PERIODS COVERED: 2019 -2018 2017 – 2016, 2015 – 2014,(below) 2013 – 2012, 2011
ErasmusPlus courses offered for teachers of modern languages, CLIL and other subjects.
Submitted by tonk
on Sat, 12/19/2015 – 15:09
TELLConsult and partners offer a number of courses on CLIL methodology and the integration of educational technology in language education both for beginners and more experienced users.
Topics include the use of tablets, interactive whiteboards, digital video and applications for specific objectives such as the development of speaking skills.
Also for teachers of other subjects we are proud to offer a course with Sara Hennessy (Cambridge University) on promoting interaction and dialogue in the classroom with the help of the interactive whiteboard.
For detailed information about the courses, (pre-) registration and the international team of expert animators see TELLConsult’s current courses page here:
http://www.koenraad.info/content/current-courses
Submitted by tonk, on Sun, 11/15/2015 – 00:02
TELLConsult’s final CAMELOT dissemination activities included a short presentation and flyer distribution action during a visit to the Polish coordinator and partners of the EU Comenius Regio project ABULA ALBA, where training on Interactive Whiteboards finished earlier this year in Turkey, to discuss further collaboration.
In the past month we also produced the clip ‘Samples Compilation to illustrate Machinima use for Language Education’ to support the project’s exploitation research in the Modern Language educational publishing industry in the EU to find out key players’ views on the potential of machinima for language teaching & learning materials.
And we participated in the panel session CAMELOT contributed to the 2016 Annual SLanguages Conference that took place on EduNation in Second Life 14-15 November 2015.
See the recording of our session here.
Attendance with some 15 delegates was OK, the more considering the timeslot was 17.30 CET on a Saturday. On the other hand I noticed that at this 8th edition of the conference there were again very few new faces beyond the community of loyal 3D educational missionaries.
For an impression see this photo album
Then earlier in November the project had its final Project Meeting in Berlin hosted most kindly by partner LinguaTV. All the final tasks were checked and expectations as to the fnal report for the EU commission were defined.
I treated myself to some extra time in Berlin and had a great time biking in town revisiting many of the top sights.
Could also spend more attention to the WALL remembrance places
and found out great stretches of the Spree river banks are bikable. With no wind and some 17 degrees (November!) it was a true treat!
EU project iTILT presented at MTTEP conference
Submitted by tonk, on Wed, 10/07/2015 – 22:32
As representative of the iTILT project (interactive Teaching in Languages with Technology, 2014-2017) TELLConsult got invited by the MTTEP project to attend their Multiplier event (Oct 1&2) in Karlsruhe.
This EU project ‘MOBILISING AND TRANSFORMING TEACHER EDUCATION PEDAGOGIES’ organised this mini conference to present and get feedback on a number of (interim versions of) their project outputs. And to provide a networking opportunity for parties with the same interest in innovation of teacher education and mobile, educational technologies.
The organising team managed to compile a most interesting programme with a balanced mix of input (keynotes & workshops) and knowledge/info sharing (poster & pechakucha sessions).
For iTILT my contributions (a poster and a 3″ presentation) were targeted at 1) sharing the project’s aims and approach and 2) getting feedback on the draft version of our training resource.
In my further networking activities I also shared information about some other EU initiatives we are involved in (e.g. CAMELOT project, EUROCALL and the Euroversity Association) and their related summercourses.
The specially provided time slots & flyer distribution locations were a great help to get in touch with fellow delegates. In this photo updating Prof. dr. Thomas Irion on iTILT’s progress since he attended our latest meeting at Cardiff and provided intersting input about his research on tablets in primary education. Later that evening I had the pleasure to also share dinner with him and some members of his research team at the Schwäbisch Gmünd University of Education.
Inauguration of lector on ICT in Education in NL HE institute inHolland
Submitted by tonk
on Mon, 09/28/2015 – 13:24
Interested in Jos Fransen’s inaugural speech as lector Teaching, Learning & Technology
and the workshops by the associate colleagues offered for the occasion, we attended this event at Hogeschool inHOLLAND, University of Applied Sciences. Find his booklet and the related lecture presenting the detailed analysis of learning processes in HE and the resulting specs for the supporting e-learning functionalities here (in Dutch).
As invited KeyNote, Alfons ten Brummelhuis, Head of research at Kennisnet: Dutch national support institute for ICT in education, presented -in his usual, cristal clear style- the rationale for the 4-in-Balance model and the related NL reseach series (English about-version under construction). See one of his recent PPTs on these topics here.
As we have found this model and the related research activities on integration of ICT in Education most helpful to structure TELLConsult’s international contributions to local implementation challenges and CPD initiatives we also reported on them in a number of publications & presentations, e.g. in Turkey (Koenraad, A.L.M., Hoeff, A., van der (2013) and recently at the ISNITE conference in Greece.
With a view to TELLConsult’s involvement in the 2nd edition of the EU project iTILT on the integration of mobile applications in the use of technology in the language classroom I opted for Jeroen Bottema’s presentation on mobile learning.
Interestingly enough he also elaborated on the model published by Kearney et al. (2012) that has been adopted by the EU MTTEP project for the development for one of its outputs: Mobile Learning Toolkit for teacher educators and academics. It will be presented at their Multiplier Event at Karlsruhe in October I will be attending.
Of course we also used the opportunity (with so many keyplayers in the ICT & Education NL scene present)
to inform old friends, ex-colleagues and guests at large about our current projects (e.g. CAMELOT) and ErasmusPlus courses.
