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

[Heike Philp]

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

RECORDING: https://admin.emea.acrobat.com/_a789908106/p96025464/

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 ***