EUROCALL 2026 - Evidencing your contribution to our community.

 

This short clip shows our community welcoming new EUROCALL members to their first conference at Belfast this year. We value our members and enjoy meeting up face to face for fellowship and exchange of ideas. 

This year's annual conference was vibrant and well supported. The host location - Ulster University's Belfast campus - provided wonderful opportunities to explore the music and culture of the island of Ireland too. 

(left to right) Toni Patton (secretary) Ana Gimeno, Caoimhín Ó Dónaill, Kate Borthwick, Mirjam Hauck)

We trust that you enjoyed your conference but we want you to take a souvenir with you! We issue an open badge to every Presenter and Participant and these will come to you in the next few days. You should get an email from us through our Open Badge factory (check your spam folder) and that has details of how to pick up and display your badge. You can even print off a .pdf of your badge to use as evidence of your conference attendance. We have a playlist on our You Tube channel to help with an queries. Open Badge Passport has a useful mobile app you can download too. 

Here is an earlier post from this blog about how EUROCALL uses Open Badges:

All you need to know about using your Open Badge

Multilingual Tutorials are available on the Open Badge Factory You Tube channel so you can make the most of your badge by using it to connect with other badge holders or just to keep a record of your commitment to professional development. 

Keep the warm glow of conference with you all year round!

Italian warmth for EUROCALL annual conference 2025 in Milan

 

Eating out in Milan - Risotto alla Milanese.
Photo by Kate Borthwick    

Admittedly, those who travelled to Italy to participate in our annual conference did experience the odd shower but that didn't dampen the warmth of their experiences in this hugely welcoming venue. Participants travelled from 39 different countries beyond Europe coming from Algeria, Australia, Japan and  Jamaica to name but a few. We had over 300 participants. If you were unable to attend, look out for our recordings which will be shared on our You Tube channel. 

As we have done in past years, we are issuing digital badges to those who presented and to all who attended the conference in Milan. Your digital badge will arrive by email  (do check your spam folder just in case). It can be used to provide evidence of attendance by printing off a pdf. For your convenience here is further information regarding how to pick up, display and share your badge.

Collect your badge- here's a reminder of how to do this

Curate your badge/s using your own Open Badge Passport account (free) 

Print off a .pdf for your institution as evidence of participation using your Open Badge Passport account. You can download the app to use on your phone:

on Apple App store  or Android Play

Show and share your badge online!

Here are just a few of the many photos (nearly 300) shared during the conference in the Whova app. Thanks to all who connected and a special welcome to all our new members. 

Shared by Ana Bumber

Shared by Toni Patton

Shared by Vincenzo Damiazzi

An outstanding conference which will no doubt have created great memories of fellowship and friendship. You participated in academic exchange, sharing and building knowledge and you connected through food, dance and exercise - its the EUROCALL way!

Don't forget you can keep the conversations going through our EUROCALL social media channels. A short poll during the conference showed that many of you are active on LinkedIn:

Poll result from Whova app

Preparing for Milan 2025.

 

Time moves on...this screenshot of the countdown to our annual conference in Milan is already out of date! An enormous amount of work has already been completed in preparation for this important opportunity to get together, share and network. Such physical opportunities are so important as we can draw strength from each other in the face of relentless change and seemingly endless challenges. I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge some of the vital achievements made by EUROCALL recently. 

Firstly, our website has been completely revamped and the new site is so much easier to use and update. Big shout out to Cédric Sarré on our executive commitee who was the dynamo behind this huge improvement! You can take a tour online of the site and the new improved members area on the video guides here.

Secondly, our hosts in Milan, ably guided and inspired by Valentina Morgana have a packed programme for us including our first ever Italian speaking stream of presentations. We will be using the Whova app again to provide an immersive experience for all. Check out #eurocall on Bluesky to stay updated:

Bluesky is our latest social media channel and you can find the Milan conference venue and our EUROCALL HQ on the app. Please say hello!, 

Thirdly you can shop EUROCALL! The profits from this venture help to support our organisation and provide great value gifts which you can customise - ideal for your students or colleagues . Look out for our great offers in the run up to the conference. As I won't be attending in person this year I designed some badges (yes, physical badges!) and I will be looking our for other remote attendees so I can send some out by snail mail. 

