Tag Archives: Adult Literacy and Numeracy

Posted on by

Excellence in Language, Literacy and Numeracy Practice Award

Don’t forget that nominations close at the end of May for the second Excellence in Language, Literacy and Numeracy Practice Award conferred as part of the Australian Training Awards. Jo Hart was a finalist in the inaugaral award last year. It would be great to have a finalist or a winner from Western Australia this year too.

The Australian Training Awards are the peak, national awards for the vocational education and training (VET) sector, recognising individuals, businesses and registered training organisations for their contribution to skilling Australia.

Applicants may have the opportunity to reach the national stage in November this year and gain Australia-wide recognition for their work.

There are 18 awards, including seven ‘direct-entry’ awards. More details at www.australiantrainingawards.gov.au

Posted on by

PD coming up and continuing April 2014

PD within the WA ALaN network

The face-to-face Collaborative Numeracy workshops with Beth Marr are continuing on 14-15 May. Beth is also delivering an in house program for Centacare during April and plans are under way for another two day workshop soon.

The “What’s in a number!” project continues and is due to finish in May. Checkout the recent posts on “Estimation”  then on  “Percentages”   and the most recent on “Exponents” and catch up with any others you have missed. Don’t forget to check out the comments and feedback and add your own!

Other PD

Coming up from IBSA/Velg are “Foundation Skills Workshops for VET Practitioners”  the Perth one is on June 4th – NOTE that the target audience for these is NOT LLN/Foundation Skills specialists but VET practitioners. However they may be relevant for others in your organisation. As we already use CAVSS here in WA to support vocational learners through team teaching, these workshops which have a focus on identifying foundation skills in units and then using the Foundation Skills (FSK) Training Package are perhaps less relevant to our VET practitioners than they would be elsewhere.

Posted on by

Conferences update – April 2014

Australia

The National Adult Language, Literacy and Numeracy Assessment Conference 2014 will be held in Melbourne on May 1st and 2nd 2014.

Not specifially LLN but there are usually some LLN related sessions. Registration is now open for our own State Training Providers’ Forum 2014. This takes place at Crown Perth on Monday 19th and Tuesday 20th of May.

The Australian Literacy Educators Association has a focus mainly towards the school sector, however with many young students now in the VET sector rather than in school their 2014 National Conference “aNTicipating New Territories: building strong minds, places and futures” in Darwin from 9-12 July has increasing potential for relevance to our network.

The 2014 conference of the International Applied Linguistics Association is being hosted by the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia and takes place from the 10th to 15th of August in Brisbane.

This year’s ACAL Conference “Literacy: a learning spiral for life” is on October 2nd to 4th at Surfers Paradise in Queensland. Keep up to date by registering an expression of interest on the ACAL website. Call for papers is open now. You are invited to give a 45 minute paper presentation, or a 1.5 hour colloquium, in which a group of presenters will give a series of papers on a theme, or a 1.5 hour hands-on workshop.

Australian Council of TESOL Associations – International Conference 2014 with the theme “Meeting the Challenge” takes place from September 30 – October 3 2014 in Melbourne. For information available to date check out the website.

The next Western Australian Adult Literacy Council state conference is planned for April 2015.  That’s a different time of the year than usual and there won’t be one in 2014.

A little further afield

In New Zealand this year – the 14th National Conference for Community Languages and ESOL has the theme “Essentials for Learning and Teaching: Ko te Pū, ko te Ako”

 

Posted on by

ALaN WA Newsletter – February 2014

Welcome to edition 11 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. Supporting effective delivery of foundation skills to Indigenous, remote and disadvantaged learners

Input sought for a National VET E-Learning Strategy foundation skills project

2. Slideshare for sharing on the web

Using Slideshare can make resources more accessible.

3. WA curriculum update Feb 2014

Re-accreditation activities

4. PD coming up/continuing

PD available through the network and beyond

5. Some conferences this year

Update on conference information for 2014

Posted on by

PD coming up and continuing Feb 2014

PD within the WA ALaN network

If you are joining the Face-to-face numeracy workshops with Beth Marr (application process now complete) you can still apply for travel support to attend but applications close very soon at 10:00am Tuesday 4th of March. Application forms are available on the GoogleGroup in a post entitled “Adult Literacy Sponsorship Program (WA)”

The “What’s in a number!” project is still in progress with the most recent blog post being the last of three about algebra: “Using letters instead of numbers – Part 3”. If you haven’t visited for a while there have been continuing posts over the summer except for a couple of weeks over Christmas so you might want to catch up by going to the “What’s in a number” blog and scrolling back through the posts, Don’t forget to check out the comments and feedback and add your own!

This year’s Teach Me Grammar is getting underway with Friday workshops. Check out the GoogleGroup and if you are intersted but have not yet said so then let Cheryl know because there may be another “run” starting in July.

Other PD

Coming up from IBSA/Velg are “Foundation Skills Workshops for VET Practitioners”  – NOTE that the target audience for these is NOT LLN/Foundation Skills specialists but VET practitioners. However they may be relevant for others in your organisation. As we already use CAVSS here in WA to support vocational learners through team teaching, these workshops with their focus is on identifying foundation skills in units and then using the Foundation Skills (FSK) Training Package are perhaps less relevant to our VET practitioners than they would be elsewhere.

