I have more involvement with CATESOL, the California state organization (I’m not sure if it’s TESOL’s biggest affiliate, but it seems like it probably is). They’re trying to organize some online presence such as online broadcasts of conference sessions. I wanted to help out with that, but I was a little late to participate. Maybe I can be more useful next year. I don’t know if there will be wifi at the conference next week or not…Of course, there can’t be response unless there’s a demand, as you say, and I just don’t know if there’s a demand. There’s an Electronic Village at CATESOL (in which I’m participating) but it’s been rather software-oriented in the past, not very 21st-century. I thought about sending in a proposal on using Twitter, actually, but since I never use it on a real phone (just an iPod Touch and a laptop) I didn’t think I was qualified.

I have no idea if TESOL is paying attention to IATEFL, but I certainly hope they are.

Anyway, I’ll see what happens at this conference, I guess…

IATEFL, with support from the British Council, has made huge efforts over the last 4 years to organise an online presence for the conference. This means that people unable to attend in person, can feel part of the event. This has seen the setting up of a special website (http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org) and over the years, finding out how best to bring the conference to the people at home (streaming video of sessions for those with sufficient bandwidth, active forums for those who have less access to tech) and this year it is obvious that the formula works.

They have also responded well to innovations from the ground up. Last year it became obvious to the team behind IATEFL online that Twitter was going to be used at the conference and during a lot of the presentations to connect with people who weren’t there. So the British Council team made Twitter part of the official online presence, embedding the tool into the website, etc. The fact that there was free wifi at the conference helped a lot too. This year, it first looked as if there was going to be no free wifi at Harrogate, but the team did their utmost to ensure a sponsor, and found one (in the form of the UK’s Open University) – this ensured that the conference had a very healthy online presence and that people not able to attend were able to take part and feel as far as possible that they were there (you could see it in the Pre-conference event held in Second Life, and during the rest of the conference mainly through Twitter).

Now, I don’t know about this year, but I remember the TESOL in New York – as a presenter, if I wanted access to Internet, then I had to pay something like 100$ an hour! That’s quite a difference. At this conference, it was just not practical to connect to people online most of the time.

That’s not to say, however, that there’s no online presence at the TESOL conference. There is, but it seems to be focused on the dedicated group of teachers who attend called the Webheads, who for years have helped organise the Electronic Village. This year I know that there were lots of live sessions organised in the form of webinars and this group of people ensure that many people who can’t make it to the conference can virtually attend.

This aspect of the TESOL conference does seem to be less mainstream though, than at IATEFL – what needs to happen is a change further up in the organisation, for the organisers of the conference and the regular teachers to see the value of bringing this to a wider audience. TESOL certainly has the funds and the ability to do this, but seems to lack the interest. This is where the members come in. It’s up to regular members to show there’s a demand for this.

I’m not sure there are enough regular teachers using technology in the US for this to happen. At IATEFL the mindset of regular teachers is changing and more and more non-tech teachers are using tools such as Twitter to communicate with colleagues. It’s also been helped that a number of leading lights in the European ELT world, such as Jeremy Harmer and Scott Thornbury are also active on Twitter (and have also used Second Life)

Finally, I see this is something that can be improved upon if both organisations work together and learn from each other. At TESOL, the Electronic Village Online, organised in the six weeks preceding the conference does a fabulous job to bring teachers together from around the world, who cannot make the f2f conference. The Learning Technologies SIG of IATEFL experimented with doing something similar this year, albeit on a smaller scale. I think both organisations would greatly benefit from working more closely together.

Thanks for the links and thoughts! And I’m very sorry for the delay in approving your comment. I received a lot of new follower notices at the same time, and overlooked it.