The countdown is on, together we can make the world a better place. 

The Graham Davies Legacy: EUROCALL 2024

Image by sandid from Pixabay

EUROCALL 2024 conference is taking place this week in Tranva, Slovakia and on Tuesday it will feature our Graham Davies lecture which will be delivered by Phil Hubbard. Phil's title, "CALL: We make the world better" could not be more in tune with the aims of the EUROCALL founders as described in the History of EUROCALL on our website. The founders of this organisation wanted to support the language community as they dealt with the challenges and frustrations of implementing Computer Assisted Language Learning. They did so by listening without judgement to the human experiences of both educators and students, creating a caring community which continues to grow. 

My  personal journey with EUROCALL centred on the generosity of Graham Davies as I related in this post on my own blog. His willingness to speak through Second Life to my colleagues at Warwick even though he was by that point in his life battling his cancer diagnosis was exemplary. He provided inspiration and encouragement to explore the practical resources he made available online. The ripples spread and nurtured new practitioners. 

Even after his death his web presence remains to help us navigate the wilds of the internet. Of course the web has continued to change and arguably we now face the biggest challenges in our personal and professional lives as our technologies will increasingly be dominated by the use of Large Language Models and Artificial Intelligence. 

Graham's work unpicked what was really happening when we browsed and posted online, he was committed to increasing understanding of the environment and tools so that we could use them with our eyes open to the "magic" behind the code. He understood that the superficial adoption of technology to fix a problem was not enough. That mission is still central to our EUROCALL conferences today, sharing understanding and experiences, looking to improve and enhance our teaching and surface the dangers that can lurk beneath the technologies we use. 

Recent years are showing us the importance of critical evaluation of our tools and methods, awareness of ownership and openness online, the need for greater understanding of how our data is mined and used, the importance of accessibility and equity in global contexts.  

Graham was a caring, professional practitioner and his care and humanity must continue to inform EUROCALL's values and activity. Our President Mirjam Hauck has picked up this challenge through our collaboration with US sister oranisation CALICO on the EDIA agenda (Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility) this is how we can ensure that we, as CALL practitioners, make the world better. 

EUROCALL and proud!

Are you conference ready?

The EUROCALL executive committee are offering a new way to show your true EUROCALL colours this year. 

We now have a little online shop where you can select and customise your own conference clothing or choose from our range of high quality merchandise.

Tried and tested by members of our executive committee we are pleased to say that the ordering process is straightforward, products are of a high quality and you can even customise each one, picking your preferred colours, even adding your own images and text to turn your purchase into something unique. We will be looking out for the most creative customised versions at this year's conference in Iceland, why not show yours off on the Whova app?  

We have put together a little guide to using the shop which you can download here. 

Some more great news:

• There will be a 20% promotional discount applied to all purchases made between 8th - 12th July 
• In supporting our shop you are supporting the future of EUROCALL. 

Calling all CALLers!

 

Screenshot of the EuroCALL 2023 website

At last we are able to prepare for the return of the face to face EuroCALL conference. How exciting! We are sure you can't wait to get together for the most wonderful in-person intercultural fellowship at the amazing University of Iceland. 

The call for papers has been launched, you can find it here on the conference website, along with all the details of the themes, organisers and venue. Please get the dates in your diary and join us in person this year. 

As ever we are starting the social activity immediately. The conference has an Instagram account  where you can start to explore the sights of this amazing setting and a Facebook page where you can meet each other. EuroCALL's usual social media accounts will also use the hashtag #eurocall2023 to aggregate and curate interactions as we go through the year. 

Conference presenters and participants will be issued with our EuroCALL digital badges and, coming soon - there will be further exciting news of EuroCALL must have items! 

Our exec team and conference organisers are working hard to ensure that this conference will be memorable for all, reviving past traditions and creating new ones together. 

