Tag Archives: CGEA

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Professional development news

Lots of PD news this time!

PD within the WA ALaN network

Firstly, within the ALaN network, some of this year’s projects are getting under way with webinars and workshops.

“What’s in a number!” has made a great start with the first webinar already complete. Webinars will be approximately fortnightly until mid 2014. This project is designed to help everyone teaching maths/numeracy to improve their maths skills and gather evidence for the numeracy core unit of the Grad. Cert. (soon to become Grad. Dip.)  of Adult Language Literacy and Numeracy Practice.

“Adult Literacy and Numeracy Professional Development Workshops” at  Kimberley Training Institute have been scheduled and start with “Teaching Numeracy” sessions in late July and August.

The “Digital Literacy in the CGEA” webinar series is underway looking at implications of, and strategies for encompassing, digital literacy/digital texts in CGEA delivery.

For more information, or to become a participant in any of these, visit the network GoogleGroup (if you aren’t a member see this page on how to join) and check out the posts.

New DTWD events management system

DTWD has a new PD calendar system and you will need to create a user registration before you can register to attend DTWD LLN sessions including.

CGEA part 1 on August 22nd

This workshop for new CGEA teachers is designed to help them orient themselves, and their teaching approaches, to teach literacy and numeracy skills to adults. The workshop will focus on finding ways to establish a teaching/learning environment that most closely reflects the way that literacy and numeracy skills are acquired in the real world, by all of us.

CGEA part 2 on 10th and 11th September

This workshop for CGEA teachers is designed to explore the aspects of teaching adult literacy classes that challenge teachers as they attempt to meet the needs of all their students. The workshop will focus on finding ways to establish a teaching/learning environment that most closely reflects the way we all acquire literacy and numeracy skills in the real world.

Department of Education PD

The “Tracks to Two-Way Learning Induction“ workshop – replacing the ABC of Two Way Learning and  Literacy workshop is on the 15th and 16th of August. Registration details available soon.

Expressions of interest

Expressions of interest are being sought from those interested in attending any of the following:

  • Face-to-face numeracy workshops with Beth Marr – coming up soon
  • CAVSS training later this year
  • Teach Me Grammar in 2014

Please send a separate email for each one of the above that you are interested in attending to literacy@dtwd.wa.gov.au

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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.

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Do you (or your students) Toon?

Introduction

my students are all off-campus and so are using their own computers with widely varying software. Many of my students are also not particularly computer literate so expecting them to use sophisticated features of word processing or presentation packages is not an option. The strategy I adopt for a lot of work with my online students is to use mostly (though not always) online tools. This post is about using one of them – ToonDoo – an online cartoon making tool.

How do we use ToonDoo?

I have been using ToonDoo myself for several years to create occasional texts to engage student attention and to break up heavily text based resources.

Then about 3 years ago I first used it with online students when we created a cartoon together via virtual classroom (Elluminate). Each student was given control of my desktop in turn to add their own “bit” to the cartoon. These students then signed up to ToonDoo and made their own cartoons. I have also shared my use of ToonDoo fairly widely through webinars and associated blog posts.

Recently I have extended the use of ToonDoo with my students as part of my National Vocational E-Learning Strategy project Extraordinary Learning For A Digital Age (ELFADA) funded under the Partnerships for Participation initiative. This was part of a mini-project on digital safety. The students learnt about ToonDoo in a virtual class session through an Application Share demo and together we created a Toon. This was shared through the course blog in a post on visual texts.

The next step was for the students to visit a series of links to cartoons each addressing an aspect of digital safety. They chose some of these to review and evaluate.

Finally the students created their own cartoon choosing a topic from those they had learned about through our work on staying safe online, they then published a blog post with links to their cartoon, or with the cartoon embedded. These are two of the student posts,  Jordan’s looking at scams and some consequences and Meg’s with a warning to take care what you share.

Conclusion

I have found using ToonDoo to be a great engagement tool for students and will continue to use it with my own online students. I also find that ToonDoo is used easily by students across all three levels that I currently teach online. In common with many other online tools it is relatively simple to use – this is a huge bonus for online students who don’t always have a lecturer available for immediate help.

