VOLUME 4 ISSUE 1 : WINTER 2022
Special Issue
Online Learning, Technology Integration, and Digital Literacy in Adult Language and Literacy Education.
Adult Literacy Education: The International Journal of Literacy, Language, and Numeracy
ProLiteracy
The journal’s mission is to publish research on adult basic and secondary education and transitions to college and career programs. It informs practitioners, researchers, policy makers, and funders about best practices in adult literacy, numeracy, and English language education in publicly funded, community and volunteer-based programs in a wide range of contexts. Each issue will consist of research articles focused on a particular theme plus other content of interest to readers (e.g., resource reviews, opinion pieces, and debates and discussions on timely topics of interest to the field).
Contact: ProLiteracy, https://www.proliteracy.org/ALE-Journal
Research Articles
“It’s Better That She Sees Me:” Digital Visual Literacy Narratives of Women Immigrants in Chile and Implications for Adult Literacy
Sondra Cuban, Western Washington University
Jo Ann Arinder, Washington State University
Narratives drawn from a Fulbright study of immigrant women in Chile communicating with their families at-a-distance through information and communication technologies show that they utilized digital visual literacy practices. Digital visual literacy is a combination of digital literacy and visual literacy and even goes beyond these conceptualizations. By manipulating their levels of visibility through platforms on smartphone devices, immigrant women strove to create a sense of co-presence with their families abroad. This paper demonstrates the complexity and relevance of combining visuality with multi-literacies, voice, and gendered narratives of digital communication for immigrants inside and outside of adult literacy classrooms.
Correspondence: cubans@wwu.edu
The Power of the Positive: Enhancing Online Student Engagement for Adult Literacy Learners
Ellen N. Beattie, Center for Intentional Learning
The evolving neurobiological and psychological understanding of emotions, specifically positive emotions, provides fascinating insights into how learners’ emotions can be evoked, and online learning environments can be crafted to maximize student engagement. Engaged online learners are more active, self-directed, and responsible; they persist and find academic success at higher rates. This article aims to maximize learner outcomes by combining the research and frameworks of online student engagement with the neuroscience and psychology of positive emotions. This research suggests that positive psychology interventions, which have been consistently correlated to positive organizational outcomes when similarly used in business initiatives, also apply to the online adult literacy classroom. The infusion of practical positive psychology principles and the purposeful use of positive emotions in the online setting are presented from three distinct perspectives: creating a positive culture, facilitation, and academic content.
Correspondence: ellen.beattie@centerforintentionallearning.com
Report from the Field
The Digital Literacy Action Plan: A Strategy for Differentiation and Learner Agency in Digital Literacy Instruction
Rachel Riggs, World Education
When I began my career in adult education as an adjunct ESL teacher, I felt well-equipped with an understanding of second language acquisition and evidence-based teaching methods. At the time, I knew nothing about digital literacy. Once I began to understand its importance and the challenges that it posed in the classroom, I developed the Digital Literacy Action Plan, an instructional strategy designed to differentiate, increase learner agency, and address digital equity concerns. This article is written for adult basic education instructors who aim to integrate digital literacy skills into their instruction in a way that is meaningful to each learner and empowers learners to acquire digital skills autonomously.
Correspondence: mrsrachelriggs@gmail.com
Forum: Online Learning, Technology Integration, and Digital Literacy
Supporting Quality Instruction: Building Teacher Capacity as Instructional Designers
Jen Vanek, World Education
Adult literacy has been on the margins of postsecondary education for so long that many in our field assume our ongoing struggle for adequate funding and a better image is somehow "normal." It is not normal that some 107,000,000 adults across North America are marginalized, with many hidden in society due to low literacy. This article argues it is time to reconsider the position of our field concerning funding and image beginning with a new conversation concerning literacy classism—the "elephant in the room."
Correspondance: jen_vanek@worlded.org
Beyond Crisis, Toward Justice: New Technologies in Community-Based Adult Learning
Suzanne Smythe, Simon Fraser University
In the disorienting early days of the pandemic, educators and learners in adult literacy, basic education and English Language Learning programs accomplished a rapid shift to “crisis remote teaching” to accommodate physical distancing mandates and lockdowns. The flurry of studies...
Correspondance: suzanne_smythe@sfu.ca
Beyond Frameworks: Supporting Adult Educators to Leverage Technology and Customize the Learning Experience
Sarah Cacicio, Alison R. Shell, and Medha Tare, Digital Promise
Much like adult learners, adult educators enter the classroom with diverse educational, professional, and lived experiences—and varying levels of familiarity with digital tools and technology. But in the hours following the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent shutdown, educators across the nation were suddenly tasked with teaching online. For the most part, educators in adult literacy, academic, and ESOL programs...
Correspondance: scacicio@digitalpromise.org
Book Review
Review of
Assessment, Evaluation, and Accountability in Adult Education
Sandra Ratcliff Daffron, Western Washington University (Emeritus)
Hill makes a compelling reason for adult educators to consider this book – she reports there have been no new textbooks on assessment, evaluation, and accountability specific to the field of adult education in the last decade. While that is true, evaluation, accountability and assessment is usually required of all adult educators, in the course of their day-to-day operations, whether it be teaching, management, administration, training or...
Correspondence: daffros@wwu.edu
Resource Review
Review of
Teaching Adult English Language Learners: A Practical Introduction
Sarah Young Knowles, TESOL Program, American University, Washington, D.C.
Two words stand out in the title of Betsy Parrish’s second edition of this important volume: practical and introduction. In fact, practical is really an understatement for this accessible, useful, and relevant update to Parrish’s original 2004 book. Teaching Adult English Language Learners provides research- and practice-based guidance, recommendations, and examples...
Correspondence: syoung@american.edu
Research Digest
Digital Game-Mediated Language Learning for Adults
Elisabeth Gee and Yuchan (Blanche) Gao, Arizona State University
Over the last two decades, digital gaming has become one of the most popular forms of entertainment, with worldwide revenue surpassing sales of TV, movies, and music (Reuters, 2018). Players of digital games span all age groups and backgrounds, partly due to the popularity of “casual” gaming on smartphones and tablets. Gaming has become a hub for social interaction...
Correspondence: elisabeth.gee@asu.edu
Technology Solutions for Adult Basic Skills Challenges
Refurbished Computers for Adult Learners at Home or in Class
David J. Rosen, Newsome Associates
Each Technology Solutions for Adult Basic Skills Challenges column begins with a common challenge facing adult basic skills practitioners. Solutions offered for these challenges, at least in part through the use of technology, include hardware, software applications such as websites, course management systems, learning management systems, and apps for mobile devices. Each article begins with a description of the challenge, and then examines solutions that involve the use of technology.
Correspondence: djrosen@newsomeassociates.com