Conference programme 12 November 2009

Tim Darling	digital publishing AG Thu 12 November 2009, 9:30am GMT (World time) Founded in 1994, digital publishing is a pioneer in computer-based language training. The company provides award winning corporate language training services that help to improve the business communication skills of a global workforce. Over 500 corporate clients and 5 million students worldwide use CLT as the efficient and flexible approach to improving language skills for both career and personal growth. In this presentation Tim Darling introduces digital publishing's award-winning blended learning concept, including interactive software, online tutoring, face to face training, phone training and the virtual classroom. About Tim Darling Tim Darling is CLT Director of Studies at digital publishing AG. * CLICK HERE for the 28 min recording *
Graham Stanley Joe Perreira	Language Learning Quests on the virtual British Council Isle Thu 12 November 2009, 10am GMT (World Time) After meeting at the Arrivals area to the British Council Isle we will split into groups and participants can try one of three Language Learning Quests (Shakespeare Quest, Merlin Quest or Robin Hood Quest). After 20 minutes, we'll all get together in Sherwood Forest, where there'll be a 20 minute talk and discussion on this type of game-based learning in Second Life. Participants will find out from the designers of these quests what processes they went through, how they were changed after being piloted by students, and will get some ideas of how they can start to design something similar themselves. About Graham Stanley aka Baldric Commons Graham Stanley spends half of his working life as a teacher of English at the British Council Young Learner Centre in Barcelona, Spain and the other half as Project Manager of the British Council's Learn English Second Life project. This involves managing a 3D self-access centre for 13-17 year-olds for the British Council and working with the other partners of the AVALON project, which aims to develop best practice through language learning scenarios for adults in Second Life. About Joe Pereira aka Creed Juan Joe Pereira is a an English teacher and the ICT Co-ordinator at the British Council in Porto, Portugal. He is also a project officer for the British Council's Second Life projects which include the British Council isle on the Main Grid and the LearnEnglish Teen Second Life Isle on the Teen Grid. Joe has recently finished a Master's degree in Educational Technology & TESOL where the focus of his dissertation was digital game-based learning and Second Life, specifically looking at the Language Learning Quests found on the British Council Isles (the dissertation can be downloaded from http://www.theswanstation.com). He is also involved in teaching a business English course in SL as part of the AVALON project. * CLICK HERE for the first 45 min of this recording* Please note that we lost sound in the beginning but it resumes after the first 10 min.
Gerhilde Meissl-Egghart	AVALON Learning Thu 12 November 2009, 10:45am GMT (World Time) AVALON is a 2-year funded project aimed at exploring language learning in virtual worlds with one of the results of the project being scenarios for teaching and learning a language as well as a training course for language teachers. About Gerhilde Meissl-Egghart Gerhilde Meissl-Egghart is head of Talkademy, a project partner in AVALON and co-initiator of the project. * CLICK HERE for the recording and proceed to the last 45 min *
Simon Beeston Andrew Scott	Oxford English Testing Thu 12 November 11:30am GMT (World Time) Oxford English Testing offers resources which will unlock your teaching time and make testing quick and easy at the same time. You can do the following tasks online: Assign placement and examination practice tests in a few straightforward steps Test students remotely or on site Reduce marking time with automated scoring and feedback Record results automatically Use Placement test results on CEFR scale to place students into groups About Simon Beeston Simon taught EFL through the 1980s both in the UK and overseas and completed his DTEFLA and MA in Applied Linguistics before joining Cambridge ESOL in 1992 to work on the IELTS revision. He went on to manage the Pretesting Unit before becoming a Senior Validation manager working on a variety of test development projects. He left the world of ELT to work for five years in the commercial sector as Director of E-learning for a professional training company before joining Oxford University Press in 2006 as Head of Test Development. About Andrew Scott Andrew is the 'technical guru', if you have any technical questions about the testing system, please contact him as the main person at Oxford English Testing Online Support. * CLICK HERE for a 32 min recording of the event*
Stefan Booy Gary Motteram Shiv Rajetan Duane Sider Moderation: Valentina Dodge	VIRTUAL PANEL DISCUSSION: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."