Concluding on a more private note: was also impressed again by Rotterdam’s skyline in general and the architecture in the area.
TELLConsult presented at International Conference on Teacher Education
- Submitted by tonk, on Mon, 09/21/2015 – 13:17
We attended and presented at the 2015 ISNITE conference in VOLOS, Greece. http://isnite2015.uth.gr/ held at the splendid location of Thessaly University in the port of Volos. We were cordially welcomed by the organisers and keynote speakers.
Our mission this time was to promote the exploitation of EU projects results to help keep the e-competence development curriculum line
in Teacher Education up to date.
A selection of the mentioned projects, TELLConsult is/was involved in, included: CAMELOT, http://camelotproject.eu/, iTILT http://www.itilt.eu/, EUROVERSITY http://www.euroversity.eu/ and furthermore UniCollaboration http://uni-collaboration.eu/ Video4ALL http://videoforall.eu/ and more..
Also used the opportunity to distribute flyers for the CAMELOT and other EU projects we presented.
And we promoted info and flyers about the related summercourses we are organising (also in 2016) that teachers can get Erasmusplus grants for.
Find our presentation slides here.
Various TELL activities this summer
- Submitted by tonk, on Mon, 08/31/2015 – 23:07
PETALL Meeting in Belgrade
In Belgrade we presented TELLConsult’s external interim evaluation report about the EU project PETALL. http://petallproject.wix.com/petall on developing & implementing activities for task based language learning in actual school practices across Europe.
Enjoyed both being present at the project’s second meeting and our extended private visit to this great Servian city.
Interview for CAMELOT project
Got interviewed by Christel Schneider (CSiTrain) for the CAMELOT interview series on my views on language learning with technology and the potential Machinima in particular. As we are also partner in this project and TELLConsult is responsible for the exploitation of the project’s results my perspective focussed on the take up of the machinima concept in mainstream education and the related implementation issues.
Eurocall conference in Padova
Presented the results of the iTILT project (2011-2013) and ways to exploit them in pre- & inservice teacher education at the EUROCALL 2015 Conference in Padova, Italy http://www.eurocall2015.it/…/si…/eurocall-2015/website/home/.
Also introduced the aims, design & interim products of the follow up, 3-year project ‘Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technologies’ (with the same acronym: iTILT (2014 -2017) http://www.itilt.eu/ exploring the potential of other touch & mobile technologies in the language classroom.
We enjoyed the conference as it was inspiring in terms of input but also because we met a lot of our international colleagues again.
Furthermore, luckily the Biennale in Venice was on so we used the opportunity to visit the various international contributions.
Impressive and unsettling here & there.
Recent dissemination activities for the CAMELOT project
Submitted by tonk, on Fri, 08/07/2015 – 23:23
As our participation on behalf of TELLConsult in the EU project CAMELOT (exploring the potential of videos shot in 3D worlds),
also rekindled my interest in the didactics related to video in language teaching we gladly supported Nick Peachey’s crowdfunding initiative in 2013 for the production of an e/i-book about the potential of digital video in language education.
Also having contributed by providing feedback while it was being developed, it is a pleasure to see it is available for Apple users as of August 6 and will be soon downloadable for devices with other operating systems.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/digital-video/id1025275485 .
Earlier this summer we had the opportunity to inform the PETALL project partners at their meeting in Belgrade about the CAMELOT project and the professional development opportunities it is offering. <here presenting TELLConsult’s external interim project review . for the PETALL project team and its coordinator Antonio Lopes and the EACEA Modern Language Projects Coordinator, Barbara Hermans, who also attended the meeting>. And, BTW, we are honoured Antonio accepted our invitation to also present on Task based language learning in the CAMELOT webinar series later this year.
Currently CAMELOT is offering a free training on Machinima making, a so called MOOT . Next academic year a blended ErasmusPlus course will be offered, organised by TELLConsult, responsible for the project exploitation activities.
EU project ‘Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technology’ (iTILT) publishes first Newsletter
Submitted by tonk, on Sat, 07/25/2015 – 22:39
Recently the EU project ‘Interactive Teaching in Languages with Technology’ (iTILT, 2014-2017) published its first Newsletter.
As a follow-up of the successful iTILT project (2011-2013) on Interactive Whiteboards in Language Education this initiative aims to help develop, research and document additional methodology & integrated didactic models for emergent educational uses of mobile devices such as phones and tablets specifically in Language Education.
While the (original) iTILT website is being adapted to accomodate the requirements for the new edition of the iTILT project you can provisionally download Newsletter 1 here.
It presents information on the key data of the project – e.g. aims, outcomes and partners.
Find additional, basic information on this project in one of my previous blogposts and/or at the EU commission EACEA site here
Also our other social media, including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, will be used on a regular basis to report on the major developments of this new initiative.
If interested in joining the project as network partner please let us know, for now, using the contact page on this site.
TELL’s summer contributions to EU projects
Submitted by tonk, on Mon, 07/20/2015 – 21:56
PETALL 2nd meeting and interim report
We attended & presented TELLConsult‘s interim external evaluation report at the 2nd & productive meeting of the EU project PETALL in Belgrade, Servia
Find the team at the site of one of the partners specializing in English for aviation.
Referring to your support in translation of the ‘Multilingual Families’ project materials into Dutch, we would like to express our great appreciation. Some materials have been translated into up to 32 language versions (including LWULT) and are all available at project website (section ‘Project Results’).
