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Volume 9, Issue 3

Fall 2009

The Arkansas Adult

Learning Resource

Center provides equal

access to all programs

and activities.

Learning Disabilities Month (October) is a time

where people pay special attention to children

and adults with learning disabilities. October

was originally designated in the United States

as LD Month in 1985 through a proclamation

by President Ronald Reagan.

During this month, each person is asked to

teach someone at least one thing they know

about learning disabilities. The Reading

Rockets website at

http://www.readingrockets.org/calendar/ld

is the

designated LD Month website for information and ideas about information

you may want to share with others. They have links to various LD dis-

cussion topics, activities, and inspirational stories, as well as additional

resources and online links. Even more specific ideas for possible LD

Month activities may be seen at

http://www.ldac-taac.ca/LDmonth/

suggestedActivities-e.asp

.

When Laubach Literacy Action and Literacy Volunteers of America com-

bined to form ProLiteracy in 2003, the systems used to train volunteers to

become adult literacy tutors virtually disappeared. This left adult literacy

organizations throughout the country without a structured system for

training.

At the same time, adult literacy providers were seeing a decrease in at-

tendance for tutor training workshops, which usually lasted 12 to 18

hours on Friday evenings and Saturdays. With more people working out-

side the home, this schedule became less attractive.

Looming on the horizon was an initiative that today is truly revolutionizing

tutor training by using the Internet to make training more convenient, rele-

vant, and modernized. With help from ProLiteracy, the Verizon Founda-

tion has created the online Thinkfinity Literacy Network. The Web site,

"Thinkfinity.org," provides a selection of online courses for both volunteer

tutor and teacher training and for children and adult learners.

All courses are free and can be taken at any time and at any place with

Internet access. Upon completion of the courses, certificates can be

printed.

Literacy programs in Arkansas and elsewhere started looking at incorpo-

rating Thinkfinity courses into the tutor training process. However, many

questions remained such as what courses should be assigned and which

parts of tutor training must still be done

Arkansas Adult Learning

Resource Center

3905 Cooperative Way,

Suite D

Little Rock, AR 72209

Phone: 800-832-6242

501-907-2490

FAX: 501-907-2492

http://www.aalrc.org

Continued on page 8

October is

Learning Disabilities Month

ALC and Clinton School for Public Service Partner to

Upgrade Tutor Training

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Adult Learning Network

Governor

Mike Beebe

State Board of

Workforce

Education

and Career

Opportunities

Director,

William L. “Bill"

Walker, Jr.

Division of

Rehabilitation

Services

Robert Trevino

Division of

Adult Education

Jim Smith

Division of Career

& Technical

Education

John Davidson

Communications

Deborah Ger-

many, Interim

Human Resources

& Development

Pam Harris

Finance

Charles Brown

Calendar

All events are at the AALRC unless otherwise noted.

October

October 6 – GED Examiners Conference

– Crowne Plaza Little Rock Session ID: 105050

October 14 – Google Docs Session ID: 105054

October 15 – Office 2007 Session ID: 105056

November

November 3-4 – Teaching With Manipulatives Session ID: 105061

November 17 – Inspiration Software Session ID: 105064

November 18 – Google Docs Session ID: 105062

Meetings/Events

October 1-2 – WAGE Retreat

October 8 – Technology Committee

October 22-23 – AACAE – Springdale Holliday Inn & Convention Center

October 30 – Arkansas Service Commission

November 13 – ALC Board & MAC Meeting

November 19-20 – Advisory Council – Valley View Adult Education –

Jonesboro

November 23-27 – AALRC Closed for Thanksgiving

December 21-January 1, 2010 – AALRC Closed for Holidays

January 15 – ALC, Inc. Board Meeting

As a teacher, I seek out meaningful, socially relevant publications to use in

my ABE classes. How much more meaningful a magazine is when it in-

cludes pieces by other adult learners – spoken from the heart and rooted in

real-life experience. And even more meaningful than that: sometimes the

pieces are written by my own students!

