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February 2006
No. 58
www.valrc.org
February 2006
No. 58
www.valrc.org
October 2005
No. 55
www.valrc.org
Update has gone online! We are very excited to announce that Update will now be a fully web-based publication. This will make it even easier for you to follow the links that are included in it. You will also be able to access it easily from anywhere you have an Internet connection. The url for this issue of Update is: www.valrc.org/publications/update/update1005.htm. Did you read Update on LD last month? We have a new addition to the Update family: Update on LD. If you missed the issue last month, you can still view it at: www.valrc.org/publications/updateonld/updateonld0905.htm. Redesign of the Center for Adult English Language Acquisition (CAELA) website The web address remains the same, www.cal.org/caela, but many of their articles have been moved around. If you have links to the CAELA website or link to them on your own website, you will need to fix the now broken links. October is Health Literacy Month! There is a list of health literacy websites in the June issue of Update. To view that issue again, click on the following link: Update, June 2005. Sign up now for the International Classroom and School Virtual Visit Project. In the July issue of Update, we told you about this project. Now is the time to sign up in order to have your class participate. To sign up, go to: http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/icvv. Once you receive confirmation that you are registered, send an email to: icvv@lists.literacytent.org. Make sure that you describe your class, when it starts, age group, and nationality with which you would like to partner. |
Need to translate what your ESOL students write? Need a way to make sure that your ESOL students understand what you are saying? Try out: www.freetranslation.com. Visit the English Club for help with teaching English to English language learners. This comprehensive website has everything from lessons to job postings. It also includes interactive pages with games, puzzles, forums, and chat features. To learn more, go to: www.englishclub.com. Need help with lesson planning for your ESOL classes? Not sure what to do for different levels of ESOL learners? Check out "Tools for ESL Lesson Planning" at: http://esl.adultinstruction.org/documents/ToolsforESLLesson "They DO Speak English: World Englishes in U.S. Schools" by Jodi Crandall discusses the issue of native English speakers who do not speak American English. It also provides concrete suggestions for appropriate instruction. To view the article, go to: www.cal.org/resources/news/2003summer/sum03news final.pdf. Computers and English for Speakers of Other Languages has a lesson page that will help you teach technology to your ESOL students. To visit the site, go to: http://hub1.worlded.org/docs/cesol/lessons.htm. |
On the St. Paul Community Literacy Consortium's website you will find lesson modules covering basic computer skills developed by computer teachers from adult basic education programs in the St. Paul Community Literacy Consortium. You will find lesson handouts, teacher guides, vocabulary lists, and activities. Some computer skills may have several lessons associated with them, and some lessons may cover several computer skills. To see what lessons are available, go to: www.spclc.org/curriculum.html. Mindplay.com offers free resources to teachers! Included at: www.mindplay.com/free.html are
The Arizona Association for Lifelong Living website includes, links to Internet-based lessons such as Earthquake!, Money Counting, and Nutrition. To view the entire list, go to: www.az-aall.org/AALL/Pages/AALLInternetLesson Take a free online GED Practice Test! At www.4tests.com, your students can take online versions of the GED Practice Test as well as the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) Practice Test. ADPRIMA is designed for new teachers, future teachers, education students, and also for anyone else interested in education. Within the site you will find detailed, practical, straightforward information on lesson planning, learning objectives, teaching methods, instructional grouping, classroom management, study skills, thinking skills, job searching, education reform, discussions, direct instruction, and a whole lot more. To visit the site, go to: www.adprima.com. The Lesson Plan Builder makes it easier for you to develop quality lesson plans that address adult education content standards in the context of CASAS and SCANS competencies. The Lesson Plan Builder
The site requires you to register, but it is free. To visit the site, go to: www.adultedlessons.org. |
