Page 1 - MAVR Newsletter Volume 2, Issue 1 (April 2018)

MAVR Newsletter Volume 2, Issue 1

April, 2018

Message from the Officers

It has been over a year since our group was formed! Can you believe it? We are still
building up many of the foundations of our community but have made some great
progress during our first year. Our group was first voted into the JALT organization as a
special interest group in February of 2017. At that time, we were given a trial or
probationary status and given some goals to strive for. I am happy to say that most of
first year goals were met, and in February of 2018, we were promoted to an official SIG
within the organization. Last year, we started our website, our newsletter, our podcast,
and our social media presence. Those efforts are starting to show the fruits of our labors
as we have seen the size both in content and traffic increase on our outlets. The
website, for example, now has a complete listing of all the major publications, member

resources, podcasts, and events documented. It is becoming a great resource for
MAVR research members.

Our members are all doing wonderful and interesting projects, much of which are in
collaboration with other members within our group, but some are sharing our mission to
extend our community and knowledge with other organizations around the world. We
had members present in London, Singapore, China, and virtually at other conferences
and venues around the world. In Japan, our group as a whole organized two events in
conjunction with other conferences related to the JALT organization. The MAVR SIG
had an active presence at JALT2017 held in Tsukuba in November. More details about
the SIG forum, table, partnership booth, and after party gaming can be found below:
https://parisamehran.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/mavr-presence-at-jalt2017/
We had our first commercial partner in Cengage Learning at this event, where we
created an augmented reality experience to enhance their textbook series using TED
content. The experience was located at the Cengage booth in the heart of the
conference exhibition next to reception and was great exposure for our group. Find
more about it on the Cengage website here: ​https://ngljapan.com/jalt2017/

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