About a month ago I attended my first ever international virtual conference, and it was a great experience.
The thought and detail that went into the conference was amazing. It was organized between the Regional English Language Office based in Lima, Peru (referred to as RELO Andes for short), Change Peru, an organization that offers personalized English classes, and a very talented and hardworking Virtual English Language Fellow. After registering and creating your account, you could create a profile that functioned like your digital business card. There was a reception area, a main stage, an area with sessions, an expo hall, and also a networking area. There was even a special room for presenters to test things out and talk with each other.
Communication was another element that was really well done. There was a chat box to allow everyone to communicate with everyone else in the reception area as well as in each session and the expo hall. The organizers and moderators were able to share important information through the chat and also with the use of pinned posts. Networking was a great way to connect with others and have a short conversation for 2 or 3 minutes before deciding if you wanted to stay in contact with the other person.
The presenters had a wealth of information to share. I attended sessions about giving writing feedback in a virtual setting, using dramatization in online classes, issues of copyright in language teaching, creating online courses that flow, and writing winning conference proposals. There were panels about teaching learners with special needs, and the keynote speakers talked about the challenges that we’re facing, how they’ve handled the situation in Peru, and how they are hopeful and optimistic for the future.
I was also fortunate to get to give a workshop at the conference. I was nervous given the online format and that there were over 3,000 people attending. I practiced and made sure I was confident with using the platform, and overall it went really well. There will be a YouTube video up later this month with the workshop.
So what did I learn from the conference?
One of the presenters shared that he has a comment bank of about 60 comments to use when correcting student writing online. He also showed how he uses Loom to give video feedback. I’ve heard about this before, but I haven’t put forth the effort to explore this. I think it’s something worth my time, and this session was a reminder of that.
Another presenter talked about the idea of combining your passions into your classes. He shared his passion for theater and music, and he showed how he brought that into his teaching. He shared some people that are doing similar things (David Farmer, Trevor Baffone, Barbican Theater, and Bekah Schneider) as well as Flipgrid as a tool to engage students. I’ve heard of Flipgrid but haven’t explored it yet, so that’s also on my list.
In a session about creating virtual courses, there were some great ideas and resources. The presenter emphasized the importance of people and interaction over technology and content when making decisions about teaching, and he showed how Change Peru made online teaching work for a course with kids that had resources at home as well as kids without resources. He shared how he uses Streamlabs, Mailchimp, British Council Kids, Anglia, and the Pearson Global Scale of English as tools for creating courses and implementing classes.
I also learned to remember to be patient. There were people connecting to the conference using their cell phone, and they didn’t have the best of connections to be able to talk during networking. Other people had children they were taking care of that appeared on camera, and some weren’t sure how to use technology and navigate the conference.
Overall, it wasn’t the same as an in-person conference but it was still an amazing experience. I got to talk to people from all over the world, and a lot of learning came out of these two days. I took a break to recharge, and now I can see how to implement what I’ve learned to my classes.
