During the Sprachen und Beruf (Languages and Business) conference, I also personally met Carl Dowse, the very active blended learning expert. I had originally become virtually acquainted with Carl in the terrific business English forum started by Eric Baber to accompany this year’s IATOFEL Exeter conference. These forums were expertly moderated and gave IATOFEL members who could not attend the conference a chance to interact on issues that concerned them.
http://www.ericbaber.com/about.htm
Carl was presenting for Cornelsen Corporate Solutions on WBT (web based training) integration in blended learning scenarios. In his talk ‘English for Companies: Individualized Blended Learning Solutions’ he outlined some key concepts on integrating Business English WBT modules with web 2.0 resources and face to face teaching in full blended learning programs. I was very familiar with the WBTs as I had provided a little input at the early stages of their development. In my presentation at Sprachen und Beruf in 2006: ‘Blended Learning in Customized Business Solutions’, I had also featured these WBT modules in my own version of blended learning business English learning scenarios. It was reassuring to see that the hybrid learning approach Carl presented was similar to my own. We are moving, to a large extent in uncharted waters when it comes to implementing tools that have only very recently been developed. Many of these tools tend to morph into other tools just as we are figuring out what best practice is for their use. Things are always exciting in this ever-changing field. Some things do remain constant however: the outcome is to maximize learning no matter what combination of tools or media is used. During the presentation Carl Dowse showed how face to face events combined with quality WBT modules and a selection of web 2.0 resources can lead to highly effective business English learning.
http://www.cornelsen.de/cse
Carl channels an amazing amount of energy into his truly fantastic ‘teaching, interests, people and places’ blog. This blog is a real goldmine of useful ideas and resources for language teachers and anyone interested in web 2.0/web 3.0. Carl Dowse has definitely discovered that love is the killer app; this blog just gives and gives and gives – what an inspiration! I strongly recommend following and linking to this extremely useful blog.
http://cd-2006.blogspot.com/
If blogging, presenting, teaching were not enough, Carl Downes is also one of the Consultant-e tutors and a full-time lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Essen and runs several online courses. I know what a lot of work it is exploring technology and methodology and trying to meaningfully implement new learning forms in new ways of teaching. But can somebody tell me where this guy gets his energy? First, I would first like to take a time management course delivered by Carl and move on from there….
http://www.theconsultants-e.com/index.asp