ALaN WA Newsletter August 2012

Welcome to edition 5 of the Adult Literacy and Numeracy Network of Western Australia Newsletter!

Views expressed by contributors to the newsletter are their own and, unless expressly stated, do not reflect the opinions of their employers/organisations.

This contents page links individually to each article enabling you to go immediately to those of your choice. Alternatively, if you go to the main blog link, you can access the articles by scrolling down the page.

We welcome your comments and contributions to our newsletter. If you are an Adult Literacy/Numeracy practitioner in Western Australia or indeed, anywhere in the world, we invite you to subscribe and comment. If you interested in joining the GoogleGroup for our network, please visit our “How to join” page and complete the online form.

Contents

1. Training rangers in the Kimberley: a WELL project

Our  story this month is the Kimberley where ranger training is taking on a new dimension with the addition of a WELL program.

2. Language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) practitioner scholarships program

Scholarships for approved study.

3. Images “fit for purpose”

If you or your students ever upload or email images this article is for you. Using a free, simple to use tool to resize images for easier uploading.

4. Report from WAALC conference 2012

A must read whether you were able to attend the conference or not.

5. Certificate IV qualification for the delivery and assessment of foundation skills – update

The industry body took on board the feedback from stakeholders – we made a difference!

6. ‘Literacy and Numeracy Studies’ free journal

Checkout this free online journal

7. Certificates in General Education for Adults Review

The CGEA curriculum is up for review

8. LLNP Innovative and Research Project Funding round

A funding opportunity

9. CGEA Google Group Activity 2012

What’s happening in the group?

10. 2012 NSW ALNC Conference 10 December, 2012

An update on the conference at the end of the year

11.  Reading during the International Year of Reading!

Add your reading ideas

12. Adult Learners’ Week 2012 – Short Story Competition

Join the people’s choice voting for the short story competition

 

Training rangers in the Kimberley: a WELL project

Over the past four years, Kimberley Training Institute (KTI) has delivered an innovative Conservation and Land Management (CLM) training program to Aboriginal rangers in remote areas of the Kimberley.

Over the past 18 months KTI has successfully used Workplace English Language and Literacy (WELL) funding to assist rangers in developing their literacy and numeracy skills,

resulting in improved completions of Traineeships, progressions to higher level qualifications, and increased employment opportunities.

Further one-on-one tutoring support is provided by KTI lecturers under the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme (ITAS).

This program is a great example of co-delivery between LLN specialist and vocational lecturers. KTI is currently in the running for the Premiers Award.

Good luck!

 

LANGUAGE, LITERACY AND NUMERACY (LLN) PRACTITIONER SCHOLARSHIPS PROGRAM

Department of Industry, Innovation, Science,  Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE) funds a scholarship program  to address skill shortages in the adult LLN field in Australia by increasing the number of qualified LLN practitioners, particularly in regional areas.

The Program provides a scholarship of up to $5,250 to successful applicants to support them in undertaking approved study toward an adult LLN practitioner qualification commencing in the academic year following the application round. Suitable qualifications must be accredited under the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF); must include a specialisation in adult Language, Literacy and Numeracy practice; and may be delivered by either the higher education or vocational education and training sector.

Round 4 of this Program is expected to be advertised in September/October 2012 for studies commencing in 2013. Those interested in applying for Round 4 should continue to monitor this DEEWR website – it is possible that guidelines, including eligibility criteria could change.

 

 

Images “fit for purpose”

Introduction

Ability to carry out simple image editing quickly is very significant in making our images “fit for purpose”. If you do any of the following with images: use them in online publishing; email them especially if recipients have Inbox restrictions; put them on websites and find they take a long time to open/download; use them where image size on the page is important; save them where storage capacity is limited. Then you need to know some basic image editing techniques and have access to simple tools for doing this. So that you can resize images easily to suit their purpose.

The table above gives a  rough guide to sizes, but experience will tell you what sizes work best for you in your own context.

A suitable editing application

My own personal preference is a free downloadable tool called PhotoFiltre.

