WiAOC 2007

The Webheads in Action Online Convergence was held last weekend!

Although I wish that I could have attended many more sessions, the recordings and related resources are still available. I was so happy to hear two fabulous presentations about educational blogging by much-admired colleagues!

The first one was delivered by Vance Stevens, Nelba Quintana, Rita Zeinstejer, and Sasha Sirk; their presentation title was "Writingmatrix: CONNECTing students with blogs, tags, and social networking". These teachers had an idea to connect students to people outside the classroom using blogs, tags, and social bookmarking. It was interesting to see how the project was implemented by teachers in different parts of the world and students who are at various age and English levels.

The second one was presented by Carla Arena, Erika Cruvinel, and Ronaldo Lima; their presentation title was "Blogging with Students: Ideas to Enhance Communication". I was really impressed with this presentation because they discussed ways to maintain momentum and keep students interested in class blogging projects. Whereas the Blogging for Beginners EVO session focused mainly on developing teachers' skills to set up and manage a blog, this session focused on how to create and implement collaborative cross-cultural projects. They shared many examples including a mystery guest project, a scrapbook project, and even a blog for younger learners written by a dog!

The creativity and energy displayed through these online presentations was amazing and I'm hoping to implement some of their ideas in my class blog. More on that to come in a future update. In the meantime, check out the archives of WiAOC 2007 and leave a comment about your favorite presentations!