Enclosed please find scanned version of the ‘Certificate of Appreciation’. If you are interested in the hard copy – please send me your postal address and we will send it by post as well.
Once again thank you very much!
Coordinator Marta Kędzia and her team at www.spoleczna.pl complimented me for TELLConsult’s contribution to the Mulitilingual Families’ project http://www.multilingual-families.eu/
EU project CAMELOT presented at Dutch Informatics Conference ‘NIOC 2015’
Submitted by tonk, on Sat, 05/16/2015 – 15:37
On April 13 we presented the paper ‘3D Video Producties Toepassingen voor het talenonderwijs’ at the bi-annual NIOC conference in Enschede, the Netherlands.
In our presentation we introduced the EU project ‘CreAting Machinima Empowers Live Online Language Teaching and Learning (CAMELOT) and the educational potential of videos shot in 3D environments for (language) education in general and Content & Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in particular.
Although the key target group of this congress – organised by Saxion Hogescholen – is the community of teachers of informatics, the
contribution was welcomed as there was a good match with the general theme of the event: ‘Creativity and ICT’.
Another reason, as also pointed out in our abstract, was the opportunity Machinima productions offer for the definition of authentic projects & tasks in the competency-based curriculum of the ‘Media en ICT’-stream in Dutch (pre)Vocational Education.
Other topics covered included: the variety of machinima genres and pedagogical functions in Modern Language Education and their potential as input for learning objects for use in e.g. blended learning & classroom flipping.
As researching the potential for CLIL was one of TELLCONSULT’s contributions to the project we highlighted a pilot on a Dutch CLIL school (Penta college, secondary Education) that we managed to organise thanks to the voluntary participation of the math teacher in particular (more info here).
This has resulted in the trialling of a machinima on the Pythagoras theorem, produced by Michela Occhioni at the Mathland sim.
Please find the teacher’s documentation and evaluation of the pilot here and the conference presentation on Slideshare.
TELLConsult concluded training activities for EU project on Interactive Whiteboards
Submitted by tonk
on Wed, 04/22/2015 – 21:41
TELLConsult’s contribution to the Tabula Alba project was completed in the third week of April.
This EU project was targeted at supporting the use of the interactive whiteboard for dialogic teaching & learning.
To this end a group of teachers of various disciplines in regions both in Turkey and Poland were trained.
A 5-day, multilingual workshop concluded the 4-week training programme in the course of the project’s 2-year lifetime. This final course was run in Balikesir. Turkey.
Hosted by one of the schools related to the local education authority that coordinates this project, the main activities involved developing and localising training materials for future use in the respective national regions.
Like in other course sessions, experiences with materials for local pilots developed on the basis of previous course input, were presented and discussed.
At the end of the week all course participants were offered a 5-course dinner with Turkish specialities. After the meal the training course certificates were handed out by representatives of the municipality and the local education authority.
TELLConsult’s latest project activities
Submitted by tonk, on Mon, 04/20/2015 – 16:00
Tellconsult’s representative, Ton Koenraad, contributed to the dissemination of the Camelot project at a number of events and conferences lately. As announced in the February issue of Camelot’s Newsletters he was invited speaker presenting on the potential of 3D virtual worlds at the well attended (n >650), biannual conference for Dutch teachers of French.
Together with Patrick de Boer, a math teacher at the data partner school for the Camelot CLIL pilots, we also presented at the bi-annual national conference for Dutch teachers of English , entitled ‘English Education for International Communication’ .
Our contribution Video in Modern Language Education Revisited included the viewing of the video clip on Pythagoras theorem that was created on the basis of Patrick’s ideas.
The video was shot with the help of Michela Occhioni at Mathland , one of the virtual science worlds, created by her.
Check out her YouTube channel to see more machinima impressions of these worlds.
Photos, films as well as handouts and powerpoints of the presentations can be found on the conference website.
A brief clip of our workshop can be found here.
To see more (also CLIL-related) video productions check out this section of the Camelot website.
ErasmusPlus grants & team training
Submitted by tonk, on Mon, 03/30/2015 – 16:02
After the deadline (March 4) for schools to submit EU mobility applications we decreased the intensity of the 3 month campaign to advertise our ErasmusPlus courses on pedagogy for interactive whiteboards (IWB) and telecollaborative (language) learning. When the School Education Gateway Catalogue got published in February, TELLConsult courses were also added to the database of courses for teachers’ professional development.
Early registration was more successful than in the transition year 2014 but there are still places available in all our 2015 courses.
We are glad however that organisations (large school, language schools, teacher training & vocational education institutes) are starting to recognise the potential of the ErasmusPlus KA1 mobility scheme for professional development opportunities for their teachers as a team.
An example in this respect is the initiative by the German Institut für Internationale Kommunikation to negotiate a fully customised version of our course on IWB in language education for their Düsseldorf and Berlin staff. In addition to an agreed 3-day agenda based on an elaborate intake questionnaire teachers were invited to provide comments to the final course programme and define concrete personal objectives.
As the organisation was in the process of implementing a new textbook the opportunity was also used to explore its ICT component and analyse the available IWB materials in particular.
The course was run in the Berlage Lyceum (Amsterdam, Netherlands).
Management and participants (n=24!) were happy with this location as they had ample hands-on training opportunities in small groups 
thanks to the availibity of several IWB-equiped classrooms.
