SLanguages 2009

This year's SLanguages conference promises to be the best ever - it starts later today at 20.00 Central European time and continues for the next 24 hours.

I'm excited to be speaking several times, first as part of the AVALON project, a European Union funded initiative, with 26 partners in 8 European countries. AVALON stands for Access to Virtual Learning live ONline, and our goal is to explore the potential for scenario-based language learning. This (tonight and then again tomorrow morning - see schedule for details) will be the first time we've spoken about it in public together - looking forward to it.

I'm also speaking as part of the panel discussion plenary on language teacher training in Second Life, with Nergiz Kern, Nick Noakes and Dennis Newson, although I think Dennis can't make it after all. We'll be talking about our experience organising the TESOL Electronic Village Online session on Virtual Worlds & Language Learning. The social network, http://evovwll.ning.com, that was set up for the EVO session has now just under 3000 members, and the discussions and meetings have been continuing, even though the actual EVO session finished back in February.

Finally, on Saturday I'll be talking about the Virtual Tourism CLIL course I organised earlier this year in Second Life. I'll mention how it went, include references to what the students thought about it (collected here), and finish off by taking people on a short tour of some of the places the students had to visit.

If you're interested in innovative ways of language learning and teaching , be sure to check out the SLanguages conference - hope to see you there!

Comments

  1. Hi & sorry for contacting you this way. Just couldn't find your email.

    I've created a software that assists words memorization & provides a way to exchange dictionaries. You might find it useful. Available at http://wordoholic.com

    Thanks for your time,
    Alex.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Alex.....I´ll try your software....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Graham Stanley,

    you are nominated for the "Top 100 Language Blogs 2009" competition. Congratulations! After last year’s success the bab.la language portal and Lexiophiles language blog are hosting this year’s worldwide language blog competition once again. We are confident to surpass more than the 350 blogs which entered the competition in 2008.

    We have made two major changes to last year:

    1. Due to the amount of blogs we have created categories.
    (Language Learning/Language Teaching/Language Technology/
    Language Professionals)
    You are in category Language Technology
    2. User voting will count 50% towards final score

    Voting will start on July 8, leaving you enough time to prepare your readers for the upcoming voting. Voting will close on July 27 and the winners will be announced on July 30.

    For more information on the 2009 competition and what it is all about visit [http://www.lexiophiles.com/english/top-100-language-blogs-2009-nomination-started]
    So now you may ask yourself what you can do. Here are some suggestions

    -Nominations are open until July 6, so feel free to share any blog you like with us
    -Each blog will have a one-sentence-description for the voting. If you would like a special description to go along with your blog, just send me an email [marc@bab.la]

    It would be greatly appreciated if you nominated all your friends also blogging about language technology.

    Kind regards,
    Marc
    On behalf of the bab.la and Lexiophiles team
    [http://bab.la]
    [www.lexiophiles.com]


    Marc Lütten

    bab.la GmbH | Baumwall 7 | 20459 Hamburg | Germany
    Phone: +49(0)40-707080950 http://bab.la/
    Handelsregister AG Hamburg | HRB 101207
    Geschaftsführer: Dr. Andreas Schroeter, Dr. Thomas Schroeter, Patrick Uecker

    ReplyDelete
  4. O'Mama2:52 pm

    You may be right that my blog looks like a copycat but it's for education, learning, studying, better one's career and life. Education should be "FREE" for everyone and it would be nice if everyone was WELL-EDUCATED and I guess people would make this blue planet a better place to live in, right?

    Some people were born to be rich and just learn to take.

    Someone like me was born to give and share even though I would get nothing in return and was blamed in the end!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I don't doubt that education should be free, O'Mama, but I also believe that people have a right to earn money for the work that they do.

    Writing a coursebook or activity book for teachers takes a lot of work, and believe me, and most of the people who do this work usually do not earn much money for their efforts.

    Providing links to scanned coursebooks on your blog may seem to you like you're helping teachers or students, but it's at the expense of other teachers who have worked hard to write these materials.

    I also notice that you're asking people who visit your blog to donate money to you through Paypal too, so please don't play the role of the good samaritan - the way your blog is set up, it certainly looks like you're out to make some money from this.

    If you really felt education should be free, I don't think you'd be asking people to pay for the materials you have stolen from other people...

    ReplyDelete

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