Registration for EVO2015 begins today!

To register, go to EVO Sessions.

Registration for this year's Electronic Village Online (free online professional development sessions for EFL and ESL teachers) begins January 5, 2015. The sessions themselves run from January 12 until February 15, 2015.

Get more information about all thirteen sessions at http://evosessions.pbworks.com.


If you are having trouble deciding on which session to register for, please join us at http://learningtimesevents.org/webheads/ (scroll down for instructions and technical requirements) for the EVO2015 kickoff webcast on January 11, 2015 at 14:00/2:00 p.m. GMT (your local time at bit.ly/1CaH6fq)!

Session moderators will be on hand to introduce their sessions and take questions.

Enjoy and be happy!

For a wonderful 2015, full of happy sincere authentic collaborative learning and teaching!

Thank you to all who, whatever the way, have been supporting me throughout 2014, which undoubtedly will always be a year to remember!

Recording of Flip, Blend and Wrap it all up! is ready now

Last 1 December, my peer Billy J. Ramos, @somar0209, and myself copresented together the third live session of the series entitled The EduPower of Blended Learning at WizIQ.

In this last session, we gave tips about surviving through face-to-face lessons, combined with a virtual classroom at Edu 2.0, and through collaborative project blogging challenges.

For those of you who could not attend live, here you are the recording ready now:



We are looking forward to gaining your feedback and reading your comments!

The World is my audience

As you all know by now, the Twima Project has been going on  for a few months, along the last term.
In previous entries here, we have been following it step by step, from scratch to its web launch, until now, when it comes to its end with a wonderful collaborative iBook compiled with the contribution of more than 170 writers from all around the world, being smoothly coordinated by @theipodtecher, who was the one coming up with this wonderful globally connected idea.

Our contribution to #twima from Spain comes hand in hand with the online teacher training course 'Digital Storytelling For Teachers', run by INTEF, and hosted by an awesome team of instructors, who encouraged and fostered their trainees to play a part in a collaborative chain story, which has now gone global. I sincerely thank them for that!

A chain story is an easy way to have students learn vocabulary and work with their friends to create a collaborative story. In a chain story, the teacher begins the story, student A continues the story, student B continues where A stopped, and so on.  The students have to listen to each other and understand each other so that the story makes sense and flows.

For this activity, trainnees contributed to a collaborative web chain story, using an online tool, Padlet. This tool allows you to click on the web wall and add text, images, videos, and more. Trainees did not have to register, but they were kindly asked to include their name. Of course, they can contribute on any mobile device with internet access or on the web.

We had over a hundreed online course participants, divided into five groups, to whom we provided the same beginning of a chain poem, and whose chained outcome can be read at the different group poems below:

Group A - http://padlet.com/majegsm/chainpoem_A 

Group B - http://padlet.com/majegsm/chainpoem_B  

Group C - http://padlet.com/majegsm/chainpoem_C 

Group D - http://padlet.com/majegsm/chainpoem_D 

Group E - http://padlet.com/majegsm/chainpoem_E 

To contribute to the poem, our trainees had to read the entire story up to the last post, contribute with a chunk that made sense and continued the flow of the poem as well as being related to the previous post, and adding multimedia elements to accompany their part of the poem, but involving an added snag: their contribution should be at least 100 words long.

The collaborative poems that they have come up with are now part of the #twima iBook The World Is My Audience, live at iTunes, free to download on all iOS devices and Macs.

Flip, Blend and Wrap it all up!

Join us for this free live session at WizIQ on Monday 1 December, at 6pm GMT+1

The experience about blended learning we would like to share with you all in this live session entitled 'Flip, Blend and Wrap it all up!' is a range of learning challenges that we have accomplished flipping and blending lessons and breainstorming with you about your own e-learning challenges, how to set them up step by step, and offering tips on digital tools and digital assessment.

Flip, Blend and Wrap it all up!

Uploaded by María Jesús on WizIQ Tutorials

This is the third live session of the series entitled 'The EduPower of Blended Learning', a self-training online course in order to get ready for the Teachers Micro Teaching in Pairs series on WizIQ, hosted by Dr. Nellie Deutsch.

This live session is co-presented by @mjgsm and @somar0209.

