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LR/RI produces a bulletin roughly every two weeks in order to inform area practitioners of news, events, and calls for participation and also as a forum for posing questions, issues and discussion topics. The current bulletin is posted below. To read previous bulletins, go to Bulletin Archives.May 24, 2005Bulletin #197 Dear Colleagues, Calls for participation, employment, funding, and conference and workshop opportunities, online and other resources. To post information, and/or to receive the bulletin via email, please contact LR/RI or leave a message at (401-863-2839).
Janet Isserlis NOTICES
PROPOSAL READERS NEEDED Rhode Island is looking for adult/workforce education proposal readers for the 2006 adult and workforce education and family literacy grants. Great experience in learning the does and don'ts of grant writing! You must have experience/knowledge of adult education but no connection to an agency that is applying for a grant. Each reader will receive a small stipend. We expect each review team to have five members reading the same 5-7 proposals (10 pages each proposal). You will have two weeks to read and score the proposals (June 1 - June 15). Readers will be provided with an electronic scoring rubric which will help them think through the merits of each application. We are asking readers to commit to attending two meetings. 1. Wednesday, June 1st at United Way of Rhode Island from 4:30 to 6 p.m. for reader orientation/training and to pick up the proposals you will be reading. 2. Friday, June 17th at RI Department of Labor and Training in Cranston, RI to discuss scored proposals in your reading team. The meeting for each group will last about 1.5 hours and will be scheduled throughout the day. Are you interested in helping with this important grant review? Please respond to this email with your contact information and those of your friends and coworkers we can contact in this recruitment effort. Thanks - Judy Titzel judy@ripolicy.org Janet W. Peters janetwpeters@yahoo.com The meeting notice included below was in the Literacy Resources Bulletin recently and is the result of the FIP LD Committee meeting that was held on 4/26. The date and time for the LD State Planning Committee meeting is Monday, June 6th at 9:30 AM at The Genesis Center. I hope you can all come. We will start to work on developing a state plan for adult ed. students with LD issues. Thank you, Nancy Fritz Adult LD State Plan Work Group Forming The Adult Literacy Task Force Assessment Work Group together with the FIP Education Subcommittee are recruiting work group members to draft a state-wide plan to better serve adult students with LD in RI. We are looking for committed practitioners who have experience with adult learning disabilities and who would like to help develop policies and procedures for education providers and state infrastructure to better support adult students with LD. Members will need to be willing to attend meetings, research needed information, write parts of the plan, and advocate on the state level. If interested, please contact Nancy Fritz at nancy@gencenter.com by May 27. The first meeting will be scheduled for the beginning of June. You can find the Arkansas state LD plan/manual at: http://aalrc.org/resources/ld/policyManual/index.aspx Changes in the federal budget have been proposed. Information is available at http://www.cbpp.org/2-9-05bud.htm, http://www.brown.edu/lrri/advocate.html, http://capwiz.com/tesol/home/ or contact janetisserlis@yahoo.com ESOL share - Wednesday, June 15, at 2:00 pm at the Genesis Center, 620 Potters Avenue, Providence. (please note – the date has been changed from June 8th to the 15th). The National Even Start Association announces a call for papers for the spring 2006 issue of Family Literacy Forum, a peer-reviewed journal published twice a year by the National Even Start Association (NESA). Family Literacy Forum is committed to bringing the ideas and experiences of individuals in the field to the forefront of discussions about the literacy development of families in home, community, and school-based settings. Family Literacy Forum accepts manuscripts that focus on practice, theory and research in family literacy education. We welcome manuscripts that discuss the following: Practical approaches related to working with families and literacy; Personal essays, reflections or opinion pieces related to family literacy; Research and evaluation related to family literacy program development; and, Issues of assessment and standards in the field. Manuscript Preparation Manuscripts should be between 1,000 and 5,000 words. Submissions should be typed in 12-point font double-spaced, including quotations and