Issue 8-1
Officers’ Reports

Looking Back: Accomplishments in 1998
*JALT98
*TMIT Mini-Workshop
*CALL N-SIG Publications

Minutes of the 1998 CALL N-SIG Annual
General Meeting

Bryn Holmes/Incoming Coordinator >
Hello, my name is Bryn Holmes and I would like to welcome you, our new and returning members to the CALL N-SIG. The CALL N-SIG has been expanding and I, as coordinator, hope we can provide all our members with an information source, a forum for discussion, and a place to publish and present work. By donating some time to the CALL N-SIG, you will expand your practical experience and add to your academic resume.

Our membership currently ranges from beginners to experts, from those interested in technical details to those who wish to explore the social aspects of technology. We intend to cater for everyone’s needs and interests, but to do this properly, your help and involvement is essential!

As a source of information, the CALL N-SIG is expanding its Web presence to include teaching activities and needs people with ideas and expertise to help (contact Paul Daniels at ). We are also looking for contributors to our newsletter and our on-line journals (contact Nina Padden , David Dycus and/or Kazunori Nozawa ).

As a forum for discussion, the CALL N-SIG is negotiating for a listserver and I hope that you will soon participate in our on-line discussions.

The upcoming CALL N-SIG conference in Kyoto (in May), will provide an opportunity for our members to present ideas and original research, participate in technical workshops, and debate issues relating to CALL in Asia. We would like to involve everyone in this exciting project, so please get in touch with Tom Robb to discuss what part you can play in making it a success. Everyone is welcome to help, no matter how much or little time you can put in--but get in touch soon--email: .

Are you interested in getting published? Or perhaps helping out, and gaining useful pub-lishing process skills as well as having a lot of fun? With the great success of our book, Teachers, learners, and computers: Exploring relationships in CALL, we now have the opportunity of being able to involve potential authors in our latest project--a book of short CALL activities for teachers. Anyone interested in contributing to this project should contact the editor, Kevin Ryan .

I’m looking forward to meeting and working with you in what promises to be our most dynamic year to date!

Bryn Holmes
Nagoya University of Commerce and Business
Administration
Komenoki-cho
Nisshin -city, Aichi-ken 470-01
Tel (w): 05617-3-2111 ext. 26306
Fax (w): 05617-4-0341
E-mail:

Dear CALL N-SIG members,
Thank you for a wonderful year. I was very lucky to be the CALL Coordinator in a year when so much happened and so many people did so much work. Paul Lewis and many others turned out Teachers, Learners, and Computers: Exploring Relationships with CALL, of which we all can be proud. Scott Rule set the wheels in motion for a truly different forum at JALT98 featuring a video lecture and phone call with Dr. David Jonassen. When the annual conference that we had originally planned did not work out, James

Wada and TMIT kindly jumped into the ring; and with David Brooks’ help, and despite an absence due to illness by our featured speaker, "CALL: Human Connections" was a success. Kevin Ryan and Paul Daniels worked to put C@lling Japan online for the first time. Kevin has also been the driving force behind getting us our own website. Bryn Holmes and Paul Daniels bravely jumped into the breach when Scott Rule left Japan. James Wada has worked to help us connect with secondary school teachers.

JALT98 saw, not only a very respectably attended business meeting, but also a very well-visited desk! Bryn Holmes, Paul Daniels, Paul Lewis, and Patricia Thornton all put in long hours to sell books and memberships.

The 44 members that we signed up at the desk may well take us to our highest membership yet (maybe over 320—Wow!).

Plans are well under way for the Kyoto Conference "CALLing Asia99" which will take place the fourth weekend in May. Bryn and Kevin are making plans for a CALL "recipe" book - a book which will contain short projects and ideas for teaching with CALL. We are also working on obtaining three email lists: The first for CALL N-SIG announcements; the second for discussion of CALL N-SIG business; and the third for discussion of CALL matters.

Several other interesting projects are being discussed: an authoring project which would involve CALL N-SIG members meeting to author software which would then be distributed to members; a sister CALL labs in

Asia project, which would make it easier for classes to find partners for internet projects and also facilitate research across Asia; and a PanAsian CALL book, the publication of which would coincide with PAC 3 in Fukuoka in 2001.

I’m stepping down as coordinator, but I will continue to work on projects for the CALL N-SIG. The many projects that we are working on deserve time and energy from all of us. I feel that we are all very lucky to have Bryn stepping in to be coordinator. Her boundless energy and enthusiasm are catching. I am sure that she will somehow manage to keep all the balls in the air as the many projects that we are working on build momentum and become a true resource for CALL users not only in Japan, but around the world.