- Theodore Hook Thu 12 November 2009, This panel brings together those who have done exactly that, namely they have invented the future. Panelists (in alphabetical order): Stefan Booy, Myngle Gary Motteram, University of Manchester Shiv Rajetan, LanguageLab Duane Sider, Rosetta Stone Moderation Valentina Dodge, English 360 About Stefan Booy Born in Holland, raised in Italy, and educated in US, Stefan is passionate about cultural diversity and languages. At Myngle since January 2009, he's has been working to develop educational and commercial partnerships to further the growth of the Amsterdam-based start up. His background is mainly in secondary and higher education in the US, where he earned degrees in Philosophy and Ministry. Since 2008, he holds an MBA degree from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus university. Stefan is the proud father of Arden and Ian, who are a bit confused about what language to speak at home! About Gary Motteram Dr. Gary Motteram has a long track record in the field of computer assisted language learning. He has also been a long-time member of the Learning Technolgies Special Interest Group of IATEFL (ltsig.org.uk) and seen through its transition from the early days of CALL to its current world of internet-assisted learning, he has worked in a number of different roles to run courses and develop this group. He set up and still runs an MA in Educational Technology and TESOL (http://www.education.manchester.ac.uk) and conducts research into the field of internet assisted teacher education (edtechandtesol.info). In recent years he has also been insturmental in winning international projects and managing them for the University (www.echinauk.org). Gary has also been involved in a number of EU funded projects amongst others the LANCELOT project in the capacity as one of the main developing partners for the teacher-training course in virtual classroom technology. Currently he is coordinator of the AVALON project, a project to explore language learning in Second Life which is supported by 26 EU partners in 8 countries. About Shiv Rajendran Shiv (www.shv.me) co-founded Languagelab.com in 2005. The oldest and largest virtual world languages school with students in more than 50 different countries. Shiv has a Master’s degree in Digital Culture & Technology, a background using technology for a variety of purposes, and is a life long gamer. About Duane Sider Duane Sider, Director of Learning for Rosetta Stone Inc., is passionate about changing the way the world views language learning. In his role, Duane has introduced Rosetta Stone® solutions and the joy of the language-learning journey to a variety of audiences through numerous speaking engagements worldwide. Additionally, Duane has authored a number of articles and papers on immersion methodology in second-language acquisition. Duane joined the company's international operations in 1997, became director of learning in 2003, directing domestic and international training programs, and assumed his current responsibilities in 2008. Prior to joining Rosetta Stone, he taught literature, philosophy and aesthetics at the university level for 14 years. Throughout his career, Duane has traveled, performed and taught extensively throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, promoting international communication and advocating new technologies in education. Duane holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Messiah College and a Master of Arts degree in the English literature from the Univesity of Virginia. He has written two plays, a collection of poetry and manages a theater company in Virginia. * CLICK HERE for a 1h 19 min recording of this event *
Shiv Rajendran	Why learn a language in a virtual world? Thu 12 November 2009, 4pm GMT (World Time) With so many different options available for language learner why choose virtual worlds? This presentation takes you through the not-so-obvious advantages with demonstrations and explanations of how they work. Location: Languagelab in Second life http://bit.ly/languagelab About Shiv Rajendran Shiv joins us live from London, UK (local time 5pm). Shiv (www.shv.me) co-founded Languagelab.com in 2005. The oldest and largest virtual world languages school with students in more than 50 different countries. Shiv has a Master’s degree in Digital Culture & Technology, a background using technology for a variety of purposes, and is a life long gamer. * CLICK HERE for a 32 min recording of the event *
Lukas	Fronter presentation Thu 12 November 2009, 4:30pm (World Time) Fronter is a learning platform used by millions of students and teachers around the world. Lukas Palecek of the Czech-Slovak office, the newest Fronter representation, will highlight the key features making the platform appealing to educators, management and policy-makers. Having run the organizational and training activities of the development of the WebSchool Group projects, Lukas will draw a few blueprints for building the online part of a school or a business. About Lukáš Paleček Lukas, 27, is the head of a Czech based online school. Having finished the Anglo American University in Prague he went through the first LANCELOT course in 2007 and started teaching online. In 2008 he set up WebSchool s.r.o. and started work on the projects of the WebSchol Group. A series of the web-based school's projects are about to be launched in the coming months. Through WebSchool s.r.o. Lukas now represents Spreed virtual clasroom and the Fronter learning platform in CZ and SK. He is also heading to his Msc in E-learning in 2010. * CLICK HERE for a 30 min recording of the event *
Lars Gyorvari	Phase-6 Guaranteed long-term retention Thu 12 November 2009, 5pm GMT (World Time) Phase-6, an ingenious vocabulary trainer. Guaranteed long-term retention. Lars Gyorvari Lars joins us live from beautiful Switzerland, local time 6pm. Lars is the webcast specialist of phase-6 a Swiss based company with branches in Chicago etc. * CLICK HERE for a 28 min recording of the event *
Ton Koenraad	NIFLAR - Networked Interaction in Foreign Language Acquisition and Research Thu 12 November 2009, 5:30pm GMT (World Time) The international project NIFLAR, Networked Interaction in Foreign Language Acquisition and Research, has received a grant from the European Union. The University of Utrecht coordinates this project, in which eight universities cooperate in and outside Europe and which has started on 1 January 2009. The aim of NIFLAR is to make foreign language education more authentic and interactive through innovative e-learning environments. About Ton Koenraad Ton joins us live from Utrecht in the Netherlands, local time 6:30pm. * CLICK HERE for a 31 min recording of the event *