Shape Your Online Classroom & Blend it with Hands-on Projects

Join us for this free live session at WizIQ on Monday 24 November, at 6pm GMT+1

The session entitled 'Shape Your Online Classroom & Blend it with Hands-on Projects' is aiming at sharing tips with online teachers about how to set up a virtual classroom using Edu 2.0, combine it with learning challenges, team e-projects and collaborative classroom blog.

This is the second live session of the series entitled 'The EduPower of Blended Learning', a self-training online course in order to get ready for the Teachers Micro Teaching in Pairs series on WizIQ, hosted by Dr. Nellie Deutsch

This live session is co-presented by @mjgsm and @somar0209.

Shape Your Online Classroom & Blend it with Hands-on Projects

Uploaded by María Jesús on WizIQ Tutorials

MicroTeaching in Pairs. The Premiere!

Part of the Teachers Micro Teaching in Pairs thanks to Integrating Technology 4 Active Lifelong Learning

Read about the Micro Teaching official opening on 5 November, join, and do not miss our premiere on 3 November, 6pm Spanish time.

View the recordings and learn about how to get started.

Blend, Flip and Boost Your Teaching Up!

Join The EduPower Couple! for a free live session at Wiziq on November 3 2014, at 18:00, GMT+1.

We are looking forward to sharing with you all at the kick off of our first ever micro teaching in pairs experience at WizIQ: The EduPower of Blended Learning.

This first live session in the micro teaching in pairs experience will be inntroducing blended learning through flipped classrooms, teamwork and project based learning methodology, all linked together via ICT.

We will be co-presenting about our practice with flipped and PBL methodology at University in Madrid, where Billy and I met as student and teacher, and how blended learning has allowed us to extend our relationship until becoming peer presenters and course designers.

Blend, Flip & Boost Your Teaching Up

Uploaded by María Jesús on WizIQ Tutorials

This is the first tip about how blended learning might be the means for peer to peer teaching and learning. Or, would you rather think face-to-face sessions alone have the same power to keep students and teachers in touch in such a way as to start professional e-projects together after the classroom door closes?

If you'd like to share the answer with us, we will be more than happy to chat with you and all the attendees interested in having an interactive relaxed paired-up webinar.

Badges: Game, Reward, Professional Digital Credentials?

You are invited to join me for the free live class 'Badges: game, reward, professional digital e-credentials?' on October 4 2014, at 16:00 Spanish time.

Check your time around the world.




This free live class is part of the courseware of Moodle MOOC 5, hosted and coordinated by the team from Integrating Technology 4 Active Lifelong Learning from 1 to 31 October 2014, and I will be glad to share with you my experience and viewpoints on issuing and gaining badges at Moodle; connecting with your Mozilla BackPack, accepting your badges, creating a public collection and sharing your digital badges with the world.

Badges, Game, Reward, Professional Digital e-Credentials ?

Uploaded by María Jesús on WizIQ Tutorials

My warmest thanks to Dr. Nellie Deutsch for inviting me to be a Moodle MOOC 5 presenter. I hope you enjoy it and find it interesting. Looking forward to meeting you all there!

Recording of the free webinar 'E-connection are essential'

Last 21 September 2014 the Fall Blog Festival webathon, hosted by IT4ALL at WizIQ, took place for 12 hours non-stop.
I had the honour to be presenting 'E-connections are essential' then, and today I am humbly sharing the recording of that live session with all of you, hoping you find it interesting.



I would also like to invite you to view the whole series of recordings that IT4ALL have generously gathered together in this YouTube Playlist, so that you have the chance to revisit or visit for the first time, if you could not attend live, the blog festival event that showcased bloggers, their work, and valuable tips when blogging for reflective practice, work with students, business and other purposes.




Thank you very much to all that attended the live session, and to the hosters for their kind invitation, their warmth, availability and generosity throughout the whole festival.

Webinars for IATEFL YLT SIG

Join me on 28 September 2014 at 7 pm Spanish time for the free live session: The timeline of an e-connected story.












Check your time around the world.

This live session is part of the YLT Webinars and I'll be sharing the story of an e-connection that starts in a University classroom (URJC) from Madrid, with a group of future CLIL teachers taking a Master's Degree on The Use of ICT and Web Resources in Primary Bilingual Education, which spreads towards real CLIL classrooms from Colegio San Gregorio in Palencia (Spain) and their designing digital storytelling together.

