feel it’s the wrong way to go but I would like to hear others opinions please”
triggered 20 messages from 23 participants where the keywords in the reactions pro were:
annotation (also useful as PDF record of lesson activities), great with young learners, useful for science subjects, ok for teachers comfortable with IWB, ok with well planned implementation.
For those representing the con camp these included:
teacher’s tool, poorly designed materials, underuse, restricted use of potential (mere projector), tech hick-ups, old tech, better alternatives: touch screens/walls, tablet connected to projector.
See some representative anonymised quotes at the bottom of this post.
My own contribution (below) was based on experiences in a number of related (recent) EU projects and partly reminiscent of an observation (also?) made by Chris Jones in the eighties: ‘It is not the technology but what you do with it’.
Hi All,
As to the discussion about the potential of IWB I would like to support those colleagues emphasizing the role of subject specific training and – I would like to add- collegial action research. Several studies (e.g. Beauchamp, 2004; Hennessy,2014; Koenraad, 2008). have shown the importance of a practice based ‘slow’ CPD approach allowing ample time for critical experimentation to gradually develop competences related to materials design and communication skills targeted at promoting IWB-mediated dialogue for learning in the classroom.
The following (EU) projects (for MFL, vocational education and cross curriculum respectively) were initiated to research and support teacher professional development in this domain:
- http://www.itilt2.eu/Pages/default.aspx
- http://smartvet.weebly.com/
- http://dialogueiwb.educ.cam.ac.uk/
- tabula alba project (Poland & Turkey)
Furthermore, find a summary on Shona Whyte’s blog of the principles and guidelines for IWB-supported language teaching practice in Chapter 8 of the edited collection resulting from the first edition of the iTILT project ‘Supporting teacher education for technology integration’ here: https://shonawhyte.wordpress.com/tag/itilt/
And/or check out her blogpost reporting conclusions drawn from researching the teaching procedures and materials developed by practitioners in https://shonawhyte.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/interactive-whiteboards-in-foreign-language-education-the-story-so-far/‘
Those interested in an intensive (ErasmusPlus eligible) course to familiarise themselves with the lessons learned, OER training materials and other results of these (EU) projects are recommended to participate in the related courses TELLConsult is offering: https://www.tellconsult.eu/training/
Finally, as to the question in what hardware to invest I would – with other technological options available nowadays- advise to go for generic solutions such as touch screens so that the use of a variety of materials and authoring softwares can be supported.
Quotes:
*I am an English and Geography teacher and have a IWB and I have found it to be invaluable. Yes, it terms of interactivity with the class, some materials are contrived and you will have to create most things. However, the real winner for me is class annotation either by the teacher or a student. It is especially useful when working on a series of texts e.g. poems from a particular poet. Everything that I write, every annotation can be put into a PDF and given to students who were missing or have difficulties taking notes. It feels natural as it feels like working with a normal whiteboard instead of a tablet. This has been fantastic. The kids love it…
*Short throw wall mounted projectors might have enough interactivity to meet teachers’ needs without having to go down the full IWB road
*Adding an Apple TV can be good if teachers or students are using iPads in the classroom.
*My experience at 2nd level is that very few teachers make use of the features of an IWB beyond projecting their laptop/computer screen.
*I wouldn’t rule IWB’s out but I’d say rather than decide to buy IWB’s and then work out how they might be used teachers should analyse how they want to teach and how they want their students to learn and then aim to buy the technology that best supports that plan, money permitting.
*Personally I think they are great but more often than not go unutilised. It depends what your school is going for
*IWBs/Panels are a great resource at primary level up to around 3rd/4th class. They tend to be used less frequently at secondary level except say for Maths/Science/Technology subjects. Many schools with IWBs and use them purely as an expensive projector screen.
*So IWB are great as long as you have a plan for it as well as the full setup. I’m not a big fan of them BUT I’ve met teachers who absolutely love them and wouldn’t be with out theirs.
*I’ve been in so many schools that have unused IWB and where the teacher who is in charge of buying says “I should have spent money on the Surface OR iPads OR Wacom Tabs.
*The county I am working in here in Virginia is not replacing any IWB. We are a 1 to 1 laptop district and are looking at more engaging room layouts with widescreen TVs to promote collaboration.
*The teachers have used them a lot but the view is that they are a teacher’s tool of their time which reinforces chalk and talk. That does not fit in with the student centred approach of instruction what we promote.
*IWB’s are ”old technology” at this stage. The interactivity has moved from the board into the projector itself. If buying today you would be getting an Interactive Projector or Interactive Panel.
*We had IWBs in my school 3 schools ago and as it was my “job” to get people up & running with IWBs I worked hard to make interactive lessons. They were largely contrived and I fully agree with an earlier post about them reinforcing a teacher centric approach. Not sure if my next suggestion is even possible but if you could hire a couple out and see how well they are used it might be useful. I did that on a smaller scale with visualisers- if they were (literally) gathering dust I moved them on to the next person who said they wanted one……
*I think staff need to have some training first before you get them. From our experience it’s not just one day training either but you would need to set up a schedule of training for the staff.
*Staff will need to be willing to give some of their own time to become familiar with the software. IWBs need to be in-bedded in to Subject Department Planning for certain.
Also we suggested that each subject teacher would have at least one lesson a week on the IWB… meaning a very interactive lesson… not just using the board as a projector. So many Subject Departments plan common lessons for use on the IWB.
*In regards IWB training, we received in school training. I personally found it to be a waste of time, the best training that I have gotten is that of talking to other teachers using them. It is also worth considering that they don’t integrate well with iPads.
*My IWB became redundant when I got my Surface Book. I do everything in OneNote and never have to turn my back on the class. It all comes down to what you wish to achieve.
*Just a voice from the past extolling the continuing value of IWBs. Nowadays they are moving into the cloud (with the likes of Classflow) or via sites/apps such as Nearpod, DisplayNote etc. In other words (and even without the online dimension), when properly planned, they are tools not just for teachers but for students also.
Kick-off meetings of new EU projects TELLConsult was invited to join
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 02/24/2017 – 20:34
Two of the five EU ErasmusPlus KA2 project proposals TELLConsult was invited to join were actually allocated a grant in 2016: TABLIO and REDESIGN
The TABLIO (Tablets for classroom differentiation and inclusion (website under development)) project unites 7 partners from 6 European countries: Belgium, Slovenia, Turkey, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Italy. All partners subscribe the local, national and European need for inclusive education with tablets. The project started in December 2016 and will run until May 2019.
Its main objective is the development and validation of innovative pedagogical arrangements wherein tablets are used for classroom differentiation and inclusion purposes.
Partners met f2f for the first time on February 15/16-02-2017 at the coordinator’s institute, the University of Applied Sciences Hogeschool PXL in Hasselt, Belgium.
The organisation was so kind as to offer the project team a lovely dinner.
The coordinator of the REDESIGN project (Redesigning educational curricula and digitally-afforded collaborations to promote multimodal learning experiences, (provisional website here)) managed to get the partners together in Cyprus at the University of Cyprus just before Xmas 2016.
I arrived in Nicosia 3 days before the meeting as the European University Cyprus invited me to lecture at a special session of their linguistics club on Saturday.