We are calling all CALL-ers for our most inclusive conference yet. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Eurocall 2023 conference (@eurocall_2023)

Recognition of participation in EuroCALL 2022

 

This week we will be issuing an open badge to all those who attended, presented or otherwise participated in our recent annual conference, #eurocall2022. A moment to celebrate our community and its resilience in maintaining academic networking and information sharing throughout a global pandemic. 

The badges are a form of digital certification to enable our community to evidence their ongoing commitment to the field of Computer Assisted Language Learning and their active participation in professional development. The badge can be displayed on your website, social media channels or through your eportfolio and it is verifiable by others who see it. Many of you will now have several badges from EuroCALL as we started issuing in 2019.

Get active with your badges!

This year we will also encourage you to enhance your badge by adding evidence of the nature of your activity to your badge once you have added it to your personal Open Badge Passport account. This is easy to do and adds value to your badge. 

Simply follow these steps: 

• Look out for the email confirming the award of your badge and click on the link to accept your badge. Here's a reminder tutorial for this process.
• If you already have the Open Badge Passport app on your phone you can just accept the badge through the app. 
• Make your badge public by adjusting the settings, by default it is private.  This step is shown in the tutorial above. 
•  Now go to the settings tab on your badge and click Add new evidence.

You will now be able to add the URL of your presentation, recording or slides if you were a presenter. There are many easy ways to add your content to your badge:

The more you evidence your skills, the more compelling your badge becomes to others. Taking these steps could be helpful in building your professional presence online. Using the tools provided in your free Open Badge Passport you will make new connections and find tools for easy webpage creation. Make the most of your Open Badge today!

We look forward to celebrating your membership of EuroCALL online. Share using the #eurocall tag so that we can congratulate you. 

Coming together for #eurocall2022

 

It is that time of year again when the Eurocall community comes together. For the third year running we are meeting virtually rather that being able to get together in the same physical place. As a community we love the intercultural mingling we have enjoyed in the past: sharing food and fellowship, and our dancing together is legendary. 

However, we are able to recreate some of this community building online thanks to the digital literacies we have. This post shows just what has been going on as we prepare for our annual conference and I am grateful to all those who have been connecting on the conference app Whova or on social media channels using #eurocall2022. 

Hugh Prior will be presenting on Wednesday and he has been fortunate enough to visit Iceland. He has shared his journey in our Whova app:  

Many of us are just imagining how best to reduce our impact on the #climatecrisis and we are encouraged to share our #virtualjourney using the #eurocall2022 tag:

We are going to#Iceland for our annual conference, attending virtually this year. Choose a gif or image to show us your #virtualjourney. Let's make this year a commitment to reducing #climatechange. Use #eurocall2022 tag so we can share your creativity! pic.twitter.com/NpY0VawG3m

— Eurocall (@EurocallLang) August 15, 2022

I'm  looking forward to seeing the creativity of our community reflected on our Wakelet mood board:

#eurocall2022 mood board

There are many community members active in the open and we are grateful to them for their support in expanding our community. Special mentions go to those who regularly tweet using the #eurocall tag. Here you are, we see and appreciate you:

A full archive including the sharing of digital badges we issue to our members can be viewed here. Open badges are another way we can recognise the actitivies of our members in the field of CALL (or CMC or TELL - I know the acronym debate continues in Whova!).

Another way in which we thank our community is through prizes of course. There are prizes for the photo and caption competitions in Whova as well as prizes for best poster and best student presentation...more about these in the opening ceremony on Wednesday. 

I imagine life can be pretty harsh for the Icelandic ponies in the picture above but I am sure they are better protected when they get together. So indeed are we, and how we will dance when we finally get together in the same place!

Recognising participation and contribution to the EUROCALL community of practice.

 

At last the time has come to provide official recognition to all those who participated or presented in our 2021 conference. 

The French organisers hosted a huge event which morphed over time due to the pandemic from initial plans for a blended event into a fully online conference. Ever resourceful and enthusiastic the organisers provided a fantastic event which was well received by our membership. 

