By the way, I have to comment on the best session of the workshop so far. Li-hsiang Yu Shen is the founder and President of Better Chinese. Her talk was more about things we should think about when we teach, and paraphrased a TED talk from Sir Ken Robinson. One that she paraphrased in Chinese for the group was fabulous--and a favorite of mine, talking about how schools "kill" creativity. Then she talked about things that are important to keep in mind when we teach, so that we can encourage language learning in different ways--and touch on all the different aspects of learning--verbal, auditory, visual, kinesthetic (movement), and imagination. Then she showed an example of an application of a Better Chinese story used by a teacher and how she expanded the story into cooperative learning, games, and projects. I wish all the sessions were this enlightening.
This afternoon, we're going to be having our first concurrent session. Of course (once again, a corollary to Murphy's law comes into play). If there are two sessions that are interesting to you, they will be scheduled at the same time. It's definitely the case here. There's one session demonstrating iPad applications. There's also a session demonstrating a textbook series for young students that teaches Pinyin in a systematic way. I wish I could attend both. But, being a Better Chinese application user, and an iPad user, I will attend the iPad session. Speaking of which...I'm off now...hoping there's a place I can put my feet up when I can get there!