The school also provided a plenary room specially customised both for Windows and Apple users and allowed access to the teachers’ room for breaks and lunches. All this and not to forget its central location facilitating selecting city hotels and sightseeing after hours made this venue most fit for purpose.
First ideas for CLIL Machinima submitted by Camelot’s Dutch data partner
Submitted by tonk, on Tue, 12/23/2014 – 23:11
Recently I managed to find a new CLIL school in the Netherlands for the CAMELOT project willing to cooperate as data partner and provide lesson ideas for machinima.
After some mail contacts and a Skype meeting with Patrick de Boer, (math teacher and BTW(!) also Chief Editor of CLIL magazine ) accepted to function as contact person and local
project leader.
Thanks to his prompt actions and our efficient collaboration the following results have been reached since the project was launched locally at this school in November 2014:
- After being informed by Patrick and having consulted the resources we had made available to support their conceptual orientation on machinima 5 teachers have shown an interest to contribute to the project.
- The management of the school (The Jacob van Liesveldt College, member of the PENTA schools group) formally supports the initiative and the teachers involved and told me so when we met.
- A draft production planning has been discussed with the teachers:
– January: feedback expected on first draft version of machinima and acceptance of adapted version
– February: establishing a piloting reseach protocol and testing machinima (preferably by more (school subject) colleagues)
– March: Co-presentation of paper (submitted) at Dutch bi-annual Congress of EFL teachers (NCE) (See abstract below*) - Having moved from orientation to idea development some 10 first ideas have been submittted by 5 teachers (geography, history, biology, arts and maths)
- First results of research by Camelot partners into the availability of relevant 3D settings / builds and objects needed for these first ideas have been reported to the team.
Despite the hectic week before Xmas Holidays, most teachers managed to attend a f2f meeting (Thursday 18/12).
During this session we asked teachers to elaborate on their ideas and we could detail Camelot’s succinct, written feedback.
Finally the implications for next steps were discussed.
In this photo, Patrick is brushing up my rusty Math knowledge and showing some sketches how he hoped we could visualize specific mathematical concepts with 3D video.
- We updated the production planning for 2 ideas, characterized as ‘doable’ in terms of availability of 3D scenarios. Teachers involved have been invited to finish the detailed specs and related lesson plan at the start of the new year.
* Abstract accepted for NCE conference:
Video in Modern Language Education revisited.
Language teachers often resort to video to present their students with linguistic and cultural aspects of communication in their context. Over the years the methodologies for using video in the classroom have been well documented.
The arrival of digital video and the current availability of affordable and user friendly tools to record, edit and enhance video content have provided further possibilities for formats and applications.
In this workshop we present some related projects and useful resources and the aims & interim results of the 2-year EU funded project CAMELOT (CreAting Machinima Empowers Live Online language Teaching and learning) in particular. Machinima is a neologism deriving from machine and cinema and refers to the use of real-time 3D computer graphics to create and record cinematic productions.
The actors in machinima are avatars and the environments they inhabit typically belong to a virtual world such as Second Life. Action within the virtual environment is recorded with the use of screen recording software. This allows for the production of sophisticated and yet cost-effective video content of simulated real-world interaction in realistic or imaginative 3D environments.
In this context we will highlight the experiences in the bilingual stream of the Dutch Penta College with piloting custom-made, machinima-based learning materials for their CLIL students.
Registration opened for TELLConsult’s summercourses
Submitted by tonk, on Thu, 12/04/2014 – 18:23
Thanks to project partners and colleagues TELLconsult is able to organise a number of summercourses for professionals in General and Vocational Education by way of exploitation of the EU projects we participated in.
Registration is open now for the 2015 courses on the use of electronic whiteboards to promote interaction in the classroom 
and technology to support the development of modern language oral interactions skills.
They are offered in collaboration wth the related project partners including: the Universities of Antwerp (Belgium), Nice (France), OU Catalunya (Spain), Utrecht (Netherlands) and the Kildare and Wicklow Education & Training Board (Ireland).
The initiative is facilitated by the University of Valencia (Spain) and the Berlage Lyceum (Netherlands)
TELLConsult’s motivation to continue offering professional development courses related to interactive and (tele)collaborative teaching and learning was strengthened again – after last year’s disappointing results – thanks to the policies proposed in Education and Training 2020 (ET2020.) The number of registrations in 2014 was limited and by far not enough for a break-even course run. (most likely due to the transition Comenius regulations to the ErasmusPlus programme).
The EU policy document mentioned above includes recent research reported in the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) 2014.
Some of the conclusions in this study are in line with our observations:
- the pedagogical use of ICT in schools remains contrained, and more emphasis should be given to ICT use that supports active teaching practices;
- targeted professional development is needed to equip teachers for effective pedagogical use of ICT;
- Collaborative school environments and channels for cooperation and exchange can act as multipliers for the innovative use of ICT in teaching and learning. (via Neth-ER)
EU projects Camelot & Euroversity disseminated at recent Dutch events
submitted by tonk, on Sat, 11/08/2014 – 13:30
Had interesting opportunities to share information about the Euroversity and Camelot projects the past month. The first chance was at the annual conference of the Dutch national Association for language professionals ‘Levende Talen’
The event in Utrecht was
well attended, as usual. I distributed flyers during breaks and was contacted by various interested teachers.
Marja Ritterfeld, a member of the German department, was very much interested in 3Dvideo-based materials to support German literature highlights and invited me to run a workshop at the AEDE conference in February 2015.
