Did you attend ElliiCon2023 this September? If you did, I hope you're bursting with inspiration and ideas like we are here at Ellii! 

More than 2,200 English language educators signed up for our third annual virtual conference, and we had a record-high live attendance on both days. Even more impressive than the numbers was the engagement! In all of the virtual webinars and conferences I've attended over the years, I don't think I've ever seen a chat as active as I did at this year's ElliiCon. Keeping up with the Q&A and comments was nearly impossible, even with our signature conference style of all Ellii hands on deck.

After any major conference, virtual or in person, I always take at least a day to reflect on the learning and experience, often focusing on the takeaways in relation to the theme. While some conference themes feel like a stretch or an afterthought, I think we got ours just right this year. 

Humanity & Technology in ELT: Striking a Balance in the Age of AI. 

If you participated in ElliiCon2023, I hope you agree that together, the organizers, speakers, and attendees tipped the scales in the right direction. While we explored many impressive uses of AI, in the end we all agreed on one thing: teachers will not be replaced by technology anytime soon. 

Humanity for the win! 

For this year's ElliiCon reflection, I'll highlight five reasons why humans shine brighter than our new friend ChatGPT in the field of ELT.

1. Humans tell better stories

When people ask why I've worked at Ellii (formerly ESL Library) for 17 years, I often point to my love of stories. Our CEO, Ben, who many of us consider to be both a colleague and a friend, is the best storyteller I know. Every team meeting, business trip, and meal Ben hosts always starts with a good story or two. 

We knew Jamie Keddie, a master of ELT storytelling, would be a great addition to this conference. Jamie captivated attendees with stories, even when sharing a boring one written by ChatGPT! In under an hour, Jamie showed us how being able to tell a personal story in the classroom is a superpower teachers should try to hone. 

After trashing ChatGPTs storytelling abilities, Jamie went on to demonstrate (through story) how to tell a good one, painting the perfect picture of how stories can be used in a myriad of ways for language learning. Just as I predicted, Jamie's session, Stories from the Teacher, was the highlight of ElliiCon2023 for me. It seems our CLB materials writer, Jen, was also inspired. Check out Jen's latest Ellii post, The Stories We Tell.

Why stories? Here's a summary of the benefits of story that Jamie outlined in his ElliiCon session, which played out like a story itself. Don't take my word for it—watch the recording! (Then look up.)

2. Humans aren't just "adaptive," they adapt 

If you've never seen this error message below, you are probably like many ElliiCon attendees who surprised us by admitting they knew little to nothing about Open AI's generative AI tool, ChatGPT.  

After our first Coffee Talk featuring first impressions (and confessions) of AI from the Publishing team, our CEO realized much of our audience was newer to this technology than we'd anticipated. Ben quickly adapted his welcome speech to clarify that our conference would highlight some features at Ellii, but also explore generative AI, a technology Ellii is playing with, that according to the head of education at Pearson, is "moving faster than real life."

Despite the speed at which this technology snuck into the field of language learning, the reality is that many teachers are still printing PDFs and dealing with student onboarding and Wi-Fi issues. Ellii's Product team heard these sentiments loud and clear and are already pivoting to include some new features to address these more pressing issues. 

3. Humans are human

Russell Stannard, ELT's EdTech guru, had to make some adaptations of his own on the fly when his AI-recorded audio wouldn't play in a window and he had to read it out loud. There was also a missing cat (typed "at") in his AI-generated image, which Ellii's eagle-eyed editors would never have missed (and our talented illustrators might have drawn like this). 

Russell shared some fun AI-powered activities, but admitted that 90% of the EdTech tools he reviews aren't even worth sharing. Have you ever heard a statistic that bad when it comes to English language teachers? Also, do you know any teachers who would turn down a real-life teaching assistant in exchange for a paid version of ChatGPT?

This is not to say that AI can't be taught humanistic behavior! One attendee mentioned that ChatGPT offered condolences after being prompted to help write a eulogy. That's a story that might hit the movies soon if real writers continue to strike. 

A related topic that came up in the ElliiCon chat (and internally at Ellii) was on the importance of using polite and friendly language when interacting with ChatGPT. This seems like a no-brainer since we're training AI to do what we want. As we learned from our Day 2 Coffee Talk facilitator, Diego, failure to engage with AI could have dangerous consequences. 

Do you know what else teachers were interested in? Life skills! Jen walked teachers through all of the content and collections that focus on this target, including our NEW Vocabulary video series and our dialogue-focused Study Packs, which were a huge hit.

4. Humans are the machines

One thing I love about ElliiCon is that it gives team members outside of the Publishing and Customer Support teams a chance to interact with teachers. At ElliiCon, our Product team's developers and designers were available in the chat and at the virtual tables talking directly with attendees about AI, tech, AND the humans behind our new features. 

At Thursday's Lunch & Learn: How Ellii Blends AI with Human-Powered Teaching Tools, Ellii's CTO Eduardo took attendees behind the scenes to share all sorts of ways his team is exploring AI for features including autograding and feedback, content recommendations, and class insights (pictured below and coming soon). 

Do these features build themselves? Absolutely not. They are designed, tweaked, and implemented by a human team with people such as Decio, Jessica, and Nicholas, who you got to Meet & Mingle with if you joined us at ElliiCon. Like Ellii's lessons, our features are reviewed and tested by humans and updated based on user needs. Similiary, Dr. Charles Browne described the human side of developing the New General Service List and helped teachers better understand just how many words students really need to know. 

Our invited speaker Dr. Amin Davoodi emphasized this very point throughout his session while making a case for AI being a tool teachers should embrace. If you didn't get a chance to see his session and you are skeptical about the use of AI in English language teaching, please treat yourself! You might also be tempted to buy an Ellii T-shirt.

Amin's main argument: 

Technology (such as AI) doesn't make you a better teacher or a worse teacher. It only magnifies who you are as a teacher. If you are a good teacher, it will definitely make you a better teacher. If you are a bad teacher, it will probably make you a worse teacher. Always, always pedagogy comes first. Technology is just a tool...with ChatGPT you get what you ask for.

Dr. Amin Davoodi

5. Humans have meaningful conversations

Nik Peachey's demonstration of using ChatGPT for simulated role-plays on Day 1 got teachers excited about how to start coming up with creative prompts for personalized learning. The goal, however, is not for learners to be able to have stimulating conversations with a robot! As Angela Tribus Ramos emphasized in the final ElliiCon session, the goal (and Ellii's mission) is for everyone to have more meaningful conversations in real life. 

As we went off into breakout rooms, Angela challenged us to think about elements of humanity that we cherished. I shared my strong connection to real human voices and we talked about how terrifying (and exciting) it is that we can now clone our voices with AI. 

Angela's tips in Seven Strategies for Meaningful Conversations were so empowering that I noticed Gustavo, an active attendee, utilizing some techniques at our final mixer. Gustavo made a graceful exit using signposting (and even followed up with a kind LinkedIn message). Likewise, ElliiCon's host, Lise, thanked Angela graciously for wrapping things up so perfectly that we barely even had to offer our own closing. My heart was full in this moment! 

ElliiCon2023 YouTube Videos

While you can't get the full human experience of a conference like ElliiCon without attending live (emojis, chat comments, Q&A, Table talk), you can catch up on some recorded sessions you missed. All of the sessions are now available to view in the ElliiCon2023 playlist on our Ellii for Teachers YouTube channel. If you attended ElliiCon, we'd love to hear about your own highlights and takeaways in the comments below.

See you next year at ElliiCon2024!