The timeline of an e-connected story - YLT Webinars

Uploaded by María Jesús on WizIQ Tutorials

Thanks to all my Master's students and to @somar0209, @javiramossancha and @julisanzmamolar, who have generously collaborated in this digital e-connected adventure that brought University and Primary Education together.

Read more YLT Webinars.

IATEFL Young Learners (Children and Teenagers) Special Interest Group (YLTSIG) Webinars 2014-15

The International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) has a number of Special Interest Groups (SIG) which give teachers professional development opportunities including the chance to share knowledge and best practices in key areas of English Language Teaching and Learning.

Among those Special Interest Groups, the Young Learners and Teenagers SIG (YLTSIG), like other SIGs within IATEFL, is led by a committee of volunteers who arrange discussions, organise conferences, produce publications, maintain a web site and organise events for teachers all over the world.

Meet the members and join the network for IATEFL YLT SIG on WizIQ!

Twice a month, starting 7 September 2014, you will have the opportunity to attend live webinars and connect with some well-known educational inspirers that will generously share their knowledge and experience with any teacher insterested in EFL and innovation.

Don't miss the opening webinar, 'Superhero Activities, Tools, & Apps to Empower Children', with @ShellTerrell, undoubtedly an amazing season debut and an extraordinay chance to grab awesome ideas for your back-to-school lessons. Bookmark it in your calendar: 7 September, 17:00 CEST.




Humbly following, there comes my webinar, 'The timeline of an-econnected story', on 14 September, 18:00 CEST, when I will try my best to share the experience of an e-connection that starts in a University classroom (URJC) from Madrid, with a group of future CLIL teachers taking a Master's Degree on The Use of ICT and Web Resources in Primary Bilingual Education, which spreads towards real CLIL classrooms and students, to design digital storytelling together. 
You are invited to join and have a taste of what will happen at the webinar by reading The timeline of an econnected story & Bringing Colegio San Gregorio and BookMe-Library together.

Autum is not autumn in October any more. No dropped leaves scattered around playgrounds in October this year, but blooming up storytelling trees with Aaron Sherman and Rebecca Ray from Storyboard That. And if you may think November is the time to be indoors and lie back, Dr. Christel Broady might talk you out of that comfortable couch by leading you towards free virtual communities; then, if you like, indoors you may stay while opening a window onto Buenos Aires, where Susan Hillyard is based and will be ready to tell you more about digital storytelling and oral tradition.

Stay tuned for the end-of-the-year webinars brought to you thanks to WizIQ,  IATEFL YLTSIG, and their incredible online events and website coordinator, Dr. Nellie Deutsch as well as for the promising series in 2015. 

Over twenty presenters are now booked, so 2014-2015 is certainly a dream school year already, and surely a year of special interest for all those of us who are hooked to professional development.

Thanks ever so much, Dr. Nellie Deutsch, for bringing so many educators worldwide together, and for this new chance to share!

CLTV - KQED "Do Now"

Highlights from the June 12, 2014 Connected Learning TV webinar on KQED "Do Now" (#KQEDDoNow / #TeachDoNow), part of a month-long series titled "Looking Closely at Student Work in the Digital Age."

By #ConnectedLearning @TheCLAlliance

Thanks ever so much for the webinar and the mention!

#DoNowAbstract #DoNow_urjc

Storifying the sixth twittering participation of the students at URJC Master's Degree for The Use of ICT and Digital Resources in Primary Bilingual Education in #DoNowAbstract.

Related posts: Where do you find Everyday Art?

Is Celebrity Obsession Bad for Us?

You are invited to take part in our final Do Now: Art And Popular Culture before summer break, twittering about the article entitled Is Celebrity Obsession Bad for Us?

Read the post carefully, watch the video clip and draw your own conclusions. When you are ready to post your impressions, opinions, comments and so forth on Twitter, please start twittering on a regular basis, about this topic.

Start all your tweets with @KQEDedspace and end them with our hashtag #DoNow_urjc. Respond to your peers, and retweet all those posts that you regard worthwhile.

Be creative, illustrate your tweets, include multimedia content, use your imagination!

Lots of other students from all over the world are also twittering about this Do Now and they will be using 

#DoNowCelebrity, so it would be nice if you focused on that hashtag too, apart from our own. In order to manage that, you may use a tool for real time tracking and organizing your Twitter, such as Tweetdeck.