Gavin Dudeney Heike Philp Pete Sharma Shaun Wilden Moderation: Marina Petrovic	PANEL DISCUSSION "Technology will not replace teachers but teachers who use technology will probably replace teachers who do not"- Ray Clifford Thu 12 November 2009, 7pm GMT (World Time) Panelists (in alphabetical order): Gavin Dudeney, The Consultants-E Heike Philp, LANCELOT School GmbH Pete Sharma, Pete Sharma Associates Shaun Wilden, IH World Moderation: Marina Petrovic About Gavin Dudeney Gavin Dudeney has worked in education since 1988, as a teacher, materials developer, IT manager and web/user interface designer. Until the end of 2003 he held two posts: the first as Head of the New Technologies Department at International House Barcelona, and the second as Lead Developer for the online training centre Net Languages . In 2003 he left to set up the Consultants-E, an online training and development consultancy, and has worked as the Technical Director since then. His work involves project planning and delivery, as well as the EduNation presence in Second Life. He has published 'The Internet and the Language Classroom' (CUP, 2000) and - with Nicky Hockly - 'How to Teach English with Technology' (Longman, 2007). This second book won the 2007 International House Ben Warren Trust Prize for the most outstanding work in teacher education. He has recently finished another book in the famous Dummies series (also with Nicky Hockly) and a chapter for a forthcoming book on Second Life in Further and Higher Education. The Consultants-E run online training courses and their 'ICT in the Classroom' was a winner of a 2007 British Council ELTON award. This course is now fully-accredited and known as the Trinity CertICT. About Heike Philp Heike Philp is founder and managing director of LANCELOT School GmbH, an accredited training center for language trainers in the use of state-of-the-art virtual classroom technology. With over 20 years in education and several years of teaching German in Japan and the UK, Heike took on the live online challenge by starting a virtual language school and her experience subsequently led her to co-initiate the European funded LANCELOT project. The LANCELOT project saw 23 partners in 8 countries jointly developing a train-the-trainer course for language teachers. Heike’s enthusiasm for synchronous Internet communication also led her to co-initiate yet another European funded project: AVALON. AVALON stands for Access to Virtual and Action Learning live Online and is about language learning in Second Life, a 3D virtual world and starts in November 2008 with a consortium of 26 European partners, 11 of which are Universities. She is a frequent speaker at the Online Educa, EUROCALL, WIAOC, LearnTec and Illinois Online Conference about language learning with technology. About Pete Sharma Pete Sharma sometimes describes himself as wearing four different “hats”, the first being a teaching hat. His 23 years teaching business took him all over Europe, as well as to the Middle East and Far East. He is now enjoying the challenge of EAP in his work at Oxford Brookes University. For the first time ever, he has also moved outside language teaching, running courses on interpersonal skills and IT. Because he was only working a mere six days a week, he thought it would be a good idea to start a company, Pete Sharma Associates, which he has done with some ELT colleagues, to pursue his twin professional loves: technology and teacher training. His second hat as a teacher trainer has given him fascinating insights into the area of teacher education and teacher development. For some years he was the Training and Development manager for Linguarama. He describes himself as an “accidental author” – he was so frustrated that there were NO books on CD-ROM that he wrote one. His second book, The Internet and Business English, co-written with Barney Barrett, was Highly Commended in the Duke of Edinburgh ESU awards. Thanks to writing the business English e-lesson for Macmillan he has started exploring the actual process of materials writing. It was also stimulating to do the Teacher’s Book for Mark Powell’s In Company Upper-intermediate (Macmillan). His outstanding Blended Learning: using technology in and beyond the language classroom (Macmillan 2007) was shortlisted for the Ben Warren International House Trust prize, 2008. His fourth hat is reviewing books and software, contributing the Reviews in brief column for the International English Book Centre, in the EL Gazette. He adds reviews to his new website, www.te4be.com , which aim is to inform teachers about technology in language teaching. About Shaun Wilden Shaun Wilden has been involved in ELT for more than twenty years. He is the International House World Organisation Teacher Training Coordinator overseeing their online training site , ihonlinetraining.net and also works as a freelance teacher trainer and materials writer. He has contributed materials to a number of coursebooks. He does the occasional bit of CELTA tutoring and work on a DELTA course for IH Prague and spends may days a year delivering training sessions teachers. He loves making courses on the moodle platform. Apart from that he maintains several online teaching sites including ihonlinetraining.net, he is interested in the application of technology to teaching. * CLICK HERE for a 1h 10 min recording of the event *