The Change Agent, a national magazine published by the New England Lit-

eracy Resource Center at World Education, includes writing by adult learn-

ers. Twice a year, The Change Agent sends out a “Call for Articles," inviting

students to submit their essays, poems, illustrations, and reflections.

I always take advantage of the “Call for Articles" because it acts as a writing

prompt and it leads to a real-world process: submitting a piece of writing to

be evaluated and possibly accepted for publication. Preparing to write a

piece for The Change Agent is a group activity that fosters community-

building among our students. When one of our own

Students’ Writing and Getting Published

Kristen McKenna

Continued on page 3

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Adult Learning Network

Arkansas Hosts the 9th Annual Adult Education ESL Summer Institute

student’s articles is published, all the students seem to take pride in their fellow student’s accom-

plishment.

Knowing someone who got published or knowing that many of your peers in adult education are

being published provides a great gateway to more reading and exploring. Students might initially

be attracted to the magazine because they recognize the writers, but then they hold on to the

magazine and browse through the other stories. They enjoy being able to hold something in their

hands that is fully accessible, engaging, and relevant to their everyday lives.

Many students in our program receive a copy of The Change Agent as if it were a textbook.

(Except that it is a lot cheaper – only about a dollar per copy when you buy in bulk.) The articles

are written at a variety of levels so teachers can make adjustments to their lessons to suit the right

audience. A new and value-added feature is the online lessons that accompany and extend the

articles. These “Extras," along with the current issue and all the back issues of The Change Agent

can be found at

www.nelrc.org/changeagent

. To order, call 617-482-9485 or visit the web site. The

current issue of The Change Agent focuses on the economic crisis. The forthcoming issue (find

the “Call for Articles" on the web site) is called “Coming Home from War"; it addresses the issues

and challenges facing veterans.

Kristen McKenna is an ABE teacher at Bristol Community College in Attleboro, MA.

Students’ Writing and Getting Published

Continued from page 2

Dr. Gail Weinstein (right) and ESL Summer Institute

participant Gail Unternehr (left)

Photos provided by Danny Sheffield

The 9th Annual Adult Education ESL Summer Institute

was held at the AALRC from July 20 to 22, 2009. Fifty

participants from 28 different adult education and liter-

acy programs attended the intensive three days of

teacher training. This year’s trainer was Dr. Gail

Weinstein, professor of English at San Francisco State

University and director of the Center for Immigrant &

Refugee Community Literacy Education. Gail’s text-

books, professional books, and training (both locally and

internationally) reflect her commitment to strengthening

families and communities through learner-centered

practice.

This year’s Summer ESL Institute was aimed at teachers

who want to bring learner-centered principles into the

fabric of their teaching, curriculum, and program design.

A framework was provided for using learner narratives to

teach language while addressing themes in immigrant

life through project-based work. Specifically, the role of

immigrant adults as parents, workers, citizens and man-

agers of their own and their families’ health was the fo-

cus of these narratives. Gail was an inspiration to all of

the teachers who attended the Institute and motivated

everyone to continue to tell their stories and to listen to

their students’ stories.

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Adult Learning Network

News from the Disabilities Project Manager

Visualizing What You Read and Write

There’s a great website at

http://www.wordsift.com/

that is designed to help students visualize

what they’re reading or writing – perfect for your students with learning disabilities who benefit

from the opportunity to think in pictures instead of words, the choice of most people with reading

disabilities.

Consider what the developers of the site, Kenji Hakuta and Greg Wientjes, wrote about this site:

Think of a word much like a soccer ball or hackeysack. Think of a classroom as a kind of play-

ground in which words can be kicked around for fun and for learning - not drill and kill. WordSift

enables teachers to create an environment where language is "talked about" as richly as possible.