Photo at the top, by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

#DoNowGreen Round Up

Time for #DoNowGreen is up now, and so the team from @KQEDedspace have published the corresponding Round Up: Green Spaces Brighten up Communities.

Within the past fortnight, students around the world discussed the importance of creating and preserving green spaces using Twitter and the #DoNowGreen post. Besides, at URJC, we also used #DoNow_urjc to connect with the rest of the students and join the debate.

Students all over the world were presented with prompts such as the ones below:

• 'Are there areas in your neighborhood that could or should be transformed into green spaces?'
• 'Are there existing green spaces that should be preserved?' 
• 'Take a picture of one of these spaces or simply take a picture of plant life growing in an unexpected area'.

Our work at URJC has been highlighted once again by @KQEDedspace, for which we are humbly honoured and thankful!

Congratulations to @Cristina_RubioC, @EvaGarciaPaton, @TheRealJWelk, @ngonzalezba and @sanmiblanco21! Proud of your work!

#TeachDoNow

Summer Learning: #TeachDoNow MOOC


Learn more about Twitter and other media sharing applications through the first ever free #TeachDoNow MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). 

This course, organised by KQED Education, is designed to help educators learn to promote social and civic discourse with students around science, news and the arts. 

Course starts July 7 2014.

Full information at the Course Blog and Google+ Community.

Teacher Appreciation Week

May 5 - 9 2014 is Teacher Appreciation Week and there are tons of posts, comments, articles, tweets and so on and so forth, flooding the net with thank you messages, best wishes and lots of other sweet moves whose aim is to show the world the value of teaching and teachers.

I guess this post is just another of the kind for most, but for me it means a lot, as I have a lot of teachers to show appreciation to, not only along this week, but along the whole year round, and so this post is to express my most sincere Thank You to:

• Sylvia Guinan, for her mentioning my students in her flabbergasting 'What Teachers of Substance Have To Celebrate On Teacher's Day' post at Wiziq Blog.

• Dr. Nellie Deutsch, for her sweet moderation at the Spring Blog Festival in March 2014 and her generous invitation to contribute to IT4ALL Non-Profit Network.

• Heike Philp and Angelika for their patience, smooth mike tests and neat hosting at the 7th Virtual Round Table Conference last April 2014.

• All the teacher peers that restlessly try to make the difference, inspire and accomplish goals on the Edumovement 30 Goals Challenge World Tour.

• My fellow teacher-students from #ictclil_urjc, without whom such a solid teaching/learning year would have never taken place.

• Matthew Williams and his wonderful friendly iniative to weekly turn us all into DoNowers.

• Every single teacher that has already started taking steps towards collaborative connected projects and shared knowledge, from whom I have the honour to learn day after day.

• And last, but not least, Shelly Terrell, for circling all this up, connecting us all, bringing edumovers together and being @ShellTerrell, no need for further words.

Free downloadable image from Dimple Prints.

Where Do You Find Everyday Art?

Jodie Mack

From 7 to 20 May 2014, you are invited to take part in Do Now: Art And Popular Culture twittering about the article entitled 'Where Do you Find Everyday Art?'

Read the post carefully, watch the video clip and draw your own conclusions. When you are ready to post your impressions, opinions, comments and so forth on Twitter, please start twittering all along this coming week, on a regular basis, about this topic.

Start all your tweets with @KQEDedspace and end them with our hashtag #DoNow_urjc. Respond to your peers, and retweet all those posts that you regard worthwhile.

Be creative, illustrate your tweets, include multimedia content, use your imagination!

Lots of other students from all over the world are also twittering about this Do Now and they will be using #DoNowAbstract, so it would be nice if you focused on that hashtag too, apart from our own. In order to manage that, you may use a tool for real time tracking and organizing your Twitter, such as Tweetdeck.

#DoNowGraffiti Round Up

Time for #DoNowGraffiti is now up, and as usual, after every scheduled Do Now, the team from @KQEDedspace are bringing out their weekly update, this time entitled 'Graffiti is an Art Form only in certain cases'.

Our work at URJC has been highlighted once again, this time thanks to the tweet below, by @alcalop14

We are humbly honoured, very proud, and thankful!