Tech Tips Blog
Welcome to Tech Tips! This blog covers topics related to technology use in adult education in the United States. Posts include simple lesson ideas that teachers can use to integrate technology into instruction, updates on what’s happening in the field, new opportunities and resources, and news from our EdTech Center projects.
We welcome guest contributors. See our contact page for more information.
SkillRise Initiative Supporting Technology Adoption in Adult Education and Workforce Development
SkillRise is a new initiative that helps adult education and workforce development organizations adopt and then effectively leverage technology in support of their clients, customers, learners, and employees. SkillRise is a project of the International Society for...
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Cafe Con Tabletas – Building Digital Literacy Skills at a Cafe
By Beatriz Vera, Building Skills Partnership Café con Tabletas is a new digital literacy initiative of Building Skills Partnership, a non-profit organization that aims to improve the quality of life for property-service workers and their families by increasing their...
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World Education Supports Mobile Learning Equivalency Program For Cambodian Youth
In collaboration with World Education’s EdTech Center, the Royal Government of Cambodia and UNESCO launched the first learning center of Basic Education Equivalency Programme (BEEP) on Sunday, 17 February 2019, at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia. BEEP aims to...
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PAIRIN – Helping Job Seekers “Look in the Mirror” to Assess Personal Soft Skills
By Jeff Goumas and Jen Vanek “It really has fine printed the areas in my professional life and personal life I need to work on. I’m not always the best at finding little traits in myself.” –Heather Barton, CrossPurpose Graduate Soft skills. Employability...
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SkillSmart—Improving Employment Opportunity with Skills-Based Hiring
What happens when employers start to look at a whole individual—and not just traditional education and work experience on a resume? A mother finds out that years at home caring for her paraplegic son has prepared her with skills to work in insurance customer service....
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Modernizing the Northstar Digital Literacy Assessment to Better Close the Opportunity Gap
A certified nursing assistant readying for a future with more electronic health records. A disabled father improving his digital skills toward a dream of starting an online business (and helping his daughter with computer-based homework). A Somali immigrant using his...
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Standing Out in the Crowd
The EdTech Center is pleased to announce the non-profit CrowdED Learning, and its founding Executive Director Jeff Goumas, as a new EdTech Partner. Formed in late 2017, CrowdED Learning is a response to the growing need for a wider range of high-quality, accessible learning resources for adult education. While there has been increased activity in the creation and sharing of free and open education resources (OER), their use within adult education remains incredibly low. CrowdED Learning is dedicated to solving this problem.
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Building A Culture of Inquiry: 21st Century Learning Ecosystem Opportunities Project
It is with great enthusiasm that we kick off this new interactive blog with an initial post about the 21st Century Learning Ecosystem Opportunities Project. This collective research effort seeks to identify the constellation of factors that motivate and encourage...
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Re-calibrating the North Star: Digital Literacy Assessment 2.0
The NorthStar Digital Literacy Assessment has been an established tool in the field of continuing education, and has recently undergone a overhaul to update their visuals and user interfaces. Check out more on how this techtool has evolved.
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Using Bio Poem Videos to Support Story Telling
Bio poems are an innovative way to plan lessons that engage learners in multimedia content creation in an accessible way. Kristen Navaluna describes how this concept could enrich any classroom~
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Beyond Bookmarks: An Easier Way to Manage OER
There are so many reasons to use Open Educational Resources (OER) in our adult learning programs. The IDEAL Distance Education and Blended Learning Handbook recommends using OER as supplemental resources to provide extra practice. OER is cost effective and easily...
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Teachers Talk Mobile Learning
By Lindsay Messoline Maria Velarde is the head teacher and Anissa Reddick is the assistant teacher at Make the Road New York, the state’s largest immigrant organization that works with Cell-Ed through a partnership with the New York State Office for New Americans....
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Field Testing Cell-Ed: Mobile Learning for All
By Jen Vanek, Alison Ascher Webber "I used to be bored at my children's soccer games and swim lessons, but now I use that time to study on Cell-Ed," said a room cleaner at the Seaport Hotel to her instructor at workplace English classes taught by World Education. For...
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World Education Celebrates CareAcademy’s MIT Inclusive Innovation Global Grand Prize Win
By Victoria Neff Last night, World Education team members attended MIT’s Inclusive Innovation Challenge Gala to cheer on CareAcademy, the grand prize winner in the Skill Development and Opportunity Matching category. CareAcademy was recognized for improving the future...
