Calgary, October 27th-28th, ATESL 2023 Conference
I had the chance to attend the ATESL 2023 Conference in late October. It was nice to be in a little Calgary snow – reminds me of my hometown in Ontario – cold, dry air. This was the first face to face ATESL conference since the pandemic. The past few years I have attended this one online – but definitely nice to be back with a few coworkers at an actual venue. This year the conference was held at SAIT – the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
In reviewing my notes, I found one particular workshop interesting. It was put on by ISANS – Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia. They presented the Avenue technology standards. I tried to find these through Avenue.ca which is a website that offers training and connection to the Avenue Moodle and e-portfolio for LINC teachers, but didn’t have any luck so, I reached out to the presenters to find out more and they responded that Avenue will release these in the new year. So, their workshop was a bit of a sneak peek. During the workshop we read the standards and then reflected on how it might look in our own teaching setting.
From my workshop notes:
Standard 0 – Use the Avenue Tech Standards with thoughtful consideration, healthy skepticism, and reflective practice, in balance with a willingness to persist when faced with initial frustration.
My reflection: In language teaching, we know now that technology needs thoughtful consideration – unlike when the pandemic first closed everything down and we needed to throw together anything we could to keep our classes going. Now we have more time to think and reflect on what works and what does not. I definitely have developed a willingness to persist – in my own personal tech use and in using it in the classroom.
Standard 1 – Understand and use personal and institutional devices, operating systems, and networks to support quality technology – enhanced language teaching and learning.
My reflection: For teaching I am supposed to use my school laptop, and it can be a little tricky to always separate school from personal. I often find myself overlapping my personal device and my school device – it’s had to draw a clearcut line, but something I should keep in mind.
Standard 2 – Understand and use relevant tech resources and tools for language teaching – update and expand this regularly.
My reflection – I do have my favorite resources, but I realize that I should try to expand and try new things. This is one of my reasons for wanting to get my class onto Avenue and the e-portfolios. Not only does Avenue host the e-portfolios, but there are also many modules for my LINC level which is 5 – the modules contain many H5P materials that would be great for getting the students to interact with technology and the language.
Standard 3 – Integrate tech in teaching, informed by exemplary practice and relevant theory and research.
My reflection – this is one of my reasons for taking the MEd program – to have a chance to learn theories and research for myself but also to learn from others and then to get ideas for integrating this into my teaching with tech.
Standard 4 – Digital Citizenship – model the use of tech in safe, legal, ethical, and equitable ways.
My reflection – This is part of the digital literacy that I think is very important for my adult students. I try to model and guide them on using technology safely and responsibly. But I also have to keep myself updated on my digital literacy skills. There is always something new to learn in this changing field.
Standard 5 – Use tech thoughtfully to reflect diverse identities and contexts – use tech to help learners thrive.
My reflection – I guess my goal is to use technology to help learners thrive, but I don’t always check in with them to make sure they know why we are using it – and this is important. I recently did a writing assignment and had the students use Microsoft Word for their final copies. Once I explained that they will likely need to use a program like Word to do all their writing assignments on once they move to college programs, there was more interest in using Word, and using it correctly.
Standard 6 – Use tech to support, monitor and assess learner progress.
My reflection – This is why I want to move my class from physical binder portfolios to the Avenue e-portfolio. Avenue provides learning activities, a way for teachers to monitor, as well as the e-portfolio where assessments can be kept and easily reviewed.
Standard 7 – Use tech to connect with peers in a community of practice for pedagogical and personal support.
My reflection – Connecting with peers, coworkers, and classmates is very important. I remember spending hours talking on Teams with coworkers during the pandemic – testing how things would look for the class and brainstorming how to do things online. We supported each other and shared many tech tips and resources. It is what helped get us through that uncertain time.
Next Steps: As mentioned above I am interested in finding out more about these Avenue Standards and am looking forward to seeing them come out in the new year. I have also registered with Avenue and am going to try to complete some of the training with the goal of getting my class onboarded soon. I like the idea of using the H5P materials already on Avenue in the LINC modules, but also perhaps getting to the point of creating some myself. It won’t be easy, but I am very interested in getting my class working with the e-portfolio through Avenue….and maybe even convince my coworkers to try as well….
In the meantime, while looking into these standards, I came across the ISTE standards for the effective use of technology in schools worldwide, but that’s a whole other post!
References
Moodle (Director). (2020, October 4). H5P in Moodle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctRh1vtVXFA
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