The Webheads Story

 

In 1997 I came across a website called English for Internet (EFI). It offered ESL and EFL students free web-based English lessons. It was run by David Winet out of his home in Berkeley (California) and he was looking for teachers willing to volunteer their time to teach an ever-increasing number of students who wanted to learn English this way. I knew almost nothing about how to teach online but I jumped in the deep end and with David’s help and endless patience I started my own sessions. 

As well as asynchronous web-based exercises we met weekly on Sundays in a virtual classroom called The Palace. There was another teacher who ran classes at The Palace just before my session - Vance Stevens and he was based in the UAE. 

Many students just stayed online at the end of Vance’s class and joined mine. Over time the two classes just blurred into each other and it became apparent that what students really wanted to was meet together online and practice their English. This arrangement continued for some years. We were joined by another teacher from Cologne in Germany, Margaret Ann Doty. But the majority of participants were bonafide students from all over the planet – Taiwan, Brazil, China, Australia, the US, Argentina. We called ourselves The Webheads.

In the early 2000s Vance decided to expand the group and try and recruit more practising teachers and use the growing community as a professional development vehicle for language teachers worldwide. It was an enormous success and became known as Webheads in Action and evolved into a fully-fledged community of practice with active members in multiple countries.

Many of us were involved in presenting at conferences about online education and it was quite normal for many of us to call on other webheads to help deliver what Jonathan Finkelstein dubbed multiple venue presentations. And slowly too as webheads began to travel many online connections were cemented by face to face meetings. Some of these meetings even extended to family members. My son met my dear webhead friend and colleague Teresa in Portugal. This frenzy of collaborative online teaching and learning, supplemented by regular meetings face to face, was a massively productive and enjoyable part of my personal and professional life up until around 2014. And throughout this time we continued our Sunday online meetings at noon GMT!

When I retired from full time work I deliberately scaled back much of my online activity but still today I meet a small group of webheads online every fortnight, and know that when I go travelling again there are webheads around the planet who will welcome me to their lands.

So perhaps the song below now makes a bit more sense. Being part of the Webhead community had a profound impact on my life, and I will forever be eternally indebted to Vance Stevens for his indefatigable efforts in making sure the community stays alive. And to Teresa, Rita, Ying Lan, Felix, Bee, Dafne, Chris, Jonathan, Eric, Aiden, John, Elizabeth, David, Nina, Carla, Jane, Buth, Tom, Peter, Graham, Thuan, Jennifer and so many others – thank you for enriching my life, and being friends across the waters.

24/7 – we’re online

It doesn’t really matter – whatever the time

Someone’s there to answer the call

Or maybe you’re lonely in the middle of the night

Someone’s there to answer your call

You’re going on a journey to a foreign land

Want to meet a friend there to show you around

There’ll be someone there to answer your call