What is the best way to move welfare recipients into work? Is it to help them find jobs quickly or to enroll them in education and training programs before they look for a job? Nearly two decades of highly credible research using random assignment methods demonstrates that neither approach alone works best to increase welfare recipients' employment and earnings and to reduce their welfare receipt. Instead, the most effective strategy is to employ a combination of the two in a mixed approach. To read a brief summary about this study, go to: www.mdrc.org/area_fact_18.html. To view the entire summary report, go to: www.mdrc.org/publications/52/summary.html. The Employment and Training Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor has released a special tabulation of 2000 Census data on Limted English Proficiency (LEP) populations as a resource for One-Stop Career Centers and their education and job training partners. The data are broken out for 39 census languages and are disaggregated by state and by local workforce investment areas within states. For more information and to access the data, go to: www.doleta.gov/usworkforce/whatsnew/eta_default.cfm? The Anne E. Casey Foundation offers several publications for free. Some of the publications available are:
To view the other free publications available, go to: www.aecf.org/ Steps to Employment is a series of workshop manuals ready for use in settlement and integration programs. Each workshop manual includes materials for twenty-five hours of orientation, and twenty-five hours of occupation-specific language training, for a complete ten days of full-time instruction. Some of the manuals available are
To view all of the manuals available, go to: http://209.121.217.200/manuals.html. |
The Verizon Literacy Campus has made some changes to their website and courses. There are now 28 courses available, some with new and innovative features. The enrollment process has been simplified. To learn more about the changes, visit the "What's New" page at: www.literacycampus.org/whatsnew/index.asp. Want to teach your students how to do effective and efficient web searches? These sites may help you.
Had a tech glitch lately? Maybe you've had technical difficulty while doing a lesson or a training that depends on technology. Maybe you found a solution to the problem. If so, add it to the Tech Glitches page on the ALE Wiki. You also just might find the answer to a problem you've been having. To view it, go to: http://wiki/literacytent.org/index.php/techglitches. Are you afraid of Assistive Technology because you don't know how to use it? Be afraid no more! The Assistive Technology Training Online Project has developed a series of tutorials on the correct use of many popular assistive technology devices. To view what tutorials are available, go to: http://atto.buffalo.edu/registered/Tutorials.php. Want to stay on top of the newest technology? Not sure where to find out about the latest innovation? Subscribe to these free publications that will keep you in the know: www.thejournal.com and http://techlearning.com. Have you ever wanted to try digital storytelling but didn't feel like you had the expertise? Now you can do it easily with Powerbullet Presenter. This is a free program for Windows. Now you can mix text, graphics, and mp3 audio into Flash slideshows. To get Powerbullet, go to: www.powerbullet.com. An example of a presentation created with Powerbullet may be viewed at: www.his.com/~pshapiro/mycomputersaga.htm. The audio in this presentation was recorded through Audacity, a free program for recording and editing sounds. To learn more about Audacity, go to: http://audacity.sourceforge.net. The sounds were then compressed into the mp3 format using Apple's iTunes program. To get iTunes, go to: www.apple.com/itunes. |
Blogs, Podcasts, and WikisThese may be some terms that you have heard in reference to technology, but you may not have known exactly what they were. BlogShort for web log, a publication of personal thoughts to a website in reverse chronological order; the content and quality varies greatly depending on the purpose of the author. Many bloggers view the writing as an online diary with an audience. Web logs began in mid-1990s with the advent of free web publishing tools. A compilation of blogs by, for, and about ESOL/EFL A blog about podcasting for ESOL/EFL A blog for ESOL students, developed in Sydney, Australia A blog by ESOL teacher Barry Bakin A blog by Online Learning Daily A blog by Technology and Literacy in Deaf Education A blog by New Ways of Thinking About Literacy and Learning The Adult Literacy and Technology Blog
PodcastsPodcasting is making audio files (most commonly in mp3 format) available online in a way that allows software to automatically download the files for listening at the user's convenience. Podcasts to learn English A podcast site by Steve Quann on informal English A podcasting site for ESOL students To start a Podblaze podcast A blog about podcasting for ESOL/EFL
WikisA wiki is a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. The term wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website. The name is based on the Hawaiian term "wiki wiki" which means "quick". Adult Literacy Education Wiki Grassroots Literacy Coalition Wiki Wikipedia, the groundbreaking collaborative encyclopedia is one of the most well-known examples of wiki technology. To create a free wiki using free Mediawiki software The Writing Together Wiki
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