 

Posted on by

ALaN WA Newsletter – December 2013

Welcome to edition 10 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. Shared links from the network this year

Some of the links to free learning resources shared this year through our ALaN network GoogleGroup

2. What’s in a name – PLN, PLE, CoP

Our Community of Practice – what is it and why you should be involved.

3. Last WA curriculum update 2013

Re-accreditation activities

4. PD coming up/continuing next year

PD available through the network

5. Some conferences next year

Update on conferences in 2014

 

Posted on by

What’s in a name – PLN, PLE, CoP?

I posted in the last newsletter about what is a “Personal Learning Network” (PLN). There have been some discussions in my PLN recently about Communities of Practice (CoP) and whether they are the same as PLNs – this seemed a good time to talk a little about our own ALaN network and where it “fits” in to the scheme of things.

If you work for an RTO you probably have the perpetual problem of proving your industry currency and professional development actvities. This is particularly difficult for LLN practitioners like ourselves who have no “industry”. Belonging to and participating in a CoP is one way that you can provide some evidence that may be helpful in convincing employers and auditors of your currency and ongoing PD activities.

I agree with Steve Wheeler’s  http://www.blogger.com/profile/08782623154703147473 interpretation as given in his recent post PLN or CoP? http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/pln-or-cop.html For me the significant factors are:

  • that a CoP often has some form of facilitation/moderation which may be formal or informal, whereas my PLN operates largely though serendipitous interactions;
  • interactions in a CoP are almost entirely related to professional matters in a fairly narrow field whereas in my PLN they include personal and social interaction as well as a broad range of professional interactions not limited to a narrow focus.

I see the PLN/CoP as a continuum with the PLN at one end of the spectrum, and at the other, the very formal facilitated/moderated CoP with one or more managers having allocated time to spend fostering interactions between the members.

PLN or CoP

My personal perspective in seeing the PLN/CoP as a continuum is, of course, based on my own experience. I have a well established PLN that I began developing in 2008 and I have also been involved for about the same length of time in our very specific CoP made up of Adult Literacy and Numeracy teachers in Western Australia. As those of you in the network are probably aware I am a facilitator for this network/CoP which operates primarily through a GoogleGroup. My perception is that many of the aggregations formed on and through social networks are CoPs to varying degrees. For example on Twitter some of the #tag chats such as #kinderchat and #gtchat:

  • focus on professional practice;
  • are facilitated/moderated;
  • are at least semi-formal;
  • aim to share knowledge; and also
  • provide opportunities for both synchronous and asynchronous interaction.

Groups in Facebook eg “FacingIT” and LinkedIn eg “Australian VET Leaders”, and Communities in G+ eg “The Global Classroom Project” provide similar opportunities.

If you are not already a member of our network then consider joining (visit the “How to join” page in the newsletter to find out how to do this). If you are already a member of the ALaN network (especially if you mostly “lurk” – this means read the posts/emails but not participate much) then think about taking a more active part in the future so that you can add your participation in the ALaN network to your auditable records for industry currency and PD .

Posted on by

Conferences next year

An online conference, 2014 OZeLIVE – Ed Tech Down Under. #OZeLIVE is happening in February 2014 and currently in the planning stage. This conference is cross-sectoral, designed to be at Australia friendly times and will be via BlackboardCollaborate.  Currently information and updates are available via the AustraliaSeries blog  this would be a great conference to be a participant in and also, if you are looking to “dip a toe” in the waters of presenting or moderating online, the organisers are currently seeking presenters and volunteers. Visit the blog for more information.

The National Adult Language, Literacy and Numeracy Assessment Conference 2014 will be held in Melbourne on May 1st and 2nd 2014.

Few details on the website yet, but the next Australian WELL Practitioners’ Conference appears to have been postponed again and is now scheduled (on the website front page) to take place in Hobart on the 4th and 5th of September 2014. The theme is “Foundation Skills at Work”. However check carefully because the events  page has not been updated and still says March 2014 as the conference date.

Next year’s ACAL Conference “Literacy: a learning spiral for life” is on October 2nd to 4th at Surfers Paradise in Queensland. Keep up to date with call for papers and all other information by registering an expression of interest on the ACAL website.

The next Western Australian Adult Literacy Council state conference is planned for April 2015.  That’s a different time of the year than usual and there won’t be one in 2014.

Posted on by

ALaN WA Newsletter – October 2013

Welcome to edition 9 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. Where do you get these sites from?

A Personal Learning Network is a great source of useful links, resources and ideas

2. WA curriculum update

Re-accreditation activities

3. Updates on available PD

PD coming up in the near future

4. Conferences coming up

Conferences in the early part of 2014

5. Foundation Skills Workforce Development Project – Professional Standards scoping.

A summary of some WA feedback.

Posted on by

Conferences coming up

No details on the website yet,but the next Australian WELL Practitioners’ Conference this has been postponed from November and will now take place in Hobart on the 19th, 20th and 21st of March 2014. Watch the events page on the WELL website for further updates.

The National Adult Language, Literacy and Numeracy Assessment Conference 2014 will be held in Melbourne on May 1st and 2nd 2014

The next Western Australian Adult Literacy Council state conference is planned for April 2015.  That’s a different time of the year than usual and there won’t be one in 2014.