NALD Networks - Vol.9, No.1

NALD Networks	Volume 9 • Issue 1

Training for the Enhancement of
Online Educational Resources

Evaluated and recommended for Adult Learning

If you have browsed the NALD Literacy Collection recently, you may have noticed that some of the listings have a logo that looks like the image above.

This logo means that the document has been evaluated and is recommended for adult learning by literacy coordinators and instructors of the Community Academic Services Program (CASP) in New Brunswick. Each document has received a star rating, with 5 stars being the highest.

By clicking on “See Practitioner Evaluation”, you will be taken to a page of information about the document. This information was provided by the evaluators, and includes details about the subject area, who it is intended for, what format it is in, and how appealing it is likely to be to students.

For example, A Caring Life – Our Lives is a 19-page booklet containing “…great little short stories from Newfoundland with non-intrusive illustrations.” It received the full five stars and is at a “ basic” curriculum level. There is no audio, but it is very visually appealing, well organized, engaging, and fun, in clear/plain language and an easy-toread font. All of this information and more is available from the evaluation.

The purpose of this project, called Training for the Enhancement of Online Educational Resources, was to make it easier for CASP instructors to find appropriate learning materials to use with their learners. This is accomplished by having all the evaluated materials accessible through one central location: http://www.nald.ca/EvalToolNALDResources/search/eval_list.asp

Since these resources are evaluated, centralized, and free of charge, this will also be helpful to other adult literacy learners and tutors looking for classroom materials.

Another objective of the project was to help CASP instructors increase their skills in using the Internet, through learning to search for online educational resources. They were also given the opportunity to work with and learn from each other, which helps to ensure that knowledge is shared and passed down to new CASP instructors, whether about individual resources or about the Internet in general.

The Community Academic Services Program (CASP) is a free community- based literacy program for adults, customized to meet the needs of the individual learner. For more information about CASP in New Brunswick, please see:
http://www.anbi-lnbi.nb.ca/English/WhatWeDo.htm#CBL

Participating CASP coordinators were Kay Curtis, from the New Brunswick Community College (NBCC) in Woodstock; Ann McLellan of NBCC Miramichi, Claire Comeau of Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick (CCNB) in Bathurst, Jerry Hicks of NBCC Moncton, Amedee Cormier of NBCC St. Andrews, Catherine Sullivan of NBCC Saint John, and Marie-May Haché of CCNB Campbellton. The Training for the Enhancement of Online Educational Resources project was funded by the National Literacy Secretariat.

Family Literacy - Characteristics of a successful summer program include :

regular group contact for families so that the group stays united and the camaraderie stays intact
timely (and worthwhile) feedback, i.e. gas voucher for turning in journal topics
field trips that engage the whole family
connecting families to community resources, events
more “hands-on” activities for use at home or on outings
flexible: continue in a way that’s reasonable for families
connected to or works around summer school or local activities (parks & rec camp) for older children
covers special topics of interest to the students, i.e. driver’s ed.

[Source : nifl-family listserve]


Previous Page	Next Page

NETWORKS Newsletter Archive