ALaN WA Newsletter – November 2014

Welcome to edition 14 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 are interested in joining the GoogleGroup for our network, please visit our “How to join” page and complete the online form.

Contents

1. WA Adult Literacy Council 2015

2. Conferences coming up

3. PD coming up from November 2014

4. Seeking your input!

5. LLN Practitioner Scholarships Programme

6. Infographics – what are they and how can we use them?

 

 

WA Adult Literacy Council 2015

The WA Adult Literacy Council is pleased to announce that the 2015 State Conference will be held at Central Institute of Technology on 16th and 17th April, 2015. The conference is titled Great Expectations: literacy, the individual and the economy.

Please note that the conference is at a different time of year from formerly. Put the date in your diary now!

 

 

Conferences coming up

Conferences 2014

This year in Freemantle from the 3rd to the 5th of December. The Australian Tertiary Education Network on Disability – ATEND,  is holding its Pathways 12 Conference 2014 which brings together a range of professional and academic staff to identify and remove barriers for people with disability participating in higher education and training.

Conferences 2015

WA Adult Literacy Council 2015 State Conference at Central Institute of Technology on 16th and 17th April, 2015. The conference is titled Great Expectations: literacy, the individual and the economy.

ACER Research Conference 2015 – Learning assessments: Designing the future. 16-18 August, Crown, Southbank, Melbourne
A conference to connect  teachers, education leaders and policy makers with the latest assessment research to inform teaching and learning.

ACAL National conference 2015 – Resilience, Risk, Preservation – held held at the Adelaide Zoo in  Adelaide on 24th and 25th September 2015.

PD coming up from November 2014

Webinar 28/11/2014

Coming up on November 28, 2014 (time  10:00am West Australian time 11:30am ACST, 1:00pm AEDT) there is an ACAL webinar. “A remote solution to strengthening workforce capacity in LLN”   For more information and to register your interest visit the ACAL website

The presenter is Ros Bauer was the 2013 Australian Training Awards Winner – Excellence in Adult Language Literacy Numeracy Practice. She is currently working with Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse learners in the remote Northern Territory community of Yuendumu where she is delivering the Develop Foundation Skills in Vocational practice Skills Set. Ros is delivering to 3 trainers in community, who work with Warlpiri adult learners and young people

Teach Me Grammar 2015

Teach Me Grammar is available again for next year if you are interested in Teach Me Grammar checkout the GoogleGroup or visit Teach Me Grammar Program 2015 to get more information and the application form.

Seeking your input!

Introduction

Surveys give us the opportunity to input into future developments, so if you can find the time it is always worth completing any that are relevant. Yours could be the response that tips the balance towards a change that you favour rather than one you will hate! There are two surveys seeking input at the moment – one is a local WA survey for a CAVSS Local Leaders project and the other is a national NCVER survey relating to delivery of Foundation Skills.

1. Please help by completing the CAVSS Teacher’s Survey

The Department of Training and Workforce Development has funded this project to produce resources that will provide additional support to CAVSS Managers. When you respond to this survey, you will be helping us:

  • identify the skills and knowledge that are key to undertaking the CAVSS Manager’s job
  • gather practical ideas for solving common problems
  • design accessible and well-targetted training resources that will assist new CAVSS Managers.

There are two Surveys: one for CAVSS Managers and one for CAVSS staff. We would really like it you can find time to fill in a survey.

Please complete the survey by 14 November 2014

Link to CAVSS Teachers’ survey – please pass this on to any other CAVSS staff who may not have access to the GoogleGroup or this newsletter

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CAVSSTeachersSurvey

Link to CAVSS Managers’ survey – please pass this on to any CAVSS managers/potential CAVSS  managers who may not have access to the GoogleGroup or this newsletter

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CAVSSManagers

2. NCVER survey of practitioners involved in Foundation Skills delivery

NCVER has released a survey for Foundation Skills. The information you provide will be invaluable in shaping the future of Foundation Skills, so please take a moment to read the information and fill out the questionnaire. This is part of the National Foundation Skills Strategy Project. Further information and the survey are available at “Who is delivering Foundation Skills

 

 

LLN Practitioner Scholarships Programme

The LLN Practitioner Scholarships Programme is a competitive initiative. The Programme provides scholarships of up to $5000 to individuals seeking to undertake approved study towards an adult LLN qualification. Up to 50 scholarships are awarded annually.

Applicants must successfully complete and submit their application on the Department’s online application system by midnight Wednesday, 12 November 2014, AEDT

More information and the online application can be found at the “Language, Literacy and Numeracy Practitioner Scholarships Programme

Infographics – what are they and how can we use them?

Introduction

The word is itself a contraction of “Information graphics” and describes a visual representation of data, information or knowledge. Wikipedia has a comprehensive article on Infographics.

Using infographics

Infographics are a great way of sharing information in a visual way that makes it easier for most people to understand than a written text. For example NCVER have produced a range of infographics about the VET Sector including this one:

This infographic from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research   www.ncver.edu.au

 

Students and courses

We can use infographics with students in a variety of ways some that I have used in the past include asking students to: explain in writing or orally parts of an infographic; compare two infographics with similar topics; find and critique infographics relating to their own interests; research information/find data and produce an illustrative infographic. For me infographics are a good way of integrating numeracy and literacy.

There are lots of online tools that you and your students can use to create infographics these include: “easelly”,  “infogram”, “Piktochart” and “visually”. Most of these need you to sign up to use them and they have both free and paid versions. However you don’t have to use one of the online tools, it is possible to make excellent infographics  using Powerpoint. Using Powerpoint makes it easy to incorporate graphs/charts created with Excel.

The two infographics below were made in easel.ly and Powerpoint for some PD I delivered a while ago.

Infographics

Participants all preferred the one on the right created using Powerpoint. They found it more engaging because of the graphics used and the greater use of colour. I also found the Powerpoint one much easier to create, this was partly because I am very familiar with Powerpoint. However I also found that consistently selecting and moving shapes to the right places more difficult with the other application.