Also spoke with publishers (e.g. Hollwood, who also specialise in video for language learning), and some individual language teachers and colleagues also attending workshops in the teacher educators stream.
With Rick de Graaff, professor of CLIL at Utrecht University I discussed possiblilities of involving U-teach master students as researchers and/or data partners in the Camelot CLIL pilot I am organising in the Netherlands.
The conference on virtual worlds organised by Fontys University of Applied Sciences offered a second opportunity for project dissemination. Find my and other presentations (mostly in Dutch) at this FB page
Furthermore, as I am coordinating an Erasmus Plus project 2015 application for some organisations I attended an information day on the topic for vocational education organised by the National Agency.
So here, too, project flyers were distributed.
Finally, I also finished my video contribution to the Euroversity Network project the past month.
On the other hand, unfortunately, I had to cancel presenting an accepted paper for the World Congress of Modern Languages 2015 in Niagara Falls, USA, due to commitments related to recent otherwise fortunate developments re grant allocation for our EU project iTILT follow up application. iTILT2 will focus on researching pedagogies for the orchestration of classroom technologies use (IWB, tablets, mobile phones, etc)
TKEYHIL Irish Workshop #2 organised by TELLconsult
Submitted by tonk
on Fri, 10/24/2014 – 00:13
TELLConsult ran the second workshop for the Irish teachers participating in the EU project TKEYHIL. A most motivated group of 7 teachers (fancy doing your CPD activities on Saturday & Sunday!) met at the venue of the Irish project partner FIT on 18 & 19 October. Delegates particpated in an intensive programme, based on a brief needs analysis. It included items on interactivity in learning and teaching and the implications for f2f & blended contexts. They actively explored related ICT-applications and created or customised digital content for their classes. For the language teachers among them I prepared a document with suggestions for CALL resources in addition to the recommended results of the various EU projects (e.g. Euroversity, iTILT, PETALL and CAMELOT) I currently participate in. This document, also presented at the TKEYHIL kick-off meeting, is now also available for download on Scribd here . In addition I recommended the ClIL tools offered by the TOOLs project to scaffold processing specialized content (video and text) and suggested advocating Linguistadores and Vocabulary Notebook to promote students’ independent and personalised domain-specific reading and vocabulary skills development.
The workshop can be considered as successful, firstly because it resulted in some great ideas and detailed planning for the action research pilots on implementing technology for teaching and learning the participants are expected to be running. But also the evaluation results turned out to be most positive.
The day after I personally used the opportunity to also treat myself to another unforgettable walk in Irish (coastal) nature. See this FB post for details
iTILT team successfully applies for ErasmusPlus project grant
Submitted by tonk, on Tue, 08/19/2014 – 22:16
While packing to go to the 2014 EuroCALL conference here in the Netherlands we heard the good news that our ErasmusPlus project application has been successful. It will allow the iTILT team to extend its research on IWBs in Language Education to more classroom technologies such as tablets.
For more detai see this excerpt from the bid:
[…] This professional development project (iTILT2) aims to develop, promote and disseminate new and innovative best practice in supporting interactive language teaching in diverse European languages (English, French, Welsh and Turkish with further dissemination in Dutch and German) with information and communication technology (ICT). By working closely with teachers and learners, and using expertise from higher education, the project aims to improve the capacity of learning organizations in primary, secondary and higher education and to enhance the quality of learning provision. This collaborative approach aims to enhance the professional development of teachers (in both initial and continuing training) by supporting them to adopt innovative approaches and new pedagogies using ICT-based methodologies and the use of an open educational resource (OER).
The project builds on, and extends, the highly successful 28-month project iTILT (interactive Technologies In Language Teaching) funded by the European Lifelong Learning Programme (KA2 Languages, 2011-13), focusing on the interactive whiteboard (IWB) for teaching foreign languages. iTILT 2 moves beyond the IWB to focus on developing effective teaching and learning of second languages with a much wider range of new and emerging interactive technologies, such as iPads tablet PCs, learner response systems, and videoconferencing software.
It all reminded me of earlier days when preparing the room for my first workshop on IWBs at EuroCALL 2010 in Bordeaux
and presenting a poster on the iTILT project at EuroCALL in 2011
TELLConsult invited to do the external evaluation of EU project PETALL
Submitted by tonk
on Thu, 07/24/2014 – 22:23
As TELLConsult was invited to be the external evaluator in the EU project ‘Pan European Task Activities for Language Learning’ (PETALL) we attended the project’s kick-off meeting, early July at Faro University, Portugal.
In his presentation the project coordinator, Antonio Lopes, summarised the project as follows:
PETALL is an LLP transversal KA2 project, funded by the European Commission that aims to encourage the use of ICT-based tasks in the language classroom. It seeks to provide examples of good practices in technology-mediated TBLT (Task based language teaching) that can be easily used in different languages and educational contexts.
The consortium is composed of 10 tandems, each tandem formed by a teacher training department and a junior or senior high school.
Its objectives are to encourage collaborative work between teachers in different countries and teacher trainers by setting up regional networks for the development of ICT-based tasks to:
- to facilitate the access to technology-mediated tasks that travel well, securing the quality of the communicative exchange across cultural and geographic divides;
- to promote mutual understanding and awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity through ICT-based TBLT;
- to enhance the quality of teacher education in technology-mediated TBLT;
- to develop the teachers’ digital competence.