I presented for an audience of students and lecturers on developments in CALL based on the main results of some EU projects I recently participated in.
The paper was entitled ‘ Reflections on how IT developments influence current trends in the use of ICT in education in general and in Modern Language Education in particular’.
The remaining three projects that did not get funded were a bit unlucky because, despite a very good evaluation result, they were not granted due to the limited budget available in the country where they applied.
The prospect coordinators, supported by the partner consortium, intend to submit an improved version of their proposal for this year’s CALL. So by the beginning of August 2017 we will know wether we were successful this time.
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TELLConsult summer 2017 activities
Submitted by tonk
on Sat, 01/14/2017 – 23:55
TELLConsult’s key activities these past months were mostly related to the current EU grant ErasmusPlus programmes KA1 and KA2 and included:
Contributing to the dissemination and exploitation of the EU project ‘Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technologies’ iTILT (2014 -2017) on the use of mobile and interactive classroom technologies.
In addition to promoting the project on various social media we ran a workshop on the use of student response systems and formative assessment at the project’s second multiplier event at Antwerp university. For more information about this seminar see iTILT’s latest Newsletter.
Also we got invited to contribute the presentation ‘Mobile devices in Modern Language Education. Get inspired by strategies and resources developed in related EU projects’ at the annual Tablet conference Mobile Schule organised by Oldenburg University in Germany.
Considerable time was also spent on the final definition of and acquisition for TELLConsult’s ErasmusPlus courses on themes including Interactive classroom technologies, video, response tools, mobile devices and more. For an overview see the course description pages: http://www.koenraad.info/content/current-courses
The current offer was also published in the EU course catalogue at SchoolEducationGateway.
Finally, this year again, we were invited to join a number of new EU project KA2 initiatives. Topics include: tablet-based innovation in teacher education, gamification, implementation of TBLT and ICT-based innovation of language teaching in Adult Education. For his latter project idea we suggested to also include the International Language Association that we are a member of.
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New location for TELLConsult ErasmusPlus Courses in Belgium
Submitted by tonk
on Tue, 12/13/2016 – 20:57
Thanks to collaboration with Erik deVlies, one of the teacher associate partners in the EU project iTILT2, and his innovation-minded school management at Onze Lieve Vrouwe College in beautiful Brugge (Belgium) http://olvaklatsch.wixsite.com/olva, TELLConsult Training can offer another interesting venue for its future courses for language professionals.
In 2017 we will be offering a course on differentiated instruction ‘Practical approaches to support student-centred learning and differentiation in language education using ICT’.
Find more courses in the current 2017/18 offer here: http://koenraad.info/content/current-courses
Webinar on EU project iTILT2 results and progress well attended
Submitted by tonk
on Wed, 12/07/2016 – 15:20
iTILT partners Shona Whyte (NICE University, France) and Ton Koenraad (TELLConsult, Netherlands) successfully ran the highly interactive online webinar “Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technologies” on Monday 21 November hosted by Jürgen Wagner (Landesinstitut für Pädagogik und Medien Saarland, Germany).
The international event was most appreciated by more than some 160 colleagues present.
We would like thank our host Jürgen Wagner not only for plugging this webinar on social media and professionally supporting the actual session but also for all his work related to delevoping the great repository with CPD webinar video resources over the years.
This OER service is greatly appreciated and attracts the attention of professionals from an impressive range of countries as testified by the numbers (> 400 registrants from 64 countrie) that were sent the registration link and other follow-up materials.
In addition to loads of interesting links (also contributed by participants) including (of course) the recording of the session this document also offers an overview of upcoming webinars and briefs how to pre-register for them.
Finally, this Padlet page: is a great demonstration of how an online community of language teachers is developing where members contribute and greatly appreciate the sharing of experiences. See this selection of quotes for the iTILT ‘globinar’:
Peggy George: ‘Excellent webinar by Shona Whyte on Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technologies. Loved the opportunity to explore videos demonstrating use cases and to provide feedback on the Padlets. Reinforced how important it is to focus on pedagogy rather than the technology tools.’
Dietmar: ‘webinaire excellent!!! Magnifique! Bonne année!!! Merci d’avoir présenté Interactive Teaching!’
Jörg: ‘Tolles Webinar!! Weiter so!!’ 😉
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iTILT project meeting and public workshops in Antwerp
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 11/11/2016 – 22:35
iTILT2 is an EU project to promote communicative language teaching using mobile & interactive technologies.
It organised its 3rd meeting at Antwerp University.
On behalf of TELLConsult, partner in this project, I attended the meeting and contributed a workshop at the subsequent dissemination event in one of Antwerp University’s beautiful, historical buildings.
We presented sample contents for the update of the digital library at the new website http://www.itilt2.eu , summarized developments in some related m-learning projects, such as MTTEP and TELL-OP and had delegate discuss in groups the results of the section on Assessment in the online intake questionnaire.
We enjoyed the interactive presentation on mobile learning by Prof. Kevin Burden (HULL Uni) and I was also most impressed by the efforts & results realised by the Belgian teachers participating in the TILT2 project researching their classroom pilots with tech supported task-based lesson designs.
Campaign to advertise TELLConsult’s upcoming ErasmusPlus courses started
Submitted by tonk
on Sun, 12/04/2016 – 22:06
The currently planned international courses offered on Technology Enhanced Language Learning by TELLConsult and partners include the following topics:
* Designing language exchange experiences for international school projects.
* Student response tools and activities to support interaction & assessment for learning in language education.
* Practical approaches to support student-centred learning and differentiation in language education using ICT.
* ICT tools and strategies to support CLIL and LSP approaches in language teaching.
* Introduction to New Technologies in Language Teaching.
* Using touch screens & whiteboards to support interactive language teaching & learning.
* Getting more out of Digital Video in Language Education.
* Introducing mobile devices in your language classroom.
Find our courses in the ErasmusPlus course catalogue ‘Teacher Academy’ at the EU School Education Gateway website:
http://www.schooleducationgateway.eu/en/pub/teacher_academy.htm
or for full decriptions and (pre-)registration see the 2017 – 2018 course overview here:
http://www.koenraad.info/content/current-courses
On behalf of TELLConsult Training
Ton Koenraad,
https://www.tellconsult.eu
TELLConsult specializes in educational project development and international teacher training courses on integrating educational technology in Language Education. We collaborate with international experts and are committed to providing up-to-date knowledge and development of practical skills that every teacher can apply in daily classroom practice.
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Preparing for workshop on Student Response Systems in Patras
Submitted by tonk
on Sun, 09/25/2016 – 22:19
Having shown an interest to become associate partner in the M-Lang project TELLConsult got invited by its ‘mother’ project HiST to attend their 5 day workshop “Interactive Exchange Workshop on how to use student response systems (SRS) and ICT tools for creating interactive learning” at Patras, Greece.
The Interactive Exchange Workshop is going to address how to use student response system (SRS) tools to introduce and enhance interactive learning pedagogics. It is a workshop for teachers and trainers who want to share their experiences on using response tools to provide or receive instant or nearly immediate feedback in language training, and in other types of training courses. A professional network of instructors will act as animators to guide delegates to the world of creating engagement in the classroom and to apply mobile learning in outdoor learning activities.
