Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Social Networking 2009 Closing Words



Closing Words for this Conference


"I am very happy with the success of this Conference. Not only we were very delighted to have our guest speakers who made this Virtual Event a special and unique one, but we also had forum sessions that were quite attractive and lively on very interesting topics. I hope you leave this Virtual Conference with the idea that we are connected to the world and that we want to maintain the channel open to learn together how to integrate technology into our language classrooms.

I would especially thank all our guest speakers and everybody who gave so much of their time and their capabilities to organize the conference: AVEALMEC and ARCALL members, moderators and the technical supporting team.

We are delighted that there have been 672 participants from all continents registered in the Social Networking: Thriving as a community of practice Virtual Conference forums in Moodle. During the twelve online presentations , several key concepts have been shared and conversations are still carrying on in our Forums."
Jennifer Verschoor
President of ARCALL


"Among the concepts that Jennifer mentioned, Etienne Wenger challenges us
by introducing a key concept that will certainly help us understand the role that teachers need to play in the use of ICT for learning purposes and how technology needs to meet the communities of practice needs and his members and become “technology stewards”, eager to try new technologies and to inspire our learners to be part of our communities of practice, playing a supportive, gentle and yet mentoring role. As Vance Stevens said in his e-talk, “knowledge dissimenates through communities and networks”. So, let´s put our 2 cents in our communities! Soon we´ll see many cents coming and going!

I would also want to quote George Siemens when he said “the limits we´ve known in the past are no longer limits” and that´s true. If that weren´t so, we wouldn´t have spent 4 wonderful days with prominent presenters like the ones we had, who agreed to share their experience and knowledge with us on a voluntary basis. In spite of budget restrictions, timing and geographical differences, we were brought here together with a common interest, with a common goal: to help each other grow by making connections and through activating knowledge.

Finally, I would like to finish with a combination of Nik and Nicky Hockly`s talk “Teachers are like sharks. If they don´t move forward, they die.” Let`s keep moving in this wired and socially connected world."

Teadira Pérez
President of AVEALMEC

Tour to Ciudad Bonita


Before and After Twitter: Personal Learning Environments by Graham Stanley


Webheads in Action: Connecting to Empower by Jennifer Verschoor, Erika Cruvinel and Evelyn Izquierdo












Monday, November 9, 2009

Social Networking for Professional Development by Charalambos Vrasidas and Maria Solomou


Communities of Practice: A Social Discipline of Learning by Etienne Wenger



WikiEducator: A community of Educators by Nellie Deutsch and Gladys Gahona


Modeling Social Media in Groups, Communities and Networks by Vance Stevens


From Information to Knowledge: Creating your Own Network by Nik Peachey


EdTeach and Social Networking by Ronaldo Lima Jr. and Erika Cruvinel



Flickr: Design that Connects by Carla Arena




See Carla Arena's PPT presentation here.

Connectivism and Social Networking by George Siemens




Web 2.0 Tools: Honing Social Skills by Rita Zeinstejer and Paula Ledesma
The Web 2.0 Honing Social Skills Final
View more presentations from RitaZ.

Edmodo by Nicky Hockly

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Social Networking 2009 Video-conferences Start Today!!!!

Dear all,

AVEALMEC and ARCALL are pleased to announce that the video-conferences for Social Networking 2009 start today, Thursday, November 5th!

Join us in Wiziq and meet our guest speakers for today who will be sharing with us their ideas on:

1. The Web 2.0: Honing Social Skills by Rita Zeinstejer and Paula Ledesma, 17:00-19:00 (GMT) 12:30 PM (VEN), 2:00 PM (ARG).
E-moderators: Evelyn Izquierdo-Miguel Mendoza-Yohimar Sivira
http://tinyurl.com/yaggqey

3. Connectivism and Social Networking by George Siemens, 20:00-22:00 (GMT), 3:30 PM (VEN), 5:00 PM (ARG).
E-moderators: Elvina Castillo - Evelyn Izquierdo-Teadira Pérez
http://tinyurl.com/y8umwym

4. Flickr: Design that Connects by Carla Arena, 22:00-00:30 (GMT) , 5:30 PM (VEN) 7:00 PM (ARG).
E-moderators: Evelyn Izquierdo- Nahir Aparicio-Yohimar Sivira
http://tinyurl.com/ybwef56

Remember you will need to have your own Wiziq account! Here is a WiZiQ tutorial: http://www.blip.tv/file/2678259

Do not forget to participate in our forums. There are thought-provoking discussing taking place:

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Social Networking 2009 forums officially open!!!


Dear followers:

We are pleased to announce that the Social Networking 2009 moodle forums were officially opened today, Nov 1st, at 12:00 am GMT. With 567 English teachers from all over the world registered in our Moodle, we had the pleasure to start what promises to be one of the most successful online events of the year.

Thank you for your support and enthusiastic participation. We hope you join the discussions, the Second Life Tour and all WiZiQ videoconferences. Don't miss any.

Enjoy the conference!

EI

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Social Networking 2009 Online Conference

Dear colleagues,

We are delighted to inform you that from November 5-8, 2009, we will be running the Social Networking 2009 Conference. This open-knowledge event will be completely online and free and it is aimed at encouraging practioners to reflect on the role of communities of practice as a social network in ELT.

