While I can't say I'm at the level of the top international scholars who are regulars on CNN, I can't say I've never been in the media either. Here's a small sample of print articles, radio shows (for these two, click on the images for the links), and TV shows and videos in which I have appeared. I also feature a description of how my social media trail operates on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Social media
I have carefully split my social media trail across different sites for multiple purposes:
I work on two distinct spaces on Facebook:
On the one hand, I have my personal profile page. I may post there anything from links to current articles, opinions on different issues (usually labeled "The Dr's Editorial of the Day), and humorous stuff, such as self-made memes.
On the other hand, I manage the Facebook page for the Literacies in Second Languages Project.
On the one hand, I have my personal profile page. I may post there anything from links to current articles, opinions on different issues (usually labeled "The Dr's Editorial of the Day), and humorous stuff, such as self-made memes.
On the other hand, I manage the Facebook page for the Literacies in Second Languages Project.
In the case of Twitter, I host three different handles:
- @elpatronhimself is strictly personal. I've chosen to use that one for my own enjoyment. I will mostly use it to talk about non-academic stuff. although I may venture there to make academic statements of a more personal nature.
- @lslp_colombia is the official handle of the Literacies in Second Languages Project. Anything and everything related to literacy research and second language education will go through here.
My YouTube trail features two channels:
- The eponymous channel for EPH Productions, where I feature tribute videos I make, playlists for my students' assignments, and other academic and personal resources.
- The LSLP Channel, where LSLP will feature videos about our research and the livestreaming of the ML2 Open Lecture Series.
Print and Online Media
Fulbright Community News, the newsletter for Colombian Fulbright students and alumni, featured a report on the Advisory Committee, where I also got to talk about the importance of giving back to Fulbright.
Here's an interview from April, 2014 in one of our local newspapers about our recent work with WebQuests at our university.
In December, 2013, the National Ministry of Education interviewed me about the MA in Learning and Teaching Processes in Second Languages.
Our work with WebQuests at UPB has appeared in different news outlets. Here is an article from Universitas Cientifica, one of the journals at our university.
Vivir en El Poblado, a local newsletter, interviewed me in 2012 about my experiences as a Fulbrighter when I was at Illinois for a report on international education.
Here's a bulletin from the First International Symposium and Second Regional Colloquium of Educational and Pedagogical Research at Universidad de Córdoba. That was my first-ever keynote presentation, back in 2010!
In 2019, I was chosen as one of three recepients of the Divergent Award from the Initiative for 21st Century Literacies Research. The Divergent Award recognizes scholars with outstanding records in terms of research and advocacy in the field of 21st century literacies. I am happy to share two notes related to receving this award:
The first note regarding the Divergent Award was from my university, UPB, a lovely note in Spanish that also featured testimonials from some of the researchers at the Literacies in Second Languages Project.
The second note related to the Divergent Award came from my alma mater. This story was more closely related to the influence that my time as a student at the College of Education at Illinois had in getting this award.
Audio (Radio/Podcasts)
In 2013, I was one of the guests in the radio show Taking Wing from the station at Universidad Distrital. I was interviewed to talk about language learning, English, and other interesting stuff related to Love and Friendship day. The interview starts at the 45-minute mark.
In 2014, I was the guest in two episodes of the radio show Lengua and Cultura Viva at Radio Bolivariana. Both episodes related to English and language teaching in general. Take a listen below:
In 2019, taking advantage of my trip to AERA in Toronto, I was the guest in an episode of Chasing Encounters, a podcast by fellow Colombian scholar Yecid Ortega. This episode shared some of my ideas about language. languaging, and literacy, all within a critical social justice perspective. You're welcome to listen to the podcast below:
Also in 2019, I visited Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira (UTP) for a series of lectures and meetings. During my visit, I was interviewed for UTP Radio Magazine to share my views about bilingualism in Colombia. Check out the interview (Part 1 begins at the 07:17 mark; Part 2 at the 19:29 mark)
Video (Television/YouTube)
In 2011, I was a guest in local TV program Educación para todos, to talk about internationalization of education, from my perspective as a Fulbright alum.
Here is a presentation from 2012 on the dimensions of <bilingualism> and its implications for language teaching.
Here's another talk on language learning in Colombia, at Universidad Distrital in Bogotá
The Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy invited me to be the Policy and Advocacy Department Editor between 2014 and 2016 . Here's my introduction to the JAAL readership.
On November 2, 2014, I was the guest speaker for the Global Conversations in Doctoral Preparation series with my talk Dissertating across the miles: Survival skills for international students… and their families. You can see this video in the Surviving Grad School page. In April, 2015, I was a featured guest speaker for Global Conversations in Literacy Research with the talk Revisiting Today’s Language Ecologies: New Questions about Language Use and Literacy Practices.
Also, in 2015, I gave another talk about multimodal literacies in teacher education at Jornadas del Maestro Investigador at my university.
At the end of 2015, as part of my duties (at the time) as the ML2 coordinator, I delivered the keynote address for the (sadly, now defunct) Second Language Research Showcase.
Since 2016 I have joined a group of literacy scholars in the U.S. as part of an endeavor we are now calling the "Obnoxious Academics Consortium". We have our own un-webinar series first called the #30A Chat (Three Obnoxious Academics at the time), for which we have put together two sessions already and plan to do even more in 2017! You can follow these academic shenanigans on our blog
In 2017, I was one of the featured speakers in the "Café Metropolitano" web series from the Institute of Urban and Regional Studies at UPB-Medellín.
I am happy to also share this trailer video for the Literacy Research Association's 68th Annual Conferencem where I was part of a select group of scholars from around the world sharing my thoughts about the main theme of the conference and how I view my work around activism, community, and love.
Here's a video my friend and colleague Dr. Leigh Hall put together for her Teaching Academia series about being an international student. I just had the chance to share some of my experiences as a graduate student, hoping other international students would find them useful. If you do, please let me know!
I had a chance to return to Teaching Academia, this time to talk about how to write a dissertation when English is not your mother language. Please let me know if this video was equally useful!
In May 2019, I was the guest speaker for the Inaugural Address at Licenciatura en Bilingüismo at Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira. My talk proposed one way to develop more realistic bilingual practices in our country and language curricula. Take a look!
Here is a short video from November, 2019 (in Spanish) where I talk about the experience of leading the Literacies in Second Languages Project and what that has meant for my research agenda:
In May, 2020, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was part of a series of webinars from ASOCOPI (the Colombian ELT Association) about teaching remotely and virtually. Here's my webinar, "My home desk is my new classroom: Transitioning from schools to remote and virtual teaching."
In September, 2020, I was one of the keynote speakers at the 20th Teachers' Moot at Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia. This time I reflected on what it means to do research in the new era of the pandemic and why we need to think of becoming "slow researchers." Video starts at the 16:13 mark and goes till approximately the 1:01:30 mark.
In October, 2020, I was a guest speaker at the 1st Literacy Congress for a Scientific Culture at Universidad de Guadalajara, in a panel about bilingual experiences and their links to literacy (in Spanish):
In November, 2020, I joined an incredible panel with three colleagues for a webinar co-sponsored by the AERA Language and Social Processes (LSP) and Second Language Research (SLR) SIGs. The panel, titled "Work/Life Harmony: Mental Health in the Academy" was a lively discussion about how we are navigating the pandemic and finding ways to care of ourselves and our inner circle: