Many of us in the instructional design field are freelancers/independent contractors, and some of us with doctoral degrees are college adjuncts. While many of the 3.8 percent of US workers (5.9 million strong) counted as “contingent workers” are voluntarily part of the Gig Economy, others aren’t. Either way, there are significant costs associated with this…
It’s official! March 23, 2019 is Volunteer Literacy Day in Chicago! Celebrate by joining the 28th Annual On the Road to Literacy Tutor and Adult Learner Conference. As noted in the official flyer: “Whether you’re staff, a tutor, or a basic, ESL or GED student at the beginning, intermediate or advance level, there is always…
I had a lovely lunch with my friend Enilda Romero-Hall today on her (also lovely) University of Tampa campus. As we were catching up and sharing/comparing, we engaged in a conversation common to those of us who teach “online”. It’s never enough to say, “I teach an online course” for the other person to have…
h/t to Krista Greear for pointing our Designers for Learning team to a couple of websites dedicated to accessibility-related topics: DIAGRAM (an acronym for Digital Image And Graphic Resources for Accessible Materials) Center: “Established in 2010 (see Press Release here), the DIAGRAM Center is a research and development center whose goal is to dramatically change…
I’m passing along information shared last week from the American Library Association (ALA) regarding the 2020 budget proposal that would eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which provides the main source of federal support for US libraries and museums. It’s the third year in a row that the current administration has proposed…
On March 30, 2018, Google announced it was starting to wind down support for their goo.gl URL shortener. As of March 30, 2019, goo.gl will be discontinued, but previously created links will continue to redirect to their intended destination. While I use bit.ly to customize links for things like my presentation folders, I use my…
The Open Badges project has had a tumultuous legacy. Many of us working in the open education space who imagined the potential of digital badges were excited to follow the launch of the Mozilla and MacArthur backed project, but then dismayed watching the project’s later twists and turns as both of these early backers backed…
As my trip down the plain language rabbit hole continues, I’ve added Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words to my book wishlist. From the Wikipedia page about the book: “In Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe explains the function and mechanics of 54 subjects using only the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language.” …
As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, I’m trying to get my head around plain language as a way to not only support adults struggling with low literacy but also as a tool to support accessibility. I wasn’t able to attend today’s session by Literacy Works on Plain Language 101, but Jeff sent me a link…
I was excited to see the Chicago Foundation for Education (CFE) will be moving to the Literacenter this month! Before I founded Designers for Learning, I was a volunteer with the CFE. Coming full circle, Designers for Learning is part of the coworking space within the Literacenter operated by the Chicago Literacy Alliance, a 130+…