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App-to-Speed Learning Circles in Adult ESOL Programs
By David J. Rosen, Ed.D. A learning circle is a group led by a teacher, staff member or volunteer facilitator whose members all share an interest in the same subject or topic. It’s a non-formal, organized study circle that includes an online course or other online...
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xR for Adult Education
On Monday, October 22, I attended xR in EDU, a day-long event exploring the use of augmented and virtual reality in education and training. My goal was to listen for ideas that best connected with the field of adult education. In this post, I will share some of what I...
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Field Testing an Effective Virtual Career Exploration Technology with Adult Learners
The EdTech Center @ World Education is currently field testing Nepris, an online career exploration platform that connects educators with employers and industry experts to bring more relevance to the classroom and inspire learners towards real-world careers. Field...
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Leamos “Let’s Read” Online Literacy Course for Spanish Speakers
By Laura Medina, Southern California Director, Building Skills Partnership and Alison Ascher Webber, Board Member, Building Skills Partnership “Not being literate has brought me much humiliation and ridicule. Now thanks to the Leamos program, I know how to write my...
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One Adult Literacy App, Many Diverse Learners
AmritaCREATE's Approach to Learner Usage and Engagement in the Xprize Adult Literacy Competition By Rita Sutcliffe, English Language Content Manager, AmritaCREATE Clear instruction at the appropriate level and engagement of the learner are basic educational issues...
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Using the ISTE Student Standards in Adult Education
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is well known in the K-12 world as a thought leader on the issue of digital literacy. Their digital literacy standards, first shared in 1998, have been continuously revised to keep apace with both changes in...
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Facing the Retail Revolution with Empowered Learning for Technology Skills
By Jen Vanek and Brandon Olszewski As retail technology evolves to incorporate new trends such as online shopping, self-checkout and personal data, one cannot help but notice the changing nature of work. Rather than mechanically checking out customers one at a time,...
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What We’re Reading – August 2018
Skillsmart's white paper, Skills-based hiring expands across Western Massachusetts provides a compelling example of technology 'screening in' candidates for work they might not qualify for through a traditional resume. A hospitality company realized that to find...
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Teaching Tech Skills to Older Adults
It’s 2018, and at this point you can toss an iPad to a 4-yr-old and they’ll be able to find some games to play, but this is not necessarily the case for older adults. Just like any new thing, it’s easier to master when you’ve grown up with it, than when it’s thrust...
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What We’re Reading: Critiquing Adult Participation in Education
Many of you have probably seen by now the first report from the Critiquing Adult Participation in Education project (CAPE) on Deterrents and Solutions. The need to leverage technology to provide alternative, flexible, anytime, anywhere, personalized solutions was...
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Experimenting with Google Assistant in ESOL Classrooms
Digital tools and technology are part of everyday life. Mobile devices can tell us where to go and how to find things. We use apps to calculate monthly bills, plan trips, and showcase favorite memories. A world of information is at our fingertips, and at the sound of...
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Using Smartphones for Math: How a Refugee Center Found Success
This post is by Vinod Lobo, CEO of Learning Upgrade. This week, the five finalists for the Adult Literacy XPRIZE were announced, one of which is Learning Upgrade. Join us in congratulating them and stay tuned for posts by other XPRIZE finalists. The UMI...
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Using Northstar in the Classroom
The online Northstar Digital Literacy Assessment has helped over 2 million adults identify the gaps in their digital skills and gain recognition for their strengths. In this tech tip, adult educator JennaRose Dahl shares how she uses Northstar with her learners. “If...
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Converting a Lesson to Integrate Technology
By Leah Peterson Have you ever found a lesson that looked interesting and engaging but didn’t have the tech elements you were hoping for? This is the story of how I adapted a lesson from the The Change Agent, a magazine and website for adult learners, to be more...
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Discussion: Innovative Digital Learning Models for ELL Immigrant Adults
Did you participate in the Innovative Digital Learning Models for ELL Immigrant Adults webinar? If so, join the discussion! If not, watch the recording, then join in. Mobile and other technologies make possible anytime, anywhere learning to extend education to...
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5 Reasons Why Teachers and Instructional Designers Should Care About Learning Analytics
We at the EdTech Center are closely tracking the ability of technology to provide personalized learning experiences that accelerate learning and increase student motivation and success. The future of personalized learning will depend on the ability to gather data...
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