Download Letter: Fall 2018 President’s Letter
Fall 2018 President’s Letter
Dear CALICO members-
With fall semester well underway, we wanted to touch base and let you know what’s been going on with our organization.
#CALICO2019: Montreal, Quebec, Canada (May 21-25, 2019)
| Proposals are being accepted until Friday, October 26th!
See https://calico.org/call-for-proposals-2019/ for more information. |
Plans for the 2019 conference in Montreal are shaping up! The theme of the conference is “Make it so / Fais ce que doit,” and focuses on innovative approaches to second language and culture learning through maker culture, i.e., the process of multimedia project creation. Remember, though, that abstracts need not address this theme directly. Also, special to this year’s conference, given that we will be in French-speaking Montreal, we are encouraging submissions both in and about French. When you submit your proposal, be sure to indicate if your presentation should be classified as such. (Feel free to submit your abstract in French as well, if your presentation will be in French.)
When you make your travel plans, please keep in mind that our contract with the conference venue, The Delta Hotel Montreal, requires a certain number of hotel nights booked and occupied, so please plan to stay in the hotel to help out with our costs.
In my spring letter I will tell you more about the fun events and activities we have planned for #CALICO2019!
Are you going to ACTFL 2018?
As of 2018, CALICO is now an Organizational Member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. This means that we have a voice at ACTFL’s Assembly of Delegates, which meets the day prior to the annual convention. I will be attending this year, and will report back in my Spring letter. This status also means that CALICO is entitled to meeting space during the convention, so mark your calendars! We will be having a special CALICO meeting/information session/series of mini-presentations on Friday, November 16th at 4pm in the Trafalgar Room (Hilton). I would like us to use this opportunity to let other ACTFL attendees know about CALICO and learn about what we as an organization do. CALICO’s own Sébastien Dubreil, Lara Lomicka Anderson, Amy Rossomondo and myself will be giving short presentations about “disruptive” technology and how it can enhance language teaching and learning. So please invite your friends to come on by and see what a great organization we are!
Following that session, CALICO will be co-hosting a social gathering with LingroLearning. Details will be sent out as our plans are finalized, but mark your calendars now so you don’t miss it!
Finally, CALICO is once again partnering with ACTFL’s Distance Learning SIG to recognize two outstanding educators with the annual ACTFL DL SIG & CALICO Awards for Excellence in Online Teaching (one for K-12 and one for higher education). The awards will be presented at the DL SIG business meeting, on Saturday November 17th at 5:30pm in room 230 of the Convention Center.
From the CALICO Journal
The CALICO Journal (CJ) has undergone a slight change in its editorial team, thanks to the demands of Mat Schulze’s new job at the LARC at SDSU. Mat has stepped down into the role of Associate Editor and Ana Oskoz, previously in the position of Associate Editor, has joined Bryan Smith as co-editor of the journal.
In addition, the editorial team reports that CJ published three regular issues in volume 35 (2018). The next issue 36.1 (January 2019) will be a special issue on Critical CALL, guest-edited by Jesse Gleason and Ruslan Suvorov. Currently, the acceptance rate stands at 16%, which is slightly lower than previously. 80% of all submitted manuscripts come out of the review process in six months (two rounds) or sooner. They continue to work on reducing the time between submission and publication of accepted manuscripts; that period has been reduced already from 18 months to 15 months and they are aiming for publication within one year. As always, the editors strongly encourage CALICO members to submit research articles to CJ! The journal can only maintain its high quality if the continue to receive a high number of high-quality submissions.
In recent months, the editors have also worked on uploading ‘missing’ older software reviews, which had not yet been in the archive. They are now accessible and the editorial team is working on improving searchability of Learning Technology Reviews and the software reviews of previous issues.
Other news and updates
Code of Conduct
The CALICO executive board is currently drafting a Code of Conduct statement to highlight our mission of diversity and inclusivity. If you have any thoughts you would like to share about such a statement, please email me directly at glord@ufl.edu.
Special Interest Groups
As you’re probably well aware, CALICO has a number of exciting SIGs that members can belong to and participate in:
- CMC SIG
- Teacher Education SIG
- SLAT SIG
- Gaming SIG
- Graduate Student SIG
- ICALL SIG
- LTLT SIG
- Virtual Worlds SIG
Over the summer, Past President Lara Lomicka Anderson reached out to these SIGs to find out what they have been doing, who their current leadership is, and what their plans for the coming year are. We were thrilled to see the activities and engagement that some of the SIGs are involved in. At the same time, though, it seems that not all SIGs are equally active, or are able to maintain an active membership. To help with that, we’d like to start sending out brief updates to all CALICO members on the goings-on of the SIGs. We think that the best place and time for these updates would be with the Spring letter I will send out. This will allow the membership at large to appreciate the variety of activities and interests represented by the SIGs and, hopefully, encourage better attendance at the SIG meetings in Montreal. So SIG chairs, please keep an eye out for my request for short updates coming in the spring semester! If your SIG leadership information is not up to date, please email Lara the correct names and contact info as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading, and best wishes for a happy, healthy and productive remainder of the semester!
All the best,
Gillian Lord
CALICO President, 2018-2019
The CALICO Executive Board
Lara Lomicka Anderson (Past President)
Jon Reinhardt (Vice President)
Kathryn Murphy-Judy (Secretary)
Helene Ossipov (through 2019)
Lawrence Williams (through 2019)
Merica McNeil (2020)
Sébastien Dubreil (2020)
Joseph Cunningham (through 2021)
Nina Vyatkina (through 2021)
CALICO Manager
Esther Horn