Having arrived early I had a chance to also explore the surroundings: walked around a bit in Patras town and did some beach walking to get a good view of the famous Pylon bridge that connects the area with the Greek mainland.
Tags:
M_lang Hist eu project workshop multiplier event
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TELLConsult’s recent contributions to the EU project PETALL
Submitted by tonk
on Tue, 09/20/2016 – 18:05
Having been involved with the PETALL project on developing & implementing activities for task based language learning in actual EU school practices as external evaluator for more than 3 years, TELLConsult recently submitted its final Evaluation Report.
Thanks to a task description clearly targeted at the facilitation of a close monitoring of the project processes (including attendance at the f2f meetings) and thus allowing & welcoming (even unsolicited) advice on project development we felt comfortable to provide (also critical) feedback and define recommendations both in the interim report (see this blog post ) and – with a special focus on the planned exploitation efforts – in the final report.
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TELLConsult’s summer activities for the EU project ‘iTILT2’
on Thu, 09/08/2016 – 18:25
As iTILT2 partner responsible for dissemination & exploitation we were
involved in a number of activities this summer:
M-Lang project multiplier event
As associate partner TELLConsult got invited by the EU project M-lang to attend their 5 day workshop “Interactive Exchange Workshop on how to use response systems and ICT tools for creating interactive learning” at Patras, Greece, in October 2016.
The M-Lang project http://histproject.no/node/903 is about mobile enhanced tools and approaches for innovative language learning and assessment. It is part of the HiST project http://histproject.no/ coordinated by The Developing Excellence in Education and Learning (DEEL) Research Unit which is located at the Faculty of Technology, Sør-Trøndelag University College in Trondheim, Norway. The unit conducts research and development related to:
•design, development, use and implementation of new teaching and learning methods into higher education, upper secondary education, primary education, and vocational education and training
•pilot development of new, state of the art ICT and/or mobile learning tools and services
Paper submitted for EUROCALL MALL Sig Proceedings
We developed and submitted the first draft of the full version of the paper we presented at the EUROCALL MALL SIG Symposium ‘ Perspectives on the
integration of Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) tools in the teaching & learning of foreign languages’ at Lumina University in Buckarest, Romania (more details here)
Contributions to recent iTILT publications
We wrote up our recent dissemination activities for the summer edition of the iTILT 2016 Newsletter. This newsletter #3 can be downloaded here.
We also contributed to the iTILT2 interim report for the UK national agency that was recently submitted.
Invitations for new ErasmusPlus KA2 project initiatives.
As associate partner of the MTTEP project ‘Mobilising and Transforming Teacher Education Pedagogies’ on tablets in teacher education we were
contacted to participate in and help find potential partners for a follow-up project to further develop the mobile learning toolkit.
More associate partnerships
Earlier this year we joined the TELL-OP project as associate partner (more detail here). Due to the late cancellation of our summercourses (see below) we could not attend the project’s one day seminar, as part of the TaLC 12 conference in Giessen, Germany and also had to skip the annual EuroCALL conference.
We also communicated our interest in an associate partnership with the EU project IncluEdu and joined their community. The project offers courses on tablet use with a special focus on inclusive, personalised education for people with and without special educational needs.
Summercourses 2016 cancelled, planning 2017 started
As reported before we could not run most of our courses this summer including the updated version of our iTILT ErasmusPlus course . (more detail here). As we can scale up our course activities in the next years thanks to our partnership with EUNEOS, another experienced EU course provider http://www.euneoscourses.eu , we are currently sounding out our tutor network, related project partners and practitioners to help staff our courses which run in a variety of EU locations.
Website Koenraad info & TELLConsult migrated
on Sat, 08/13/2016 – 22:43
As USA-based, Drupal Hosting service Acquia suddenly decided to stop their Drupal Gardens support I have been busy with the transfer of my webportal @ http://www.koenraad.info to BlueHost , as recommended.
With the help of some online help sessions and this BlueHost help file: https://my.bluehost.com/cgi/help/transfer-drupal-gardens most stuff seemed to work at some point except for two vital things: access to my actual Drupal site and the rendering of the theme I had selected.
BlueHost (specialist) supporters I(MO) appeared not to be able/or allowed to spend enough time to solve things :-/ . Finally, all is well now, thanks to the volunteer help of Dennis Cohn , a member of the Dutch Drupal community.
Pff what a stressful week, the more as this site also provides the registration facilities for our Erasmus+ professional development courses!
TELLConsult’s 2016 summer courses
Submitted by tonk
on Tue, 07/05/2016 – 22:17
Regrettably we cannot run most of our Erasmusplus courses planned for 2016, partly due to the number of schools’ unsuccessful Grant applications but also because some of this year’s course dates appeared not to be convenient for some schools.
Besides we noticed that some National Agencies were rather late in publishing the evaluation results of school grant applications and/or making the money involved available.
Yet we are happy to share with you that -at the moment- there are already enough pre-registrations for a break-even run of both the 2017 editions of course #2 http://www.koenraad.info/…/using-interactive-classroom-tech… .
Our intention is to offer more choice in locations and course dates next academic year.
To make this possible and also intensify our publicity campaign we are currently preparing an associate partnership with EUNEOS, another experienced EU course provider http://www.euneoscourses.eu/
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NL Research into effectiveness of ICT in Education
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 06/17/2016 – 21:07
Attended the annual research conference on effectiveness of ICT use in NL education
“Knowing what works” is the theme of the Conference Research Knowledge Network and Dutch ETB Education Research (NRO) organize annually. More than 600 visitors in the Flint theater in Amersfoort on June 15 briefed by researchers on the latest scientific knowledge in the field of education and ICT.
That hunger was in any case during this conference here appeased.
During three rounds of pitches 15 researchers climbed the stage to explain the results of their research in exactly 5 minutes. Results which were always translated to the actual situation in the classroom. Because that was key at this Research Conference: to arrive at research insights that can help schools to improve their teaching.
TELLConsult joined TELLOP Project
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 05/06/2016 – 14:35
TELLConsult joined the EU project TELL-OP.
We gladly support this initiative as it focuses on two themes which we consider highly relevant (and yet still, IMO, underestimated) for language learning: Data Driven Learning (DDL) paired -in this day and age – to the potential of Mobile Language learning (MALL).
To get informed about the project’s aims and recent outputs, get to know the colleagues involved personally and so also help to start and support collaboration with the iTILT project I also registered for their first multiplier event in July.
It is a full day workshop entitled: ‘Learner language, corpus linguistics and mobile learning’ . It is a pre-conference event of the 12th Teaching and Language Corpora Conference (TALC 2016) which will be held from 20 to 23 July 2016 at Justus Liebig University Giessen in Germany.
TELLConsult’s recent conference contributions
Submitted by tonk
on Sun, 04/17/2016 – 15:21
In April I presented the results and recent developments of the iTILT projects (2011-2017) on several occasions.
First at the EUROCALL MALL SIG Symposium ‘ Perspectives on the integration of Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) tools in the teaching & learning of foreign languages.
This event was organised by Lumina University, Bucharest, Romania. The related paper was selected for inclusion in the ICMAL proceedings book of the 3rd International Conference of Modern Applied Languages to be published by Lumina – The University of South-East Europe.
