ESL_Home: old CALL resources main page | Site Index / Index of CALL Resources site
About: Vance's papers and presentations | ePortfolio Blog: AdVANCEducation | Most current CV: March 2012 CV in pdf

About Vance Stevens

Following a 20-year career in English language teaching and CALL software development, Vance Stevens actively pursues professional development as Ed Tech consultant, online facilitator and coach, and founder and moderator of the Webheads community of practice, http://webheads.info, taking leadership roles in many community-based online professional development initiatives which have formed the basis of his professional development this past decade. Subsequently he has conducted research and produced numerous publications. Vance's blogs and feeds are linked from http://adVancEducation.blogspot.com.

Objective

I have achieved recognition as an experienced teacher, leader of communities of lifelong teacher-learners, and as innovator in educational technology and social networking applied to language learning and computer-mediated communication. I seek a position starting in fall 2011 where I can leverage my knowledge of Web-based tools and technologies to augment my own learning and that of others towards improving the efficacy of teachers in achieving the learning goals of their students and peers. I can take or share responsibility to help teachers realize pedagogical outcomes attuned to needs of new age learners through appropriate use of networked technologies. I see myself as manager, coordinator, or part of a team of trainers, coaches, or teachers helping to implement transformative changes in educational practices within an institution of higher learning.

In the early part of my career, I was an ESL teacher/lecturer for 20 years. At this time I doubled as CALL specialist and coordinator, worked in software development, eventually in California as Director of ESL Software Design, before returning to the Middle East as ed tech and CALL coordinator at the Military Language Institute in Abu Dhabi from 1997-2003. From 2003 to July, 2011 I was a lecturer in computing at The Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi.

In 1997-1998 I founded and became coordinator of Webheads, a vibrant community of practice of hundreds of language teachers online who have collaborated since then on three international online conferences (http://wiaoc.org) plus countless and varied collaborations between teachers and students. I have worked for the past decade on promoting professional development and learner autonomy via social media and collaboration in online spaces. I have produced numerous publications and presentations on these topics, listed at http://vancestevens.com/papers/. Some of his presentations and workshops have been under the auspices of the USIS English Language Specialist Program (2004 in Tunisia), and include a plenary address at a conference that same year at AUC in Cairo. I can speak or give workshops on aspects of social networking of interest to language teachers; for example how tagging and aggregation works and can be used by teachers to put their students in touch with one another in socially networked collaborative projects.
Further elaboration: http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-are-you-and-what-have-you-done.html

CALL = computer-assisted language learning
CMC = computer-mediated communications
ESL/EFL = English as a second/foreign language

Service to profession

• TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) http://www.tesol.org
  • I have been invited to present at almost every annual TESOL Conference since 1982 to present
  • 1984-1985 - chair and founding member of CALL-IS, the CALL Interest Section in TESOL
  • On Editorial Advisory Board of the TESOL Quarterly (1985-1988)
  • On Steering Committee of the CALL Interest Section (1985-88 and 1990-1993)
  • Software Review Editor of the CALL-IS Newsletter (1986-1992)
  • Chair and Newsletter Editor for the Windows/MS-DOS Users' Group (1987-1994)
  • EVOnline Liaison to the Distance Education Sub-committee of TESOL's Professional Development Committee (2003-2004)
• 1987- final issue - Contributing Editor of CAELL Journal (formerly C.A.L.L. Digest)
• 1998-present - Founder and coordinator of Webheads in Action http://webheads.info
• I have served on the editorial board of the CALICO Journal and am curently on the review board
• I am currently E-Sphere section editor of the new professional journal Writing and Pedagogy (Editor-in-Chief, Martha C. Pennington) .
• I am currently On the Internet editor of the TESL-EJ (Electric Online Journal) (since Dec 2002).
• 2002-present - on the Editorial Board of CALL-Journal - Computer Assisted Language Learning: An International Journal
• I am Vice-President on the Executive Committee November 2004 - October 2012 of APACALL (Asia-Pacific Association for CALL).
• I am currently on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning
• 2010-present - on the TESOL Arabia EdTech SIG leadership team
• 2010-present - Conduct weekly online live seminars http://learning2gether.pbworks.com
• 2011-present - on the Editorial Advisory Board of Teaching English with Technology, http://www.tewtjournal.org/editorialboard.htm

Curriculum vitae and short bio archives:

• Some bio statements of varying lengths: http://tinyurl.com/vance-bio
• CV from 2004: HTML version | PDF version
• CV from 2010: 13-page CV from Nov 2010 / CV in pdf / (3-page CV Google Doc)
• Most current CV from 2011: 2011 CV in pdf or http://tinyurl.com/vance-cv2011pdf

Teacher training and professional development, face-to-face and online

I have extensive conference presentation experience (both in-person and online), and have over 70 publications including research, reviews, articles, chapters, and co-editorship of books. My research efforts have been in the area of efficacy of CALL, or computer-assisted language learning, which I have started to call SMALL, for social-media assisted language learning. Since the early 1980's I have held several CALL coordinator positions where my job was to implement CALL and train others to cope with computers in the workplace as well as use them productively with students.

Webheads in Action

Recently I have altered my notions of CALL after fostering an online community called Webheads which started out in 1997-8 as an online class for students. The class was totally communicative and developed linguistic competence in students through giving them an opportunity to meet regularly as members of a community in various virtual spaces, and established a pattern of personalized web pages and weekly synchronous online events which I have carried through to later communities I have started. These include:

• Webheads in Action was formed in 2001-2002 and is an ongoing and robust community of teachers of languages and other subjects interested in helping one another understand educational technology. WiA has served as a crucible for notions of learning languages and how to teach them through constructivist principles that work through communities of practice. The idea is for participants to use socially networked multimedia computer-mediated communications tools to help each other learn about blended and online environments so as to develop implementations applicable to participants' teaching situations and special projects.
• Three Webheads in Action Online Convergences, free international 3-day online conferences that took place in 2005, 2007, and 2009.
• Multilteracies for Social Networking and Collaborative Learning Environments started out as a course in Multiliteracies for the TESOL Principles and Practices of Online Teaching program but developed into a community of practice over the years, often as a free session given through EVO, Electronic Village Online.
• Learning2gether is a weekly seminar series which I founded and have been coordinating and maintaining since inception in September, 2010

Teacher training and coordination

• As a recognized leader in the field, I have served on editorial and executive boards and committees of organizations of which I am a member (e.g. TESOL Quarterly, CALICO Journal, APACALL).
• I have had 20 years experience as a face-to-face teacher of ESL/EFL
• I have been involved with CALL since heading my first major CALL development project in 1980.
• I did my thesis research on a CALL topic for my MA/ESL1983, and worked as instructional developer and CALL coordinator (in addition to EFL/ESL teaching) throughout my post-MA career until 1995.
• I worked full-time in CALL software design and project consultancy and management from 1995 until 2003
• I worked as Lecturer of Computing, Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 2003-2011
• I have conducted regular online training of students and teachers in techniques favoring formation of communities of practice which I have founded and sustained since 1996, including a number of appearances for keynotes and workshops, both on site and online, under the auspices of various institutions such as the US State Department’s English Language Specialist Program, the TESOL Principles and Practices of Online Teaching program, and EVO, or Electronic Village Online.
• I have an extensive record over the past two decades of conference presentations, plenaries, keynotes, and training workshops, conducted both face-to-face and online, resulting in many dozen publications, all documented at http://vancestevens.com/papers

January 12, 2007

Mirrors: This page is available at:

• http://www.vancestevens.com/vance.htm
• http://www.prof2000.pt/users/vstevens/vance.htm