To achieve these ends teacher training departments work together with secondary schools and experienced tandems work together with less experienced tandems, so as to create a transfer of the expertise.
A geographical balance of partners from the North-West, the North-East, the South-East and South-West of Europe was sought.
Each tandem forms a ‘triangle’ with two other tandems from neighbouring, where possible contiguous, countries, so that a process of triangulation can take place.
As requested I contributed a project SWOT analysis
on the basis of the application and the experiences many of the current partners shared in the ETALAGE project.
The meeting was concluded with a most interesting guided cultural tour and final dinner in Tavira, a popular tourist resort near Faro.
TELLConsult’s latest activities
Submitted by tonk, on Sun, 06/22/2014 – 18:30
April, May and June were brimming with activities and developments for TELLConsult.
Recording of webinar on EU IWB projects available
On 27 Feb we ran a webinar to present the outcomes of 3 EU projects addressing teacher competences development related to Intractive Whiteboard (IWB)-supported teaching and learning. Having been involved in two of these projects (iTILT and SmartVET) as a partner and as trainer in IWB course developed by the CPDlab project, part of the iTEC project ‘Designing the Future Classroom’ run by the European Schoolnet, we presented the resources and training materials the afore mentioned project produced.
The webinar was part of a series for teaching training organised by Jürgen Wagner of the Landesinstitut für Pädagogik und Medien, Saarbrücken (Germany). See the recording here
Contribution to 2013 Ankara Conference published
Early in April we were happy to receive the news that our conference paper National Competence Standards for Initial Teacher Education: A Result of Collaboration by Faculties of Education in the Netherlands.(Ton Koenraad and Aike van der Hoeff) is now available in the Journal of Teacher Education and Educators (Öğretmen Eğitimi ve Eğitimcileri Dergisi), Volume/Cilt 2, Number/Sayı 2, 2013, 167-194. http://www.jtee.org/document/issue4/MAK1.pdf.
It was selected for publication after its presentation at ISNITE’2013, International Symposium, New Issues on Teacher Education May 9-11, 2013, Hacettepe University, Ankara-TURKEY
iTILT follow-up project application
Inspired by the great teamwork during and excellent evaluation of the iTILT project the partners decided to apply for a follow-up project and contribute to pedagogy development for integrated use of a number of classroom technologies including mobile devices, smart phones and IWBs. Thanks to the team’s efficient collaboration the Erasmusplus application could be developed in 3 weeks’ time and submitted on time.
Comenius Regio project Tabula Alba: Workshop 2
In the Turkish/Polish project Tabula Alba on professional development of teachers in the use of Interactive Whiteboards the second 5-day workshop offered by TELLConsult took place in Balikesir (Turkey). The project delegates were warmly received by the local Educational Authority and invited for lunch and dinner by the mayor.
I personally had the pleasure to exchange ideas on language teaching with the mayor at lunch as he, as owner of a chain of language schools in Turkey, was most interested in new pedagogical ideas. I shared information about my experiences with language teacher development related to the integration of ICT in language departments at schools and in Teacher Education. And in that respect my involvement with related innovative EU projects on 3D virtual worlds (e.g. Euroversity) and Interactive Whiteboards (iTILT). We also discusssed potential further collaboration in future EU project applications.
Contribution to Eurocall Special interest Group on Teacher education
Regrettably I could not attend this SIG meeting. However the organisers were kind enough to include our paper on National Competence Standards for Initial Teacher Education in the Netherlands and use it a source in the plenary discussions.
TISLID’14 conference in Spain
In the beginning of May we attended the TISLID’14 conference ‘Technological Innovation for Specialized Linguistc Domainsat the University of Salamanca (USAL) in Ávila (Spain). One of the reasons to select this conference was our intention to disseminate the Camelot project and discuss machinima ideas and applications for content oriented language learning approaches and CLIL.
So with several delegates I elaborated on this. E.g. with the coordinator of the eCLIL project I discussed the idea that Camelot could offer the production of additional 3D visualisation elements for the storyline as developed in their project. I also contacted the coordinator of the ClipFlair project. They are interested in collaboration and see a win/win as they could do with more Open Source video materials.
To a number of colleagues, I sent follow-up mails and -to help them develop ideas and/or in case 3D worlds and machinima were new to them – suggested to have a look at the resource collection http://blnds.co/NaiGKD I am curating for data partners to provide them with examples and list tools we can use to edit and enrich machinima content. I particularly recommended to view some of the machinima examples. EuroCALL MALL SIG
At the subsequent meeting of the EuroCALL special interest group on Moble technolgies (MALL SIG) at this conferenceI contributed a PechaKucha presentation on using mobile devices for the assessment of and for oral EFL oral skills development. This was on the results of an exploratory pilot project we developed for the English for Kids Foundation a while ago.
Paper on future of Language Education published in EuroCALL review
With pleasure we accepted the Invitation by the editor of The EuroCALL Review in November 2013 to also submit an extended, audio-enhanced version of our publication ‘Koenraad, A.L.M. (2013b). Expert Views on How Language Education May Develop in the Next 20 Years and What CALL Could Contribute’. In L. Bradley & S. Thouësny (Eds.), 20 Years of EUROCALL: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future. Proceedings of the 2013 EUROCALL Conference, Évora, Portugal (pp. 141-148). Dublin/Voillans: © Research-publishing.net. It is now available in Volume 21, no 1, March 2014.