This event is being jointly organized by AVEALMEC and ARCALL, two Latin American associations, one based in Venezuela and the other in Argentina, interested in promoting the use of ICT in the language classroom.

For this event, we invited conference speakers from different parts of the world:

*George Siemens -Canada
*Etienne Wenger -United States of America
*Vance Stevens -United Arabic Emirates
*Nik Peachey -United Kingdom
*Charalambos Vrasidas and Maria Solomou -Cyprus
*Nicky Hockly -Spain
*Erika Cruvinel and Ronaldo Lima –Brazil
*Rita Zeinstejer and Paula Ledesma -Argentina
*Nellie Müller Deustch –Israel
*Carla Arena –Brazil
*Graham Stanley –Spain
*Jennifer Verschoor, Evelyn Izquierdo and Erika Cruvinel –Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil

During four days, our guest speakers will be sharing their experiences and expertise with participants and will help us grasp a better picture of how social networks can be used in the language teaching and learning field. We will be discussing about the concepts and theories around social networks, communities of practice and the Web 2.0, as well as about the use, advantages and drawbacks of social networking tools.

Join us and participate in this amazing learning experience!
Further information here: http://avealmec.org.ve/

Spread the word! Let´s get socially connected!
Cordially,

AVEALMEC (Asociación Venezolana para la Enseñanza y el Aprendizaje de Lenguas Mediados por el Computador)
ARCALL (Argentinian Computer-Assisted Language Learning Association)

Saturday, April 25, 2009

IATEFL 09 conference


Dear members and all:

As you might know, IATEFL 09 conference was held in Cardiff from March 31st to April 4th. All Avealmec members were proud to be represented by Dafne González (USB), Rubena St. Louis (USB) and Teadira Pérez (ULA) who attended the event in the UK and made very interesting presentations. Our honorary members Nicky Hockly, Gavin Dudeney and Graham Stanley were also very active at the conference and made excellent presentations. Besides, there was an online version of IATEFL and Evelyn Izquierdo (UCV) co-moderated the Learning Technologies Forum. Congratulations to all!!!



Our president, Teadira Pérez, was asked to share with us her opinion about the conference and this is what she wrote:

"This year IATEFL conference was a wonderful experience for me. I went with four of my Venezuelan colleagues and we did enjoy the astonishing places of historical Cardiff. The conference itself was outstanding – a great variety of parallel sessions. Unfortunately, I could not attend all the sessions I highlighted in the programme: there were so many people that conference rooms were full even before the sessions started. Cardiff Online, then, represented a stupendous alternative for me. I went online to listen to recorded sessions and to read forum discussions. One of my colleagues, working with me in AVEALMEC, was moderating two forums in the Learning Technologies area. It was also great to observe my MA students taking part in different forum discussions.
I consider that Cardiff online 2009 is a fantastic initiative because it gives communities of practice worldwide the opportunity to share and exchange ideas related to different state of the art topics. I am thrilled to announce that Cardiff online will continue for a year. The discussion, then, will go on".

Thanks, Teadira!
If you all want to have further details about our members' presentations, you are cordially invited to read our next Newsletter issue. It's coming soon!!!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Avealmec and ARCALL bound together

Last April 3, Jennifer Verschoor (president of the Argentinian CALL Association - ARCALL) and Evelyn Izquierdo (ESP teacher at Universidad Central de Venezuela and Avealmec member) got together to make a presentation on Social Bookmarking. It was a presentation offered to participants of the blended course "21st Century for the EFL Class" currently carried out by Professor Doris Molero at Universidad Rafael Belloso Chacín, Maracaibo-Venezuela.

This course, sponsored by Integrating Technology for Instruction and Learning and led by Nellie Deutsch and Doris Molero, is being supported with live presentations every Friday by Webheads in Action members.

It was not only a real pleasure to work with Jennifer again, but also to share knowledge and experiences with colleagues from all over the world. We appreciate very much Nellie and Doris's invitation to collaborate with this course, and also congratulate them for such a great contribution to the ELT community.

Below you will find the PPT presentation.

Evelyn

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Avealmec present at Tesol-English Village Online 2009

Starting on January 12th, 2009 and during 6 six weeks, three Avealmec members: Teadira Pérez (ULA-Mérida), Miguel Mendoza (UCV) and I, Evelyn Izquierdo (UCV) had the honour of moderating one of the prestigious Tesol-English Village Online (EVO) sessions and being mentored by Dafne González (USB), a well recognized Webhead and Avealmec member.

The session was called Blog-based lesson and e-portfolios. Its main objective was providing the basic orientations to design a blog-based lesson and how to use e-portfolios to follow up students' performance. We had around 120 participants from all over the world, which made it a very interesting teaching and learning experience.

For the instruction, we used several Web 2.0 tools, such as: Yahoo Groups, Tapped in, WiZiQ, Voicethread, Skype, Twitter, Blogger, Wordpress, Slideshare, Toastmaker, You Tube, Teachertube, Google search, Google docs, Diigo, and Polldaddy, among others.

Here are some slides that show a little bit what we did in our first online, hands-on workshop.

Evelyn

BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Welcome!


It is with great pleasure that we open this blog to share information about AVEALMEC - the Venezuelan CALL Association. We would like to invite you to join us and contribute to this blog in order to create an open e-space and start publishing up-to-date information on technology and language learning.

Welcome to the AVEALMEC community,

Teadira