Webheads & Friends in Boston 2010: Thursday afternoon and evening

I am writing this at 11 p.m. Thursday in my cousin's apartment in Brookline, where I still cannot connect to the Internet (though Brookline supposedly has free wifi)! I've just uploaded yesterday's and today's photos and will post them tomorrow from the BCEC.

After my blogging lunch, I attended part of a session called “E-Growth in Listening and Speaking with Google Earth,” by Yildiz Turgut of Mersin University in Turkey. This was about having students create oral travelogues about touristic spots near their hometowns, in the form of narrated movies linked to Google Earth. I've wanted to use Google Earth with students but have not figured out how to do it, so this was interesting. I think it could be used in a listening/speaking class at MEI.

At 2:00 I returned to the Electronic Village for the Classics Fair, where Elizabeth Hanson-Smith had organized a kind of group presentation for EVO moderators and co-mods. Jennifer Lebedev talked about her session on video, and I talked about Multiliteracies. I had a very interested audience of three, who really knew nothing about EVO or Multiliteracies and had lots of questions, so I really enjoyed that. We can do another on Saturday morning.

After the EV Classics Fair with Elizabeth and Ellen

Buth and Laine

After that, I went down to the exhibit hall to find my friend Ellen, and we walked over to the Westin Hotel Starbucks for a drink and a chat. That was very nice. Afterward, I walked through the exhibit hall but did not stop and look at much. There is a lot to look at, if you are looking for textbooks, plus other merchandise to buy.

At 5:00 I attended a very interesting session on mirror neurons and embodied xxxxx, “Applying Recent Discoveries in Neuroscience to the Language Learning Environment,” by Van Hillier. I had already read about mirror neurons in a book I read recently. It is very interesting. Mirror neurons in our brain fire not only when we make a movement (like stamping a foot or clapping hands) but also when we see someone else do the same thing. It is believed that autistic people's mirror neurons do not work properly, making it impossible for them to predict what other people will do or even understand what they are doing.

Carla, Berta (finally!) and me, in the taxi en route to the restaurant

Following that, I went (late) to the CALL-IS business meeting, and then a bunch of us piled into taxis and went back to the North End for an Italian dinner at Ristorante Saraceno (again on Hanover Street). Webheads & Friends numbered about 20; Tom Robb, Mary, Rita, Claire Siskin, Cheryl Oakes (first f2f meeting! And two friends and potential webheads from Maine), Berta, Carla, Veronica, Elizabeth, Erika, Ronaldo, Claudio Fleury (and two more from CTJ whose names I can't remember, sorry) and a few more people I didn't know. We climbed up two flights of very very steep stairs to a private room and had a great dinner that lasted until 10 pm, after which most of them went next door for cannoli, but I grabbed a taxi and headed for Brookline. I'm due at the EV tomorrow at 7:30. It's now 11:43.