Notifications of badge award have been sent out by email but we know there are always those emails which do not make it through the filters and consequently end up in spam. If you have not yet had yours here are some practical tips:

• Open a free account in Open Badge Passport using the email address you used for registration. The account will locate your badge and ask you to accept it. 
• If you already have an account, make sure that the email address used in registration is included in your profile.  You can add multiple email addresses. 

and/or 

• Download the Open Badge Passport app  to your mobile device and follow the steps above
• Check out the tutorial videos available on You Tube. 

We hope to see you showing off your EuroCALL badges online through social media. Tag our social media accounts so we can celebrate with you. 

Image by Artturi Mäntysaari from Pixabay

A summer of sharing and learning together.

Image by Jessica Joh from Pixabay

I'm sure that we are all feeling the need to turn our faces to the sun in order to recharge our batteries after all the stresses of the pandemic. It does look as though our lives will continue to be disrupted for some time yet to come but at EuroCALL we are keen to provide opportunities to learn from our experiences and grow stronger together so that the next academic year can bring greater certainty and security for everyone. 

Of course the annual conference is nearly upon us. To be held online this year the French team have created a wonderful event which has the highest registration numbers we have seen. A good deal of thought and planning has gone in to this virtual event in order to help us share the community spirit we so enjoy at our live conferences and those who have registered can download the event app and start to explore already. 

EuroCALL has always had good links with practising teachers, often running workshop sessions with teacher educators as part of our conferences. Indeed, we moved our conference dates into August in order to make it easier to facilitate teacher participation. This year is no exception. We will be running an online Teacher Outreach event this year which is open to all, whether you are a EuroCALL member of not. There is a small fee for a day pass to this event and all participants will get a EuroCALL digital badge to show their commitment to connecting for professional development. The programme is now live and has a dedicated website. 

Please check it out and share this post with your teacher networks around the world. Registration is now open. 

As an organisation we want to help our community of international language teachers, researchers and developers overcome the challenges experienced due to covid 19 and recover for a better future. Read more about our organisation here. 

March Mingle 2021 - Let's talk!

Announcing our March Mingle!

As an organisation we are 100% driven by our members and always keen to connect and share time together. As announced in the recording above, we have created a March Mingle event so that as many of you as possible can join in, no matter what your time zone. 

Our Mingle will take place on Friday 26^th March 2021. 

There will be two Mingle sessions so you can pick the one that fits your schedule.

These are opportunities to talk all things EUROCALL. 

Please pick one session and join us for an informal community drop-in session.

Mingle session 1: Friday 26^th March 2021 at 10am (UK time)

Link to join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88482026104?pwd=WGIvbHl1b2ZWMnZBZzdwdUxnTU1mQT09

Mingle session 2: Friday 26^th March 2021 at 2.30pm (UK time)

Link to join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81910515353?pwd=L3VGQzI2Z1phMytRd2d4cTYrVFdYZz09

We welcome everyone – our members and non-members alike.

There's plenty to talk about and we welcome your participation. We welcome everyone – our members and non-members alike. 

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Follow updates on Eurocall 2021 conference on twitter

Getting 2021 underway: EuroCALL AGM paves the way for this year's conference.

 

EuroCALL AGM in zoom January 22nd 2021

The invitation to attend our Annual General Meeting:

It was unusually joyful as formal meetings go, especially given we are still in the throes of a global pandemic! You can find all the documentation for the AGM on the EuroCALL website by logging in to the Member's Area.

 

Despite our regrets about missing our physical visit to Copenhagen, we reflected on the fellowship we had enjoyed at the Gathering in the summer where circumstances had led to many new experiences. Our first ever visualisation of our community on our Gathering map and our first ever You Tube channel. Our Treasurer delighted all with his media rich presentation which included a soundtrack and a reminder that EuroCALL has to be prepared whatever the weather:

And so, with this in mind we continue our preparations for the future. The Eurocall 2021 conference website is up and plans are quite advanced despite the many uncertainties. You can follow updates on twitter too. This year we will have a blended conference with some in person possibilities. See the website for details. 