Much of language cannot be taught directly, but much of language is learned through active talk,

so why not have a way of talking about language. Try pasting some text into WordSift, display it to

your class, and talk about what you see. Be spontaneous and generative -- that is the stuff that

forms the basis of strong language acquisition.

WordSift is a combination of searching for images on Google Images, videos on YouTube, and the

Visual Thesaurus software. You just type in your text (or cut and paste it from another applica-

tion), then click on the green box that says “Sift." The program searches the text and then gives

you a ton of images, videos, and a word web that match the text you entered.

The most frequent word is entered into the Visual Thesaurus and the result is displayed as a word

web. It displays the word, plus related words including antonyms and synonyms. The Visual The-

saurus display is interactive: the definition of each word on the display pops up when the cursor is

scrolled over it, and a click on any word on the web re-configures the display to bring that word to

the center. This display is just a sampler taken from the Visual Thesaurus website, and after sev-

eral clicks, it will ask you if you want to subscribe, but if you click “remind me later" it will continue

to function without much annoyance.

The results of Google searches are also displayed, using the two most

frequent words as the search terms. The images search frequently re-

sults in photos that closely relate to the topic of the text. Even results

that seem to be somewhat off-base can be used as a way of talking

about why the program might have chosen it. For example, entering an

article on “climate change" from MSN Encarta produced an image

cloud with “warm" and “greenhouse" as the top two words, and pictures

of warm greenhouses. The teacher can use this to offer an explanation

about climate change being caused by greenhouse gases, and why

greenhouses stay warm. The YouTube videos resulting from the

Google Video search are much more random, but can still provide the

basis for a lot of unforeseen learning opportunities.

Sample sentences are also provided. Examples from the source text containing the most frequent

word in the text are displayed under the word web. The key word is marked in green. All relevant

examples from the input text are listed. One intended use of this feature is to organize the text to

preview key vocabulary. This feature can also quickly show different meanings of the same word.

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Adult Learning Network

AALRC

Advisory

Committee

Dubs Byers,

Chair,

Pine Bluff

Emily Barrier,

Little Rock

Carrie Boden,

Little Rock

Janie Carter,

Crossett

Richard

Hampton,

Texarkana

Tara Rice,

North Little

Rock

Becky Linsky,

Hot Springs

Nancy

Whitmire,

Vice-Chair,

Batesville

Ruth Ann

Williams,

Conway

Students who have difficulty with their reading comprehension will benefit

greatly from this opportunity to view the text in a graphic, interactive man-

ner. Not only will it help them sift through the text to determine important

information vs. “fluffy stuff;" but also, it will give them images to use for bet-

ter relating to, storing, and later retrieving the concepts and facts in the text

they are reading or writing.

Screening Students for Learning Disabilities

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about learning disabilities (LD) screen-

ing lately from various programs around the state, especially the use of the

Washington State 13-Question Learning Inventory. In a nutshell, here’s a

sample of what I’ve been trying to emphasize.

The most important thing to remember

is this: Screening for learning dis-

abilities is a process

, not a

tool. The 13-question screener is a

great start, but it is not a panacea and

it does not tell you whether or not the

person has a learning disability. It

can, however, give you an initial

heads-up that the student MAY have

some special learning needs that will

need to be addressed so they may

complete their educational goals most

effectively and efficiently. But if you’re administering this screening tool

without any previous LD training, you probably have no idea what the

heads-up is or what it means.

One problem is that some programs only have the one page with the 13

questions. There are other pages, including directions for administering the

interview and what to do with the final score. If you’d like a copy of those

pages, plus a large-print student copy of the questions, please email me at

prwhite@madisoncounty.net

and I’ll be happy to send you the .pdf file.

The big heads-up moment can happen at any time during the interview.

