As we attempt to put some flesh on the train the trainers VITAE course in which we want to make teachers act as mentors to their colleagues in integrating digital resources into their teaching, it becomes obvious that they must have mentors themselves. So each unit of the course will have a suggested mentor session. Otherwise the idea of mentoring is in danger of disappearing altogether in the stress/excitement of trying out new digital tools. In order for this to work the mentor and course tutor need to be two different people (as recommended for example here) This makes this either a very expensive course or means that we will have to work hard to get volunteer mentors.

The last extracts from the Intercultural Management Institute's annual conference were released in Show 56 of Absolutely Intercultural yesterday. I also took the opportunity to canvas for more nominations for the Danish podcaster prize. All you need to do is send an email naming me and the podcast to nominering@podcasterprisen.dk

I must say that it is a real honour to be able to eavesdrop in this way at a conference which I wouldn't normally be able to attend. Last year was our first attempt when all we could manage were participant reports but this year we have recordings of highlights from the actual sessions. Thanks must go to Laura Hash, an intern at the Intercultural Management Institute, who did all the hard work recording and editing. Back at the conference we have extracts from Philip Deaval of the US Air Force talking about the intercultural work which needs to be done in the theatre of war. I never realised before that there would be somebody running after the American tanks in Korea working out compensation for damaged rice crops for example.

We also hear from Richard Harris, a Briton living and working in Japan, talking about the concrete visualisation of what personal space means for example when Arabs expect to 'feel the breath of the other person on their cheeks.' He also explains a novel way-finding method used by Pacific cultures in which the end of a song determines the right time to turn left or right.

Then we hear from Dr Gary Weaver of the IMI, describing the Khan simulation which is used to train Americans to deal with non-European cultures. This was new to me, although I could hear from Dr Weaver's introduction that it shouldn't have been as he describes it as 'probably the most famous inter-cultural simulation in the world'. The essence of the simulation is that an actor plays Mr Khan who comes from a high context culture in the categorisation proposed by Dr E Hall. We hear an extract of the simulation during the podcast in which the American's efficiency orientation contrasts with Mr Khan's wish to build up a good personal relationship with his new foreign partner.

Finally there was the intriguing notion of virtual consuls and Diplopedia, a wikipedia of intelligence information for use by the US state department. Not surprisingly the idea was met with sceptism when it first came into use a couple of years ago.

That was it regarding the conference and all that remained for me to do was to remind listeners of Pangea Day which is May 10th at 18.00 GMT when the winning short films will be shown all over the world and in various media. There will be time to show 24 winning films and I'll be interested to see what universal human values they touch on.

I first came across the idea of Pangea Day as a film-making exercise addressed to all. The brief was to make a short film illustrating one of the hundreds of human universals discovered by, amongst others, anthropologost Donald Brown. I watched Pangea Day yesterday and was amazed at how smoothly it all went from a technical point of view. I watched it all on the internet and only dropped out once during the whole four hours and I think that was my computer more than anything else. There were only one or two very minor technical hitches in the last hour or so. Inevitably I am comparing this event to those such as Live Aid and maybe the advantage here was that they were dealing mainly with showing film which was all ready to go, rather than live music outdoors with attendant potential for glitches. It was a nice mix of mainly film with a few interviews, a handful of monologues and some live music from Brazilians, Iranianans, Malians and others. I particularly liked Glberto Gil's music. As is so often the case with special events such as these, the day was the result of the vision of one individual, in this case Jehane Noujaim, an Egyptian American.

Pangea Day was meant to be a celebration of human universals and this was partly used to make a plea for an end to conflict in Israel and Palestine 'because in the end we all want the same things'. The event was also a celebration of the short film. Every film shown had merit and I learned a few things such as that condoms in Mozambique are often bought to make footballs rather than for their original purpose! Other films which made a mark included The Slap from Iran,  and 'J'attendrai le suivant' (I'll wait for the next one) from France. Difficult to watch was Inja (Dog) based in South Africa. I also learned that in promoting this day on our podcast I had been pronouncing it wrongly with a hard g instead of a soft g.

Even the problem of the digital divide was addressed, in part, by the giving away of mobile phones in various parts of the world so that a wider range of people could submit films.

Of the speakers, I was particularly impressed by what Robert Kurzban had to say. In a nutshell his research tells us that prejudice can be overcome. This is quite a contrast to the usual belief that it is almost impossible to dislodge ingrained attitudes. Another intriguing speaker was Jonathan Harris who has made an amazing website of art forms derived from the harvesting of human feelings from all over the internet.

I was pleased to see that Yann Arthus-Bertrand's 6 Billion Others was widely used to illustrate themes such as happiness, sorrow and anger.

I also appreciated the live blogging of the event even though it was more of a retrospective timetable than a commentary. Unfortunately I didn't manage to hook up with any of my Webhead friends even though I was regularly visiting two of their usual online chat haunts.

This was a consciousness-raising event rather than a fundraising one though and so I think that the presenters were at a loss to be precise about what action individuals should take as a result of being a part of the day. 'Give us your money now!' was not an option and some of them were left floundering and eventually told us to go to the website, look at the blog and...'

Overall the thesis is that once we get to know each other we are less likely to be in conflict. And getting to know each other is getting easier all the time through the medium of film and other digital technologies. I think it succeeded admirably in creating a feeling that you were sharing a world event on an individual to individual basis mainly because of the live blog commenting function. I tried to check whether the Day was being broadcast by any major TV channels. It certainly wasn't carried here in Denmark and I was in the middle of trying to see if it had been shown on British TV when the computer locked up but I have a feeling that it was not attractive to TV stations. So more a grassroots event than a broadcast event. However I don't think that our podcast, Absolutely Intercultural, is about to be made redundant in the near future.