Tim Darling

digital publishing AG

Thu 12 November 2009, 9:30am GMT (World time)

Founded in 1994, digital publishing is a pioneer in computer-based language training. The company provides award winning corporate language training services that help to improve the business communication skills of a global workforce. Over 500 corporate clients and 5 million students worldwide use CLT as the efficient and flexible approach to improving language skills for both career and personal growth. In this presentation Tim Darling introduces digital publishing's award-winning blended learning concept, including interactive software, online tutoring, face to face training, phone training and the virtual classroom.

About Tim Darling
Tim Darling is CLT Director of Studies at digital publishing AG.

*** CLICK HERE for the 28 min recording ***

Graham Stanley

Joe Perreira

Language Learning Quests on the virtual British Council Isle

Thu 12 November 2009, 10am GMT (World Time)

After meeting at the Arrivals area to the British Council Isle we will split into groups and participants can try one of three Language Learning Quests (Shakespeare Quest, Merlin Quest or Robin Hood Quest).

After 20 minutes, we'll all get together in Sherwood Forest, where there'll be a 20 minute talk and discussion on this type of game-based learning in Second Life. Participants will find out from the designers of these quests what processes they went through, how they were changed after being piloted by students, and will get some ideas of how they can start to design something similar themselves.

About Graham Stanley aka Baldric Commons

Graham Stanley spends half of his working life as a teacher of English at the British Council Young Learner Centre in Barcelona, Spain and the other half as Project Manager of the British Council's Learn English Second Life project. This involves managing a 3D self-access centre for 13-17 year-olds for the British Council and working with the other partners of the AVALON project, which aims to develop best practice through language learning scenarios for adults in Second Life.

About Joe Pereira aka Creed Juan

Joe Pereira is a an English teacher and the ICT Co-ordinator at the British Council in Porto, Portugal. He is also a project officer for the British Council's Second Life projects which include the British Council isle on the Main Grid and the LearnEnglish Teen Second Life Isle on the Teen Grid. Joe has recently finished a Master's degree in Educational Technology & TESOL where the focus of his dissertation was digital game-based learning and Second Life, specifically looking at the Language Learning Quests found on the British Council Isles (the dissertation can be downloaded from http://www.theswanstation.com). He is also involved in teaching a business English course in SL as part of the AVALON project.