As ever, there will be a rich, research-informed programme, many opportunities to network and learn from this wonderful community. Our Special Interest Groups will host workshops or symposia on the second day and these will be open to all comers online. The conference committee wish us to continue to build upon the wonderful fellowship we all enjoyed at the Gathering and we need your help to help ensure the future of this organisation through expanding our membership. 

Please spread the word, encourage friends and colleagues to join EuroCALL and we can all support each other in overcoming the challenge that is teaching and learning in a global pandemic. 

Message from the LMOOC SIG

 

The LMOOC SIG is trying to build a database of good practice to help us understand the profile of LMOOC practitioners: Who are we? What languages are the most popular ones for LMOOCs? How do we organise the course design? What is our main focus? It is part of the ongoing work developed by this SIG, in the endeavour of spreading quality LMOOC practice and research.

 

If you are or have been involved with LMOOCs (as a course designer, tutor, facilitator, researcher, etc.) we would love to hear from you. Please complete this survey https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScyWT3KZncl6pUB2wZu1FXoUOPBevCKnAJsR9teIiL-Sysnpg/viewform  It will only take you 5 minutes and will help us understand the landscape of LMOOC practice and research.

Elena Martín Monje, LMOOC SIG chair

Kate Borthwick, LMOOC SIG secretary

 

Recognition for #eurocallgathering participation.

 

Many of us at EuroCALL breathed a huge sigh of relief as we reached the end of the #euorcallgathering event last week. Not just because this was soon followed by a Zoom outage around the world shortly afterwards, but also because this was a new endeavour for us and we had no way of knowing how it would go. 

We are grateful to all of you for the fact that it went so well.

I am delighted to say that all went pretty much to plan and we all enjoyed fellowship - albeit virtual fellowship - with our community. Consequently our batteries were recharged by all the fabulous interactions we enjoyed. If you haven't yet had a chance to investigate the event, take a good look around our #eurocallgathering site. 

To those who contributed to this event, providing recorded presentations of their accepted papers, organising symposia and workshops online we want to acknowledge that work through digital badges. 

We do have a precedent for this, as those who came to Louvain La Neuve will remember. Badges will be issued to the email addresses of those who had accepted presentations, posters etc. We advise you to add these to your own Open Badge Passport account (it is free) and follow this tutorial in order to share your badge on your online accounts. If you would like to print off a paper certificate, follow the instructions here. 

Those of you who participated in the #eurocallgathering can also expect a badge to come your way. If you registered on the site we will issue your badge directly. However, if you engaged with the event and didn't register we are also providing a route for you to claim a Participant badge by providing some evidence of your engagement. 

These badges are issued through email and unfortunately they may be filtered by your email service so please check your spam/junk folders in the coming days to ensure that your contribution to #eurocallgathering is recognised by these portable, digital micro-credentials. 

We will be looking out for signs of these badges around the world. 

Thank you for playing an active role in our EuroCALL community. 

#eurocallgathering kicks off

 

Prior to the Graham Davies keynote (see recording above) this morning Mirjam welcomed us all with these words:

Good morning, good day, good evening, and welcome everybody wherever you are in the world! 

The saying “Life is what’s happening while you are busy making other plans” which is attributed to John Lennon – although he was not the one who coined it – probably captures best what has happened to all of us in 2020 so far. 

We, the EUROCALL community were not spared the impact of Covid-19, and while the  Copenhagen team – Karen-Margrete, Sane and Patrick - were getting ready to host us on their campus and in their city, it became increasingly clear that an on-site event was not an option this year. 

Life took over in the shape of a pandemic and I know that this has brought hardship to some of you. An especially warm welcome to you to the Gathering of our – of your - CALL community. 

What has moved me most over the past weeks and months is the spirit and enthusiasm with which everybody has risen to the challenge (against all odds!), my colleagues on the executive committee, first and foremost. 

The solution for Plan B was clear: we’d be using technology for what it should be used: to bring us together, to first prepare and now share what we feel passionate about, that is our work as CALL scholars. 

