Multiliteracies Portals: 2005 Web portal | Moodle | Desire to Learn | 'Multilit' Yahoo Group
Vance's projects: CALL Resources & Site Index | Presentations & Publications | Webheads in Action
URL for this page: http://sites.hsprofessional.com/vstevens/files/efi/papers/tesol/ppot/participants2005.htm

Meet the Participants in the 2005 course: Multiliteracies for Collaborative Learning Environments

Maryanne Burgos and MaryJane Danan have joined the Moodle from last year's course, welcome.

Name (Green indicates enrolled in Moodle)	#	Title Affiliation Location	Personal vignettes, blogs and URLs	Contacts	Association with course
Angela Waigand		United Arab Emirates	I'm from Vancouver, Canada, but like Vance, I live in the United Arab Emirates, the American University of Sharjah specifically. I teach in the Intensive English Program here. This semester I am teaching intermediate level writing and upper-intermediate listening and speaking. Many instructors in our department are strong proponents of Moodle which I have just begun using in class this semester. It will be interesting for me to use it from the learner's perspective as well.		enrolled in 2005
Bob Palmer		Sapporo, Japan / Maryville, Tennessee	I teach EFL/CALL at Sapporo University and several other universities in greater Sapporo. Currently, I am teaching English listening and oral communication. Here, more and more teachers are experimenting with various types of CALL to capture student attention. Moodle is in vogue, and more universities are requesting that teaching applicants have some degree of CALL training or experience to be considered for employment. Keeping up with developments in this field is thus becoming a professional requirement, and I'm guessing the same holds true for everyone in this course.		enrolled in 2005
Buthaina Alothman		Faculty of Science of Kuwait University	http://www.vancestevens.com/papers/evonline2002/community.htm#buth I am indeed grateful to Vance and all the other Webheads who helped me learn and improve in terms of professional development. I feel so lucky and proud to belong to such a wonderful community online that is a true invaluable source of knowledge for ESL/EFL students and teachers. http://www.geocities.com/esl_efl_ku/ . My learning experience at Webheads' has resulted in a great, positive outcome for me and my students of the two classes, General English and an ESP, I teach in the Faculty of Science of Kuwait University. To have an idea or see what I mean, please check out the following two URLs of pages on ways I utilized free asynchronous and synchronous CMC tools implementing the knowledge I gained from Vance and the other experts at Webheads; To view web-projects created for my students, using asynchronous CMC tools, please go to: http://alothman-b.tripod.com/cmc_students_projects.htm To view web-projects created for my students, using synchronous CMC tools, please go to: http://alothman-b.tripod.com/cmc_stud	Yahoo: buthaina_3	guest presenter
Claire Bradin Siskin		Pennsylvania	(Past?) Chair of the TESOL PDC/OPD (Online Professional Development) / Distance Learning Portfolio Group		guest presenter
Dafne Gonzales		Back in Spain from Venezuela	I am co-teaching the PP104 course, plus 2 courses at my university: ESP (English for Architecture and Urban Planning) and education-technology related courses at the graduate level. Since 2002 when I joined Webheads in Action all my courses have an online component or they are completely online. My students both graduate and undergraduate have enjoyed and benefitted from the interaction with people from all over the world. Last trimester some of my students used photostory3 for their final projects, the problem was that the products were too heavy and I could not publish them on the course Web page. I will try to incorporate videos, but will start first with the plog. I have to go little by little with them. Just the fact of having a course Web page, using Moodle, blogs, wikies, audacity, and a couple of other applications is kind of overwhelming at the beginning. http://www.geocities.com/dygonza/index.html		guest presenter
Dennis Maloney		Guyaquil, Ecuador	This Dennis enrolled in this course before I set the key. So I wrote him but so far with no response. If we don't hear from Dennis shortly we'll quietly remove him from here, but if he participates, we may reward him for his multiliteracy. - Vance		appeared at Moodle before key was set
Dennis Oliver		Phoenix, Arizona	http://www.d-oliver.net/ Here are some of more of my interests: cooking, choral music (especially Russian), reading (strictly escapist), travel (haven't done much recently, but I've done quite a bit in the past). Dennis is blogging his thoughts on this course: http://multilit.blogspot.com		enrolled in 2005
Doris Molero			Hi, I'm Doris Molero from Venezuela. I'm really excited to be participating in this multiliterate adventure with my fellow friends the webheads. I'm an EFL professor at Universidad Dr. Rafael Belloso University in Maracaibo, Venezuela. I teach all levels and right now, I'm working on ESP and Communicative English for Engineers. Well, Hope this experience together can benefit us all and the most important to our students. Warm abrazos for you all. Keep on shining!