For example, if I start asking the student about their educational back-

ground, and the student discloses that they were in Special Ed. or Re-

source classes, then I know there is a prior diagnosis of SOME kind of dis-

ability. At that point, I’d probably stop asking the screening questions and

move right to questions like, “How long ago was your last diagnosis." and

“Can you get a copy of your IEP (Individual Education Plan) or diagnostic

report." (if the testing were completed within the last five years). I would

News from the Disabilities Project Manager

6

Adult Learning Network

AALRC Staff

Director

Marsha Taylor

___________________

Administrative

Assistant

Wanda Johnson

Professional

Development

Coordinator

Nancy Loftis

Media

Coordinator

Klaus Neu

Secretary

Toccara Baker

Information

Technology

Specialist

Rob Pollan

Disabilities

Project

Manager

Patti White

News from the Disabilities Project Manager

also ask, at that point, if the student requires any testing or classroom ac-

commodations. If their documentation is out-of-date, we have a process

for getting it updated. Details of that process are at

http://aalrc.org/

resources/ld/referralProcess.aspx

If the student scores 12 or more without any prior

Special Ed. attendance disclosure, I'd probably

ask some follow-up questions like, "So, were you

in Special Ed. If so, why. Do you have a copy of

your IEP." Or I might ask them if they ever took

their tests orally in school, or if they were a Re-

source student. Their answers to those kinds of

questions would tell me whether or not I should

jump right to getting a copy of their school re-

cords, or maybe try the TABE over again with ac-

commodations, OR maybe just have them start

classes and ask the teacher to keep a close eye

on them for potential red flags and/or progress vs.

no progress.

Red flags might be any of the behaviors/characteristics typically associated

with adults with learning disabilities. This is where it’s helpful to have com-

pleted some LD training so you’re familiar with what to look for. If I’m work-

ing with a student and start seeing red flags – even if they scored below 12

on the initial screening interview – then I might try the accommodated

TABE and have another discussion with the student about what they do

well and what's hardest for them. If the accommodated TABE scores are

significantly higher than the unaccommodated scores, I'd probably talk to

the student about the possibility of a learning disability and/or AD/HD and

see if they're interested in getting the documentation needed to request ac-

commodations on the GED.

The biggest confusion I hear about with the process of screening is that it

rolls out differently for different students. Everyone is unique; everyone

has different areas of strengths/weaknesses even if they've got the same

diagnosis, so you can't just hand out a prescription for screening, strate-

gies, and accommodations. You've got to rely on teachers, administrators,

and intake staff who (1) understand the basics of LD, (2) understand the

process and possible components of LD screening, and (3) can apply com-

mon sense to a broad framework of suggested procedures and tools.

If you have questions regarding anything about the process of screening

students for learning disabilities or training for learning disabilities-related

information, please contact me at

prwhite@madisoncounty.net

or

800.569.3539.

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Adult Learning Network

Tech

Talk

Note: To link to any web address (URL) in this newsletter, go the AALRC's home page at

http://aalrc.org

, look up this newsletter, and then just click on the appropriate link.

Flashcards

Flashcards are a great way to practice problems and retain information. Here are some sites that

have ready-made flashcards and some that even let you make your own.

Flashcard exchange.com - free flashcards for use for a variety of

categories. Math, English, Science, Social Studies just to name a

few.

http://www.flashcardexchange.com/

PDictionary.com – Great for ESL students, it has pictures that you

can mouse over and it will display the word in English

http://www.pdictionary.com/english/flashcards.php

Great site for math flash cards:

http://www.factmonster.com/math/flashcards.html

Another good math flash card site:

http://www.aplusmath.com/Flashcards/index.html

http://www.webmath.com/

Webmath – This is a handy-to-use web program that many will find very helpful, especially when

there is not a teacher around to explain how to work a problem

.

Webmath is a math-help web

site that generates answers to specific math questions and problems, as entered by a user, at any

particular moment. The math answers are generated and displayed real-time, at the moment a

web user types in their math problem and clicks "solve." In addition to the answers, Webmath also

shows the student how to arrive at the answer. Webmath is free and you do not have to register.

