Conference

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

3rd Virtual Round Table Conference

A semi-annual virtual conference on “Language Learning with Technology”

8-9 October 2010

About the Virtual Round Table Conference

The Virtual Round Table conference is a live online conference dedicated to language learning with technology. It is aimed at educators and language teaching professionals in language schools, institutes or other language related organisations.

It purposes to introduce to its participants a number of tools and best practise on how to use these tools in class for the benefit of our language learners.

This is the 3rd conference and during the last two conferences we saw a fabulous program of panel discussions, hands-on workshops, presentations and Show&Tell presentations. Every session is being recorded and published in a format for easy sharing and translation. Enjoy browsing through our new list of page-by-page or blog-by-blog session descriptions under the main [RECORDINGS] tab.

We welcome Show&Tell product presentations if these products and services are web-based, electronic, software, digital or other technology driven and benefit the language learning trade.

During the last two conference we saw quite a number of Second Life sessions. This time however, we will not accept any Second Life submissions. Why? Because only 1 week later, namely on 15-16 October 2010 the 24h SLanguages conference takes place and since LANCELOT School is actively involved in the SLanguages organising committee, we may ask presenters to send their submissions to the SLanguages organizers. All sessions at the SLanguages conference will be streamed in Adobe ConnectPro and this way you will not miss out you do not have an avatar as of yet,

The conference is free of charge for all participants. If you wish to support this conference as a sponsor, may we kindly ask you to contact the conference organisers.

Who is the conference for?

The conference is for all those interested in language specific ….

• web-based or software based applications
• digital teaching and learning material
• electronic or digital tools
• mobile learning applications
• digital classroom management
• live online environments, virtual classrooms and virtual worlds
• and all other aspects of language learning with technology

This includes language trainers, educators and management of language schools or institutes, freelancers and any other language teaching professionals.

Venues

This conference is undertaken completely online using web-based tools such as virtual classrooms and Second Life.

If you are not familiar with virtual classroom or virtual worlds will be able to experience this new environment and we invite you to do so and join us. You will need a fast internet connection to join.

We will record and stream all of these events.

Conference themes

The conference themes are as follows.

Theme 1: Bestpractise

This may include but is not limited to discourses on online assessment and testing, learing activities using webquests, online mind maps, digital storytelling, methodology such as blended learning or how to use the computer room, how to use authoring tools, blogs/ wikis, IWB (Interactive Whiteboards), Moodle or mobile technology, etc.

This may also include but is not limited to multi-media language learning software, online vocabulary trainers, online dictionaries, web-based tools for language assessment, podcasts, videos etc.

Theme 2: Virtual Learning Environments

This may include but is not limited to virtual campuses, virtual classrooms, virtual worlds, mobile learning, tandem learning sites etc.

Theme 3: Online Marketing and Networking

This may include but is not limited to social Media, viral Marketing, blogs, video production etc.

Theme 4: Language Learning Associations and EU projects

This may include but is not limited to networks like eTwinning, NIFLAR and AVALON, LANCELOT, EuroCALL and CALICO, webheads etc.

Theme 4: Classroom management, administration and training

This may include but is not limited to class management software, learning management systems, schedulers, customer relationship management solutions etc.

BONUS theme 5: On demand guest speaker

No traveling is involved in joining a virtual conference and therefor it is much easier to invite guest speakers. Send us an email and freely ask for your favorite speaker and we will approach him or her and invite them for this virtual conference. Tell us why you think this guest speaker is appropriate for this conference and what you like about him/ her and we will do our utmost to invite him/ her to join.

Event Schedule

Call for proposals closes 31 August 2010

Presenter rehearsals 20 - 30 September 2010

Conference 8 - 9 October 2010 (Friday and Sat)

The conference will be held on Friday and Saturday, 8-9 October with sessions scheduled at different times to meet the main time zones: Europea, America, Asia.

There will also be plenty of breaks between the sessions.

The formats of the sessions will be

• 90min virtual round table discussions with experts who engage in a moderated learning conversation
• 60min hands-on workshops
• 30min product presenations (20min presentation and 10min Q&A)
• POSTER and PRESTO presentations (PRESTO which stands for PRESent your TOpic, is a speedy presentation technique with 10 slides auto-advancing every 20 sec, total presentation time is 3min20sec)
• a Pecha Kucha night (a Pecha Kucha is a speedy presentation technique with 20 slides auto-advancing every 20 sec, total presentation time 6min 40sec)

Registration

To register for the conference please sign-up on our ning site and as soon as the schedule is announced we may ask you to sign up at each individual session you wish to attend. http://virtual-round-table.ning.com/ website.

Sponsorship Opportunity

If you wish to be a sponsor for this conference, please request the sponsorship opportunity brosure by sending an email to heike.philp [at] lancelotschool.com.

Contact Information

Please contact Holly Longstroth or Heike Philp at LANCELOT School^TM GmbH, holly.longstroth [at] lancelotschool.com and heike.philp [at] lancelotschool.com.

Are you blogging or tweeting?

Please us the tag vrt10 or the hashtag #vrt10 for the conference.

About the conference organisers

LANCELOT School^TM GmbH is the conference sponsor and organiser for this event. Heike Philp, who is founder and Managing Director of LANCELOT School^TM GmbH is also co-initiator of EU funded LANCELOT and EU funded AVALON project. Holly Longstroth is Director of Studies and LANCELOT teacher trainer and owner of ViTA, a temping and recruitment agency for language teachers.