Our last three quarterly Chicago Literacy Alliance confabs have explored issues highlighted in the International Literacy Association (ILA) “What’s hot in literacy 2018 Report”, a global survey of nearly 2,100 respondents from 91 countries and territories. While many of the findings are related to children/early literacy, there’s overlap with adult literacy issues and hot topics. For…
Reliance on smartphones for online access varies based on a range of factors, including educational attainment and income. According to the Pew Research Center, 39% of adults without a high school diploma are smartphone dependent (i.e., don’t use home broadband but own a smartphone) as compared to 10% of college graduates. Likewise, 31% of adults…
I had the AMAZING pleasure of sitting among adult educators at the #IACEA conference this week. Looking around the room, it’s no stretch to say it’s majority female. Therefore, on this International Women’s Day I’d like to salute the adult educators in Illinois, including the 66% who are paid part-time, the 27% who are volunteers,…
Jeff and I finished our accessibility session today at #IACEA and capped off our day with dinner with my husband. We had internet/technology glitches for the first 10 minutes of our 75 minute session but we pulled it off by switching between two laptops tethering to the internet via our phones. Fortunately, we have screenshots…
I arrived in Springfield just in time to catch the end of Jeff’s session at the #IACEA conference. He was reviewing free and open materials that align with the College and Career Readiness standards. At the end, attendees shared how much they appreciated his hard work to curate and present resources to support adult education….
I’m skimming through the program of the 39th Annual Illinois Adult Education Association (IACEA) conference. I look forward to meeting and reconnecting with the dedicated adult educators in our state. It’s hard to believe only two short years ago I didn’t know this network existed. Everyone in our state should be singing their praises –…
Calling all edu-nerds! A new open access (yay!) citation caught my eye today: Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design: 20 Years Later. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09465-5 I don’t have time for a deep dive today, but this is added to my “must read” pile. I…
It’s Open Education Week #oeweek starting today (March 3rd) through March 8th with an awe-inspiring roster of free events throughout the week and beyond. From the Open Education week Website: “Founded in 2013 by the Open Education Consortium, the goal of Open Education Week is to raise awareness and showcase the impact of open education…
We’re still plugging away on our accessibility presentation. After a 2-hour Google Hangout this afternoon, we have our 75-minute presentation down to … 75 slides (oh, boy). We’ll get there. In the meantime, our handouts are coming together. We always start our presentation with a bit.ly link to a roster of goodies in a Google…
What does an instructional designer do? As someone with a PhD in the field, it’s distressing how often I’m asked this question. I have a degree in a field most people don’t know exists. However, I’m far from alone. Christy Tucker has blogged for over a decade about her professional practice as a designer and…