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