I have just signed up to the SLanguages 2008 conference which is a conference in Second Life on May 23/24 about teaching and learning languages through Second Life. I attended the first one last year and was very pleasantly surprised on many fronts. I had thought that I wouldn't want to spend a working day in front of my computer pretending I was at a conference but in the end I found that the content was so compelling that I did just that. My other worry was that my computer would crash but luckily and surprisingly it only crashed once as I recall.

Now that I have a better computer the Second Life experience is much smoother and more problem free. Also things have moved on in Second Life itself with audio integration so that I won't have to go round with a thing attached to my avatar's ear in order to hear and speak as I did last year.

I now spend a great deal of my time working in international groups to complete projects of two to three years duration. The topics usually range over education, e-learning, mentoring, language learning or intercultural competence training. The latest Absolutely Intercultural show includes a conversation with Nicole Slupetsky from Austria who was one of our partners in the Teaching Culture project which ended in 2006. When you work with people over such a length of time, you inevitably become quite closely-knit even though you don't meet face to face more than twice a year. It is interesting to hear Nicole talk about the great efforts we made as a project group to ensure that we were also being interculturally sensitive as well as devising great ways to heighten the awareness of VET teachers across Europe to these issues.

The show also includes an interview with Keith Warburton of Global Business Culture who emphasises that inter-cultural awareness is necessary across the whole organisation and should not be restricted only to CEOs and negotiators.

At one point in the show you do hear the commonly expressed view that intercultural competence cannot be taught so the show ends with a conversation among some intercultural trainers talking about their favourite awareness raising exercises.

SLanguages 2008, a 24 hour conference in Second Life about teaching and learning languages in Second Life, has just finished. I have to admit that I did not stay the course and took a normal nights sleep even though the events continued unfolding throughout the 24 hour period. This is the second such conference put on by The Consultants E and this time in association with Avatar Languages.

For me it was a chance to catch up with what is possible in the field of language learning in SL since I have rather left the field since I gained my Language Lab certificate in January mainly due to a weak computer and a very variable timetable which makes regular ongoing class teaching difficult. I feel rather guilty about that plus my SL skills rust up in the meantime. There were two presentations from Language Lab, one on the teacher training process and one about innovation in teaching. Regarding teacher training, a willingness to try out communicative techniques is valued over high qualifications and technical expertise. But I think this is not specific to SL teaching and would be a desirable list of priorities in many language teaching situations.

One thing which might make me try again in SL is the desire to try out some of the free tools given out by Gavin Dudeney as part of his presentation. I am sure that you can achieve a lot with notecards and the use of audio and text chat but other tools would certainly expand the repertoire by allowing you to show presentations or to create an instant classroom by throwing down a seating arrangement.

I also appreciated the opportunity to go on a language learning tour of various Sl sites designed for learners. Of particular interest was the Dubai Women's College campus since I had attended Mark Karstad's session about how he has enabled the heavily protected female students in his college to visit other parts of the world vicariously through Second Life. This was the most interesting session for me because it was full of contradictions. VOIP is banned in the United Arab Emirates and therefore the session was completely text based. The women have to dress modestly in public in real life but love dressing up in exotic clothes in SL. Through Second Life the students experience virtual exchanges with students from other parts of the world such as Korea.

I also got a personalised tour of International Languages which had a very attractive tardis, amongst other items,  to get the conversation flowing.

As in any other conference I have met up with some new people, joined new groups and gained an insight into how the issue of language teaching is approached in different parts of the SL world. It is this opportunity to gain new perspectives which is the most valuable part of the conference because it brings together organisations which are competitors for the rest of the year.

Apologies for two Second Life postings in a row! This one is to highlight the work of Language Lab who are really ahead in providing experiences for learners as well as the more traditional language lessons which people expect from an outfit calling themselves a language learning organisation. Language lab have built an entire city in their part of Second Life so that you can actually go shopping, visit an art gallery or relax with a cup of coffee at the cafe. They have also employed actors to play the part of shopkeeper, cafe owner and so on and who interact with visiting learners. And they also put on events in which learners can play an active part such as gallery openings and chat shows. I particularly like the way the events are run. Prior to the event you get a few prompt questions and likely glossary which may or may not be used during the event, then during the event there is always the possibility of participating in some way. Once the event is over you get an email with some glossary, grammar points and exercises derived from the actual interactions which took place. For me this is exactly the way to go in using Second Life for educational purposes. The only thing missing from the mix is a recording of the event.

The first event I attended was a Christmas party. The next event was a chat show with Juliette Towhidi, screen writer of The Calendar Girls. Towhidi is half-Iranian so there was lots of scope for asking how she came to do the screenplay for such a quintessentially English film. Language Lab are experimenting with recording these events and I was lucky enough to be able to edit a couple of extracts from this event for the current Absolutely Intercultural show. In the extracts you can see how the audience can interact with the chat show guests and let's face it, it's not everyday that you can quiz the screenwriter of a box office hit.

The event approach reflects the dogmetic approach of focusing on the language which occurred naturally, which I think has a lot of merit but which requires a lot of hard work at the time of the event. With planned teaching, the work is concentrated at the front end.

The show also includes a short interview I did in Oslo with Timo Väliharju  of Mediamaisteri Group when he was questioned about the success of Finland in the PISA evaluations. His diagnosis was that the secret of Finland's success lay in part in the spontaneous study groups which students set up  to help each other.