More details and the programme here.
Speakers and organisers had a discussion on research and recent developments in MALL in the University’s Senate Room where this photograph was then taken.
Later that month, after attending the PETALL final project meeting as external evaluator in Granada,
we contributed to the international conference ‘NEW TRENDS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING’ organised there by the project team.
At least one person in the audience shared her opinion about the presentation by tweeting about it 🙂 :
TELLConsult joined 5 new EU project initiatives
Submitted by tonk
on Sun, 04/03/2016 – 13:26
As the EU projects CAMELOT and TABULA ALBA,TELLConsult participated in the past few years came to an end in 2015, we decided to accept invitations to join new EU project initiatives. In the course of 2 months we contributed to the ErasmPlus KA2 grant application development of a total of 5 project proposals.
The coordinating countries and topics involved show an interesting variety including: exploring the use of mobile technologies to address differentiation & inclusion issues (TABLIO, Belgium); implementing Task Based Language Teaching approaches in academic contexts (ReDESIGN, Cyprus); Gaming & Gamification (KINELL, Turkey & INTERGame, Romania) and implementing blended learning in Adult Language Education (ICALL, Italy).
So lilke all partners involved we try to be patient now till July/August while waiting with fingers crossed for the evaluation results of these proposals (and thinking about who we could hire to help out in case all bids get accepted :-).
EU project Camelot evaluated
Submitted by tonk
on Thu, 03/31/2016 – 13:50
CAMELOT stands for “CreAting Machinima Empowers Live Online Language Teaching and Learning”. It is a 2-year EU funded project for language educators to learn how to create videos (machinima) in virtual worlds. (Dec 2013-Nov 2015).
This week the project team was informed by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) on behalf of the European Commission that the final report submitted by the project has been evaluated. The external evaluators, commissioned to support the commission in this, arrived at a very satisfactory global score of 8 out of 10.
Most evaluation categories, including ‘Coherence of workplan and activities’, Project & Financial Management, Dissemination and Partnership scored 8. The results for ‘Objectives, results, products and Evaluation 7 and 6 respectively.
As soon as we get the full report I hope to find out why Evaluation scored not as good as other aspects
For more information and the project results visit the project’s website
TELLConsult’s latest training activities at the Universities of Leiden and Leuven
Submitted by tonk
on Sat, 02/20/2016 – 15:07
As we were invited by ICLON (Leiden University), the organisers of the annual, national Good Practice Day event, to run an ICT-related workshop our proposal was accepted to present recent developments in a number of EU projects we are currently involved in.
We opted to run a workshop on the use of tablets and interactive classroom technologies.
We first presented the results of the first iTILT project (2011-2013) and then the aims, design & interim products of the 3-year follow-up project ‘Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technologies’ iTILT (2014 -2017). This included a video illustrating the use of the interactive whiteboard for task-based telecollaborative language learning. (see PPT here).
We then followed this up with a hands-on activity where participants were invited to explore the affordances of a number of Apps for specific curriculum activities. To facilitate the access to references on the topic, the App selection and the exchange of personal experiences and views we reused an adapted version of the Padlet page we had prepared for a related workshop at iTILT’s first multiplier event at the University of NICE (more details here).
We also ran an ErasmusPlus course on Interactive Whiteboards in Language Education at the University of Leuven, Belgium. For this occasion the course contents were customised on the basis of the requirements of a particular school team. Thanks to the support and excellent facilities (including large touch screens) provided by the University’s learning centre, Agora, there were no technical problems and participants had ample opportunities to adapt model MFL ideas for local use and also further develop their board skills using advanced applications such as widgets and SMART response.
More editions requested of ErasmusPlus course on technology and dialogue in the classroom
Submitted by tonk
on Sat, 01/23/2016 – 22:12
So requested TELLConsult is now also offering fully f2f editions of the blended version of its ErasmusPlus course ‘Using interactive classroom technologies to promote dialogic teaching and learning’
The course is the result of collaboration between the partners of the Cambridge University project ‘Using the IWB to Support Classroom Dialogue’ and the EU project iTILT.
Various course materials therefore are based on project results such as “Developing interactive teaching and learning using the IWB: a resource for teachers.” Hennessy, Warwick, Brown, Rawlins & Neale (2014). Open University Press. and the iTILT training manual.
iTILT multiplier event in NICE
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 01/15/2016 – 00:25
The NICE partner team, led by Shona Whyte, hosted the second f2f meeting of the EU project iTILT and organised a so-(ErasmusPlus)-called ‘multiplier event’ in NICE.
Click here for the day programme.
With over 40 participants this day conference with presentations and workshops was well attended.
Many of the participants said they really enjoyed the sessions with compliments for Euline Cutrim Schmid’s talk in the morning and the related workshop on iPads in the EFL classroom. Tips and apps such as Plickers and Padlet mentioned in other workshops on podcasting, phones and Open Educational Resources people felt they could use right away.
The day was reviewed during the final round table and included – thanks to contributions from Christine Schmider – an interesting discussion developed on ICT training in the teacher education school (ESPE) at NICE.
On behalf of TELLConsult we contributed a workshop and created this video report of the conference.
The project’s next multiplier event will take place in Antwerp on 9 November.
Koenraad.info Koenraad.info/Publications Koenraad.info/Blog Archive EUROCALL.NL TELLConsult.eu/projects
Cleaning study leads to melancholic reflections
Submitted by tonk
on Wed, 08/30/2017 – 16:17
The spell of minor quality summer weather we had some weeks ago motivated me to take up the longstanding challenge of cleaning my study.
Great to handle the key books that fed my special interest in CALL again. And – among simply getting rid of all sorts of dated stuff on my desk – cleaning also involved checking bookshelves on the relevance (for future (project)work or courses) of:
* archived (EU) project materials,
* conference proceedings & paraphernalia
* journal issues
* hand & (text)books & teaching materials
* binders holding a huge collection of printed journal articles
and lots more…
all with the aim to create more space and -above all – some order to facilitate retrieving specific content when needed.
It left me with mixed feelings about personal time and energy investments on the one hand (the incredible pace of tech development vs the slow uptake in educational practice ) and the realisation that apparently exploring the potential of tools and doing related action research (also if ever so small) is needed and useful to develop CALL related pedagogical insights.
Also at the personal level I got confronted with Tempus fugit e.g. thanks to my student ID card at Utrecht Uni 🙂
Results of the evaluation of 2017 KA1 Mobility application plans published
Submitted by tonk on Mon, 08/28/2017 – 21:55
Now that National Agencies in various EU countries have published the evaluation results of the 2017 CALL for KA1 Mobility application plans, we would like to inform / remind you about TELLConsult’s renewed offer of courses on a range of topics related to implementing educational technology across curriculum in primary and secondary education in general
and for teachers of Modern Languages & CLIL in particular including:
Internationalisation projects, Digital video, Telecollaborative learning, Student Response Systems & assessment for learning, Introducing mobile devices, Differentiated instruction, Using touch screens and more.