Elderbob Brannan		Grand Prairie, Texas	I really do think of myself as a student of multi-literacy. I am not a teacher by profession, but I am a teacher by personality. My formal training seems to hop-scotch all over the place. I know as much about setting up and managing a Yahoo email group as I do about social work (my profession), or personal life coaching (my avocation) or glass- blowing (one of my hobbies). I am a great believer in constructivism and am living proof the desire to learn does not diminish with age. I am a retiree with sufficient means to study the things I want to study, and to teach what I am interested in. I am sooooo lucky. I wear many hats. For this class, I have chose the "Mad Scientist of Knowplace" avatar, so I think I will stick with that metaphor. I suppose, in terms of technology, I am a bit of a scientist, in the sense, that although I may not truly understand the technology, I am definitely willing to experiment with it to find out what it's properies and uses are. I think I have a fairly unbiased and critical eye when I want to....and the other eye is just plain "evil" (maybe I should wear a patch). I do have trouble taking myself seriously, but then on the other hand, it would be foolish for anyone who knows me, not to take me seriously. If I say I can do something, I will do my dead level best to to do it. I am a seeker of information and a distributor of information. I dream and think in technicolor with multi- channel sound tracks. I edit my life, like I edit film, a bit choppy in spots but full of animation and feeling. I am here because I am curious, and will stay here, until I understand most of it, and then I will move on. My sidekick, Igor and I, cruise the internet freeway in a convertible....laughing in the night, barreling toward the unknown future with not much of a care or regret. If you want to ride with me, sit in the back seat, strap yourself in, and be prepared to feel the wind whooosh through your hair. http://www.elderbob.com	Ineen - 2003331 ICQ: 12853235 Skype: elderbob	guest presenter
Graciela Martin		Buenos Aires, Argentina	I teach English as a foreign language at Icana, a private institute. I'm also an academic coordinator there. This is my first online course. I hope I can make the most of it. My first blog: Sites on Multiliteracies http://gracielamartinmultilit.blogspot.com/
Holly Dilatush		Back in Korea from South Korea	I'm on the Moodle brigade -- I LOVE Moodles! I've just recently returned from Korea and am teaching in Charlottesville VA. I'm piloting a new ESL course (using Crossroads Cafe) this session as well, using a Moodle to keep our diverse blended class communicating. I've also been trying to maintain contact with students from Korea through the Global Greetings Moodle that I've created. http://thehsmile.org	skype: smilin7 Yahoo: smilin7h	enrolled in 2005
Hyman Wong		Hong Kong	I am located in Hong Kong, South of China. My work is built around English Language learning. I was teaching English to secondary students and now provide teacher support to primary school teachers. I also do evening teaching at college. I have heard about moodle for a while and with the help of IT teacher, I host my moodle at school. However, I don't know how to use it and don't know how to manage it. I hope I can learn more about it. Hyman's blog: http://multilitit.blogspot.com		enrolled in 2005
Lilia Joy		Hanson, Kentucky	I have taken this course before and thanks to Vance have gained a new perspective on my teaching methods. Thank you for inviting us to be part of this community of educators and thinkers! Vance is the first educator I have ever met who, instead of hoarding his ideas and experiences away, unselfishly shares his talent, time, effort, and knowledge with the rest of the world. I look forward to reading other people's ideas and sharing my own. Lilia I am originally from Russia, Urals Region. I've been living in the US for 8 years. For the last 5 years I've been residing in Hanson, Kentucky, a little rural town on top of beautiful green hills, with my husband, two kids, two cats, a dog, a fish, and a frog. I earned my MA in TESOL in 2003. Since then, I've been working as an adjunct at the University of Southern Indiana and Henderson Community College. I teach academic writing at two pre-composition levels and ESL Writing Lab. Here is my blog: http://liliajoy.blogspot.com/	Yahoo: joydiver	veteran from 2004
