Updated: April 22, 1997
The "What's New!" page is intended to showcase current news, events, publications, projects, and any other items that concern literacy and the Region IV Hub. Check out past issues under What's New Oldies.
Learning to Learn... with Style is rooted in a concern for increasing the chances of success for adult learners who have not previously experienced success in school. Through illustration, description and example, it offers an introduction to learning styles concepts for adult learners and provides them with tools to begin to recognize their own behavior and to make the most of their personal style strengths.
This teacher's guide provides background information on learning styles, model lesson plans, follow-up activity ideas, and a bibliography of recommended resources. It can be used with whole classes, in small groups, or on an individual basis.
This year's Region IV Hub Conference and Training was held in Honolulu, Hawaii at the University of Hawaii, January 19-21, 1997. Hosted by the Region IV Hub Project and the State Literacy Resource Center of California, participants included representatives of most of the nineteen states and islands in Region IV as well as Jaleh Behroozi of the National Institute for Literacy and Dr. Carroll Towey of the Department of Education, Division of Adult Education and Literacy.
Training included Web application review; Web page development, design and protocols; Web Site Maintenance, and Locally Produced Material Quality Standards. The guest presenters were Joan Polster, Staff Development Institute on Best Practice and Quality issues, Joann Martin, Director, Southern Literacy Communications Consortium (Region II Hub), and Debra Fawcett, Colorado State Literacy Resource Center on LINCS and Starting Point Standards.
- To access the actual training materials, click here.
The Pacific Islands Council on Adult Education and Literacy (PICAEL) consisting of the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marshall Islands, Northern Marianas Islands, American Samoa, and Palau met on Saturday January 18. This marked the first full Board meeting since PICAEL was founded. PICAEL is devoted to promoting adult literacy in the Pacific. The Board discussed the need for an extensive literacy study to determine what is acknowledged to be a very high illiteracy rate in the region. It was determined that a Pacific literacy campaign would be needed to increase awareness of the areas urgent literacy needs and to help fund literacy programs. Visit the Web sites of the Councils members and also the PICAEL Web site for more information.
- Federated States of Micronesia Adult Education Program
- Guam Literacy Resource Center
- Northern Marianas Adult Education and Literacy Program
- Marshall Islands Literacy Resource Center
The Hub IV Project is hosting the Pacific Star Schools Partnership Adult Literacy Program Educational Web site. Washington Service District 101, operator of the STEP/Star distance learning network, provides adult literacy and alternative education courses to learners throughout America by way of satellite downlinks or local cable systems.
The adult literacy programs are underwritten by a Star Schools grant awarded to ESD 101 through the Office of Educational Research and Improvement-U.S. Department of Education. The Pacific Star Schools Partnership, a multi-state consortium of educational providers including the Northwest Literacy Resource Center, offers three interactive broadcast courses for adult literacy/alternative education audiences: 1) GED Preparation, 2) Career Transitions, and 3) ESL/Citizenship.
The State Literacy Resource Center of California has put-up a comprehensive adult literacy statistics Web Site. The site is searchable and contains information for all California counties. The statistics are county level projections of data collected in California as part of the National Adult Literacy Survey and represent the literacy status of approximately 22,817,791 Californians in 24 ethnic, gender and age groupings
Check out the many interactive news stories on the "Interactive Learning Resources" Web site. The learning modules are based on CNN San Francisco bureau's broadcasted news stories with the text and the actual video clip. A learner can read the story, view it, then take a vocabulary, mutliple choice and true and false test that is immediatley scored. A good resource for learners for improving English skills and for instructors in developing curriculum.
Is there a literacy question that's keeping you up late at night? Questions about literacy manners, literacy relationships, literacy trivia? Caroline has the answers! Email her at cdobison@otan.dni.us.
Dear Caroline:
I am an adult education teacher who wears many hats a few of which include teaching ESL and basic literacy, heading up our curriculum committee, and administering all of the literacy programs at our school. I have little time to read all the professional journals and attend all the relevant conferences. I need quick answers without spending time on researching the best resources. My question is: Where can I find groups of people on-line that are concerned with the same issues I deal with daily that I can communicate with and share ideas?
Signed,
Too Much to Do, Too Little Time to Do ItDear Too Much to Do, Too Little Time to Do It,
One good way to stay on top of what's going on in literacy is to subscribe to a Literacy Listserv. Listservs (or listservers) are a service providing distributed messages that form conferences and allow the archiving of files and messages which can be searched and retrieved. That means you can send email to the group of your particular interest and ask and answer questions. The most common form of a listserv is a Maillist (or Mailing List) which is an automated system (usually) that allows people to send e-mail to one address, whereupon their message is copied and sent to all of the other subscribers to the maillist. In this way, people who have many different kinds of e-mail access can participate in discussions together. To access one of these mailists, you must subscribe to it.There are many Internet Literacy Listserv discussion groups you can subscribe to with some great information. Here are some Web sites that provide more information.
Hub IV listserv page
NIFL Listservs
National Adult Literacy Database Inc. (NALD) Listserv page
Colorado SLRC - Resource Notes, February 1996 