For full descriptions and (pre-)registration see the 2017 – 2018 course overview here
We gladly provide further information. Pls contact us at this email address: admin@tellconsult.eu
We also welcome requests for customised versions of specific courses (see e.g. these examples https://www.tellconsult.eu/2017/03/11/tellconsult-developed-2-erasmusplus…
Warming up for the EUROCALL 2017 Conference
Submitted by tonk
on Sun, 08/20/2017 – 23:50
To prepare for the EuroCALL 2017 conference we treated ourselves to a short retreat at the Isle of Wight
We greatly enjoyed the beautiful sceneries touring the island by car including landmark highlights such as:
the Needles in Alum Bay
and the view at Freschwater beach
and walking the coastal path from Sandown to Ryde. Find a brief video impression here
Some of the pictures during that walk (see below) brought on some reflections on life on (British!) islands.
Assuming that when on holiday one tends to focus on the attractive aspects of the location some came to mind including the advantages of the inherent small-scale dimension reflected in infrastructure, agriculture, tourism and local communities and related manifestations such as landscapes, traditions in architecture, fashion, furniture, (food) products, beach culture etc.
Finally, coming across this (imported?) 2CV collector’s item made me sentimental,
the more since it was a very popular car brand during my student days (and or rather because! affordable). And also it reminded me of how I brought my first over during my year at Sheffield University back in the sixties!
Finally on the last day of our visit we enjoyed the rustic beachlife scenes and the enormous stretches of low tide sandbanks at the beach near Ryde.
But then – at some point – with great memories of this beautiful island, the ferry took us back to Southampton while looking forward to lots of fresh input on developments in CALL and meeting (ex)project partners, colleagues, friends and new CALL adventurers.
Tags: IoW EuroCALL 2017 Wight eurocall conference Sandown Southampton
Discussion: Investing in interactive whiteboards or not, anno 2017?
Submitted by tonk
on Wed, 05/17/2017 – 15:04
The request for advice on investing in IWBs below on the Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI) list “
Hi – a number of teachers in my school are keen to spend our IT grant on IWBs. Can you please let me know your feedback pro and con for this. I personally feel it’s the wrong way to go but I would like to hear others opinions please”
triggered 20 messages from 23 participants where the keywords in the reactions pro were:
annotation (also useful as PDF record of lesson activities), great with young learners, useful for science subjects, ok for teachers comfortable with IWB, ok with well planned implementation.
For those representing the con camp these included:
teacher’s tool, poorly designed materials, underuse, restricted use of potential (mere projector), tech hick-ups, old tech, better alternatives: touch screens/walls, tablet connected to projector.
See some representative anonymised quotes at the bottom of this post.
My own contribution (below) was based on experiences in a number of related (recent) EU projects and partly reminiscent of an observation (also?) made by Chris Jones in the eighties: ‘It is not the technology but what you do with it’.
Hi All,
As to the discussion about the potential of IWB I would like to support those colleagues emphasizing the role of subject specific training and – I would like to add- collegial action research. Several studies (e.g. Beauchamp, 2004; Hennessy,2014; Koenraad, 2008). have shown the importance of a practice based ‘slow’ CPD approach allowing ample time for critical experimentation to gradually develop competences related to materials design and communication skills targeted at promoting IWB-mediated dialogue for learning in the classroom.
The following (EU) projects (for MFL, vocational education and cross curriculum respectively) were initiated to research and support teacher professional development in this domain:
- http://www.itilt2.eu/Pages/default.aspx
- http://smartvet.weebly.com/
- http://dialogueiwb.educ.cam.ac.uk/
- tabula alba project (Poland & Turkey)
Furthermore, find a summary on Shona Whyte’s blog of the principles and guidelines for IWB-supported language teaching practice in Chapter 8 of the edited collection resulting from the first edition of the iTILT project ‘Supporting teacher education for technology integration’ here: https://shonawhyte.wordpress.com/tag/itilt/
And/or check out her blogpost reporting conclusions drawn from researching the teaching procedures and materials developed by practitioners in https://shonawhyte.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/interactive-whiteboards-in-foreign-language-education-the-story-so-far/‘
Those interested in an intensive (ErasmusPlus eligible) course to familiarise themselves with the lessons learned, OER training materials and other results of these (EU) projects are recommended to participate in the related courses TELLConsult is offering: https://www.tellconsult.eu/training/
Finally, as to the question in what hardware to invest I would – with other technological options available nowadays- advise to go for generic solutions such as touch screens so that the use of a variety of materials and authoring softwares can be supported.
Quotes:
*I am an English and Geography teacher and have a IWB and I have found it to be invaluable. Yes, it terms of interactivity with the class, some materials are contrived and you will have to create most things. However, the real winner for me is class annotation either by the teacher or a student. It is especially useful when working on a series of texts e.g. poems from a particular poet. Everything that I write, every annotation can be put into a PDF and given to students who were missing or have difficulties taking notes. It feels natural as it feels like working with a normal whiteboard instead of a tablet. This has been fantastic. The kids love it…
*Short throw wall mounted projectors might have enough interactivity to meet teachers’ needs without having to go down the full IWB road
*Adding an Apple TV can be good if teachers or students are using iPads in the classroom.
*My experience at 2nd level is that very few teachers make use of the features of an IWB beyond projecting their laptop/computer screen.
*I wouldn’t rule IWB’s out but I’d say rather than decide to buy IWB’s and then work out how they might be used teachers should analyse how they want to teach and how they want their students to learn and then aim to buy the technology that best supports that plan, money permitting.
*Personally I think they are great but more often than not go unutilised. It depends what your school is going for
*IWBs/Panels are a great resource at primary level up to around 3rd/4th class. They tend to be used less frequently at secondary level except say for Maths/Science/Technology subjects. Many schools with IWBs and use them purely as an expensive projector screen.
*So IWB are great as long as you have a plan for it as well as the full setup. I’m not a big fan of them BUT I’ve met teachers who absolutely love them and wouldn’t be with out theirs.
*I’ve been in so many schools that have unused IWB and where the teacher who is in charge of buying says “I should have spent money on the Surface OR iPads OR Wacom Tabs.
*The county I am working in here in Virginia is not replacing any IWB. We are a 1 to 1 laptop district and are looking at more engaging room layouts with widescreen TVs to promote collaboration.
*The teachers have used them a lot but the view is that they are a teacher’s tool of their time which reinforces chalk and talk. That does not fit in with the student centred approach of instruction what we promote.
*IWB’s are ”old technology” at this stage. The interactivity has moved from the board into the projector itself. If buying today you would be getting an Interactive Projector or Interactive Panel.
*We had IWBs in my school 3 schools ago and as it was my “job” to get people up & running with IWBs I worked hard to make interactive lessons. They were largely contrived and I fully agree with an earlier post about them reinforcing a teacher centric approach. Not sure if my next suggestion is even possible but if you could hire a couple out and see how well they are used it might be useful. I did that on a smaller scale with visualisers- if they were (literally) gathering dust I moved them on to the next person who said they wanted one……
*I think staff need to have some training first before you get them. From our experience it’s not just one day training either but you would need to set up a schedule of training for the staff.
*Staff will need to be willing to give some of their own time to become familiar with the software. IWBs need to be in-bedded in to Subject Department Planning for certain.