references. Include a cover sheet with the manuscript title, authors' names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses. The names of the authors should not appear on the text as submissions are reviewed anonymously by peers. Instead, type an identifying word on the top of each page. Follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Fifth Edition, for reference style guidelines. Present important information in the text and do not use footnotes or extensive endnotes. Endmatter should be ordered as: Author's Note (any general note about the manuscript such as acknowledgements, grants, etc.); Children's Books Cited (when including a children's book list); and References. Submit the manuscript electronically as an attachment to Claudia M. Ullman, Editor, Family Literacy Forum at cullman2@nyc.rr.com. Year Up begins a new class every 6 months, and I am in the midst of recruiting students for the August 15th class. If you know any young people would be interested in the opportunity to earn an educational stipend for a full year program (6 months classroom and training, 6 months corporate apprenticeship) that will lead to a start in a good paying career and college credits in Computer Technology and Business Communications, please have them contact me! They must be: low-income, 18-24 years old with a H.S. Diploma or GED and with the legal right to work Our first class is in their 15th week of classes, and are becoming more confident, competent and professional every day. Feel free to come by our site at any time to see our site in action, or to bring a prospective student to see the program. And I am always willing to present to any group at any time about the program! So please call or email if you would like more information sent to you, or schedule a visit here, or have me come to your site to present (I am happy to be a last-minute presenter to seniors who may need to see more options before they graduate!). Jill Holloway, Outreach and Admissions, Year Up, 10 Dorrance St. Ste. 1108, Providence, 02903 (401) 421-7819 x 1115 jholloway@yearup.org Summer plans? While many programs are still in the planning phases for work for the coming fiscal year, if you know (now, or over the next month or two) that you will be offering classes during the summer months, please contact LR/RI. Requests for referrals tends to increase during the summer months when many programs are not in session. Access to this information will be very useful - please let me know, too, if you'd like summer program schedules announced through the bulletin. events at the Providence Public Library: http://www.provlib.org/branchout/current.html
learning opportunities TRANSITION TO COLLEGE, Project RIRAL's ABE-to-college transition project, in collaboration with the New England Literacy Resource Center is currently accepting applications for August 2005. This free sixteen-week program assists non-traditional adult students to upgrade their academic skills, to receive support on their college and financial aid applications, and to receive academic counseling to transition more smoothly into college. Students who enroll in TTC will also receive three academic credits from the Community College of Rhode Island. Students are required to have a GED, EDP (External Diploma), or high school diploma and meet program criteria. TTC meets three evenings during the week and on Saturday mornings at netWORKri 175 Main Street, Pawtucket and at CCRI in Providence. Anyone interested in attending should contact Marie Crecca-Romero at 722-9800, or email her (creccaromero@cox.net) to arrange for a placement test. Space is limited. Hurry and call today! Volunteer Mentors and/or Tutors needed. If you are interested in mentoring and/or tutoring one of our adult students, please contact Marie. For more information about our program, visit our website a www.transitiontocollege.org Adult Education Professional Development Online Course AEPro, the Online Professional Development project of the Ohio Literacy Resource Center, the Center for Literacy Studies in Tennessee, and national LINCS, is pleased to offer to individual practitioners an online professional development course, Integrating Technology into the Classroom Using the Internet. The course will be offered two times: June 13 - July 18 and July 5-August 8. The course requires approximately 2 hours of time per week. To register for the course, go to http://midwestlincs.org/aepro/ and use the Register button on the left panel. Cost is $99 per person and a discount of 10% is available for 5 or more registrations paid from one source. The course helps adult education practitioners learn how to successfully integrate computer technology into the classroom. This six weeks course provides quick access to educational resources, lesson plans, activities, tools for evaluating educational software, information about purchasing education software, and knowledge on using a variety of software in the classroom. The course will be facilitated by Linda Eckert. Questions about the content of the course should be addressed to her at leckert@urhere.net. Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) is offering a "Women at Work" workshop free of charge to labor and community organizations, and we're looking for groups to participate. Women at Work is a project of DARE's Jobs with Dignity Campaign, whose goal is to build women's leadership in the labor movement. In order to build connections between women workers and advance the issues that are important to women workers, this project conducts workshops which focus on efforts to preserve health care and to win community access to good, living wage jobs. If you'd like the DARE workshop team to come to a meeting, class, or other event and lead the 30-minute workshop, please contact Eric Larson at Eric_D_Larson@brown.edu. ASTHMA WORKSHOP AND ESOL LESSON This workshop fuses key, simple vocabulary and grammar into a lesson-like format tailored for ESOL learners. The workshop is one to one and a half hours long, and includes information about the main characteristics of asthma, its symptoms and triggers. Through a participatory and interactive environment, learners not only become aware of basic information relating to asthma, but they also learn English. This workshop can also include data on how asthma affects Latinos, and local community resources where they offer bilingual help. The workshop is free of cost and its language is applicable to all levels. This is a workshop that could easily be integrated into a health unit or delivered as an isolated informative session and lesson. If you and your learners would like to schedule a workshop, please feel free to contact me via e-mail or by phone. Thank you. - Erick Garcia, ESOL Facilitator, American Lung Association, 401.935.8736 erickdgarcia@hotmail.com funding opportunities - large and less large The UPS Foundation funds volunteer management, hunger and literacy efforts. http://www.community.ups.com/community/philanthropy/focus/main.html. The federal government's new one stop grant site: http://www.grants.gov/ The Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) announces another round of education reform grants in areas of social science research. PRACC is particularly interested in issues such as high classroom turnover/mobility and its disproportionate impact on low-income, minority, and farm worker students. However, other issues will be considered as well. To apply, send PRRAC a proposal outlining the planned research and methodology, the advocacy work it is designed to support, a budget, timeline, and qualifications of the researchers. Maximum grant: $10,000. No application deadline. http://www.prrac.org/grants.htm Funding Solutions for Small Nonprofit Organizations A collection of resources to help small nonprofit organizations fundraise including ways to motivate your board, sample fundraising letters, phonathon advice, and tips to improve your direct mail solicitation. http://www.nonprofit-innovations.com/ employment opportunities Jobs at the National Institute for Literacy, Washington, DC - Institute Vacancy Announcements: Senior Project Officer, English Language Literacy, Senior Project Officer, Workforce and Basic Skills Development, Senior Project Officer, Early Childhood Literacy, Human Resources Officer, Budget Analyst and Policy Analyst. Details online http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/NIFL_vacancy_01.html Substitute list: if you would like your name added to the list, please see contact LR/RI. The list needs to be updated so that it can function more usefully for teachers and programs hoping to work with them. (http://www.brown.edu/lrri/sub.html) Rhode Island Community Jobs (RICOMJOB) is a public e-mail announcement list that seeks to raise the profile of meaningful work in Rhode Island by helping non-profit and public interest employers publicize openings effectively. Anyone seeking a job that makes a difference in Rhode Island can join the list. Any non-profit, government or private sector employer advertising a paid position related to the public interest or community concerns can post a free job listing. Positions must be paid but may be part-time, full-time or temporary. To join the list as a job seeker or to post a job as an employer go to: http://www.ricommunityjobs.org Rhode Island Community Jobs is supported by the Swearer Center
for Public
Service at Brown University and the Rhode Island Campus Compact.