*** CLICK HERE for the first 45 min of this recording***

Please note that we lost sound in the beginning but it resumes after the first 10 min.

Gerhilde Meissl-Egghart

AVALON Learning

Thu 12 November 2009, 10:45am GMT (World Time)

AVALON is a 2-year funded project aimed at exploring language learning in virtual worlds with one of the results of the project being scenarios for teaching and learning a language as well as a training course for language teachers.

About Gerhilde Meissl-Egghart
Gerhilde Meissl-Egghart is head of Talkademy, a project partner in AVALON and co-initiator of the project.

*** CLICK HERE for the recording and proceed to the last 45 min ***

Simon Beeston

Andrew Scott

Oxford English Testing

Thu 12 November 11:30am GMT (World Time)

Oxford English Testing offers resources which will unlock your teaching time and make testing quick and easy at the same time.

You can do the following tasks online:

Assign placement and examination practice tests in a few straightforward steps
Test students remotely or on site
Reduce marking time with automated scoring and feedback
Record results automatically
Use Placement test results on CEFR scale to place students into groups

About Simon Beeston
Simon taught EFL through the 1980s both in the UK and overseas and completed his DTEFLA and MA in Applied Linguistics before joining Cambridge ESOL in 1992 to work on the IELTS revision. He went on to manage the Pretesting Unit before becoming a Senior Validation manager working on a variety of test development projects. He left the world of ELT to work for five years in the commercial sector as Director of E-learning for a professional training company before joining Oxford University Press in 2006 as Head of Test Development.

About Andrew Scott
Andrew is the 'technical guru', if you have any technical questions about the testing system, please contact him as the main person at Oxford English Testing Online Support.

*** CLICK HERE for a 32 min recording of the event***

Stefan Booy

Gary Motteram

Shiv Rajetan

Duane Sider

Moderation: Valentina Dodge

VIRTUAL PANEL DISCUSSION: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."- Theodore Hook

Thu 12 November 2009,

This panel brings together those who have done exactly that, namely they have invented the future.

Panelists (in alphabetical order):
Stefan Booy, Myngle
Gary Motteram, University of Manchester
Shiv Rajetan, LanguageLab
Duane Sider, Rosetta Stone
Moderation Valentina Dodge, English 360

About Stefan Booy

Born in Holland, raised in Italy, and educated in US, Stefan is passionate about cultural diversity and languages. At Myngle since January 2009, he's has been working to develop educational and commercial partnerships to further the growth of the Amsterdam-based start up.
His background is mainly in secondary and higher education in the US, where he earned degrees in Philosophy and Ministry. Since 2008, he holds an MBA degree from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus university. Stefan is the proud father of Arden and Ian, who are a bit confused about what language to speak at home!

About Gary Motteram
Dr. Gary Motteram has a long track record in the field of computer assisted language learning. He has also been a long-time member of the Learning Technolgies Special Interest Group of IATEFL (ltsig.org.uk) and seen through its transition from the early days of CALL to its current world of internet-assisted learning, he has worked in a number of different roles to run courses and develop this group. He set up and still runs an MA in Educational Technology and TESOL (http://www.education.manchester.ac.uk) and conducts research into the field of internet assisted teacher education (edtechandtesol.info). In recent years he has also been insturmental in winning international projects and managing them for the University (www.echinauk.org). Gary has also been involved in a number of EU funded projects amongst others the LANCELOT project in the capacity as one of the main developing partners for the teacher-training course in virtual classroom technology. Currently he is coordinator of the AVALON project, a project to explore language learning in Second Life which is supported by 26 EU partners in 8 countries.

About Shiv Rajendran
Shiv (www.shv.me) co-founded Languagelab.com in 2005. The oldest and largest virtual world languages school with students in more than 50 different countries. Shiv has a Master’s degree in Digital Culture & Technology, a background using technology for a variety of purposes, and is a life long gamer.

