1. Thanks are due, as so often, to Stephen Downes’s OLDaily for this one: AI for Teachers: an Open Textbook https://www.ai4t.eu/textbook/ Here’s a bit more about the project that produced it https://www.ai4t.eu/about/ PDF below.
OLDaily home page here https://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm
2. Still on the AI theme, here’s a largely very positive report from Evelina Galaczi & Nahal Khabbazbashi (of Cambridge University Press & Assessment and the University of Bedfordshire, respectively), Everybody’s talking about Gen AI, but what are English teachers saying? https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2023/12/27/everybodys-talking-about-gen-ai-but-what-are-english-teachers-saying/
No copy of the study itself online that I could find.
3. Advance notice, to give you time to organise your diary, of this year’s Macmillan Global Teachers Festival, which runs for two weeks on weekdays from 19th February to 1st March https://www.macmillanenglish.com/global-teachers-festival-2024 Each session repeats three times a day, at 10:00, 14:00 and 21:30 UK time.
“With 20 unique talks and 22 international speakers, you can expect talks on subjects like how second languages shape how we think, the future of grammar instruction, hands-on with ChatGPT, involving parents, tackling bullying, igniting communicative practice, empowering emotional expression, and loads and loads more!” Boom, boom!
4. A gift article from the New York Times, We Need a New Word for Plagiarism, by John McWhorter http://tinyurl.com/3bsbyd4d
5. And, finally, two from Atlas Obscura: a doll hospital in Lisbon, first established in 1830 and still going strong https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hospital-de-bonecas and ten remarkable beaches round the world https://www.atlasobscura.com/lists/unique-beaches-from-around-the-world
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