Ben McMurry

I recently did a Poster Session at an Apple Education Conference: AcademiX. It was a lot of fun. I thought that I would share what what I did. For more information you can look at the Poster Session PDF . Overview For starters, this is something that I did with my intermediate ESL students.  In order to help them with them learn the past tense, I gave them an assignment. The student videos were comprised of two parts. First, the students drew their story as if it were a comic. Second, the students narrated the story. Preparation 1. The students were divided into groups of four or five. 2. Each group was assigned one of the four topics: •    Frightening Experience - Fire •    Frightening Experience - Car accident •    Frightening Experience - Getting Lost •    Most Embarrassing Moment 3. Each group brainstormed to find a good story to tell for their assigned topic. 4. The students then began to take turns drawing pictures to go with their stories. 5. While not drawing, the other student...

I realized that I probably don't want my blog in the root of my website. So, I'm moving it to http://blog.benmcmurry.com. Please update your feed readers as such. I am going to try to make a symbolic link to the feed, but that might not work. Thanks!

This is the last in my TESOL series reporting on the 2009 conference. One thing that I did differently this year is that I spent more time networking and more time in the Electronic Village. As far as networking, I met some big names in CALL, like Phil Hubbard. That was good. I spent a lot of time talking with publishers. Part of this was me hoping to get a job offer somehow. I actually think that I wouldn't mind working for a publishing company. In the Electronic Village, I spent time talking to other tech gurus. It was fun. One of the highlights for me was the Hardware Fair. I finally got to get my hands on an OLPC. Great Idea, but I wasn't two impressed. It looks like a good idea for children in countries with poor economies. Really, wouldn't we be doing them a favor by providing something that has a more prolific OS. Even Ubuntu might be better. With the dropping prices in computers and the growing popularity of the netbook, the OLPC and Classmate may soon be a thing of...

I'm looking for a new theme. I love Hemmingway, but I don't think that it is very usuable for some possible viewers.

I didn't go to that many sessions this year, but I would like to talk about a few. VoiceThread - I went to a great presentation on VoiceThread. VoiceThread is a web app that allows for group conversations around images, documents and videos. It seems like it might be a great tool for use with language learning. Audacity - This is a recording tool I have used before. I really didn't like it. I thought I would go to the presentation and see if my mind would change. It did. Audacity seems to be a program with hidden tools! I may use it again . . . or stick with garage band. Past, Present and Future of CALL - This was an interesting 'presentation.' It was done by a panel of past chairs of the CALL-IS. They each talked about CALL. Some talked about the past and others about the present. Many of them said that it is hard to envision the future. Most dreamed of practical technologies are here. I, however, thing that I can. What will we see is the unification of technology...

I really enjoyed TESOL this year. I won't talk about the things I didn't particulary like about the conference organization. I think that there were some problems that could have been devastating to my experience. I complained a lot about then, but I made sure I would have an awesome time at TESOL. How did I do it? Well, that's a good question. I took a different approach to TESOL this year. Previous Approach: I wanted to get the biggest bang for my Institution's Buck. I made sure that I went to all the sessions I possibly could. For example, even if I couldn't find something I like during the 10am sessions, I would pick the one that seemed the least painful to go to and go to it. This made for a long day filled with unproductive sessions. New Approach: This year, I only went to sessions I really wanted to go to. I probably went to half as many sessions, but I found it to be much more beneficial. I didn't go to as many sessions, but I felt like I learned just ...