About Duane Sider
Duane Sider, Director of Learning for Rosetta Stone Inc., is passionate about changing the way the world views language learning. In his role, Duane has introduced Rosetta Stone® solutions and the joy of the language-learning journey to a variety of audiences through numerous speaking engagements worldwide. Additionally, Duane has authored a number of articles and papers on immersion methodology in second-language acquisition. Duane joined the company's international operations in 1997, became director of learning in 2003, directing domestic and international training programs, and assumed his current responsibilities in 2008. Prior to joining Rosetta Stone, he taught literature, philosophy and aesthetics at the university level for 14 years. Throughout his career, Duane has traveled, performed and taught extensively throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, promoting international communication and advocating new technologies in education. Duane holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Messiah College and a Master of Arts degree in the English literature from the Univesity of Virginia. He has written two plays, a collection of poetry and manages a theater company in Virginia.

*** CLICK HERE for a 1h 19 min recording of this event ***

Shiv Rajendran

Why learn a language in a virtual world?

Thu 12 November 2009, 4pm GMT (World Time)

With so many different options available for language learner why choose virtual worlds? This presentation takes you through the not-so-obvious advantages with demonstrations and explanations of how they work.

Location: Languagelab in Second life http://bit.ly/languagelab

About Shiv Rajendran
Shiv joins us live from London, UK (local time 5pm).
Shiv (www.shv.me) co-founded Languagelab.com in 2005. The oldest and largest virtual world languages school with students in more than 50 different countries. Shiv has a Master’s degree in Digital Culture & Technology, a background using technology for a variety of purposes, and is a life long gamer.

*** CLICK HERE for a 32 min recording of the event ***

Lukas

Fronter presentation

Thu 12 November 2009, 4:30pm (World Time)

Fronter is a learning platform used by millions of students and teachers around the world. Lukas Palecek of the Czech-Slovak office, the newest Fronter representation, will highlight the key features making the platform appealing to educators, management and policy-makers.
Having run the organizational and training activities of the development of the WebSchool Group projects, Lukas will draw a few blueprints for building the online part of a school or a business.

About Lukáš Paleček
Lukas, 27, is the head of a Czech based online school. Having finished the Anglo American University in Prague he went through the first LANCELOT course in 2007 and started teaching online. In 2008 he set up WebSchool s.r.o. and started work on the projects of the WebSchol Group. A series of the web-based school's projects are about to be launched in the coming months. Through WebSchool s.r.o. Lukas now represents Spreed virtual clasroom and the Fronter learning platform in CZ and SK. He is also heading to his Msc in E-learning in 2010.

*** CLICK HERE for a 30 min recording of the event ***

Lars Gyorvari

Phase-6 Guaranteed long-term retention

Thu 12 November 2009, 5pm GMT (World Time)

Phase-6, an ingenious vocabulary trainer. Guaranteed long-term retention.

Lars Gyorvari
Lars joins us live from beautiful Switzerland, local time 6pm.
Lars is the webcast specialist of phase-6 a Swiss based company with branches in Chicago etc.

*** CLICK HERE for a 28 min recording of the event ***

Ton Koenraad

NIFLAR - Networked Interaction in Foreign Language Acquisition and Research

Thu 12 November 2009, 5:30pm GMT (World Time)

The international project NIFLAR, Networked Interaction in Foreign Language Acquisition and Research, has received a grant from the European Union. The University of Utrecht coordinates this project, in which eight universities cooperate in and outside Europe and which has started on 1 January 2009. The aim of NIFLAR is to make foreign language education more authentic and interactive through innovative e-learning environments.

About Ton Koenraad
Ton joins us live from Utrecht in the Netherlands, local time 6:30pm.