If you have questions about this service, please contact us at
ricomjob@brown.edu online / resources available in the news: The administration's plans to cut adult education programs could be a blow to unemployed mill workers in North Carolina trying to get back into the workforce. Jessica Jones of North Carolina Public Radio reports that those who without high school diplomas see adult GED classes as a key to getting new jobs. Hear NPR's Morning Edition report online at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4628441 As a follow-up to the Shop Talk presentation by ED's Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, please find, as a part of this message, the links for ED's final regulations to implement executive branch policies that allow religiously affiliated organizations to compete for funding. The departmentencourages you to make these regulations available on your state Web sites, as well. The full text of the Regulations is available at http://www.ed.gov/policy/fund/reg/fbci-reg.html. Please also review a guidance document to faith-based and community organizations on partnering with the federal government and a religious hiring rights booklet that are available respectively at http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/guidance_document.pdf and http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/booklet.pdf. - Cheryl Keenan learning resources from EDInfo, a periodic email list, well worth pursuing http://www.ed.gov/free While many of these resources are geared to K-12 audiences, many are easily adaptable , interesting toand useful for adults. To subscribe to EDInfo, address an email message to: listserv@listserv.ed.gov Then write SUBSCRIBE EDINFO YOURFIRSTNAME YOURLASTNAME in the message Past messages: http://listserv.ed.gov/archives/edinfo.html IThe Adult Literacy Education Wiki: "Wiki-wiki," a Hawaiian word meanimg very, very quickly, refers to a web site where you can immediately and easily add to or change text. The best-known application is the Wikipedia, a multilingual encyclopedia, created and modified daily by thousands of people across the world. We think a wiki can be a useful online environment for adult literacy practitioners, adult learner leaders, and researchers to have ongoing discussions in areas of mutual interest. The Adult Literacy Education (ALE) Wiki is not a replacement for electronic lists. It is a complement to, and we hope an enhancement of them. Because a wiki is an easily edited document environment, current or past electronic list discussions can be selectively copied to the wiki, continued at any time, and referenced (and linked) in future e- list discussions. For each wiki discussion topic a summary, glossary, and list of research and other references can be created. We hope the ALE Wiki will become a handy electronic reference shelf of definitions and resources for discussions which take place on adult literacy e-lists, and where one could easily find research citations, full-text studies, threaded discussions which have taken place on lists, and other materials organized around specific research topic areas and questions. It could also be an environment where researchers describe their completed and ongoing work, see how practitioners are reacting to or using their research, and see what questions and issues practitioners and adult learner leaders think are important to study. A wiki, by design, is a participatory environment. We invite you to work on the ALE wiki with us. We are trying to organize this so that lots of people from the field are involved in adding/changing and editing text, but also so that in each of the areas there is a leader, a topic manager, to help keep things organized. The Adult Literacy Education Wiki, is online at http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Main_Page To set up an account, and add to the Wiki, go to: http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Special:Userlogin Please e-mail David (djrosen1@comcast.net ) if you have technical questions. We hope you that you will join other researchers and practitioners who have begun to experiment with it.- David J. Rosen Jackie Taylor Marie Cora Marian Thacher Erik Jacobson Practitioner Toolkit: Working with Adult English Language Learners - provides support and resources to adult education and family literacy instructors who are new to serving adults and families learning English and provides a variety of materials to help practitioners meet the language and literacy development needs of the ELL students they serve. These include responses to Frequently Asked Questions, a first-day orientation guide, lesson plans, research-to-practice papers on English language and literacy learning, and an annotated list of English and Spanish language assessments in use. On the Center for Adult English Language Acquisition Web site, the Index page at http://www.cal.org/caela/elltoolkit allows you to select and download the entire document or to select and download topics of interest as needed. The toolkit is made possible by a grant from the Office of Vocational and Adult Education, US Department of Education, through DTI Associates, and is a collaborative effort between