Digital Literacy
"Presenter was EXTREMELY knowledgeable. There were plenty of resources and examples present that I have been able to use in my class already!"
"This webinar had a lot of great ideas about where to go for support."
"The wealth of resources shared is very helpful."
This session offers strategies for how to develop, adopt, and embrace a robust digital literacy strategy that will benefit teachers and learners alike. Topics include how programs have built in access, practice, time, and space for both staff and students to increase their digital literacy.
Digital literacy is a priority for programs, but in order for students to build digital literacy skills, they need access to computers and internet service to work and study. It can be expensive for programs to purchase technology for use in classes and to loan out to students and staff. In this workshop, you will hear about three sources of free or discounted devices and connectivity, and we will discuss successful practices for loaning technology. We will also share a source for assistive equipment for computer users with disabilities.
>> January 2024 update: One of the resources, the Affordable Connectivity Program, is halting applications on February 7, 2024. You and your students can advocate to continue funding it through a COABE petition.
"One key takeaway from this webinar is getting to know what adult learning centers do."
Students can arrive to our classes with a range of computer skills. This can be challenging to manage! Come hear how Catholic Charities, Worcester Public Schools, and MassLINKS adult education staff address this using a variety of approaches. These include an in-person “boot camp” before the semester starts, an in-class intensive focus on digital skills at the beginning of the semester, and a fully online training. Using these approaches can help students feel confident that they have the skills to handle the digital tools used in their classes.
The presenter will discuss putting program-wide support into place, including considerations for the selection of appropriate tools as well as supporting staff so they in turn feel confident supporting their students. She will cover approaches to outreach, onboarding students, (e.g., building a tech support team to help throughout the year), and setting up communications. You will see examples of tools you can use or modify to align with your curriculum and match to the levels of your staff and student digital literacy skills.
Yes, there are ways you can assess the digital literacy skills of your beginning English language learners! During this webinar, you will learn about teacher-tested tools and approaches you can use right now and when planning your program’s next new student intake event.
With students’ assessment information, you can:
Understand their needs before class starts to inform teacher and program planning and to ensure equitable and high-quality experiences.
Work with them to set digital literacy goals.
Document skill development so they, and you, can celebrate their progress.
Great news! ACLS has purchased a state license for Northstar Digital Literacy, which means that now students and teachers in all ACLS-funded programs can benefit from Northstar assessments, curriculum, training, and certificates. All you need to do is complete two easy steps:
1. Get a site license for your program by completing this Request Form. For questions about ACLS Northstar licenses, please contact Paula Jurigian at paula.jurigian@mass.gov.
2. Join us for this training to learn what the paid/licensed Northstar platform has to offer programs, teachers, and students. (Note: This is significantly more than what the “free access” offers.)
In this workshop, you will learn about the Northstar Digital Literacy standards, assessments, ready-to-go curriculum, self-directed online learning, and reporting features. Use this training to plan how your organization can strategically use Northstar to reach your digital literacy goals.
In this workshop, Northstar expert Theresa Sladek will take you through the first steps you should take to get ready to use Northstar. She will describe how to accomplish the tasks needed to begin using Northstar effectively and efficiently, such as how to register students, run reports, and find and use the curricula and resources available to Northstar subscribers.
To view the first webinar in this series, see Introduction to Northstar above.
Join Northstar trainer Theresa Sladek for the third in a series of three Northstar Digital Literacy workshops to learn how you can orient your learners to the Northstar assessments, the student dashboard, and self-directed online curricula that are included in your program’s state-funded subscription to the Northstar Digital Literacy platform. She will review how to proctor assessments and provide examples of how instructors can use the classroom curricula in a remote learning environment.
DESE-funded programs can request a site license by completing this request form. Note that the requests are processed in batches so please plan ahead.
This session looks at tools for figuring out how to match students' work, education, or other goals to the relevant digital literacy skills they need to reach them, learning resources for them to develop those skills, and digital literacy assessments in order to create a digital literacy learning plan.
Chances are that you have current students, staff, and others who may join your program in the future with hand motor, visual, or auditory difficulties. For this reason, it is good practice to know how to be inclusive so that program and class materials are readable and program digital devices are navigable. It’s also important to understand how to support students’ use of their own devices. Come learn about basic settings and instructions for creating equitable access at your program and in your classes.
This webinar is offered as a collaboration between the SABES Program Support PD Center Digital Literacy and ADA Training and Resources teams.
Are you looking for ways to help all adult learners develop the digital skills needed to achieve their personal, civic, educational, and career goals? Do you wonder how to differentiate digital skills instruction according to student needs and goals? Do you need more resources that support your efforts to teach digital skills? In this webinar, we will explore three approaches to teaching digital literacy, as well as robust tools and resources that support those approaches.
Do you find it challenging to figure out how to build digital skills into the flow of your class? You are not alone! This workshop will cover tools that teachers and advisors can use for common instructional and assessment activities. You will explore the EdTech Integration Strategy Toolkit*, which is designed to help you find strategies, resources, and activities to support meaningful edtech integration and digital skill development.
Although many programs have students for a very limited number of hours, teachers, advisors, and others have so much we need to cover during that brief time. While it can certainly be challenging to figure out how to include digital literacy along with content and skills, it can be done! This workshop offers an approach to weaving together digital literacy, content, and skills with examples including a single lesson, curriculum theme, and project.
This workshop introduces two assessment tools that can be used to add existing content to Quizalize and Edpuzzle. It also introduces two user-friendly tools used to create customized assessments: Google Forms Quiz and Padlet.
In this workshop, you will take a tour of the standards, learn how they were developed, and hear how other programs have used them to inform instruction and assessment. You will have time to explore them and consider how you might use them to inform and organize your digital literacy work with your students.
As you think about integrating digital literacy into core instructional practices, project-based learning (PBL) can be a powerful approach to customizing teaching and learning that responds to your students’ needs and interests. In this workshop, you will learn about ways you can develop and use PBL activities that address adult learning and development theory and promote persistence.
Charts are everywhere! They can be found in articles, textbooks, medical test results, and more. The SABES Program Support and Math and Adult Numeracy C & I PD Centers are excited to partner for this session. The first hour will focus on helping students use their observations of relationships in a table and their knowledge of graphs to understand how to read and to create charts. You will experience the activity as a learner and hear about the background of the activity and its use in the curriculum. The presenter will demonstrate how to make a chart in Google Sheets, and you will have time to try out creating charts. In addition, you will have the opportunity to think together with the group how you might use a similar activity in your class. The last half hour is reserved for your questions about other digital literacy, distance education, or blended learning topics.
When you cook rice, what is the proportion of rice to water you use? Come experience how having students explore this question can lead them to understand the concept of ratios as a relationship between quantities. The SABES Program Support and Math and Adult Numeracy C & I PD Centers are pleased to partner to provide this session. The first hour will focus on the lesson that Math PD specialist and teacher Connie Rivera used with her students. You will experience the activity as a learner and hear about the background of the activity. She will review how to make a chart or graph in Google Sheets, and you will have hands-on time to create charts and discuss together with the group how you might use a similar activity in your class.