Also we suggested that each subject teacher would have at least one lesson a week on the IWB… meaning a very interactive lesson… not just using the board as a projector. So many Subject Departments plan common lessons for use on the IWB.
*In regards IWB training, we received in school training. I personally found it to be a waste of time, the best training that I have gotten is that of talking to other teachers using them. It is also worth considering that they don’t integrate well with iPads.
*My IWB became redundant when I got my Surface Book. I do everything in OneNote and never have to turn my back on the class. It all comes down to what you wish to achieve.
*Just a voice from the past extolling the continuing value of IWBs. Nowadays they are moving into the cloud (with the likes of Classflow) or via sites/apps such as Nearpod, DisplayNote etc. In other words (and even without the online dimension), when properly planned, they are tools not just for teachers but for students also.
Kick-off meetings of new EU projects TELLConsult was invited to join
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 02/24/2017 – 20:34
Two of the five EU ErasmusPlus KA2 project proposals TELLConsult was invited to join were actually allocated a grant in 2016: TABLIO and REDESIGN
The TABLIO (Tablets for classroom differentiation and inclusion (website under development)) project unites 7 partners from 6 European countries: Belgium, Slovenia, Turkey, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Italy. All partners subscribe the local, national and European need for inclusive education with tablets. The project started in December 2016 and will run until May 2019.
Its main objective is the development and validation of innovative pedagogical arrangements wherein tablets are used for classroom differentiation and inclusion purposes.
Partners met f2f for the first time on February 15/16-02-2017 at the coordinator’s institute, the University of Applied Sciences Hogeschool PXL in Hasselt, Belgium.
The organisation was so kind as to offer the project team a lovely dinner.
The coordinator of the REDESIGN project (Redesigning educational curricula and digitally-afforded collaborations to promote multimodal learning experiences, (provisional website here)) managed to get the partners together in Cyprus at the University of Cyprus just before Xmas 2016.
I arrived in Nicosia 3 days before the meeting as the European University Cyprus invited me to lecture at a special session of their linguistics club on Saturday.
I presented for an audience of students and lecturers on developments in CALL based on the main results of some EU projects I recently participated in.
The paper was entitled ‘ Reflections on how IT developments influence current trends in the use of ICT in education in general and in Modern Language Education in particular’.
The remaining three projects that did not get funded were a bit unlucky because, despite a very good evaluation result, they were not granted due to the limited budget available in the country where they applied.
The prospect coordinators, supported by the partner consortium, intend to submit an improved version of their proposal for this year’s CALL. So by the beginning of August 2017 we will know wether we were successful this time.
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TELLConsult summer 2017 activities
Submitted by tonk
on Sat, 01/14/2017 – 23:55
TELLConsult’s key activities these past months were mostly related to the current EU grant ErasmusPlus programmes KA1 and KA2 and included:
Contributing to the dissemination and exploitation of the EU project ‘Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technologies’ iTILT (2014 -2017) on the use of mobile and interactive classroom technologies.
In addition to promoting the project on various social media we ran a workshop on the use of student response systems and formative assessment at the project’s second multiplier event at Antwerp university. For more information about this seminar see iTILT’s latest Newsletter.
Also we got invited to contribute the presentation ‘Mobile devices in Modern Language Education. Get inspired by strategies and resources developed in related EU projects’ at the annual Tablet conference Mobile Schule organised by Oldenburg University in Germany.
Considerable time was also spent on the final definition of and acquisition for TELLConsult’s ErasmusPlus courses on themes including Interactive classroom technologies, video, response tools, mobile devices and more. For an overview see the course description pages: http://www.koenraad.info/content/current-courses
The current offer was also published in the EU course catalogue at SchoolEducationGateway.
Finally, this year again, we were invited to join a number of new EU project KA2 initiatives. Topics include: tablet-based innovation in teacher education, gamification, implementation of TBLT and ICT-based innovation of language teaching in Adult Education. For his latter project idea we suggested to also include the International Language Association that we are a member of.
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New location for TELLConsult ErasmusPlus Courses in Belgium
Submitted by tonk
on Tue, 12/13/2016 – 20:57
Thanks to collaboration with Erik deVlies, one of the teacher associate partners in the EU project iTILT2, and his innovation-minded school management at Onze Lieve Vrouwe College in beautiful Brugge (Belgium) http://olvaklatsch.wixsite.com/olva, TELLConsult Training can offer another interesting venue for its future courses for language professionals.
In 2017 we will be offering a course on differentiated instruction ‘Practical approaches to support student-centred learning and differentiation in language education using ICT’.
Find more courses in the current 2017/18 offer here: http://koenraad.info/content/current-courses
Webinar on EU project iTILT2 results and progress well attended
Submitted by tonk
on Wed, 12/07/2016 – 15:20
iTILT partners Shona Whyte (NICE University, France) and Ton Koenraad (TELLConsult, Netherlands) successfully ran the highly interactive online webinar “Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technologies” on Monday 21 November hosted by Jürgen Wagner (Landesinstitut für Pädagogik und Medien Saarland, Germany).
The international event was most appreciated by more than some 160 colleagues present.
We would like thank our host Jürgen Wagner not only for plugging this webinar on social media and professionally supporting the actual session but also for all his work related to delevoping the great repository with CPD webinar video resources over the years.
This OER service is greatly appreciated and attracts the attention of professionals from an impressive range of countries as testified by the numbers (> 400 registrants from 64 countrie) that were sent the registration link and other follow-up materials.
In addition to loads of interesting links (also contributed by participants) including (of course) the recording of the session this document also offers an overview of upcoming webinars and briefs how to pre-register for them.
Finally, this Padlet page: is a great demonstration of how an online community of language teachers is developing where members contribute and greatly appreciate the sharing of experiences. See this selection of quotes for the iTILT ‘globinar’:
Peggy George: ‘Excellent webinar by Shona Whyte on Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technologies. Loved the opportunity to explore videos demonstrating use cases and to provide feedback on the Padlets. Reinforced how important it is to focus on pedagogy rather than the technology tools.’
Dietmar: ‘webinaire excellent!!! Magnifique! Bonne année!!! Merci d’avoir présenté Interactive Teaching!’
Jörg: ‘Tolles Webinar!! Weiter so!!’ 😉
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iTILT project meeting and public workshops in Antwerp
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 11/11/2016 – 22:35
iTILT2 is an EU project to promote communicative language teaching using mobile & interactive technologies.
It organised its 3rd meeting at Antwerp University.
On behalf of TELLConsult, partner in this project, I attended the meeting and contributed a workshop at the subsequent dissemination event in one of Antwerp University’s beautiful, historical buildings.
We presented sample contents for the update of the digital library at the new website http://www.itilt2.eu , summarized developments in some related m-learning projects, such as MTTEP and TELL-OP and had delegate discuss in groups the results of the section on Assessment in the online intake questionnaire.
We enjoyed the interactive presentation on mobile learning by Prof. Kevin Burden (HULL Uni) and I was also most impressed by the efforts & results realised by the Belgian teachers participating in the TILT2 project researching their classroom pilots with tech supported task-based lesson designs.