the National Center for Family Literacy and the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) http://www.cal.org. If you have comments or questions about the Practitioner Toolkit, please contact Lynda Terrill at lterrill@cal.org. Google Scholar enables searches for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as articles available across the web. Google Scholar orders search results by how relevant they are to your query, so the most useful references should appear at the top of the page. This relevance ranking takes into account the full text of each article as well as the article's author, the publication in which the article appeared and how often it has been cited in scholarly literature. Google Scholar automatically analyzes and extracts citations and presents them as separate results, even if the documents they refer to are not online. This means your search results may include citations of older works and seminal articles that appear only in books or other offline publications. http://scholar.google.com/ Literacies, a Candian journal, is available by subscription and archived online. Special sections of the website recently posted include: three oral history projects at http://www.literacyjournal.ca/oh.htm and have added a practitioner knowledge page at http://www.literacyjournal.ca/cw.htm. Getting the word out: We're pleased to invite your organization to apply now for a Google Grant, which provides a minimum of three months of free Google AdWords (https://adwords.google.com) advertising for nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) status. The Google Grants program is designed to help nonprofit organizations like yours further their goals and objectives through targeted, online advertising on Google.com. Past Google Grant recipients have used their grants to publicize services and awareness, recruit staff and volunteers, promote special events, sell merchandise related to their organization or cause, and much more. There is no deadline to apply, but if you are selected for a Google Grant award, we will ask you to create your account by a specific date. So you should apply when your organization is able to take full advantage of the AdWords program. To learn more about the Google Grants program and apply, please visit our program page, http://www.google.com/grants/. Living in Poverty slideshow does the math: what does it take to live at the poverty level. http://www.nccbuscc.org/cchd/povertyusa/tour2.htm RI Foundation online scholarship directory - searchable by city/town, intended field of study, current high school, and more. http://scholarship.rifoundation.org/ YouthBuild USA Learning Network has links to Web sites and full-text documents, and includes a section on "Authentic Materials/Engaged Learning/Constructivism/Contextual Learning/Project-based Learning." http://www.youthbuild.org/learningnetwork/professionaldev.html Providence Community Resource Network (PCRN) http://www.provplan.org/pcrn Spanish language version of PCRN is up and running. You can access the site from the PCRN home page, http://www.provplan.org/pcrn, or go to http://www.provplan.org/pcrnespa. The Web pages, online instructions, and the content of the database have all been translated. Civics 101 - website of the RI Secretary of State, at http://www.rules.state.ri.us/civics_101/; a high school curriculum that may be adaptable for adult learners and/or useful for initiating critical reflection about citizenship and communities. conferences and workshops - conferences and workshops are listed chronologically and are updated with each bulletin Rhode Island - Training/events around employment issues for people with disabilities http://www.ric.edu/uap/training.html 13th Annual Conference on Serving Youth & Adults with Learning Disabilities May 26, at the Hartford Marriott, Farmington PreConference Site Visits May 25 http://www.crec.org/atdn/disabilities/ldconf.shtml The 11th Annual International Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed Conference, Los Angeles May 29 - 31. Theatre of the Oppressed workshops with Augusto Boal precede the conference) - of interest to literacy researchers and educators concerned about and focused on social justice. Registration at http://www.ptoweb.org. The Carroll Center presents Access to Print Materials for Persons With Vision Impairments June 3, 9:30 am to 3 pm. Learn about the different low-tech and high-tech solutions that provide access to print materials such as video magnifiers, talking books, e- books, scanning and converting text, and how Braille is produced. Ideal for librarians, university support staff, general & special educators, and parents. Certificates of Attendance provided, Cost of $50 includes lunch. Sponsored in part by AFB Literacy Center. http://www.carroll.org/calendar/ical/print.php?cal=__public__&getdate=20050602&printview=month The Rhode Island Special Interest Group of MATSOL Cordially Invites You to Attend Working With Multilevel ESL Classes: From Planning to Assessment Saturday, June 4, 9:00-12:30 Rhode Island College, Student Union (2nd Floor) Easy Parking Resource Materials Refreshments CEU’s Door Prizes! Registration Fee Only $3.00! This event will be