Educatec 2007

  I was invited to attend Educatec 2007 that took place in Huerta Grande, Córdoba. The Congress was very intense and I was able to enhance my knowledge of how technology is being integrated in many different provinces.

 I have to highlight that some teachers are really doing marvellous things and they don´t have resources. For example in some schools there is only one computer and all the students go the Director of Studies office to work on an IEARN project. When there is a will there is a way!!

Take a look at the lovely landscape in Córdoba.

Professional Development

A lot of time has been devoted to my personal Professional Development and only in the last two months.

Many courses were available f2f and online. In this post you will find a summary of what I have been doing.

   ” With the help of technology teachers will be leaders in the transformation of education around the world” Craig R. Barrett-Chairman, Intel Corporation

After finishing Peer Coaching program of Microsoft I enrolled in Intel Teach Essentials Course also offered by Fundación Evolución a non-profit organization in Argentina that promotes and develops programs and educational projects to incorporate ICT´s in schools.

Cristina Velazquez was our teacher and I attended 11 sessions of 3 hours. There I met a lot of Teachers of English willing to incorporate technology into their daily practise. I was so glad that Nelba Quintana form La Plata joined me and we had a lot of fun together.

 On tuesday nights at 11 o´clock once my daughters are sleeping I discovered Women of Web 2.o to be a great group sharing and discovering their knowledge on how to use tools of the Internet. My first session was unforgettable because I even spoke on Skype with the presenter. My delicious account increases everytime I join them. There is so much going on in this one hour talk. I really recommend you to join them.

 This year I will be contributing to the EVO Session Social Media in ELT. I will write about SMiELT in another blog post. What is EVO?

“INTERNATIONAL TESOL PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION INVITES PARTICIPATION IN ELECTRONIC VILLAGE ONLINE (EVO).
This is a professional development project and virtual extension of the TESOL 2008 Convention in New York. The intended audience for this project includes both TESOL 2008 participants and those who can participate only virtually. You do not need to be a TESOL member to participate in a free, six-week, wholly online session of the EVO, Jan
14 -Feb 24, 2008. More info at: http://evo08sessionscfp.pbwiki.com
Enrollment between Jan 01 and Jan 13, 2008″

I took the EVO Mods Training Session from October 22 until November 25. Take a look at the training session we had to follow. Our EVO moderators made a wonderful job guiding us on how to become better moderators!!!

My Second Life experience

On Thursday November 2nd I was invited by Barbara Dieu to attend a talk she was going to give in Second Life. The last time I logged in Second Life was when Graham Stanley took a group of educators in a Balloon ride and it was an incredible experience.

In cooking up a storm in education I had problems with my sound and it is wonderful how SL educators help you without knowing you. It took a while to finally have sound so I only listened to the last part of the presentation. There were a lot participants and the pictures Bee showed were great. I also have to thank Cristina Costa who through Skype also tried to help me solve my sound problems.

Two weeks after I entered another chat Graham was having with a group of Italians. I was late and Graham teletransported me and I landed just in front of the presenter.  Somehow the chart with the arrows where you can move did not show up so I couldn´t move. They considered me a “Griefer”  and I was ejected from the chat!! I  was flying in an unknown place.  Should try to find out what happened with the chart.

SL is still a big mystery and you can learn a lot of things in this environment.