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.
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 Learning...
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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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Winter/Spring Schedule: E-Learning Professional Development
Winter/Spring courses from World Education's E-Learning Professional Development (PD) Series are available for registration. Learning is always best with friends - gather up your team and register today! E-Learning PD facilitated courses are 4-8 week explorations of...
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Innovative Digital Learning
By Alison Ascher Webber This week I facilitated an all-star panel organized by the Migration Policy Institute to showcase innovative program models that leverage educational technologies to train hard-to-reach adults and extend learning beyond classroom walls. As the...
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English Innovations: Learning English with Digital Literacy and Community Engagement
By Heide Wrigley English Innovations is a national model that blends in-class and out-of-class learning for adult English learners with high beginning levels of literacy and little time to spend in a formal adult ESL program. It is a 100 hour jump-start program...
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Online Citizenship Preparation with USA Learns
By Evelyn Fella A Need and a Solution With a 26% increase in the number of immigrants applying for naturalization,* and citizenship classes across the U.S. filling up with long waiting lists, a need for more immigrant services was apparent. To address this need, the...
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Connect, Relax, and Refocus: Using Technology to Alleviate Anxiety for Language Learners
By Becky Shiring Using a second language around native speakers can be nerve wracking. I know this from embarrassing attempts I’ve made trying to speak Spanish. I overthink every word, pull out Google translate to check myself, turn red in the face, and stumble trying...
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The Digital Homeroom
By Jen Vanek There is much adult learning happening outside of formal ABE programs with hired trained teachers. Community based organizations, libraries, and agencies that provide social services to adults who might have language or literacy learning needs play a...
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Cyber-ESL Student Supports – Recipe for Success
By Alison Ascher Webber Instituto del Progreso Latino achieved a 96% retention rate by Cohort 4 of their Cyber-ESL distance learning program with low-income Latino adults in Chicago by asking the question, “What supports will our participants need to be successful...
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Integrating Digital Literacy and Language Instruction
By Alison Ascher Webber Digital literacy and second language instruction should be integrated, and not taught separately. This message was conveyed by researchers and practitioners from Minneapolis to Belgium at the recent Literacy Education and Second Language...
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Learning Upgrade: XPrize Semi-finalist Leveraging Big Data
By Alison Ascher Webber One of the newly announced semi-finalists in the Adult Literacy XPrize competition is Learning Upgrade, a mobile app that teaches through songs, videos, games, and rewards. Learning Upgrade has helped over 1 million students make learning...
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How to Bring Life to an Empty Computer Lab
By Sarah Bell The Problem: What do you do when students aren’t attending your computer classes? That was the problem we faced at Literacy KC in Kansas City, Missouri. Literacy KC works with adults 16 and older who need help with their literacy skills. They range from...
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Keeping Career Training Current: Technology at Hacienda La Puente
By Alison Ascher Webber In the “Inside California Education” short documentary on Hacienda La Puente Adult Education, autoshop instructor Mike Rojas shows computer software used to teach students how to build and test electrical circuits in a simulated environment...
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Do you Kahoot? Gamification for Learner Engagement
By Grazia Mora Kahoot! can make class fun while helping teachers check for understanding. Finding ways to make our classes at Building Skills Partnership (BSP) engaging is essential as our students are immigrant janitors across California who often juggle multiple...
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Digital Literacy: Consume, Create, Curate!
EdTech Partner Nell Eckersley gave adult educators a compelling “Call to Action” to go beyond consuming technology and become ambassadors for curating and creating information online. Read on for a synopsis of her keynote speech given at OTAN’s annual Technology &...
read moreGoogle Quizzes
By Alison Ascher Webber Many of you may already use Google Forms as a survey tool or to pose questions to check for student comprehension. Now formative assessment is all the faster as Google has added the feature of Quizzes to Google Forms. Student responses can be...
read moreBadging in Action: Becoming a Tech Integration Coach in Texas
To catalyze the use of technology in workforce and adult education instruction across Texas, the Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy and Learning, TRAIN PD, at Texas A&M launched in April a 7-level badge program for certifying Technology Integration Coaches....
read moreFacing the Tech Revolution in Adult Education
By Alison Ascher Webber In the closing speech at COABE 2017, XPRIZE Foundation CEO Marcus Shingles gave a wake-up call to adult educators warning that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will change learning at speeds and in ways we could never imagine. Showing a chart...
read moreCoding Clubs for Adult Learners
By Karisa Tashjian In the past ten months, our team at Providence Public Library (PPL) in Providence, Rhode Island, has been repeatedly reminded to never underestimate the potential that lies in each of us. As my colleague, Don Gregory, Technology Instructor at PPL,...
read moreEvaluating Online Tools and Resources Micro Group
By Ed Latham Adult educators, especially part-time teachers, are often frustrated that there are so many digital tools and resources available but never enough time to learn which ones may offer positive learning opportunities for their students. Last year, in a new...
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Celebrate Blended Learning on Digital Learning Day!
By Leah Peterson Digital Learning Day started in 2012 as a way to highlight and celebrate the ways that technology is being used in K-12 education. Technology reaches all levels of education and can have a huge impact in the adult education world as well. Which tech...
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Using Smartphones with WhatsApp to Teach English
By Paul Rogers Mobile devices, especially smartphones, are replacing laptops to the point that the students of any adult education class can access lessons online immediately, without depending on a computer at home or in the computer lab. In order to have a good...
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Getting Started with Virtual Reality in Adult Education
By Susan Gaer Whether you teach English language learners or adult secondary education learners, you need to think about ways to integrate technology into the lesson. There are many technology integration matrices, such as SAMR, TPACK, and The Technology Integration...
read moreLooking Back at 2016
By Leah Peterson Before leaping into 2017 and exploring even more ways to use technology in education, let's look back at the topics we explored in 2016. Because so many of you have commented that video, and YouTube in particular, is one of your favorite uses of...
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Mobilizing Adult Education
By Paul Rogers The use of mobile devices in adult education is an important addition to the tools used by students and teachers alike. With a mobile device, especially a smartphone, at any time any student can access lessons on the Internet, through Google, YouTube,...
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