Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Making Waves and Culture Gone Digital

It is pure redundancy to say it, but the best part of joining a Conference like TESOL is really weaving and threading what you want to learn, your curious mind to the connections and networking that take place.

This TESOL was no different. Besides meeting my dear old Webheads community, I had the chance to revolve around the Electronic Village wonderful ideas and people excitedly presenting about their projects, ideas, developments and apps they've been trying out.



Also, it gave me immense pleasure to present twice in totally different topics that converged, though, into one idea: the idea of Culture.

In Cultural Expeditions Gone Digital, part of the Intersections colloquium,  I tried to explore with the audience some ways in which educators could enhance their culturally-smart classes through the wonders of cultural richness provided by exciting digital possibilities. Besides the cultural immersion through digital resources, I've shared some practical ideas for the classroom.


Here's the slideshow and all the references are available at http://brazilbridges.pbworks.com/w/page/51986293/Cultural%20Expeditions


In an another session, I've explored the idea of the new paradigms of the culture of Professional Development, not institutionally-bound anymore, but, in fact, self-directed and self-assembled through the possibilities provided by the digital world in a sustainable model of continuous evolvement of our own PD. All of that in big waves of micro-revolutions, those that we are the holders of our own professional destiny in a connected realm of people, networks, and nodes of learning. 


All the references are at http://brazilbridges.pbworks.com/w/page/52460489/Making%20Waves


Tesol12 Making Waves Through Online Circles of Learning
View more PowerPoint from Carla Arena

All in all, it was inspiring to be at TESOL to see what other professionals are up to. I just wish some would take more time learning about how to best present their messages...but this would be for another post!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Carla,
    I have always wondered: Where does evaluation fit into PLNs among students? If it is a free-path finder, do institutional standards ever get into play? Can you coach learning objectives using PLNs?
    I appreciate your thoughts on these questions.
    Thank you very much.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's a very good questions, Julio. I think that assessment needs to become more fluid and dynamic just like the PLNs and one way to do that is by evaluating students not through traditional tests, but project-based, problem-based projects in which they need to rely on their network to complete their assessment portfolios. What is your thought on that?

    ReplyDelete

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