Hawai`i TESOL’s 2021 Annual Conference held Saturday February 13th, 2021, was uniquely positioned as the first virtual conference in Hawai`i TESOL history. But given the strangeness of our pandemic year, it all seemed rather normal.
Since travel and space were no longer an issue, we were able to virtually gather from several places throughout the islands and around the world, including Virginia, California, other parts of the mainland, Canada, Ukraine, Columbia, Taiwan, and Japan with each participant having a front row seat from their favorite office or living room chair.
The theme of the conference, “Principles, Pedagogy, and Practice”, allowed for a variety of meaningful presentation topics.
Deborah Short, current President of TESOL International, lead writer of The 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners: K-12, and series editor for additional 6 Principles books gave the plenary address entitled “The 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners: Pedagogy and Practice.”
After the plenary, conference participants could choose to attend sessions hosted in five different Zoom rooms with two sessions before lunch and three sessions after lunch.
During lunch time, one Zoom room served as a gathering place to Network while you raided your own fridge for something to eat while the four other Zoom rooms had poster presentations.
Each Zoom room had a moderator who welcomed the various presenters, granted them screen sharing access, and kept them on schedule. Many participants added comments or questions in the chat.
Furthermore, participants could jump from room to room till they found a session that appealed to them. However, we saw very little “jumping” since all of the sessions were very engaging. The one complaint was that there were several great presentations being presented at the same time so participants had a difficult time choosing which ones to attend.
After the final sessions, everyone met back in Zoom Room 1 for a conference conclusion including a raffle and a free 2-month subscription for all participants sponsored by ESL Library.
Everything seemed to run smoothly. A detailed conference program was pre-emailed out to the 141 or so registered participants. Besides listing the schedule, the program had links to the five different Zoom rooms. Essentially, it was no different from any other conference except that one didn’t walk through a door to enter a session. They simply clicked on a link and snap! they were there.
Excluding the plenary speaker, there were 41 presenters among the 30 presentations. Several sessions were conducted by student panels and multiple presenters. There was also a K-12 strand for DOE teachers and staff.
Hats off to our Conference Chair, Samantha Hume, and all the wonderful people who made this year’s first virtual pandemic conference a success.