Contributions to the KLPA 2014 conference
We were invited to deliver two plenary contributions to the 8th International Conference INNOVATING LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING IN EUROPE: DIVERSITY, QUALITY, MOBILITY, EMPLOYABILITY, 9–10 June 2014, Vilnius.
The first day of this conference, organised by the Association of Lithuanian language teachers, took place at the House of Parliament where we participated in the discussion on developments in language education in Europe.
The next day I had the pleasure to present the paper ‘Approaches and results of two EU projects promoting effective interactive whiteboard use in language and vocational education’ on behalf of a team of authors, partners both from the iTILT and the SmartVET project.. .
Organisation of Dutch Conference on virtual worlds in education started
In collaboration with the research group on pedagogy for language education in a changing learning enviroment at the Teacher Education Faculty of Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Tilburg, Netherlands we started the organisation of a Euroversity project event in the Netherlands on educational use of virtual worlds planned on November 13, 2014 For a description and call for papers in English see this announcement at the EuroCALL/Calico Virtual Worlds SIG Ning page
Summercourses 2014 cancelled
There were also some disappointments.
At a relatively late stage we had to cancel most of the summercourses we annually organise with our EU project partners. Quite a few course applicants had to withdraw their couse pre-registration as the EU internationalisation plan submitted by their school appeared to be not eligible. We expect to be more successful next year as the EU ErasmusPlus CALL 2015 will hopefully be published well in advance of the application deadline this time.
TELLConsult’s recent activities to support the exploitation of its EU projects
- Submitted by tonk, on Sat, 06/14/2014 – 20:12
Webinar on EU projects for Interactive Whiteboard teacher training
Not long after we had started advertising our EU fundable courses on IWB training for inservice training in Valencia I got invited by Jürgen Wagner to contribute to a most interesting, free access Webinar programme for the federal State Institute for Pedagogy and Media Pädagogy in Saarbrücken (Germany). We submitted the following proposal:
Approaches and materials for Interactive Whiteboard professional development in 3 EU projects
In this webinar we present the outcomes of 3 EU projects addressing teacher competences development related to Intractive Whiteboard (IWB)-supported teaching and learning. Two of these projects (iTILT and SmartVET) each had a specific target group, language and vocational professionals respectively.
In the third project, CPDlab, part of the iTEC project ‘Designing the Future Classroom’ run by the European Schoolnet, a generic course was developed and piloted targeted at teachers across school desciplines and educational sectors. Having been involved in all of them we conclude by describing a number of EU fundable summercourses we are coordinating, based on the best practices and training materials the afore mentioned project produced.
On February 27 some 20 peple attended the webinar session which was kindly moderated by iTILT partner and friend Shona Whyte.
Find the recordings here.
8th International Conference organised by the Lithuanian association of language teachers
We attended the Conference ‘INNOVATING LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING IN EUROPE: DIVERSITY, QUALITY, MOBILITY, EMPLOYABILITY (9–10 June 2014) in Vilnius (Lithuania).
On the first day we were invited to be on an international panel
at the Lithuanian Parliament to discuss language education policies and national developments
On day 2, in a plenary session, we could present our paper contribution
‘Approaches and results of two EU projects promoting effective interactive whiteboard use in language and vocational education’
collaboratively developed by some partners both from the iTILT and the SmartVET project.
At the end of the presentation we announced the 2015 update of our Summercourse programme, featuring courses in Valencia on both projects.
Find the presentation on SlideShare.
Download the paper as also published in Žmogus ir žodis / Svetimosios kalbos Man and the Word / Foreign Languages 2015, t. 17, Nr. 3, p. 146–154 / Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 146–154, 2015 by the organising University. DOI: http://dx doi org/10 15823/zz 2015 18 ISSN 1392-8600
During the poster session we also had a chance to present the newly started Camelot project
and invite colleagues to define ideas for machinima that would contribute to their teaching practice.
TELLConsult at TKEY HIL project kick-off meeting at Udine, Italy
- Submitted by tonk, on Mon, 03/17/2014 – 23:42
The second half of week 11 we attended the kick-off meeting of the EU project ‘TOOLS FOR LEARNING EU KEY COMPETENCIES IN HIGH INTERACTION LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS ‘ TKEY HIL’ . Aims of this Leonardo Transfer of Innovation project are to innovate traditional teaching methods, which nowadays are still too focused on rote learning, through an effective use of digital technologies: IWB applications combined with concept/mind maps and other HIL tools (High Interaction Learning). This project regards the application of these technologies applied for the development of the European Key competences (Recommendation 2006), such as digital competences, foreign languages, entrepreneurship, math and scientific subjects, and learning to learn.
TELLConsult got invited to contribute input on WEB 2.0 applications and Interactive Whiteboards for the teaching of languages in the VET domain.
Hosted by the coordinating institution, ENAIP, in Udine this 3-day event was attended by all the facilitators of the partner institutions. On the right Gilberto Collinassi, ENAIP’s training design director at the opening session, detailing the aims and planning of the project.
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Then, on one of my strolls I found out – to my great surprise – that an Italian pub was (also) serving Gulpener beer from a Dutch brewery in Gulpen, Limburg, in the south of the Netherlands.
The brewery was founded in 1825 by Laurens Smeets (WikiPedia). I thought I had better check this info on this small but popular beer brand as in the pub it was advertised as a Belgian beer.
