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.
Considering Use of the Hybrid Flexible Model in Adult Education
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced adult education programs across the country to rethink how they organize and deliver instruction. In response, most education providers adopted technology-based approaches faster and at a larger scale than ever before. As the...
Considering Who has Opportunities for Training and Advancement
A goal of our research is to understand characteristics of employer-supported learning that may lead to advancement. In our work to date, we have come to understand that it is not necessarily the existence of educational opportunities that matter, but instead whether...
Digital Skill-building by Design: The EdTech Integration Strategy Toolkit
Since March 2020, we have seen widespread adoption of technology by adult educators. Throughout this process, we have seen a gradual shift from “emergency response teaching” — throwing whatever tech tool or platform we could at learners in an effort to keep learning...
New Project Launched: Digital Resilience in the American Workforce
Building Skills and Literacy for Equitable Advancement Digital Resilience in the American Workforce (DRAW) is a new initiative from JFF and World Education, with support from The Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), to better prepare adult...
USA Learns Launches Enhanced, Mobile-Optimized Website
by Andrea Willis, USA Learns Director Award winning USA Learns offers new features, upgrades, and now operates on computers, tablets, and smartphones. The Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) is pleased to announce a major rebuild of the USA Learns website,...
IES Funds CrowdED Learning Research on Effective Use of OER’s in Adult Education
The EdTech Center @ World Education’s CrowdED Learning initiative to increase awareness and effective use of open educational resources (OER) in adult education and workforce development is a central component of a five-year grant award to World Education and our...
World Education Joins Partners to Lead National Research Network & Innovation Studies on Improving Adult Skills Through Technology
World Education is pleased to announce our engagement in the Building Adult Skills and Attainment Through Technology Research Network (the Adult Skills Network) research initiative. The Adult Skills Network is a newly-funded activity through the Institute of Education...
Remote Instruction Observation Tool
By Amy Poland Little did Maine’s adult educators know that when they left their classrooms on Friday, March 13, 2020, they would not return for months and for some, more than a year. But that did not stop them from continuing to support their learners as most adult...
Using Learning Upgrade with Literacy-Level ESOL Learners: Onboarding, Structure, and Fun
By Jamie Kreil, EdTech Center guest author & Jen Vanek By connecting with program managers and instructors across the US, the EdTech Center crafts use-case scenarios that illustrate where different online comprehensive curricula farewell and how they are used. In...
Learning for Future Possibilities
We’ve published 5 blog posts that present different personas of working learners. These personas are drawn from our interviews with frontline worker learners across the country who are participating in employer-supported learning opportunities. The personas...
Digital Navigators: Awareness of Services & Impact
By Priyanka Sharma, Catalina Gonzalez, Nicole Cabrera Holguin and Panote Nuchprayoon Keys to Impact in Digital Navigator Services: Adaptability, Trust, and Awareness, a three-part blog series is a collaboration between the EdTech Center and the ExCITe Center at...
Digital Navigators: Trust Drives Impact
By Priyanka Sharma, Catalina Gonzalez, Nicole Cabrera Holguin and Panote Nuchprayoon Keys to Impact in Digital Navigator Services: Adaptability, Trust, and Awareness, a three-part blog series is a collaboration between the EdTech Center and the ExCITe Center at...
Digital Navigators: Adaptability Key in Design
By Priyanka Sharma, Catalina Gonzalez, Nicole Cabrera Holguin and Panote Nuchprayoon Keys to Impact in Digital Navigator Services: Adaptability, Trust, and Awareness, a three-part blog series is a collaboration between the EdTech Center and the ExCITe Center at...
Tyson finds Return on Investment in Digital Inclusion
With access to large numbers of frontline workers, employers such as Tyson Foods are critical partners in ensuring digital navigator services -- or just-in-time supports for device and internet access -- are made available to many adults in the U.S. Tyson Foods, a...
Screening for Success: Resources to Inform Learner Support in Distance Education
By Jessica Wabler When I worked at the YWCA National Capital Area, we had a long history of using distance and blended learning opportunities to help our learners reach success. Thus, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we were lucky to already have a number of measures...
