He started off by asking if we have Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), if we undertake Continuing Professional Development and Teacher Development. Three things that are key to progressing and not stagnating as a teacher. It seems that many people do not utilise these things and he asked why!
The biggest problem is time, all teachers have a lot of work and not a lot of free time for CPD, the next problem is the number of webinars that are available and again this is a great problem. Also scheduling - CPD is available from many parts of the world and it is difficult to hold webinars that fit in with people's geographic time and their work schedule and many webinars are too long for people to attend. Many are recorded but again you still need time to watch the recording and make notes.
As a result of all these factors Rob started EFLtalks, (think TEDtalks for teachers) a site for CPD which forces presenters to present quickly so he created a single website and a single youtube channel where teachers could learn.
He suggested that if you can't make your point in 10 minutes, perhaps you shouldn't make it as you will lose yourself and your viewers. So speakers should get straight to the point. We should reduce TTT in webinars as well as in the classroom.
He held a 10 hour webathon with many of the top presenters in the world of EFL. They had 10 slides and 10 minutes for their presentation and then he broke the webathon into searchable 10 minute presentations. These presentations have been viewed by people from over 100 countries.
He is now looking to recruit more speakers with new topics to help teachers in their job, people like accountants and physiotherapists and planning to do a 10 in 10 for 24 webathon. This will need 120 presenters!
I only have one small criticism of the efltalks site, why is there not a sharing button for teachers and visitors to tell the world about it?
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