Category Archives: The educational technologist

This section of the blog is for anything connected with the educational technology element of our work at Manchester. These postings are managed by Gary but anyone else can also add relevant postings. We particularly welcome postings from current and former students.

Professor Alejandro Armellini

After 6 years working at the University of Leicester, our former colleague and alumnus (graduated from the MEd Ed Tech and TESOL in 1996), is leaving Leicester to take up the post of Director of the Institute of Learning and Teaching and Professor of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education at the University of Northampton.

We wish him all the best in his new post.

http://tinyurl.com/armellini

First publication for Jody Gilbert

Jody Gilbert, who lives and works in Canada, and who recently completed the MA in Educational Technology and TESOL, has produced anĀ  article on Top-down reading processes in TESL-Canada’s eMagazine.

Congratulations to David Dodgson

David has been awarded featured blog of the month by the British Council: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/featured-blogs. See our link in the menu on the right.

 

IATEFL Online

Don’t forget that if you can’t make it to Glasgow there is always the online conference.

Glasgow Online

To get code to display a similar banner, look here: http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2012/glasgow-promotion

 

Illustrious Alumni

As I am also a Manchester Alumnus, I did my MEd at Manchester and also an EdD, I get the regular updates about the great and the good who were once students at Manchester. So, I discover that Benedict Cumberbach (the new Sherlock Holmes on the BBC) is a Manky boy, along with quite a few others.

I am happy that Manchester has many successful well known people amongst its alumni. However, I got to thinking whilst I was in Morocco about all of the names in Tech and TESOL who are Manchester graduates, too. The much quoted Nik Peachey and Graham Stanley are examples, but there are many others who have gone on to have successful careers in the field. We have plenty of well-known bloggers (see right side bar) and we have people like Tony Brace in Japan who has started his own school (see new links in the side bar), colleagues who now work at sister universities in the UK: Aisha Walker.

I’ve decided it’s time to start working to promote our alumni more, so I’m going to try to have a student story of the month. I’d like people to email me their stories and we might try to do some online interviews, too. Watch this space :-)

Gary Motteram

LTSIG Event

The next in the LTSIG’s series of webinars takes place this coming Sunday at 10am GMT. See here for the time where you are
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20120219T11&p1=31

SESSION OUTLINE – Implementing ICT in an Institution
There is wide acceptance of the significance of learning technologies in language teaching, but what exactly is required of managers in the support, training and development of teachers in this area? In this webinar, we will identify key steps in helping teachers to become confident users of learning technologies. We will also look at some potential difficulties and constraints which can arise with this type of project as well as some possible solutions.

Come along with some answers to the question above, if you can.

The discussion will be lead by Lauren Brumfield . Lauren has worked in English language teaching and management for 12 years, in Germany, Ireland and Australia. She has worked in various sectors of the industry, including on refugee programs, in Business English corporate training and in private English language colleges. She has worked for Kaplan International College Sydney since 2004 as Head Teacher, Assistant Director of Studies and Director of Studies. Lauren holds the Cambridge DELTA, Trinity Certificate ICT and is currently studying a Masters of Arts in E-Learning at the University of Technology Sydney

Full details and link are here.
http://ltsig.org.uk/online-events/46-future-online-events/230-192-implementing-i

LTSIG event in Marrakesh, Morocco

Today sees the start of the Learning Technology Special Interest Group (LTSIG) of IATEFL Event in Marrakech, Morocco. You can catch up with all the detail on the LTSIG website and follow the event live via this Adobe Connect Room: http://connectpro10829081.adobeconnect.com/r6nnnse2kg0/. The hashtag for the conference is: #M1ICT (= Marrakech 1st International ICT
conference).

You can also see more links from the IATEFL Group on Facebook.

5th International Symposium on Digital Technologies in Foreign Language Learning

The 5th International Symposium on Digital Technologies in Foreign Language Learning will be held on 31st March 2012.
Venue: Kyoto University Clock Tower Centennial Hall, Japan
Keynote Speaker: Professor James Paul Gee (Arizona State University, USA)
Call for Papers: 10th November 2011 – 31st January 2012
Contact: Dr Mark Peterson (digitalkyoto@gmail.com) Dr Michael Thomas (mthomas4@uclan.ac.uk)
Webpage: http://digitallanguagelearning.wikispaces.com

Call for Papers
Abstracts of no more than 250 words are now being accepted on the following or related themes:

  • digital game-based language learning
  • web 2.0 technologies in the language classroom
  • e-learning and collaborative learning
  • social networking applications and tools
  • teacher professional development and digital technologies
  • mobile-assisted language learning
  • digital literacies
  • telecollaboration
  • social media and language learning

Proposals will be accepted in the following categories: papers (20 minutes); poster sessions (ongoing); workshops (40 minutes). Abstracts should be sent to: digitalkyoto@gmail.com by no later than 31st January 2012. Successful participants will be notified of acceptance by 7th February 2012.

Teaching English with Technology

Just discovered this online journal to do with language teching and technology. It appears to have been going since 2001 and has lots of interesting people on its editorial board.

Gary Motteram

LTSIG event in Morocco

The Learning Technologies Special Interest Group (SIG), the Moroccan Association of Teachers of English (MATE) and The British Council, Morocco are pleased to announce the 1st International Conference of ICT in Education in Marrakech, Morocco from 8th-11th February 2012.

The CALL for papers is available on the LTSIG website. The cut off date for proposals is 16th December.

This will be an exciting and interesting event, taking place in North Africa at a time of momentous change, make sure that you can say that you were there!

Gary Motteram
Event Organiser for the LTSIG.