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About Vance Stevens

Objective

Recently retired from my last formal teaching position, I hope to continue training teachers to teach and learn in an atmosphere which encourages an understanding of how the most appropriate affordances of technology can enable effective pedagogy. I am comfortable in online, face-to-face, or in blended learning environments. I have a strong background in teaching English as a second and foreign language and recognized expertise in educational technology, including research and many publications and presentations on innovations in CALL and social networking. I have a proven track record in the coordination and implementation of educational technology projects, in leadership of online communities of practice, and in teacher training for instructional technology. I see myself as a trainer, teacher, coordinator, manager, or part of a team of teachers, trainers, coaches, or developers helping to implement transformative changes in educational practices within an institution of higher learning.

Teaching career

With no formal teaching credentials, but having just returned from a 2-year overland journey through Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, I started teaching ESL at English Language Services near the University of Houston campus in 1975, and within a year, after attending the TESOL conference in 1976 in New York, I had moved to Saudi Arabia where I taught EFL for 5 years at the University of Petroleum and Minerals (now KFUPM).  When my director noticed my interest in computers there he had me lead a team working with an HP product called Instructional Development Facility to create a battery of computer-assisted instruction programs for the mainframes newly installed at the English Language Institute there. I left UPM in 1981 to get my MA/ESL at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, on Oahu. In 1983 I moved to the big island of Hawaii where I helped start and develop the Institute of English Studies program at Hawaii Preparatory Academy in Kamuela. I got HPA to purchase a half dozen Apple II computers for my program but neglected to request a budget for software. This forced me to find public domain and freeware software to use with my students. A lot of it was text manipulation games, and adapting it to my context in turn helped me develop my Basic programming skills.

I left HPA to take a job in Muscat, Oman where I arrived the year before Sultan Qaboos University opened near the airport in Seeb. I was hired in that developmental year as an instructional developer, and when the English Language Center opened in 1986 I became EFL Lecturer and coordinator for the Student Resource Center. Thus in the early part of my career, I was a lecturer or ESOL doubling as CALL specialist and coordinator. Working with a professional programmer at SQU,  I designed and helped code a suite of English language teaching / text manipulation software, which was eventually marketed at Text Tanglers and SuperCloze, and when I left SQU in 1995, I moved to California to work full-time in software development at Courseware Publishing International (CPI) as Director of ESL Software Design, before returning to the Middle East as ed tech consultant and CALL coordinator at the Military Language Institute in Abu Dhabi, where I worked in that capacity from 1997-2003.

During my time in California, I had started teaching informally online in a program called English for Internet. Shortly after arrival in UAE, I founded and became coordinator of Writing for Webheads, a platform for EFL students who wanted to improve their English language skills. Eventually this developed into Webheads in Action, 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. Since then I have worked extensively on promoting professional development and learner autonomy via social media and collaboration in communities of practice and other online spaces. I have produced numerous publications and presentations on these topics, listed at http://vancestevens.com/papers/. Some of my presentations and workshops have been under the auspices of the USIS English Language Specialist Program (2004 in Tunisia), and include a plenary address and workshops given at a conference that same year at AUC in Cairo.

From 2003 to July, 2011 I was a lecturer in computing at The Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. In 2011 I started working at HCT, Higher Colleges of Technology, teaching in CERT military language programs in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. I taught all subjects, but my particular strength was in teaching writing, in particular through innovative use of voice to give feedback in various ways to students working in Google Docs and Office 365 environments. The college used BlackBoard but I set up blended learning portals for students using PBWorks wikis, and by tweaking Hot Potatoes authoring software to create multimedia materials for cadet pilot training.  By the time I left there in 2018 I had been for a time coordinator of English teachers at the Naval College, and left there with responsibility for weekly teacher scheduling at the Aviation College.

This is from 2010, but is still relevant as a statement of my teaching philosophy: http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-are-you-and-what-have-you-done.html

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

I can give workshops or speak on innovative techniques in giving feedback on writing, and on various aspects of social networking of interest to language teachers; for example how to leverage tagging and aggregation in their curricular materials, and I can guide teachers in forming and nurturing socially networked communities of practice to enhance collaboration among their colleagues and students.  I am good at identifying where common technologies can enhance pedagogy, and helping teachers implement technology enhancements to whatever curriculum they are teaching. I specialize in helping teachers adapt technology in contexts where technology is under-supported.

I have extensive conference presentation experience (both in-person and online), and have over 150 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.

In addition, in conjunction with, but outside my paid workplaces, I have maintained work in sharing resources with teachers and in teacher training through communities of practice over the past two decades. The following are a few of my projects and endeavors.

Learning2gether

Learning2gether is a regular seminar series which I founded and have been coordinating and maintaining since its inception in September, 2010. Learning2gether has produced over 400 podcasts and has been a culmination of all the following projects.

Electronic Village Online (EVO)

Electronic Village Online (EVO) is a TESOL CALL-IS sponsored set of professional development sessions that have taken place each year for 5 weeks in January-February since 2001. I have been moderating EVO sessions since 2002 and have been on the EVO coordination team for almost as long.

Webheads in Action (WiA),

Writing for Webheads started 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. Once the class started attracting the attention of other language teachers, 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 / connectivist 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. The movement spawned three Webheads in Action Online Convergences, free global and international 3-day (72 straight hours) conferences that took place in 2005, 2007, and 2009.

Multiliteracies

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. When it ceased being offered as a TESOL credit course, it was continued as a free session given through EVO, Electronic Village Online.

MInecraft MOOC

EVO Minecraft MOOC is my latest long-running teacher training effort, focusing on gamification by modeling the concept for teachers, 2015 through the present.  My most recent EVO session since 2015 has been on familiarizing teachers with gamification through immersion in EVO Minecraft MOOC.

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 over 30 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 before1998, 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

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
• I was 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 was Vice-President from  2004 - October 2012 of APACALL (Asia-Pacific Association for CALL) and remain on on the Executive Committee.
• I am currently on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning
• 2010-2017 - on the TESOL Arabia EdTech SIG leadership team
• 2010-present - I have conducted regular online live seminars https://learning2gether.net
• 2011-present - on the Editorial Advisory Board of Teaching English with Technology, http://www.tewtjournal.org/editorialboard.htm

Mirrors: This page is available at:

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