I would like to say, “Thank you!” to Teresa, Kate, and Toni in particular who have picked up the baton from the Copenhagen team and have created – with your input – this event. 

It is with immense gratitude to all of you that I declare the EUROCALL Gathering 2020 open. 

 

Before I hand over to my colleagues, I would like to invite you all to tomorrow evening’s social. Bring a glass of your favourite drink and a song, poem, tongue twister, any object with an associated story in any language or anything else that lends itself to online entertainment of a language-related nature. 

and so it began...

and we ask you tell us of your experiences of the #eurocallgathering event using flipgrid, a video sharing platform. To contribute you will need to sign on with either a microsoft or a google mail account. 

The topic is here or you can scan this QR code:

Launching the #eurocallgathering and widening participation.

 

We are nearing lift off! 

The theme for this year's Eurocall conference and of course the Gathering is 

CALL for widening participation

Sadly, the pandemic prevents us from having a face to face event on this theme but it also presented us with an opportunity to reach further than we have been able to in the past by connecting and running our Gathering online. An opportunity to have more open conversations relevant to our discipline, to connect to those who perhaps would not otherwise be able to participate in those discussions. We hope that you will encourage your colleagues and students to join us, to watch the peer reviewed conference papers, take part in the workshops and symposia, view submitted posters. 

The EuroCALL Gathering website will be our hub for the event which opens on the 20th August. The live event details can be read before you register for the ones you wish to join. We will then email you with access details. 

The recordings of presentations which would have been given in Copenhagen are hosted on our You Tube channel going live on August 18th to give you time to find your way around.

A soundtrack to the Gathering. 

Thanks to @ohashilou for this wonderful suggestion:

A silent disco maybe? Headphones ready!! #eurocallgathering is all about community @EurocallLang

— Teresa MacKinnon (@WarwickLanguage) August 9, 2020

To contribute your choice of track to our playlist you can either:

Follow this link to become a You Tube collaborator and add the track directly to our channel

or

Tweet your choice of You Tube track using the #eurocallgathering and we will add it on your behalf. 

Noticeboard.

Of course every physical conference has a noticeboard - a place where you can leave notes for each other, offer lifts home or ask for help finding a lost mobile phone. A virtual conference also needs such a facility. you can post directly to this jamboard 

#eurocallgathering Connecting in cyberspace.

August is here!

The countdown to our Gathering event is underway. Click on the rocket here to see it. 

Thanks to all those who have provided their presentations and those who are contributing posters to our padlet boards. We are so delighted to see all the hard work coming together. It is of course great to have content but now we really need to start to connect with our community ready for the launch of the Gathering. 

If we had been able to meet face to face in Copenhagen then we would have been busy planning our journey, choosing our hotel, arranging our social events...here's how we are hoping to recreate the community spirit of such activities in cyberspace. 

Our community map. 

We are asking Gathering participants to add themselves to our community map by filling in this short form.  You can put in as much or as little detail as you like and we will create a pin on our map which is then visible to others in the community. 

Why not get creative and include a photo or an avatar to represent yourself? You never know, you may discover others near you who are also part of our community and you had never met. 

Our #eurocallgathering hashtag

As you will have seen mentioned in the video shared above, we are using this hashtag to bring together what you share about the Gathering event. It would be lovely to start this will some of your Eurocall memories. Do you have favourite moments from conferences gone by? Photos of the places you have travelled to to be with us? If so share them on Instagram or Twitter using the #eurocallgathering hashtag and we will add them to our wakelet on the Gathering site for all to enjoy. During the event we will continue to look out for your social sharing to celebrate shared history and help us all make new connections. 

Be a Eurocall champion!

The covid19 crisis has impacted enormously on us all. As an organisation we can only continue with your help. Please join us on social media and within your networks to encourage membership at our reduced 65 Euro rate this year. Conference income is vital to our survival and we are working hard to make sure that we can weather this storm. Your participation is vital to this effort, we know you will help us find the silver lining in very dark clouds.