ELTChat Panel: A Ready-Made PLN for ELT Professionals

[Shelly Terrell]

RECORDING: http://lancelot.emea.acrobat.com/p85908492/  (1h 20min, 389 views since Oct 2010)

Saturday, 9 October 2010 - 6am GMT
ELTChat Panelists: Andy Chaplin, Marisa Constantinides, Berni Wall, Jason Renshaw, and Shelly Terrell

Did you know that 100s of ELT professionals meet online to vote on and discuss important issues related to our profession? This panel will discuss some of the past session issues and let you know how you can become involved. We will also listen to suggestions for future topics. Check out the ELTChat website for more details.

The panel includes Andy Chaplin, Marisa Constantinides, Berni Wall, Jason Renshaw, and Shelly Terrell who help moderate the Wednesday #ELTChat discussions that take place on Twitter.

Trailer on Youtube (problems seeing Youtube video? Refresh page)

Notes:

#ELTChat every Wednesday at 3pm London time and 9pm London time

Website: http://eltchat.com/ with chat summary, ELT podcasts, and polls to vote on topic
Useful tool to follow the discussion: http://tweetgrid.com/

On the site
1. Vote for your favorite topic
2. Need to be on twitter
3. Use the hashtag at the end of your tweet

Poll is always posted on a Sunday, Closes at 2 o’clock on Wednesday
Many reminders throughout the day

Topic highlights:
Critial thinking versus comprehension

Good point by Jason that he does not have the whole day to watch twitter, but he always has 1h for professional development, so to him it makes total sense.

Andy: The transcript shows several different aspects of the chat and having two or three moderators is very useful as there is usually more than one thread in the chat.

Tips for participants:

1. Can be overwhelming--hone in on one or two topics
2. Retweet links
3. Don’t always have to agree with the point to retweet

Shelly: Using Tweetdeck for Hashtag Discussions http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org/2009/09/01/edchat-update-using-...

The ELTchat website received a tefl.net award and had only been online for three weeks