Campaign to advertise TELLConsult’s upcoming ErasmusPlus courses started
Submitted by tonk
on Sun, 12/04/2016 – 22:06
The currently planned international courses offered on Technology Enhanced Language Learning by TELLConsult and partners include the following topics:
* Designing language exchange experiences for international school projects.
* Student response tools and activities to support interaction & assessment for learning in language education.
* Practical approaches to support student-centred learning and differentiation in language education using ICT.
* ICT tools and strategies to support CLIL and LSP approaches in language teaching.
* Introduction to New Technologies in Language Teaching.
* Using touch screens & whiteboards to support interactive language teaching & learning.
* Getting more out of Digital Video in Language Education.
* Introducing mobile devices in your language classroom.
Find our courses in the ErasmusPlus course catalogue ‘Teacher Academy’ at the EU School Education Gateway website:
http://www.schooleducationgateway.eu/en/pub/teacher_academy.htm
or for full decriptions and (pre-)registration see the 2017 – 2018 course overview here:
http://www.koenraad.info/content/current-courses
On behalf of TELLConsult Training
Ton Koenraad,
https://www.tellconsult.eu
TELLConsult specializes in educational project development and international teacher training courses on integrating educational technology in Language Education. We collaborate with international experts and are committed to providing up-to-date knowledge and development of practical skills that every teacher can apply in daily classroom practice.
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Preparing for workshop on Student Response Systems in Patras
Submitted by tonk
on Sun, 09/25/2016 – 22:19
Having shown an interest to become associate partner in the M-Lang project TELLConsult got invited by its ‘mother’ project HiST to attend their 5 day workshop “Interactive Exchange Workshop on how to use student response systems (SRS) and ICT tools for creating interactive learning” at Patras, Greece.
The Interactive Exchange Workshop is going to address how to use student response system (SRS) tools to introduce and enhance interactive learning pedagogics. It is a workshop for teachers and trainers who want to share their experiences on using response tools to provide or receive instant or nearly immediate feedback in language training, and in other types of training courses. A professional network of instructors will act as animators to guide delegates to the world of creating engagement in the classroom and to apply mobile learning in outdoor learning activities.
Having arrived early I had a chance to also explore the surroundings: walked around a bit in Patras town and did some beach walking to get a good view of the famous Pylon bridge that connects the area with the Greek mainland.
Tags:
M_lang Hist eu project workshop multiplier event
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TELLConsult’s recent contributions to the EU project PETALL
Submitted by tonk
on Tue, 09/20/2016 – 18:05
Having been involved with the PETALL project on developing & implementing activities for task based language learning in actual EU school practices as external evaluator for more than 3 years, TELLConsult recently submitted its final Evaluation Report.
Thanks to a task description clearly targeted at the facilitation of a close monitoring of the project processes (including attendance at the f2f meetings) and thus allowing & welcoming (even unsolicited) advice on project development we felt comfortable to provide (also critical) feedback and define recommendations both in the interim report (see this blog post ) and – with a special focus on the planned exploitation efforts – in the final report.
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TELLConsult’s summer activities for the EU project ‘iTILT2’
on Thu, 09/08/2016 – 18:25
As iTILT2 partner responsible for dissemination & exploitation we were
involved in a number of activities this summer:
M-Lang project multiplier event
As associate partner TELLConsult got invited by the EU project M-lang to attend their 5 day workshop “Interactive Exchange Workshop on how to use response systems and ICT tools for creating interactive learning” at Patras, Greece, in October 2016.
The M-Lang project http://histproject.no/node/903 is about mobile enhanced tools and approaches for innovative language learning and assessment. It is part of the HiST project http://histproject.no/ coordinated by The Developing Excellence in Education and Learning (DEEL) Research Unit which is located at the Faculty of Technology, Sør-Trøndelag University College in Trondheim, Norway. The unit conducts research and development related to:
•design, development, use and implementation of new teaching and learning methods into higher education, upper secondary education, primary education, and vocational education and training
•pilot development of new, state of the art ICT and/or mobile learning tools and services
Paper submitted for EUROCALL MALL Sig Proceedings
We developed and submitted the first draft of the full version of the paper we presented at the EUROCALL MALL SIG Symposium ‘ Perspectives on the
integration of Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) tools in the teaching & learning of foreign languages’ at Lumina University in Buckarest, Romania (more details here)
Contributions to recent iTILT publications
We wrote up our recent dissemination activities for the summer edition of the iTILT 2016 Newsletter. This newsletter #3 can be downloaded here.
We also contributed to the iTILT2 interim report for the UK national agency that was recently submitted.
Invitations for new ErasmusPlus KA2 project initiatives.
As associate partner of the MTTEP project ‘Mobilising and Transforming Teacher Education Pedagogies’ on tablets in teacher education we were
contacted to participate in and help find potential partners for a follow-up project to further develop the mobile learning toolkit.
More associate partnerships
Earlier this year we joined the TELL-OP project as associate partner (more detail here). Due to the late cancellation of our summercourses (see below) we could not attend the project’s one day seminar, as part of the TaLC 12 conference in Giessen, Germany and also had to skip the annual EuroCALL conference.
We also communicated our interest in an associate partnership with the EU project IncluEdu and joined their community. The project offers courses on tablet use with a special focus on inclusive, personalised education for people with and without special educational needs.
Summercourses 2016 cancelled, planning 2017 started
As reported before we could not run most of our courses this summer including the updated version of our iTILT ErasmusPlus course . (more detail here). As we can scale up our course activities in the next years thanks to our partnership with EUNEOS, another experienced EU course provider http://www.euneoscourses.eu , we are currently sounding out our tutor network, related project partners and practitioners to help staff our courses which run in a variety of EU locations.
Website Koenraad info & TELLConsult migrated
on Sat, 08/13/2016 – 22:43
As USA-based, Drupal Hosting service Acquia suddenly decided to stop their Drupal Gardens support I have been busy with the transfer of my webportal @ http://www.koenraad.info to BlueHost , as recommended.
With the help of some online help sessions and this BlueHost help file: https://my.bluehost.com/cgi/help/transfer-drupal-gardens most stuff seemed to work at some point except for two vital things: access to my actual Drupal site and the rendering of the theme I had selected.
BlueHost (specialist) supporters I(MO) appeared not to be able/or allowed to spend enough time to solve things :-/ . Finally, all is well now, thanks to the volunteer help of Dennis Cohn , a member of the Dutch Drupal community.
Pff what a stressful week, the more as this site also provides the registration facilities for our Erasmus+ professional development courses!
TELLConsult’s 2016 summer courses
Submitted by tonk
on Tue, 07/05/2016 – 22:17
Regrettably we cannot run most of our Erasmusplus courses planned for 2016, partly due to the number of schools’ unsuccessful Grant applications but also because some of this year’s course dates appeared not to be convenient for some schools.
Besides we noticed that some National Agencies were rather late in publishing the evaluation results of school grant applications and/or making the money involved available.
Yet we are happy to share with you that -at the moment- there are already enough pre-registrations for a break-even run of both the 2017 editions of course #2 http://www.koenraad.info/…/using-interactive-classroom-tech… .
Our intention is to offer more choice in locations and course dates next academic year.