But no problema! Belgium is around the corner there 🙂
Preparing for the Webinar on our EU projects and summercourses
- Submitted by tonk, on Tue, 02/25/2014 – 17:45
We are running a free webinar on 27 Feb to back up the information we have been spreading about the EU projects and their related courses we are organising (see info below). The webinar is part of a series for teaching training organised by Jürgen Wagner of the Landesinstitut für Pädagogik und Medien, Saarbrücken (Germany). He was kind enough to spend an hour with me to introduce the Adobe Connect room he has designed for these sessions.
Download the invitation to the webinar here.
EU fundable summercourses for professionals in Language and Vocational Education
In collaboration with the Universities of Antwerp, Nice, Valencia and Catalunya (OU), the Further Education institute Norwich City College and the Kildare and Wicklow Education & Training Board, TELLconsult is coordinating summercourses for teachers and teacher educators in Language and Vocational Education based on results of the EU projects the afore mentioned organisations were involved in.
These courses may qualify for European Key Action1 grant assistance under the new Erasmus+ funding framework (former Grundtvig and Comenius frameworks), the more since they can support the realization of the internationalization ambitions of educational institutes by offering free follow-up use of the course’s virtual learning space.
More information about the course descriptions, day-to-day programmes and international teams of animators involved is available on TELLConsult’s current courses and (pre-)registration page.
Dynamic start of 2014
- Submitted by tonk, on Wed, 02/19/2014 – 23:42
EUROCALL Review article
Invited by the editor of the EUROCALL Review I finally got round to writing the extended version of the paper presented at the EuroCALL 2013 conference: Koenraad, A.L.M. (2013b). Expert Views on How Language Education May Develop in the Next 20 Years and What CALL Could Contribute. In L. Bradley & S. Thouësny (Eds.), 20 Years of EUROCALL: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future. Proceedings of the 2013 EUROCALL Conference, Évora, Portugal (pp. 141-148). Dublin/Voillans: © Research-publishing.net.
It will be available in EuroCALL Review Volume 21, no 2, soon now I guess. I also published a version of this audio-enhanced article. It is available online on this site or, alternatively can be downloaded as PDF here.
MachinEVO workshop
I subscribed to the MachinEVO workshop on Machinima creation for Modern Language Education and attended the first meeting but had to drop soon after as I could not cope considering all the activities that needed my attendion in these first two months.
EUROVERSITY network meeting
The second and final meeting of this EU network project took place in Rome beginning of Februari. One of the major decisions within the Exploitation WP taken was to start an Association so that current and future partners could continue sharing experiences and updating the key project results, such as the guidelines on how to start teaching in 3D virtual worlds.
BTW individuals and organisations interested in joining the network can alreday do so here.
Among other things we also planned a first series of Webinars on project activities & results. See the agenda of events here
Unfortunately the weather was not quite as expected: rainy and rather cold, but the few hours left for visiting were well spent. And of course we did not miss the Trevi Fountain.
EU project CAMELOT kick-off The first f2f meeting of the EU project CAMELOT took place at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) in Preston, UK.
CAMELOT stands for Machinima Empowers Live Online language Teaching and learning” and is a 2-year EU funded project for language educators to learn how to use, adapt and create videos (machinima) in virtual worlds.
(Dec 2013-Nov 2015).
We worked out the specific features of the various results defined in the WorkPackage descriptions, allocated tasks and made a detailed planning for the first 3 months. I also presented EUROVERSITY to the partners
IWB workshop in Luxemburg
TELLConsult was invited by the Ministry of Education to run a two-day IWB workshop at rather short notice for a group of teachers at their National Institute of Languages. I enjoyed the two intensive days as the teachers were engaged and very creative and productive. Als spent at Luxemburg capital and found out about the remarkable history of this town by doing a most interesting citywalk.
Summercourses 2014 campaign
Before we could start advertising we had to write final versions of course descriptions (four this year!) and redesign the back office systems to allow (pre-registration) and automated response messages.
Once that was in place we started campaigning late in January. So using a range of social media we are spreading the news that we are organising EU fundable summercourses for professionals in Language and Vocational Education in collaboration with the EU projects NIFLAR, iTILT and SmartVET & partners and refer to our current courses and registration page. for more information on:
Course #1 ‘Using Interactive Whiteboards in Vocational Education'(Valencia, week 28, 2014).
Course #2 ‘Preparing to be a trainer/coach to promote the effective use of Interactive Whiteboards in Vocational Education'(Valencia, week 28, 2014).
Course #3 ‘Modern Language Methodologies & Technologies to promote Intercultural Communication & Telecollaboration'(Valencia, week 29, 2014).
Course #4 ‘Using Interactive Whiteboards in Language Education’(Valencia, week 29, 2014).
Jürgen Wagner invited me to run a free webinar (on 27 Feb) to provide more information about the EU projects involved and these related courses. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8905964/Breeze/invitation_EU_summercourses_new.pdf .
The webinar is part of a series for teaching training organised by Jürgen Wagner of the Landesinstitut für Pädagogik und Medien, Saarbrücken (Germany).
TKEY HIL’
Aims of the project are to innovate traditional teaching methods, which nowadays are still too focused on rote learning, through an effective use of digital technologies: IWB applications combined with concept/mind maps and other HIL tools (High Interaction Learning). This project regards the application of these technologies applied for the development of the European Key competences (Recommendation 2006), such as digital competences, foreign languages, entrepreneurship, math and scientific subjects, and learning to learn.
Koenraad.info Koenraad.info/Publications Koenraad.info/Blog Archive EUROCALL.NL TELLConsult.eu/projects