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About Vance Stevens

From http://tinyurl.com/vance-bio February, 2010: Vance Stevens was an ESL teacher for 20 years and has since moved through CALL coordination and commercial ESL software development to consultancy in CALL environments to his current position as lecturer in computing at Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi. He is coordinator of Webheads, a vibrant community of practice of hundreds of language teachers online who have collaborated since 1998 on three international online conferences plus countless and varied collaborations between teachers and students. He has been working for the past decade on promoting professional development and learner autonomy via social media and collaboration in online spaces. He has created 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 at AUC in Cairo. Vance 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 on-the-fly collaborative projects.
Further elaboration: http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-are-you-and-what-have-you-done.html

A 4-line bio from Feb 2008: Vance Stevens teaches computing at Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. After a 20-year career in English language teaching, usually as CALL specialist and coordinator, he worked in software development in California as educational technology consultant, before returning to the Middle East as ed tech coordinator for a language school in Abu Dhabi. There he founded the online community Webheads resulting in involvement in many community-based online professional development endeavors which have formed the basis of his professional development life this past decade.

An earlier Bio: Vance Stevens is a Lecturer in Computing at Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. From 1997-2003 he was CALL (computer-assisted language learning) coordinator at the Military Language Institute in Abu Dhabi. He has been an ESL teacher since 1975, and has implemented CALL since 1979. He has conducted research, produced numerous publications and CALL software, and was for 2 years Director of ESL Software Design at a software publishing company in California.

Vance is past chair and founding member of the CALL Interest Section in TESOL. He has also served on the editorial boards of major professional journals, e.g. TESOL Quarterly and CALICO Journal, and is currently

• I am E-Sphere section editor of the new professional journal Writing and Pedagogy (Editor-in-Chief, Martha C. Pennington) http://www.equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/WAP/about/editorialTeam and http://www.equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/wap.
• On the Internet editor of the TESL-EJ (Electric Online Journal)
• On Editorial Board of Computer Assisted Language Learning An International Journal (CALL-Journal)
• On the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning
• Vice-President II, Executive Committee for November 2004 - October 2006 of APACALL (Asia-Pacific Association for CALL), and renewed for another term.
• EVOnline Liaison to TESOL in general, formerly via the Distance Education Sub-committee of TESOL's Professional Development Committee, and Advisor to the PDC for 2005-2006.

Since 1996 Vance has developed online language learning environments resulting in two robust communities of practice (one for students and the other for teaching peers) based on the 'Webheads' model of personalized web pages and weekly synchronous online events. These activities have led to numerous publications and conference presentations in the past several years, both on site and online, and to a number of appearances for keynotes and workshops under the auspices of various institutions including the US State Department’s English Language Specialist Program. Eight years of fruitful interaction and substantial collaboration through Webheads culminated in the Webheads in Action Online Convergence which Vance instigated and coordinated entirely online in November, 2005, and which is scheduled for a repeat in May 2007: http://wiaoc.org

• I have extensive conference presentation experience (both in-person and online), and have over 50 publications (courseware, reviews, articles, chapters, and co-editorship of books).
• 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 (1975-1995).
• I have been involved with CALL since 1979. I headed my first major CALL development project in 1980 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 have conducted regular online training of students and teachers in techniques favoring formation of communities of practice which I have formed and sustained since 1996.
• My leadership skills online culminated in the Webheads in Action Online Convergence, a milesone online event first held in November, 2005, and scheduled to repeat in May 2007: http://wiaoc.org
• I worked full-time in CALL software design and project consultancy and management from 1995 until 2003 (and since then I have been a lecturer of computing).
• Currently working as Lecturer of Computing, Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE

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

55 words: Vance Stevens is a Computing Lecturer at Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. In 20 years as ESL teacher and CALL coordinator, he implemented many CALL facilities, conducted research, and produced numerous publications and CALL software. He moonlights as Ed Tech consultant, online facilitator and coach, and founder and moderator of the Webheads community of practice.

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

My research efforts have been in the area of efficacy of CALL, or computer-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. 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. The class attracted the interest of teachers who soon formed an offshoot called Webheads in Action which has served as a crucible for notions of learning languages and how to teach them through constructivist principles that work through communities of practice. This group, in existence since 2001-2, has a focus of my teacher training activities ever since. 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.

Copyright 2010 by Vance Stevens
under Creative Commons License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

January 12, 2007

Mirrors: This page is available at:

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