Maryanne Burgos			Teaching L2: Maryanne's blog http://teachingl2.blogspot.com I began teaching in an IEP in 1966 in Washington, D.C. when I graduated from Georgetown U. Since then I have taught ESL/EFL in Arkansas, Mexico City (where I lived for 9 years) and Buffalo, NY (where I am from). Although I began working with adults, I spent most of my teaching career working in the public schools in Buffalo working with children in grades 6-12 teaching ESL and occasionally - Spanish. For the last few years I have been teaching one or two courses at the State Univeristy of New York at Buffalo in the teacher training program. I usually taught a course on Teaching Writing and, more recently, one of Computers in L2. I think I chose this course partly because of the title Multiliteracies, although I haven't yet given much thought to its exact meaning. I hope to work on that today. I know that for both the children and adults that I have worked with, writing is one of their greatest obstacles to success in an English environment. I'm very interested in exploring with all of you, how the new technologies impact of this skill as well the other communication skills. I'm very glad to be part of this new community of learning.
Mary Jane Danan			Multiliteracies and me: My first blog http://mdanan76.blogspot.com I teach Japanese university students who come to Oregon for a 10-month language and culture study abroad program. During the intensive ESL semester, I usually teach reading and writing to beginners. I work with a variety of content electives in other semesters. I have not done much with "multiliteracies", but each course is broadening my horizons that much more as to the possibilities. Susan's online course last fall got me started and led me to join the certificate program. The material just gets more amazing as I go. This is my fifth course in the program.
Norbella Miranda		Cali, Colombia	Norbella's Weblog: This is my weblog for online learning http://mylearningblog.blogspot.com I work for a private university in Cali, Universidad de San Buenaventura- where I teach general English, ESP, Didactics, and Reading. (Last year this was) the fifth online course I'm taking and I feel that I'm starting to know how to use and take advantage of technology		veteran from 2004
Roger Drury		Atlanta, Georgia	I have a couple of projects going on right now, and I'm hoping the work in this class will feed into them. For one, I'm doing my first-ever on-line class, and I'm intimidated as can be at the technical aspect of it. I can plan an online course, I can develop its content, and I think I can direct it, but I'm really not sure I can manage all the course tools. Whew... I'm also trying to make our far-too-academic grammar classes more communicative. That's mostly a question of finding time to develop activities, so I feel like that's do-able. My last focus is to do some reading and thinking about how learning styles theory can fit into online teaching. I want to apply this my own teaching (completely online and blended), and I hope my research will lead to a few conference presentations (and maybe even a grant).		enrolled in 2005
Shelly Peters		Nagoya, Japan	I am an instructor in an intensive English program at Chubu University in Nagoya, Japan. http://opelt.lc.chubu.ac.jp/chubu/index.html I've finally gotten some thoughts down at: http://shellbakis.buzznet.com/user/		enrolled in 2005
Vance Stevens		Lecturer of Computing, Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi UAE	Introducing Vance: http://www.vancestevens.com/vance.htm This is the second time I've coordinated this course. I didn't know a lot about multiliteracies before I agreed to take on this course, but in researching the topic, I've become fascinated (if not knowledgeable) with it. I don't think that I need to be the expert in the topic in order to facilitate this course because I'm looking forward to working toward developing each participant's personal understanding of the term and how it applies to each individual's situation. An important part of multiliteracy is developing appropriate heuristics for coming to terms with ever-changing playing fields and I hope I will be able to model some of my own as well as learn some heuristics that participants in this course might suggest to me.	email: vstevens @emirates.net.ae skype: blocked in UAE Yahoo: vance_stevens	facilitator
Srisucha McCabe	14	TESOL, Alexandria, VA	Education Programs Coordinator, TESOL		TESOL staff
John Donaldson	15	TESOL, Alexandria, VA	Director of Education Programs		TESOL staff

©opyright 2005 by Vance Stevens