To make this possible and also intensify our publicity campaign we are currently preparing an associate partnership with EUNEOS, another experienced EU course provider http://www.euneoscourses.eu/
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NL Research into effectiveness of ICT in Education
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 06/17/2016 – 21:07
Attended the annual research conference on effectiveness of ICT use in NL education
“Knowing what works” is the theme of the Conference Research Knowledge Network and Dutch ETB Education Research (NRO) organize annually. More than 600 visitors in the Flint theater in Amersfoort on June 15 briefed by researchers on the latest scientific knowledge in the field of education and ICT.
That hunger was in any case during this conference here appeased.
During three rounds of pitches 15 researchers climbed the stage to explain the results of their research in exactly 5 minutes. Results which were always translated to the actual situation in the classroom. Because that was key at this Research Conference: to arrive at research insights that can help schools to improve their teaching.
TELLConsult joined TELLOP Project
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 05/06/2016 – 14:35
TELLConsult joined the EU project TELL-OP.
We gladly support this initiative as it focuses on two themes which we consider highly relevant (and yet still, IMO, underestimated) for language learning: Data Driven Learning (DDL) paired -in this day and age – to the potential of Mobile Language learning (MALL).
To get informed about the project’s aims and recent outputs, get to know the colleagues involved personally and so also help to start and support collaboration with the iTILT project I also registered for their first multiplier event in July.
It is a full day workshop entitled: ‘Learner language, corpus linguistics and mobile learning’ . It is a pre-conference event of the 12th Teaching and Language Corpora Conference (TALC 2016) which will be held from 20 to 23 July 2016 at Justus Liebig University Giessen in Germany.
TELLConsult’s recent conference contributions
Submitted by tonk
on Sun, 04/17/2016 – 15:21
In April I presented the results and recent developments of the iTILT projects (2011-2017) on several occasions.
First at the EUROCALL MALL SIG Symposium ‘ Perspectives on the integration of Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) tools in the teaching & learning of foreign languages.
This event was organised by Lumina University, Bucharest, Romania. The related paper was selected for inclusion in the ICMAL proceedings book of the 3rd International Conference of Modern Applied Languages to be published by Lumina – The University of South-East Europe.
More details and the programme here.
Speakers and organisers had a discussion on research and recent developments in MALL in the University’s Senate Room where this photograph was then taken.
Later that month, after attending the PETALL final project meeting as external evaluator in Granada,
we contributed to the international conference ‘NEW TRENDS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING’ organised there by the project team.
At least one person in the audience shared her opinion about the presentation by tweeting about it 🙂 :
TELLConsult joined 5 new EU project initiatives
Submitted by tonk
on Sun, 04/03/2016 – 13:26
As the EU projects CAMELOT and TABULA ALBA,TELLConsult participated in the past few years came to an end in 2015, we decided to accept invitations to join new EU project initiatives. In the course of 2 months we contributed to the ErasmPlus KA2 grant application development of a total of 5 project proposals.
The coordinating countries and topics involved show an interesting variety including: exploring the use of mobile technologies to address differentiation & inclusion issues (TABLIO, Belgium); implementing Task Based Language Teaching approaches in academic contexts (ReDESIGN, Cyprus); Gaming & Gamification (KINELL, Turkey & INTERGame, Romania) and implementing blended learning in Adult Language Education (ICALL, Italy).
So lilke all partners involved we try to be patient now till July/August while waiting with fingers crossed for the evaluation results of these proposals (and thinking about who we could hire to help out in case all bids get accepted :-).
EU project Camelot evaluated
Submitted by tonk
on Thu, 03/31/2016 – 13:50
CAMELOT stands for “CreAting Machinima Empowers Live Online Language Teaching and Learning”. It is a 2-year EU funded project for language educators to learn how to create videos (machinima) in virtual worlds. (Dec 2013-Nov 2015).
This week the project team was informed by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) on behalf of the European Commission that the final report submitted by the project has been evaluated. The external evaluators, commissioned to support the commission in this, arrived at a very satisfactory global score of 8 out of 10.
Most evaluation categories, including ‘Coherence of workplan and activities’, Project & Financial Management, Dissemination and Partnership scored 8. The results for ‘Objectives, results, products and Evaluation 7 and 6 respectively.
As soon as we get the full report I hope to find out why Evaluation scored not as good as other aspects
For more information and the project results visit the project’s website
TELLConsult’s latest training activities at the Universities of Leiden and Leuven
Submitted by tonk
on Sat, 02/20/2016 – 15:07
As we were invited by ICLON (Leiden University), the organisers of the annual, national Good Practice Day event, to run an ICT-related workshop our proposal was accepted to present recent developments in a number of EU projects we are currently involved in.
We opted to run a workshop on the use of tablets and interactive classroom technologies.
We first presented the results of the first iTILT project (2011-2013) and then the aims, design & interim products of the 3-year follow-up project ‘Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technologies’ iTILT (2014 -2017). This included a video illustrating the use of the interactive whiteboard for task-based telecollaborative language learning. (see PPT here).
We then followed this up with a hands-on activity where participants were invited to explore the affordances of a number of Apps for specific curriculum activities. To facilitate the access to references on the topic, the App selection and the exchange of personal experiences and views we reused an adapted version of the Padlet page we had prepared for a related workshop at iTILT’s first multiplier event at the University of NICE (more details here).
We also ran an ErasmusPlus course on Interactive Whiteboards in Language Education at the University of Leuven, Belgium. For this occasion the course contents were customised on the basis of the requirements of a particular school team. Thanks to the support and excellent facilities (including large touch screens) provided by the University’s learning centre, Agora, there were no technical problems and participants had ample opportunities to adapt model MFL ideas for local use and also further develop their board skills using advanced applications such as widgets and SMART response.
More editions requested of ErasmusPlus course on technology and dialogue in the classroom
Submitted by tonk
on Sat, 01/23/2016 – 22:12
So requested TELLConsult is now also offering fully f2f editions of the blended version of its ErasmusPlus course ‘Using interactive classroom technologies to promote dialogic teaching and learning’
The course is the result of collaboration between the partners of the Cambridge University project ‘Using the IWB to Support Classroom Dialogue’ and the EU project iTILT.
Various course materials therefore are based on project results such as “Developing interactive teaching and learning using the IWB: a resource for teachers.” Hennessy, Warwick, Brown, Rawlins & Neale (2014). Open University Press. and the iTILT training manual.
iTILT multiplier event in NICE
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 01/15/2016 – 00:25
The NICE partner team, led by Shona Whyte, hosted the second f2f meeting of the EU project iTILT and organised a so-(ErasmusPlus)-called ‘multiplier event’ in NICE.
Click here for the day programme.
With over 40 participants this day conference with presentations and workshops was well attended.
Many of the participants said they really enjoyed the sessions with compliments for Euline Cutrim Schmid’s talk in the morning and the related workshop on iPads in the EFL classroom. Tips and apps such as Plickers and Padlet mentioned in other workshops on podcasting, phones and Open Educational Resources people felt they could use right away.
The day was reviewed during the final round table and included – thanks to contributions from Christine Schmider – an interesting discussion developed on ICT training in the teacher education school (ESPE) at NICE.
On behalf of TELLConsult we contributed a workshop and created this video report of the conference.
The project’s next multiplier event will take place in Antwerp on 9 November.
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