*** CLICK HERE for a 31 min recording of the event ***

Gavin Dudeney

Heike Philp

Pete Sharma

Shaun Wilden

Moderation: Marina Petrovic

PANEL DISCUSSION "Technology will not replace teachers but teachers who use technology will probably replace teachers who do not"- Ray Clifford

Thu 12 November 2009, 7pm GMT (World Time)

Panelists (in alphabetical order):
Gavin Dudeney, The Consultants-E
Heike Philp, LANCELOT School GmbH
Pete Sharma, Pete Sharma Associates
Shaun Wilden, IH World
Moderation: Marina Petrovic

About Gavin Dudeney

Gavin Dudeney has worked in education since 1988, as a teacher, materials developer, IT manager and web/user interface designer. Until the end of 2003 he held two posts: the first as Head of the New Technologies Department at International House Barcelona, and the second as Lead Developer for the online training centre Net Languages . In 2003 he left to set up the Consultants-E, an online training and development consultancy, and has worked as the Technical Director since then. His work involves project planning and delivery, as well as the EduNation presence in Second Life. He has published 'The Internet and the Language Classroom' (CUP, 2000) and - with Nicky Hockly - 'How to Teach English with Technology' (Longman, 2007). This second book won the 2007 International House Ben Warren Trust Prize for the most outstanding work in teacher education. He has recently finished another book in the famous Dummies series (also with Nicky Hockly) and a chapter for a forthcoming book on Second Life in Further and Higher Education. The Consultants-E run online training courses and their 'ICT in the Classroom' was a winner of a 2007 British Council ELTON award. This course is now fully-accredited and known as the Trinity CertICT.

About Heike Philp

Heike Philp is founder and managing director of LANCELOT School GmbH, an accredited training center for language trainers in the use of state-of-the-art virtual classroom technology. With over 20 years in education and several years of teaching German in Japan and the UK, Heike took on the live online challenge by starting a virtual language school and her experience subsequently led her to co-initiate the European funded LANCELOT project. The LANCELOT project saw 23 partners in 8 countries jointly developing a train-the-trainer course for language teachers. Heike’s enthusiasm for synchronous Internet communication also led her to co-initiate yet another European funded project: AVALON. AVALON stands for Access to Virtual and Action Learning live Online and is about language learning in Second Life, a 3D virtual world and starts in November 2008 with a consortium of 26 European partners, 11 of which are Universities. She is a frequent speaker at the Online Educa, EUROCALL, WIAOC, LearnTec and Illinois Online Conference about language learning with technology.

About Pete Sharma

Pete Sharma sometimes describes himself as wearing four different “hats”, the first being a teaching hat. His 23 years teaching business took him all over Europe, as well as to the Middle East and Far East. He is now enjoying the challenge of EAP in his work at Oxford Brookes University. For the first time ever, he has also moved outside language teaching, running courses on interpersonal skills and IT. Because he was only working a mere six days a week, he thought it would be a good idea to start a company, Pete Sharma Associates, which he has done with some ELT colleagues, to pursue his twin professional loves: technology and teacher training. His second hat as a teacher trainer has given him fascinating insights into the area of teacher education and teacher development. For some years he was the Training and Development manager for Linguarama. He describes himself as an “accidental author” – he was so frustrated that there were NO books on CD-ROM that he wrote one. His second book, The Internet and Business English, co-written with Barney Barrett, was Highly Commended in the Duke of Edinburgh ESU awards. Thanks to writing the business English e-lesson for Macmillan he has started exploring the actual process of materials writing. It was also stimulating to do the Teacher’s Book for Mark Powell’s In Company Upper-intermediate (Macmillan). His outstanding Blended Learning: using technology in and beyond the language classroom (Macmillan 2007) was shortlisted for the Ben Warren International House Trust prize, 2008. His fourth hat is reviewing books and software, contributing the Reviews in brief column for the International English Book Centre, in the EL Gazette. He adds reviews to his new website, www.te4be.com , which aim is to inform teachers about technology in language teaching.

About Shaun Wilden

Shaun Wilden has been involved in ELT for more than twenty years. He is the International House World Organisation Teacher Training Coordinator overseeing their online training site , ihonlinetraining.net and also works as a freelance teacher trainer and materials writer. He has contributed materials to a number of coursebooks. He does the occasional bit of CELTA tutoring and work on a DELTA course for IH Prague and spends may days a year delivering training sessions teachers. He loves making courses on the moodle platform. Apart from that he maintains several online teaching sites including ihonlinetraining.net, he is interested in the application of technology to teaching.

*** CLICK HERE for a 1h 10 min recording of the event ***

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