Setting System Time Over the Internet

Tired of never having the correct time on your computer. You can set your system clock to a time

server on the Internet that will synchronize with an atomic clock so you will always be on time.

1. Double-click the time on your taskbar (bottom right-hand corner of your screen).

2. Click the Internet Time tab

3. Check Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server

4. Click on the Update Now button

5. If for some reason the update fails, try a different server

Tip - If your minutes are correct but the hour is wrong, click on the Time Zone tab and make sure

that there is a check next to “Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes", and make

sure you have the Central Time zone selected.

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Adult Learning Network

Continued from page 1

A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD:

WHY THE AMERICAN

LEGAL SYSTEM MATTERS

TO YOU

DVD and Instructor’s Guide

The Arkansas Bar Association has produced A Level Playing Field:

Why the American Legal System Matters to You, which includes a

DVD and Instructor’s Guide covering four core principles of the Ameri-

can Judicial System. The material is intended for use in secondary

education classes throughout the state of Arkansas. The materials are

ideal for Civics, American Government or History, Pre-Law, and other

Social Studies courses. The Bar Association is looking for volunteer

attorneys and judges to go to local classrooms to present the 20 min-

ute DVD and present a short program to the students.

The fast-paced DVD includes sports references and was produced

with an eye toward keeping students’ attention and interest. It contains

excerpts from interviews with prominent Arkansas elected officials,

judges and attorneys, including Governor Mike Beebe, Senator Dale

Bumpers, Chief Justice Jim Hannah, Honorable Lavenski Smith,

Bobby McDaniel, as well as several others. The production is hosted by a young Little Rock attor-

ney, Nick Rogers, and NFL Referee Walt Coleman. The DVD discusses the Constitutional basis of

the American judicial system and the four fundamental principles of the judicial system--the Rule of

Law; Equal Justice Under the Law; Fair, Impartial and Independent Judiciary and the Jury System.

A short excerpt from the DVD can be seen on You-Tube at the following site:

http://www.youtube.com/watch.v=tDvzw4QfI_g

Make plans to present A Level Playing Field: Why the American Legal System Matters to You

at your local school. Please contact the Arkansas Bar Association (501) 375-4606. They will add

your name to a list and contact you regarding your availability when they receive a request from a

school. If you would like to preview the DVD or need further information, please contact AALRC’s

media coordinator Klaus Neu at 501-907-2490 or via email at

klaus@aalrc.org

.

face-to-face" (that cannot be replaced by video or Internet). A larger question was how to fit the

assigned courses into the tutor training process - before or after a volunteer's first meeting with the

literacy council. Are there more courses assigned after tutor training. Which ones.

Guidance to councils on tutor training is a continuing need for ALC, which is aware that several

councils have successfully integrated Thinkfinity courses into their tutor training. Because of lim-

ited time and staff, ALC wrote a proposal to the Clinton School for Public Service in Little Rock for

a practicum project - to use students in the field to see how their selection of Thinkfinity.org

courses fit in to their tutor training. An online guidebook would be developed to guide any council

into creating quality tutor training. The proposal was accepted.

On September 1, Clinton School students Mark Leinhart (from North Little Rock), Julie Myer (from

St. Louis, Mo.), and Jeerawat Na Thalang (from Bangkok, Thailand) met with ALC staff and mem-

bers of the ALC Board Council Advisory Committee for a project orientation. The Clinton School

student team will be traveling this fall to councils in Benton, Conway, Fort Smith, Leslie, Russell-

ville, and Stuttgart and will begin work before the end of the year in composing the tutor training

guidebook. ALC has received a grant of leadership funds from the Adult Education Division of the

Department of Career Education to assist the students with travel expenses. The goal is to have

the guidebook complete and councils trained before the students graduate in the spring.

AALRC Library New Item Suggestion

Tutor Training Upgrade