Nina: Thursday

Mary and I woke up at 8:00 this morning. Then we had to scramble to get to the Convention Center by 8:30! I managed to walk it in 20 minutes, including a side trip to the CVS to get some batteries for my camera (I remembered to bring all the cables for my camera, phone, and laptop but neglected to pack a few extra batteries!). I went straight to the Electronic Village, as I had promised to spend most of today helping out there. There I saw a number of CALL-IS friends from prior years, including some webheads, but did not take any photos. (Sorry.)

I was given the easy task of scanning the badges of people entering the Technology Showcase room for the CALL Academic Session on Gaming and Language Learning. This was a nice assignment, as I got to listen to all six presentations, many of which focused on the State Department's new game, "Trace Effects," which was developed by Rick Rosenberg, Elizabeth Hanson-Smith, Jacqueline Gardy (who happens to be the president of WATESOL), Deborah Healey, and others (although we also heard about Minecraft, World of Warcraft, and other earlier games, as well as mentions of Second Life, although that is not really a game). Here's a shot (dark sorry) of Rick presenting at the session:

Afterwards, I went to luch with Evelyn Izquierdo and Miguel Mendoza, co-moderators of the Podcasting in the ESL/EFL Classroom session of EVO. We walked a few blocks from the Convention Center to a nice little Italian restaurant called Ravenna, which wasn't crowded at all. We enjoyed lovely pasta dishes (I got eggplant rollatini) and even sampled the desserts: cheesecake, cannoli, and tiramisu. I had to laugh when the two Venezuelans tried to ask the Spanish-speaking waitress (in English) for a knife. They finally had to resort to Spanish.

After lunch we returned to the Convention Center and I stopped in at the Exhibit Hall to visit my friends Shirley Thompson and Karen Taylor, who are here exhibiting The Color Vowel Chart (second from the left is Goedele Gulikers):

After another stint scanning badges (which I consider fairly creepy even though I guess in this instance it's pretty benign; TESOL wants to know the size of our audience) during the Developers' Showcase, I stopped in to hear the end of a presentation on "Saudi Females and Mixed Gender U.S. Classrooms: Furthering Cultural Understanding" given by Jeanne Malcolm of UNC Charlotte. It was packed, which goes to show how widespread this issue is in American IEPs now. Unfortunately I got there so late I missed the actual presentation; I arrived in time for the "forum." But Jeanne promises to upload her prezi to the TRC.

It's time to go back now for the CALL-IS open meeting. Afterwards, the plan is to go to the iron Cactus for drinks and maybe dinner. We'll see if we can get in! It's a popular place near the CC so it may be packed.