Please use the comments to share your own and your student experiences with ToonDoo or other cartoon making tools. Or if it is new to you let us know if you think you might try this with your own students.

Jo Hart

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CGEA Curriculum changes

CGEA review

CGEA accreditation expires at the end of 2012.  We are now awaiting the results of course concept proposal.

CGEA Version 4 Implementation July

The Adult Literacy and Numeracy Network in WA will hold webinars via Elluminate to share implementation issues in first week of July. There will be an updated assessment overview by that time to allow easy comparison of units in the same stream, including all changes to elements highlighted down to performance criteria level.

This Version change affects the numeracy and Mathematics stream most.

Download the new version from the Training Support Network in Victoria.

WA Implementation

The new Numeracy and Maths Units have now been assigned WA subject index numbers (SIN) and the new course structures are now available on VETinfoNet

Transition

Students enrolled before July 1 2012 are able to complete the numeracy units in which they are enrolled. However RTOs are encouraged to make the revised numeracy units available to students prior to July 1 2012. Students enrolled on or after July 1 2012 must complete the revised numeracy units.

Please comment here as you decide how to respond to changes in this revised curriculum.

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Check out Version 4 CGEA now!

Version 4 of the CGEA has now been released containing the changes to the numeracy units as proposed late in 2011.

Download the new version from the Training Support Network in Victoria.

The changes include:

Most of the  numeracy units have been reviewed and restructured.  Unit titles for Certificate II units have been modified and content has been revised including the expansion of the Critical Aspects of Evidence and revision of the Skills and Knowledge towards making them more explicit to the unit content.  This also means they have new numbers.

Unit titles at Certificate level III have not changed. Content of the units has been reviewed but there have been no structural changes to the units and the nominal hours have not changed. Changes to the numeracy units at these levels have also been made to reflect the current revisions to the Numeracy component of the revised Australian Core Skills Framework. (Extract from Version History on page 4 of curriculum document downloaded 29/02/2012).

WA Implementation

The new Numeracy and Maths Units have now been assigned WA subject index numbers (SIN) and the new course structures are now available on VETinfoNet: see http://www.vetinfonet.det.wa.edu.au/home/default.aspx

Transition

Students enrolled before July 1 2012 are able to complete the numeracy units in which they are enrolled. However RTOs are encouraged to make the revised numeracy units available to students prior to July 1 2012. Students enrolled on or after July 1 2012 must complete the revised numeracy units.

Please share changes you notice as you review this revised curriculum.

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Fitness & Sports resource

This week, I received the publication: Fitness & Sports A Resource for Literacy Teaching from the Southern Grampians Adult Education.  (NB if you are using Firefox the sidebar links may not work). This is the seventh in a series of learning resources developed for the 2007-2012 version of the CGEA.

Fitness & Sports contains 72 worksheets about sports in eight sections: Netball, Tennis, Cricket, Basketball and four types of “football”. These are developed at 3 different levels so mixed-level classes can share a common topic but do literacy and numeracy activities that develop and extend their current skills.

I am not a big fan of worksheets as the core of adult literacy programs. In my view, Death by Worksheet is as risky as Death by PowerPoint.  However, both worksheets and PowerPoint have a valuable place if not overdone; this resource models how experienced adult literacy practitoners weave them into a diverse program.

As all the worksheets are photocopiable (legally), this is an ideal resource to allow the sports mad student to demonstrate and extend their knowledge while providing evidence of competence against any part of the CGEA needed (including all of the core units and several electives). It also provides a range of ideas for class activities such as guest speakers, debates, and Internet research. A student who is really keen on this topic could complete a substantial chunk of any CGEA certificate using ideas included in this resource.

It cost me $75.00 plus pack and post. Order form here – if it doesn’t open then email sgae@sgae.vic.edu.au for an order form.

Other topics also available from South Grampians Adult Education include DIY Housing and DIY Cooking. See samples here.  These also demonstrate how a topic can be shared across the full range of CGEA certificate levels.

Cheryl Wiltshire

ALaN Network Coordinator