sponsored by: Jane and Martin Brauer, Educational Solutions, Representing Hampton-Brown Books, National Geographic and ELLIS ESL Software 9:00-9:30 Book Exhibit, Registration, Greeting and Networking 9:30-10:45 Opening Session Multi-Level Teaching: Strategies and Approaches, Karon Dionne, Director, RI College Outreach Programs 10:45-11:00 Coffee Break/Book Exhibit 11:00-12:15 Breakout Session Please choose one of the three workshops listed below to attend for your breakout session. Promising Practices in Teaching Adult ESL in a Multi-Level Classroom Jenifer Giroux, Computer Assisted English Language Learning Coordinator, Rhode Island College Outreach Programs Multi-level Classes in Low-Incidence Districts Robert Guglielmo, ESL Teacher, Westerly High School Multiplex-ESL Strategies for the Multi-level Upper Elementary/Middle School Classroom Joanne Abella, K-12 ESL Specialist, MA in TESOL, Teachers College, Columbia University 12:15-12:30 Door Prizes; Visit Exhibits; Ellis Software Demonstration (a virtual ESL tutor). CALL FOR PRESENTERS The Student Coalition for Action in Literacy Education requests workshop proposals for SCALE's Read. Write. Act. Conference October 27-29, 2005 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Please join us for the only national conference created
specifically
for campus-based literacy programs, college student tutors, program
coordinators,
adult learners and community partners. We welcome you to submit a
proposal
that addresses one of our conference themes: SCALE's annual Read. Write. Act. Conference is a unique
national networking
opportunity and learning event. It offers the chance for campus
programs,
tutors, coordinators, new readers, administrators and community
partners
to share information, develop new skills, reflect other events and conferences http://www.nifl.gov/cgi-bin/Calendar/calendar_world.cgi TESOL worldwide calendar of events http://www.tesol.org/isaffil/calendar/index.html
from previous bulletins: REMINDERS, RESOURCES: SABES Resource Lists Available. From Carey Reid [full message here]: As you might know, Massachusetts now has a rigorous, stand-alone ABE teacher's license. SABES, the System for Adult Basic Education Support, is a state-wide staff development system funded by MassDOE. Ö[S]months ago I asked if NLA subscribers were interested in helping SABES build resource lists, by standard, in support of teachers seeking the new license here in Massachusetts. Many of you helped out, thank you, and we've also worked with small groups of people locally to build these 29 lists, now with over 150 resources--books, articles, websites, and videos. The lists are now available on SABES's license support website at http://www.sabes.org/license. You can get quickly to the lists by clicking on the "new resources added" link under What's New, or at any time by using the resources link on the bottom of every webpage. When you arrive at the chart listing the 29 standards, click on any standard to go to the resource list we've compiled for it. The lists are annotated; with the annotations, teachers who wish to improve their knowledge and skills in respect to a particular standard can be more assured they're getting the resource they want or need. If the resource can be viewed or downloaded on the Net, we've provided a link. We want to improve these lists, so please email me to suggest additions or
changes. BTW, the full list
of resources is also collected in a ProCite bibliography file, so if
you
use that software and would like to have your own "instant" database,
let
me know and I'll email you the file. As stated earlier, SABES is funded
by the Massachusetts Department of Education. To avoid confusion,
the website is not an official DOE site but rather one of SABES's means
of supporting license-seeking teachers in our state. Links to
Massachusetts
DOE webpages, however, are provided on the site. breathe - everyday yoga at your desk. http://www.mydailyyoga.com/yoga/everyday_yoga.html what do you think? LR/RI has had an online survey on its site forever. Previously, those who may have come across the survey were asked to copy and paste it into an email message, or to print it and complete it. Thanks to the brilliant technical support and inservice learning provided by Brown University, the survey can now be completed on line. I'd be grateful if you could please take the time to complete it. While occasional word comes back about the work LR/RI has done, this survey attempts to be somewhat more systematic in considering the work that's done and the work that needs to be accomplished. Please complete the survey at http://www.brown.edu/lrri - scroll down and click on the link to the survey. If you lack web access and wish to complete the survey, please contact LR/RI to receive one via snail mail or fax. Please contact LR/RI if you have information, questions or announcements to share with adult educators in Rhode Island. Bulletins go out at least twice a month; more frequently when there's more to share. To submit information for the next bulletin, please contact LR/RI by phone (401-863-2839), mail (PO Box 1974, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912) or email. back to LR/RI home |
