English Virtual Community

Hello, everybody: I am in front of the pc screen - where else could I be? - thinking about a title for this post and the lyrics of "The Wall" by Pink Floyd came to my mind when they sing: Hey, teachers. Leave the kids alone. Please, read the title of this post with the tune of the song ;) Although Pink Floyd and their fans may insist, teachers cannot leave kids alone. Poor little things, they are learning how to cope with the Internet alone because neither teachers nor parents know much about it :( But I am not going to write about Pink Floyd or music. As I have announced in my previous post, today Ana María Menezes has given a presentation at the School of Languages. If you attended the event, I hope you have enjoyed it and got some ideas to incorporate technology in your classes and stop teaching as decades ago. She started pointing out the differences between how students used to learn before the digital revolution and how they learn now . One of the differ...

Vance Stevens visited La Plata, and gave a presentation on PLN. More than 20 teachers came to the School of Languages to listen to him.  Among them was Susana Canelo who came from Del Valle (400km far form the capital of the province of Buenos Aires). Here is a picture of us: If you could not attend this event, you can see the slides of the presentation below these lines: PLN View more presentations from Escuela de Lenguas UNLP . And here is a link to the recording in PodOmatic:  PLN: The paradigm shift in teacher and learner autonomy

Vance Stevens is visiting La Plata! He kindly accepted my invitation to give a presentation. He will speak about "PLN ( Personal Learning Network): The paradigm shift  in learner and teacher autonomy"  at the School of Languages. When? at 12.30 p.m.  next Wednesday -August 11th .  Free entrance but you should book your place in advance by phoning 0221 423 6672

As I announced in this blog , last year I was appointed as ICT coordinator at two schools of languages. The experience was really enriching and with great satisfaction I can say that authorities  and teachers are much more interested in digital technology than they used to.  One school opened a  full equipped computing lab and the other changed all the computers for new ones! The beginning Things were not easy. I found a bit of resistance on the teachers' part. They used to think they would have more work for the same money. In a way, it is true that teachers should devote some extra time to update their professional skills or get familiar with any  new teaching material. I insisted on the importance of applying digital technology to language classes, but what was more important , I demonstrated it to them.  From simple tools to more complex ones I started showing them the advantages of the three portals : Google, Yahoo and Hotmail. How teachers can use a m...

Graham Stanley spoke about the educational use of Twitter via Wiziq. We had some technological problems, but fortunately Miguel Mendoza (Venezuela) helped me online. Thank you, Mike!!! The session was a completely new experience for the audience - around 25 teachers of different languages - who were not very much familiar with the use of Web 2.0 tools. Here is a link to Graham's presentation. Enjoy it: div style="width:481px;"> sesion de Graham by Nelba Quintana Get your own Virtual Classroom

I was in Córdoba city (Argentina) on May 27th, 28th and 29th because the local university organized a 3-day-Congress on ICT applied to Language Learning. Teachers from different parts of the country attended the event. The papers were about different topics: use of blogs and forums, webquests, Collaborative Learning, Moodle platform, distance learning, moodle platforms. I found particularly interesting 6-hour-workshop about "How to introduce teachers to the use of ICT in their classrooms" given by Mgtr. Víctor Sajoza Juric who gave us some useful guidance about this issue. Now let me tell you about my experience in the city. I had the fortune to be in Córdoba on "El Cordobazo" (See more info in Wikipedia ) anniversary. The city seemed to vibrate at the rhytm of the drums played by the workers who marched along streets carrying Argentinian flags in the memory of their lost co-workers who died or suffered persecussion during the military dictatorship. Some teachers an...

Yesterday I started a three session teacher training course at Escuela Normal Superior N°3 "Almafuerte"- ISFD 97_Profesorado de Inglés organized by Prof. Patricia Guzmán - Head of the English Area of the Englsih Courses at Escuela Normal Superior N°3 . I had the pleasure to have as participants some colleagues of mine such as : Prof. Anahí Cuestas (Escuela de Lenguas Coordinator of the English area), Prof. Silvana Barboni (teacher at Profesorado de Inglés) and Prof. Silvana Fernández (Literature specialist and teacher at ICAB ) The session started with an introduction to ICT (Information and Communication Techonologies). Then we started exploring Google tools : mail , chat and calendar. The audience consisted of digital immigrants with different levels of computer literacy. Some of them were curious about what blogs and wikis are, and the advantages of having an account in Facebook. Next sessions will be on June 2nd and 12th.

I am very proud to say that I have been appointed as the coordinator of the ICT area at the School of Languages of the National University of La Plata. It is really a challenge because this area has just been opened. I would like to thank Dafne Gonzalez, Vance Stevens, Gavin Dudeney, Nik Peachey, EVO sessions, Webheads and all my cyberfriends who have inspired me to develop my Internet skills and knowlege. :-)