IATEFL Archives - LearnJam

LXD in action: running a design sprint at IATEFL 2019

January 31, 2020April 18, 2019 by Katy Asbury

At ELTjam we’ve developed a practical, learner-centred approach to product design that we call Learner Experience Design. We work with organisations to apply this process to learner and teacher problems and come up with solutions; whether that’s an app, a full online course, or a lesson plan or syllabus. To show this approach in action , Katy and Berta ran an IATEFL workshop to showcase a process we use, the ‘Learner Experience Design Sprint’.

ELTjam at IATEFL 2019

February 3, 2020March 26, 2019 by Tim Gifford

We are delighted to announce that we have three sessions at IATEFL 2019. We’ll also be taking part in a panel discussion. Come and find out more in our latest blog post!

Learning, design and sustainable development

January 31, 2020May 30, 2018 by Tim Gifford

“For an activity to be engaging, it needs to be meaningful; for that meaning to endure, it needs to be memorable.”

Zahra Davidson and her work with Enrol Yourself is challenging our vision of lifelong learning. This award-winning social enterprise has been exploring the potential of peer groups to maximise individual and collective progress. Zahra shared her thoughts on the future of learning and assessment at the IATEFL event ELTjam co-organised with Cambridge Assessment English.

Big data, trust and the future of language assessment

January 30, 2020May 29, 2018 by Tim Gifford

“Educators and examiners perform an array of functions that, as far as I’m concerned, make them irreplaceable.”

During the recent IATEFL conference in Brighton, ELTjam and Cambridge Assessment English hosted a series of talks exploring the future of learning and assessment. Below is the transcript of the talk given by Pamela Baxter, the Director of Cambridge Exams Publishing.

10 things I wish I’d known before my first IATEFL

January 30, 2020April 25, 2018 by Anna Neil

Here’s a rundown of my top takeaways from my inaugural IATEFL, as well as a few tips for other teachers thinking about checking it out for the first time …

ELTjam LXD Session: Lindsay Clandfield and the game changers

January 31, 2020June 20, 2016 by Tim Gifford

ELT EdTech, if we use a video game metaphor, is like Pong. (Lindsay Clandfield)

Possibly the best quote on the state of ELT digital products ever. Lindsay was one of the four speakers that addressed the topic of Learner Experience Design (LXD) at our ELTjam Session on the 13th April. His 10-minute spot covered the growing influence of video games and the surprise survival of the fitness industry. Find out how Lindsay tied it all together…

ELTjam LXD Session: Nick Robinson

January 31, 2020May 11, 2016 by Tim Gifford

On the evening of the 13th April, amidst the noise and tomfoolery of the 50th IATEFL Conference, we hosted an underground ELTjam Session on Learner Experience Design (LXD). We invited four speakers to share their thoughts on the subject, while the audience supped on craft ales. First up was our very own Nick Robinson. Here is his opening salvo from that night …

Apple’s electric car and the death of language teaching as we know it

January 30, 2020December 2, 2015 by Nick Robinson

When I was four, going on five, a TV show called Knight Rider premiered in the UK. I loved it and remained a fan for most of my childhood (OK, I admit it; I’m still a fan). There was The Hoff, of course – all leather jackets, open shirt buttons and swagger – but the real star of the show was K.I.T.T – Knight Industries Two Thousand – the ‘advanced, artificially intelligent, self-aware and nearly indestructible car’. Over thirty years later Apple and Google are in a head-to-head race to bring K.I.T.T’s spiritual successor – the driverless car – to market. And, as a little-known and hard-to-spot side effect, the ramifications for the teaching of languages, especially English, could be huge.

Top-five posts of 2014

January 30, 2020December 31, 2014 by Blog Editor

Looking back at the blog over the past year we can see we’ve had some fantastic people contributing posts and comments. It’s really interesting to see which posts got the most views, sparked the most debate and kickstarted conversations that resulted in fully-fledged follow up posts. This Top Five shows we really couldn’t run the blog without all of you, so a big thanks to everyone and here’s a look at the biggest posts

5 minutes at an ELTjam session: Pt. 1/3

January 30, 2020April 28, 2014 by Tim Gifford

During the 2014 IATEFL conference in Harrogate ELTjam hosted a low-key, invite-only event in a hotel across from the main conference centre. It was called the ELTjam session and was intended to bring together individuals from across the ELT and learning space in order to share insights and predictions on what the future might hold for the industry.

Image by Flickr user Pierre Tourigny Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Why we should be afraid of the big bad wolf: Sugata Mitra and the neoliberal takeover in sheep’s clothing

February 5, 2020April 9, 2014 by Hugh Dellar

The proliferation of blog posts that have followed in the wake of Sugata Mitra’s keynote speech at IATEFL Harrogate last Saturday morning is almost as remarkable as the fact that such a controversial figure was given the opportunity to deliver his barely concealed sales pitch to such a large and captive audience without having to submit to the usual plenary speaker protocol of then facing a more rigorous Q&A session. Even more astounding, though, was the ecstatic outpouring that greeted the end of Mitra’s talk: the mobbing, the autograph hunting, the eulogies. Which part of his message were people not getting, I fretted to myself? The answer, it seems on reflection, was pretty much all of it.

The EdTech Boogie

January 31, 2020December 11, 2013 by Nick Robinson

It is educational publishers, in partnership with the educators and the learners who are their customers, who are best placed to show the world how this great deluge of information can best be mediated because that is their business and always has been.