Adelina Arellano
Osuna
Paul Boyd-Batstone 
Oscar J.
Martinez-Alaniz Last November, the International Reading Association and the Organization of American States (OAS) held a webinar series titled, “Innovative Literacy Teaching Techniques” through OAS’s Inter-American Teacher Education Network (ITEN).
ITEN is a professional network of leaders in education in the Americas interested in sharing knowledge, experiences, research and good practices in the field of teacher education, based on a strategy of horizontal cooperation.
The presenters of the webinar series were both volunteers and members of IRA. The presenters were Dr. Adelina Arellano Osuna, a literacy research at the University of Los Andes in Bogota; Dr. Paul Boyd-Batstone, a reading and writing professor at the California State University, Long Beach; and Dr. Oscar J. Martinez-Alaniz, an English professor at the Cervantes College CA, Mexico. The webinar series was held on the 13th and 26th of July and on the 10th of August of 2012.
More than 100 teachers participated in OAS’s ITEN and IRA webinar series. The idea of the webinar series was initiated by Mrs. Kelly Dwyer of the organization Teach a Teacher in Caraz, Ancash, Peru. Originally, the participants were going to be teachers from Peru but many other teachers from all over Latin America participated. OAS- ITEN have had many webinars since it was launched in June of 2011, but the OAS-IRA webinar series was the one that reached a record by having more than 100 participants in a webinar.
The webinar series’ forum currently has 870 members and is one of the most popular groups of the community. The topic has generated such an interest that even other teachers that have not attended the workshop are participating actively of the forums and wall of comments. The wall comment currently has more than 18 pages of comments shared by members. The OAS and IRA are planning to have many more webinar series coming up with the help of IRA’s members.
For more information on IRA-OAS webinar series or for further information on the webinars and the initiatives by ITEN please visit:
http://riedamericas.net/group/serie-de-webinars-ira/page/serie-de-webinars-ried-ira and http://www.oas.org/en/iten/.
