who are interested in teaching and technology
Connecting Our Global Community
© April, 1998
Cegep de Maisonneuve Montreal, QC, H1X 2A2, Canada (514) 254-7131 ext, 4302 E-mail :kenner@videotron.ca
Claudia and I are back from Seattle, Washington, USA, after having attended the 32nd annual TESOL convention. The theme of TESOL '98 was Connecting to Our Global Community. There were dozens of presentations having to do with technology and language teaching, but this year there were almost twice as many, as each interest section participated in the special TESOL Connects with Interest Sections sessions. This year there were more computers, more software, and more workshops in CALL than ever before.
Every morning at 7:30 and every evening at 8:00, the CALL-IS facilitated discussion groups on different topics. In these groups, conference attendees were asked to bring questions and/or problems, and they heard some seasoned technology users' responses. All throughout the week, there were various workshops, plenary sessions, papers, and demonstrations.
Having worked behind-the-scenes this past year, I knew that there would be many surprises for all those who passed through our Electronic Village during the conference. All of our computers were again be networked and connected to the Internet, so we were able to demonstrate hundreds of different pieces of software, including ones that worked only on a network (for example, collaborative writing software. There were 4 special sessions held in the EV: The Exhibitors' Technology Fair, where publishers simultaneously demonstrated their newest software and hardware; the Software Fair, where teachers deomonstrated how they used the software in their classes; the Web Fair, where teachers showed their favorite web sites and how they were used; and the Developers' Software Fair,where people writing software got feedback from those who use software (this was a great opportunity to see the direction things are moving in).
This month, I am linking this page up to Roger Kenner's Report on the TESOL 98 Conference. He has prepared a very comprehensive report for Concordia University that, even though some sections are still under construction, will give you a flavor of the conference. There are also links related to TESOL, the CALL Interest Section and some of the presentations. If you're _really_ interested, you can read the conference catalogue, which lists the hundreds of presentations that were made in those few days, and you can try to find my picture on Claire Bradin's photo montage of the conference!
If you attended the conference and if you'd like to write something about it, please e-mail me.
Chez Nous
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