From my perspective the main advantages of this particular tool are these:

  • Small (4MB) so I can keep a copy on a USB drive to put on any computer at need – useful if you don’t have the access to download and install executable files on school/college computers due to organisational restrictions;
  • Free to download and use for private and education purposes so it can be installed anywhere without licensing issues;
  • I can recommend it to colleagues and students who can then use it without incurring cost; and also without large download time – significant in our infrastructure poor region;
  • My often not very tech savvy students, and sometimes colleagues, find it easy to use;
  • Simple short user guide – mostly written in plain comprehensible English
  • Quick to open and to access the tools I (and many others) use most frequently
  • Handles a good range of image formats

The main PhotoFiltre tool that I use is “Image size” to adjust the size of my images. However I do also regularly use: “Paste as new image” – extremely useful for screenshots used in “How to” resources; and “Crop” – to produce an image without extraneous clutter.

Adjusting image size

For me the way that I can easily and quickly resize an image is probably the most important feature of PhotoFiltre. Accessing the Image size” tool is most easily done via the “Image” menu at the top of the screen.

Resizing by reducing the number of pixels is probably the quickest and easiest way for most of us to reduce the size of the image file.

Making sure that your image is the right size for purpose is critical. When you import an image into a document and reduce the size within the document this has no effect on the size of the image in terms of file space. For example if you have a 60KB text document and you insert a 500KB image your document file size will be 560KB. Even if you reduce the visible dimensions of the image within the document your file will still be 560KB. This has impacts on download time and inbox capacity. Both “png” and “jpg” are widely supported.

Image saving format

The default file saving format on installation of PhotoFiltre is “bmp” (bitmap). This format is less widely used than in the past and therefore no longer supported by a number of commonly used tools and applications. This makes it a good idea to change the default file save format to “png” or “jpg” as shown below.

Conclusion

I hope you find this introduction to getting your images fit for purpose to be helpful. You could find it especially useful of you are planning an article for this newsletter. If you can submit your images already resized it saves us time in editing and contributes considerably to the smooth and timely publishing of the newsletter.

If you have any questions or comments about image sizes please put them in a comment on the post and I will do my best to help.

 

Jo Hart (Aug 2012)

 

 

Report from WAALC conference 2012

This year the theme of the annual Western Australian Adult Literacy (WAALC) Conference was At the heart of the matter – identity and trust in adult learning.  The intention was to place people – teachers and learners – at the heart of educational quality and ask the question: what makes learning work for people?

The WAALC Conference Committee chose to address  the factors that make the difference between accessible, effective literacy services, and those which, for adult literacy learners, just replicate what didn’t work well enough in the first place.

This theme opened up discussion about the human element, and how what happens during initial schooling almost always impacts on, and must be acknowledged and addressed in literacy learning.  Conference delegates focused on what learners have told us, and showed us, and proved to us over and over again – that understanding, trust and commitment between teacher and learner is central to successful adult literacy learning.  Sixteen workshops were delivered at the conference to explore and renew our focus on the heart of the matter: ways of working that meet the needs of learners and, as a natural result, achieve better outcomes for the wider society as well.

The keynote speakers were Ruth Wallace, from Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory, and Susan Bates, recently returned to Western Australia from working in adult literacies in Scotland. Both provided practical advice about how identity and trust could be built to contribute towards literacy development, despite the conflicting demands on teachers and learners.

The response from adult literacy teachers across WA was brilliant, with wholehearted support for the opportunity to explore in depth what is At the heart of the matter – identity and trust in adult learning. 102 delegates attended the 2012 Conference over two days.  One delegate described the experience:

This year the theme was close to what I feel, what we often forget in the game of outcomes, certificates, reporting and paperwork – that at the heart of the matter we are dealing with human beings who are most often disempowered, and our role above all is to help them build confidence and empower them, help them to see and work from their own strength (Delegate, WAALC Conference 2012).

 

 

 

 

Certificate IV qualification for the delivery and assessment of foundation skills – update

Throughout June Innovation & Business Skills Australia (IBSA) conducted a consultation process to scope a proposed certificate IV qualification that would equip VET practitioners with the skills and knowledge to address the foundation skills needs of learners.

 Scoping process and findings

Targeted consultations were held in a number of locations and more than 50 written responses to the scoping discussion paper were received from individuals and organisations representing a wide range of stakeholders.

Key findings from the scoping process were:

  •  widespread acknowledgement of a gap in VET workforce capability, but little support for a new certificate IV qualification as an appropriate workforce development solution
  • many suggestions for a more narrowly focussed product, such as a skill set or qualification stream, to extend the skills and knowledge of vocational practitioners
  • questions about the fitness for purpose of the current TAE certificate IV and diploma qualifications in relation to equipping VET practitioners with the ability to address the foundation skills needs of their learners.

