This Friday, March 11th at 1PM EST, we will hear from Kamille Kolar of Cambria and Anson Green of Tyson Foods, two employers that have leveraged EnGen to fuel their adult education partnerships. Kamille Kolar, an Instructional Designer for Cambria, will describe the English program’s mission, origin story, and how challenges that arose during the pandemic led to an evolution in the program’s model that created opportunity for employees to develop their digital literacy skills in tandem with their English language skills. Anson Green will describe Tyson Foods’ current efforts to develop digital literacy for English learners who work there, including custom lessons developed by EnGen. Following the lightning talks, presenters will be available for informal small group discussions.

As part of the OCTAE funded Digital Resilience in the American Workforce initiative, the EdTech Center managed an EdTech Maker Space project to add additional resources to the Digital Skills Library developed by World Education with funding from the WES Mariam Assefa Fund. Register for the project showcase on Friday, March 18th at 1PM EST to see how input from the DRAW landscape scan resulted in a more robust library and to experience the unveiling of the new standalone digital skills library!

Despite gains made in tech adoption by Americans with lower income levels, the digital divide persists, with millions of US families still lacking access to broadband internet due to affordability, and Black and Hispanic Americans remain less likely than White adults to own traditional computers or have high-speed internet at home. As part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, The Digital Equity Act offers a unique opportunity to close the digital equity gap. Through projects like Digital Resilience in the American Workforce initiative (DRAW), Digital US, and other EdTech Center initiatives, World Education is working to ensure that everyone has the foundational digital skills to succeed at work and in life. Read World Education’s formal comments in support of the Digital Equity Act below.

It’s a Tech Tip Takeover!!!! In anticipation of our ✨big reveal of the Digital Skills Library (on March 18th, register here), we’ll be featuring a weekly digital skills resource here instead of our weekly tech tips. (But, honestly, these are the resources that sometimes LEAD to our weekly tech tip!) This week… 

 

More and more we’re seeing people use Google Sites in education. Google Sites are simple to create and can be a great way to create a class site for learners to access resources, or have learners design and showcase a class project, learning digital skills along the way! Use Google's Applied Digital Skills project "Design a Website to Promote a Project" to learn or teach Google Sites!