In this Spring 2021 EdTech Maker Space, we'll work in groups to tackle a different skill set as defined by the Seattle Digital Equity Initiative's Digital Skills Framework. Each group will look at high-quality resources for acquiring digital skills, like GCFLearnFree.org or Google's Applied Digital Skills, to determine which skill set they align with. Participants will work together to form "I can" statements to help learners and educators better understand each skill and how it applies to life, work, and school. The end product will be an open Digital Skills Library where resources are organized by skill, centrally located, and easy to sift through.

 

Being a part of this project will give you a better understanding of digital skills, how to teach/learn them, what resources are out there, and more! Plus, this collaborative setting is going to be interactive and fun.

Join us on Friday, May 14th at 10:00 AM Pacific, 12:00 PM Central, 1:00 PM Eastern for the next installment of our Distance Education Strategy Sessions. This session will focus on what shifts programs have made in the last year and what is sticking as programs develop reopening strategies. Karen Rivas and colleagues from the Carlos Rosario Adult Public Charter School will share resources and experiences with a human-centered approach that will be key to reopening for the 2021-22 school year. Focusing on meeting the needs of the moment and blending adult-ed student needs, Carlos Rosario is exploring offering flexible learning spaces based on what they learned during the pandemic while adjusting to changing local health guidelines and DC School parameters.

 

Next, we’ll hear how the Ronald M Hubbs Center for Lifelong Learning/St. Paul Adult Basic Education (MN) embraced a new approach to make technology-rich instruction more equitable. In the fall of 2020, they started implementing "push-in" digital literacy instruction. Adam Kieffer describes his visits to remote ELL class sessions in which he offers highly relevant, digital skills instruction.

This new course is designed to help parents, caregivers, and early childcare providers foster literacy skill development in children ages 3-8. Building Future Readers provides practical tips and strategies that any adult can use with young children—delivered in short, engaging lessons through a mobile app. The course was designed by combining the Barbara Bush Foundation's family literacy expertise with Cell-Ed's innovative mobile technology, allowing parents and caregivers to learn anytime, anywhere.

Our work with Adobe and Readability Matters aims to uncover how text personalization and user-controlled type can empower learners and support better literacy outcomes around the world. In this post, Rick Treitman discusses the importance of being able to engage with and read digital documents as remote work and remote learning become the new normal, and how more research is needed on how to fully take advantage of effective ways to customize digital texts.

The Open Door Collective webinar on Thursday, May 6th, 3pm EDT, 2pm CDT, 1pm MDT, 12pm PDT will feature Eric Nesheim, Executive Director of Literacy Minnesota, presenting on leveraging federal pandemic funding streams to support digital equity work. CARES and ARP funding flow to county, state, and regional library systems, workforce systems and economic development departments, education departments, and governors throughout the country. How can ABE programs partner with these agencies to mutually benefit our shared constituents? How can we ensure that the digital skills piece of digital equity is addressed, and our role in providing digital literacy is not left out of the funding matrix? 

 

The webinar will illustrate: Where this money is going/who has it; What we expect to see funded through the ARP going forward; Why Partnerships/collaboration is a key to future access to these resources, and how to help key players understand the value of digital skills building along with providing devices and Internet/broadband. Eric will provide examples from Literacy Minnesota’s work in this area.