Thanks again,

Elin

Nina Padden and David Dycus/Incoming Newsletter Co-editors
In the upcoming year our goal will be to encourage N-SIG members who have not published in C@lling Japan before to get involved. If you have ever thought about writing an article or column, make 1999 the year in which you finally get around to it! We’ll be contacting members to ask for your ideas and suggestions. We look forward to working with you!

Nina Padden
Ibaraki University
2-1-1 Bunkyo, Mito-shi, Ibaraki-ken 310-0056
Tel (w): 029-228-8484
Fax (w): 029-228-8199
E-mail:

David Dycus
Aichi Shukutoku University
9 Katahira, Nagakute, Nagakute-cho,
Aichi-gun, Aichi-ken 480-1100
Tel (w): 0561-62-4111, ext. 324
Fax (w): 0561-62-1977
E-mail:

Larry Davies and Patricia Thornton/Incoming Program Co-chairs
We are very excited to be program co-chairs this year. We’ll be focusing our energy on getting CALL presentations to all the chapters this year. Our other big goal is to have several excellent presentations given, in English and Japanese, for beginners, intermediates and experts, at both the Kyoto Conference and the International Conference in October. We hope to work more closely with you and ask you to help us out with your suggestions and your energy for the coming year. Here’s to a great 1999!

Larry Davies
1-16 Joto-cho, Kita-ku, Nagoya 462-0831
Tel (h): 052-916-8378; (w): 052-913-7254
Fax (h): 052-916-8378
E-mail:

Patricia Thornton
Kinjo Gakuin University, 2-1723 Omori,
Moriyama-ku, Nagoya 463-0021
Tel (w): 052-798-0180
Fax (w): 052-798-4465
E-mail:

Paul Daniels/Incoming Telecommunications Chair
Dear CALL N-SIG Members,
My main goal as telecommunications chair will be disseminate information and enhance member communication through the use of webpages, email, listservs, fax, and phone. Currently we are expanding our email database of CALL N-SIG members in order to provide efficient and up to date information. If you haven’t been getting email from the CALL N-SIG for the past few months, please submit your updated email address at

http://krgewdt3.tmit.ac.jp/cjo/add_email.html. We have recently moved our website from the Chubu server to our own server at  http://jaltcall.org. If you see any mistakes or think something needs to be added, drop me a quick email at: . Visit our ‘99 JALT CALL N-SIG Conference site at http://jaltcall.org/cjo/ and submit your presentation proposal online.

Paul J. Daniels
Tokai University
Foreign Language Center
1117 Kitakaname
Hiratsuka-shi, Kanagawa 254-1207
Tel (w): 0463-58-1211
E-mail:

Michael Geffon/Incoming Membership Chair
Hi! I’m Michael Geffon, the new Membership Chair. I’ve been lurking on the fringes of the CALL N-SIG since starting my job as CALL Coordinator at Sakuragaoka Girls’ Jr. & Sr. High in April. I accepted this position because I thought it would be the best way to become familiar with the members, and would give me a chance to start contributing to the great resource that the CALL N-SIG is. I hope to keep the member correspondence flowing smoothly, and look forward to making interaction with the group easy, and maybe even fun.

If you’re interested in paper cuts, the nutritive value of postal adhesives, repetitive tasks, and data entry, I’d REALLY like to meet you; you should definitely get in touch.

Michael Geffon
Sakuragaoka Girls’ Jr. & Sr. High School
1-51-12 Takinogawa, Kita-ku, Tokyo-to 114-8554
Tel (w): 03-3910-6161 Fax (w): 03-3949-0677
E-mail:

Paul Lewis/Incoming Publications Chair
I'd like to greet everyone in my new guise as Publications Chair for the CALL N-SIG. This is a new post, recently voted in as one of the constitutional amendments at the AGM held at JALT98. My job will be to oversee publications—both print and electronic ones—and aiming to ensure that we are putting out a consistent image and materials of high quality. I'll also be looking into increasing our advertising revenue to help defray printing and mailing costs.

Over the next year, I hope that we can consolidate our current publications base, and move forward with new ones. I'm very pleased (and relieved) to say that the new book, Teachers, Learners and Computers: Exploring Relationships in CALL has been well received, and we are very proud to be able to give a free copy to all the N-SIG membership.

For 1999, various projects are being considered, and it looks likely that the N-SIG will continue to produce at least one substantial publication every year. If anyone has ideas, wants to propose a project, or is willing to lend a hand (proofreading, editing, copying, mailing etc), then I would be more than happy to hear from you.

Paul Lewis
602 New Urban Issha
2-34 Issha, Meito-ku, Nagoya 465-0093
Tel (h): 052-709-1307
Fax (H): 052-709-1307
Tel (w): 0052-781-1151, ext. 662
E-mail:

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