Day Two (Presentation Day) - Mar 16

I was lucky to land in the Marriot Waterside, which was the venue for our presentation, and was where the technology sessions seemed to be, at least on this day. I didn't leave the hotel all day, and was in sessions all day. Our presentation was at 5 PM, but we got a full room and all went well. I think we had a pretty full contingent of tech-savvy people. We got lots of good questions (such as about college policy re. hybrids, and tracking attendance, etc.), and some good ideas from people who are teaching hybrids. I was interested to note that a few people were using Moodle as their LMS, which I thought was cool. (As a side note, Phil Quirke, in a session we both attended about wikis, mentioned that the latest version of WebCT, which HCT uses, can facilitate the collaborative features of wikis. Interesting.) Anyway, we were happy with the presentation, and, at least speaking for myself, glad when it was over (though I hadn't really been nervous!).

Okay--a couple of presentations I missed at 8:30, in favor of the one I did attend, were "Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Mobile Technology, Teaching ESOL on the Fly" and Lijun Shen's "Effective Strategies for the Multilevel ESL Class." Both of those were across the street at the convention center, so lost out on that account (though I hope I can get Lijun's presentation from her at Highline). I attended "Using Blogs to Promote Writing," which was pretty good. I noticed later that it was one of perhaps 5 presentations on blogging, so had I planned better, I might have gone to the mobile technology one instead, but sometimes laziness wins out, and I had had an enormous buffet breakfast so was even less inclined to hit the pavement. This presentation was less useful to me because it spent a lot of time demonstrating how to set up a blog using Blogger, which is something I already know. But the presenters did show some of their assignments and how they used Comments (for teacher feedback, since they thought that students never read comments unless directed so feedback there was fairly confidential--a point I didn't agree with). They asked students to respond to each other by making a new post, which they could do since all students were contributors to the same blog. (A subsequent session discussed the merits of the all-class blog vs. each student having their own blog.)

Next, I went to "Using Wikis to Advance Narrative Writing Fluency," which I referred to earlier. The presenters were from Spokane, so I might look them up later. They showed 3 wiki sites and demonstrated PBwiki, which I came back to my room and tried immediately. I didn't find it very intuitive, so will try Jotspot, but it was nice to get the presenters' assessments and recommendations. The conclusion I got from this was that wikis are the tool to use for collaborative writing. I brought up Writely.com during the session, which a couple of others had heard of but the presenters had not (there was a ripple of interest in the audience and I was asked to spell the url, so I'm sure the presenters appreciated that little diversion!). But the wiki is public and the revision process more transparent as compared to Writely. Anyway, it was an excellent session and the handout has lots of interesting resources.

After lunch I attended "An International Perspective on Weblogs, Photologs, and Audiologs." I was interested in the international aspect of the presentation as well as the technology side, and the presentation delivered on both counts. There were 4 presenters, each showing what they did in their classes in their respective countries, and showing how they collaborated with each other across borders. A salient point here was that the students were very excited about the communication with students in other countries, which was highly motivating for them. Presenters were from Canada, Portugal, Japan, and Germany.

There was a session I had wanted very much to see, though it was directly before our own presentation, called "Automating Distribution of Listening Lessons via Podcasting." However, the speaker didn't show. The room was overflowing, and a few of us hung around for 15 minutes, but to no avail. Ah, well. So I went back up to my room (the convenience, again, of being in the Marriott) and hung out the few minutes until I could expect to get into our room. (And that proved to be a problem! The group before us wouldn't clear out, even as we were trying to set up and they could have easily moved their post-session conversations outside the room, or at least to the back of the room. Hrrumph!) But it was all good. (Katie, slang gal, are you proud?)

Finally, especially in light of the motivation I got during our presentation to do some classroom research on my hybrid course, I attended (rather wearily), a session at 7 PM called "Classroom Research in TESOL" given by a professor from UBC (so my post-session question for her was "will you be my ph.d advisor?"--I was just kidding). There were only 8 of us diehards, and I must say the presentation was a bit dry, but it did inspire me just a little. And I might contact this professor at UBC about the possibility of continuing there since I have done a year's coursework there already.

Well, I'm about to lose my internet connection, and must run to poster sessions. Talk to you more soon.