Without 21st century skills, students are being prepared to succeed in yesterday’s world – not tomorrow’s. Adult Education must keep pace with societal changes and workplace demands. Our mission is to help students get the basic skills necessary to be productive workers, family members and citizens. In today’s Digital Age, we must embrace new designs for learning that better prepare our students to thrive in this knowledge-based, globalized world of today and tomorrow.
Read on to find out how NMUSD Adult School is redesigning its educational delivery model to meet the needs of its 21st century learners. Read on. Lead on!
For more information on why these skills are so essential, please read the following article: enGauge 21st Century Skills.
For information on why these skills are required curriculum, please read the Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills report.
At NMUSD Adult School, each class is currently equipped with one computer, one printer, an LCD projector, and a SMART Board. We also have a computer desktop lab and a mobile laptop lab. Here is what we are doing right now to help our students succeed in the Digital Age.
Our Individual Development Plan Commitments:
We at NMUSD Adult Education commit to using technology to improve student learning. In our 2007-2008 Individual Development Plans, we all (teachers and administrators alike) wrote specific ways in which we will grow and stretch in the area of using technology to improve student learning.
Our NMUSD Adult Education Professional Development Plan:
We conducted a site professional development survey in May of 2007 to guide our planning and implementation of our 2007-2008 Professional Development Plan. From this survey, we learned that our staff’s number one request was training on technology. A close second was the request for collaboration time. Our 2007-2008 Professional Development Plan thus reflects these interests and needs. We are using a professional learning community model to create a learning environment in which we are team members working interdependently to improve student learning.
Four New Elements of PD Plan:
We initiated four new elements to our professional development plan: Peer Mentors, Tuesday Tech Tip, The Adult Education Matters Weblog, and Level Wrap Sessions. Read more about these key elements and the structure of our professional development plan in my article Professional Learning at NMUSD Adult Education.
The Nuts and Bolts of Daily Instruction at NMUSD Adult School:
- Curriculum-based technology software
- Relevant web sites
- Teacher-directed and student-directed presentations using PowerPoint
- Microsoft Word documents:
- Your daily agenda and curricular objectives
- Your journal-writing assignment…
- Introduce relevant web sites
- Create class web-search and research projects
- Teach how to use Microsoft Word
- Assign a Microsoft Word writing project that includes the editing process
- Teach how to use Microsoft PowerPoint
- Assign an oral and written presentation project using PowerPoint
- Teach how to create an email account
- Assign multiple assignments that require the use of email and the attachment feature
Using Email as a Powerful Teaching/Learning Tool Why Use Email? If you need convincing, read this article:
Using E-mail in Foreign Language Teaching: Rationale and Suggestions
Getting Started – Learn about free Yahoo! Mail with this great tutorial:
- Go to the Internet and search for Yahoo Mail Classic Tutorials
- Click on the first link Getting Started with Yahoo! Mail Classic Tutorials
- Read 5-page tutorial:
Setting up a free account:Go to the Internet Address: www.mail.yahoo.com
- Click on the big yellow button Sign Up For Yahoo
- You will need to fill in information, e.g. name, password, etc.
- Agree to Terms of Service
- Submit
Show the easy 3-step tutorial:
- Getting Started (About the inbox)
- Setting your options (Color, Auto Signature, etc.)
- Contacts (managing your contacts)
Signing on to your email: Go to the Internet Address: www.mail.yahoo.com
Guiding Students to success:
- Students must write down their username and password on something they automatically carry to class every day (i.e.: inside their class textbook)
- Students must understand safety, privacy and netiquette.
Here are some excellent resources: Contributed by Martha Rankin
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Online Resources |
Look at both pledges. Also check out the Kids Rules for Online Safety and Guidelines for Parents
Hi Martha,
Thank you for the great resources/links that are now available at just the click of a finger.
I appreciated the information on email. The article shared by George Washington University with regards to email use by Foreign Language Students, supports what we already know about email, that it is a wonderful tool to develop technology skills, confidence and English Language Development.
Email and the internet can incorporate the components of ELD; listening, speaking, reading and writing and email can definitely be motivation for learning. Not only can it assist in making reading a more meaningful activity but the student will learn how to send, and receive email which is a workplace skill.
I’m looking forward to using this powerful teaching/learning tool.
Thank you!
INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN – Goals for Technology Integration
How will I use technology to promote student learning? (CSTP Standards 1, 3, 4)
To promote student learning and a vibrant professional learning culture at NMUSD Adult School, I commit to the following new goals for 2007-2008:
1. Create an educator-focused weblog Adult Ed Matters. The mission of the weblog is to provide research, articles, tools, and ideas to Adult Education educators. It is in an open-dialogue (PLC) format so that we educators can share ideas, offer tips, and ask questions in order to improve student learning in our programs.
2. Teach an ESL/Technology-focused class, so that I am current and active in developing relevant, highly engaging, robust curriculum that supports student learning.
3. Share my curricular ideas and teaching strategies w/ technology through the blog or email distribution list.
a. Example: How to use email with your students to deliver relevant, differentiated and personalized instruction and to increase student persistence – sent October 11, 2007
4. Use my Adult Education Distribution List more regularly this year as my primary form of communication with our NMUSD Adult Education staff.
5. Research and disseminate information on Professional Growth opportunities in technology
6. Lead the Professional Growth Team in creating the NMUSD Adult Education Professional Growth Plan for 2007-2008. The focus will be technology. The PGTs’ first meeting was in September. We created a preliminary professional growth plan, which you can view on the blog: Professional Learning at NMUSD Adult Education.
7. Lead the Professional Growth Team in implementing the NMUSD Adult Education Professional Growth Plan for 2007-2008. We have initiated the following programs:
a. The Peer Mentor Program: a) identified 8 peer mentors and their area(s) of expertise: podcasting, using Smartboards, emailing, word processing, publishing, blogging, using the Internet to enhance instruction. b) met with peer mentor to define roles and responsibilities.
b. The Tuesday Tech Tips: Peer mentors have presented three tech tips at pre-planned site-wide and team-based meetings. We start our official Tuesday Tech Tip on October 16th. All teachers have been notified.
c. On-site Trainings: All administrators and teacher-presenters have employed technology (Smartboards tools, Internet, scanned documents) at our on-site CASAS training in September and our Smartboard Training in August. A blog training is scheduled in October.
d. Weblog – Created. We are requiring every teacher to log on during the third week of October and add a comment to the article Persistence: A Key Focus for Success. This activity serves as a share-out of their IDP goal #2.
e. Off-site Trainings: Multiple emails have already been sent that inform teachers of upcoming tech trainings. I have also created a Professional Development category on my blog.
Martha
Last week I took my students (Intermediate Low) to the computer lab to teach them how to type a Microsoft Word document. One week prior I had given them an assignment to write a letter and to turn it into me for editing. They received their edited letters back to type up at the computer lab.
For several of my students, this was their first experience with a computer. Several others were very proficient with the computer. Overall, my students loved doing this. The students that had never used a computer before were so proud of themselves and I could tell by what they were saying to me that they felt a real sense of accomplishment!
They are eager to go back next week!
Regarding using electronic whiteboards in the ESL classroom, you might want to check out the OTAN streaming videos on this topic that demonstrate activities making software a whole group activity, using the ability to drag and drop, and visiting ESL Web sites. The videos are here:
http://www.otan.us/Itap/index.cfm?fuseaction=videogallery
P.S. I love that snapshot feature on WordPress!
I heard about your new blog from Marian Thacher. It looks excellent.
Oops, I forgot to invite you to participate in the next ESL/EFL/ELL “Carnival” by contributing a post from your blog:
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2007/10/31/next-eslellefl-carnival/
Great info. Very good to know.
I would agree with your topic that Adult Education does matter. Many of our students are in front of the adults in using technological tools to gain knowledge. For years students learned what adults wanted them to learn, but now students have access to a wealth of knowledge sometimes without important foundational concepts in place so students understand not only the outcome product, but also the steps needed along the way. Many teachers now face classrooms where students say “I’m board on a frequent basis” and find it difficult to want to learn material in a more traditional style of learning. With the explosion of learning tools, the patience of learning something new, may in fact become a lost art form. What educational tools do adults need to support student learning and will the adults be able to agree on an approach to collaborate with students so they will come to school ready to learn? How will future schools look different from the schools of 2008?
[...] 6, 2008 by Martha Rankin This post is an updated version of Adult Education in the 21st Century, posted on October 18, [...]