Recommendations for development

Findings from the scoping process were considered by IBSA’s National Project Reference Group (NPRG) at a meeting on 16 July 2012. After considering a number of options, the NPRG recommended that IBSA should:

  • develop a new skill set within the TAE10 Training Package comprising the existing units TAELLN401 and TAELLN501 and new units focused on sourcing specialist expertise and resources, working collaboratively with LLN specialists and effective instructional strategies for building foundation skills within a vocational training context. Units developed for the new skill set will be made available as electives in both the TAE40110 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and the TAE50111 Diploma of VET providing a developmental pathway between the two qualifications.
  • continue to monitor the fitness for purpose of the TAE40110 and the TAE50111 to ensure that they meet the needs of the VET workforce. The NPRG noted that the structure of both of these qualifications will be changed in 2014 to move current LLN elective units into the core – TAELLN401 into the core of the TAE40110, and TAELLLN501 into the core of the TAE50111.

Development work on the new skill set will be conducted between August and November 2012.

Further information about the project will be added to the IBSA website as the project progresses.

Thanks to all the members of the WA Adult Literacy and Numeracy (ALaN) Network that contributed to this result. This was the most popular topic on the CGEA Network Google Group this year.

‘Literacy and Numeracy Studies’ free journal

Literacy and Numeracy Studies  is a free journal published by the University of Technology Sydney.

The  latest issue  Vol 20, No 1 (2012) includes:

  • Editorial – Keiko Yasukawa, Stephen Black
  • Developing Social Capital In ‘Learning Borderlands’: Has the Federal Government’s budget delivered for low-paid Australian workers? – Maree Keating
  • Health Literacy as a Complex Practice – Judy Hunter, Margaret Franken
  • Methadone, Counselling and Literacy: A health literacy partnership for Aboriginal clients – Stephen Black, Anne Ndaba, Christine Kerr, Brian Doyle
  • ‘Passivity’ or ‘Potential’?: Teacher responses to learner identity in the low-level ESL classroom – Sue Ollerhead
  • Book Review – Phonetics for Phonics by Ross Forman

You can subscribe to the journal here

Certificates in General Education for Adults Review

The Certificates in General Education for Adults are being reaccredited during 2012/2013. The reaccreditation will take into account any impact of the Foundation Skills Training Package, currently under development.

Phase 1 of the reaccreditation process focused on research and consultation with key stakeholders and was completed in June.

The project is now entering phase 2 which will involve the redevelopment of the curriculum. The reaccredited curriculum is scheduled for publication on the Training Support Network website in April 2013. A focus group was held in Melbourne on 9 August to consult on potential changes to the curriculum.

For more information contact the Curriculum Maintenance Manager (CMM) Service General Studies and Further Education at sicmm.generalstudies@vu.edu.au or by phone on 99195300/5302.

Watch the CGEA Network Google Group for opportunities to contribute to the Western Australian input.

LLNP Innovative and Research Project Funding round

The Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE) through the Language, Literacy and Numeracy Program (LLNP) is seeking submissions for grant funding to undertake innovative pilots or demonstration models and/or research based projects that lead to an enhanced delivery of language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) training for adults.

If you are interested in increasing the English language, literacy and numeracy skills of adult Australians, have experience in the field of adult literacy, or would like to pilot projects that can be replicated and sustainable then your submission is welcome.

Submissions for the LLNP Innovative and Research Project funding close COB 31 August 2012.

CGEA Google Group Activity 2012

What’s been happening with the Google Group so far this year?

Message Board

There has been a lot of focus on the development of the Foundation Skills Training Package.  If you weren’t able to attend the Elluminate sessions, you can still listen to them or you can read the briefing documents

 

Google Docs

Due to issues with the new look Google Group, some ‘how to’ documents were written and circulated to help new and existing members negotiate their way around the Google Group and the Network Files site.  These are now saved in the ‘how to ‘ folder in ‘CGEA 2011-2012 files’

 

Resources were saved to Google Docs for the following units:-

 

VBQU146

VBQU150

VBQU140

VBQU152

VBQU119

 

Plus activities on making pancakes, shopping lists, quantities, ESL activities and an activity to design your own shoes!

Sadly our moderation folder is still empty.  If you do any moderation within your organisation (or between organisations), please try uploading a few examples for other members to view.