Enhancing Inclusion and Opportunity through Technology: A Conversation with Guilherme Braga
Interviewed by Annalisa Crowe We recently welcomed Guilherme Braga, CEO and co-founder of Brazil-based Egalite as a Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative fellow for entrepreneurs through the U.S. Department of State. Egalite specializes in the recruitment of...
Equity Journey to CRT
As education researchers and practitioners, we’ve long been committed to furthering adult education as a way to build toward a more just and equitable society. We believe that although education often is seen as a portal to success, it is not an individual journey of...
So, Why Persona?
In our last several blog posts, we’ve shared the personas that we generated using interview data analyzed through a qualitative coding process. While each working learner that we interviewed has their own unique story, we used persona development to find patterns...
Dani: Front-Line Supervisor Paid Hourly Seeking Certification for Advancement
In earlier blog posts, we talked about how we are using persona as a research tool and our process for creating personas. As noted in our earlier posts, working learners participate in employer-sponsored learning opportunities for a variety of reasons. We’ve...
Gamification and Supported Learner Progress: Arlington Heights’ Success with Learning Upgrade
By Jamie Kreil, PhD and Jen Vanek, Ph.D By connecting with program managers and instructors across the US, the EdTech Center crafts use scenarios that illustrate where different online comprehensive curricula fare well and how they are used. In this post, we describe...
EdTech Center’s Guide to COABE 2021
We’re looking forward to another great COABE conference this year filled with learning, networking and rich conversations on technology integration and adult learning. Having trouble deciding which sessions to attend? Our team created this curated list of sessions...
Maintaining Our Balance: Transferring Our Sustaining & High-Leverage Practices to the Virtual Learning Environment
By Jayme Adelson Goldstein of Lighthearted Learning Over the past 11 months, teachers’ experiences in the virtual learning environment have ranged from sublime to frustrating to exciting to decidedly unexciting. Just last week on a particularly frustrating day, I lost...
Elise: Juggling Work, Required Training, and Long-Term Goals
Lately, we have been focused on the creation of personas, where aspects of real people are captured and blended in order to create one story that illustrates a broader representation of an end user of a technology or participant in a course. In past posts we talked...
Enhancing Learning through Simulation: A conversation with Javier Chan
Interviewed by Annalisa Crowe This month we welcome Javier Chan, co-founder of Processim Labs as a Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative fellow for entrepreneurs through the U.S. Department of State. Javier will advise our tech development, UX/UI, and...
Neberu: Working to feel comfortable interacting with English speakers
Lately, we have been focused on the creation of personas, where aspects of real people are captured and blended in order to create one story that illustrates a broader representation of an end user of a technology or participant in a course. In past blogs we talked...
Online Platform Supporting Classroom Instruction: Rockingham’s Success with Learning Upgrade
By connecting with program managers and instructors across the US, the EdTech Center can craft use scenarios that illustrate where different online comprehensive curricula fare well and how they are used. In this post, we describe how a small adult basic skills...
Alimayu: College-educated retail worker learning English
Lately, we have been focused on the creation of personas, where aspects of real people are captured and blended in order to create one story that illustrates a broader representation of an end user of a technology or participant in a course. In past blogs we talked...
Tutors and App-Based Remote Learning: Siena Literacy Center’s Success with Learning Upgrade
By Jamie Kreil and Jen Vanek With the launch of the Adult Literacy XPRIZE Communities Competition in 2018, adult literacy programs across the US had unprecedented access to relevant and free mobile apps for learning. Among the apps used was Learning Upgrade, which...
Accessing Relevant Adult ESL and ABE Content Remotely!
By Cynthia Peters Looking for engaging, relevant content that you can teach in the remote classroom? The Change Agent publishes powerful writing authored by adult students, with learning activities to accompany each article. We now offer our content in media-rich...
Stronger Together: Applying Crowdsourcing to Create (Re)Usable OER
As adult education programs shift from emergency remote teaching to more intentional, strategic integration of technology to support instruction and learning, we’ve seen instructors experimenting with a range of different edtech tools. Typically this begins with...