NEW ONLINE RESOURCES ON LINCS

Submitted by Steve Quann on Thu, 10/15/2015 - 12:49
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Tips for Teachers is highlighting LINCS online resources that might be new to you. Learn about new Digital Literacy Initiatives and if you the have not seen the LINCS Learner Center, take a look. 

Steve Quann

Educational Technologist

LINCS Region 1

 

Comments

I am very interested in reading more about the Technology and Learning resource. As a medical manufacturer we are providing the community as a whole with the latest technology articles such as the recent advancements in Breast Cancer Awareness tools to keep the community informed. 

Hi, Mike. as a medical manufacturer providing community resources, I both invite and encourage you to consider rewriting those same resources at much lower reading levels so that our adult learners can benefit directly from the information. Publishing for adults reading at about the 6th-grade reading level but appealing to adults, not grade-school kids, would provide a fantastic resource to our adult learners. You could have a separate section on our site for that material. Thanks. Leecy

Leecy Wise
Moderator
Reading and Writing, and Diversity and Literacy CoPs
leecy@reconnectioncompany.com

 

Thanks Leecy. That is actually a great idea! I will discuss with my team on what articles we feel would be best to introduce to the community. We really enjoy writing about medical advancements and 3D technology that is newly introduced to the medical industry as a whole. In regards to the separate section on the website how would I go about creating that and then submitting to that section on a weekly basis?

Thank you again for the warm welcome!

Cheers,

Michael Thomas

mthomas@ampronix.com 

I so hope others will drop in with ideas, Mike. You response is encouraging.

I am thinking of having a separate section on your site, called something like, Resources for Adult Education Providers and Students. You would group resources into topics after they are edited for low-level readers. I, for one, will promote those resources on LINCS and among many programs if they, in fact, can be read and accessed by our instructors for their adult students, who have great needs, strong drives, but sparse resources online that they can read on their own. Everything is written at 10th-grade levels or above. Not friendly to our folks!

What do you think? Leecy

 

I think a Resources for Adult Education Providers and Students would be a great addition. I have spoken with my team and we can defiantly make sure our articles are at a 6th grade reading level at the most. I truly would enjoy helping out the community and becoming a regular contributor and best of all informing students of upcoming challenges and advancements that are trending both domestically and internationally within the medical realm. 

Thank you for all of your help Leecy!

 

Cheers,

Michael 

Hello Mike,

Here's some additional information to consider.

There are several communities of practice in LINCS whose members could benefit from what you propose. In addition to teachers of English as a second or other language in the Adult English Language Learners community here,  members of the Health Literacy community, moderated by Cynthia Zafft,  and many of the members of the Technology and Learning community, that I moderate, would also certainly be interested.

To write at or below the "6th grade" level, in what is sometimes called "plain language"  or "plain English" is sometimes more difficult than it might at first seem. There are experts in our field in plain language and plain English whom you may wish to ask for help. Consider for example that there are many different assessments for ascertaining reading levels, and that some are better than others. Some are more appropriate than others for adults with low reading skills. A combination of these assessments may be better than using a single one. There are also alternatives, such as evaluating reading passages using Lexile scores rather than elementary or secondary grade levels or, as the  National Center for the Study of Adult Literacy (CSAL) at Georgia State University has done, to develop a sophisticated process for assessing texts for adult readers that in the end produces not grade levels, but three adult reading levels: Easier, Medium and Harder. You might consider talking with Dr, Daphne Greenberg at CSAL about what you propose; their library, that already includes some health-related texts, might be interested in being the repository for what you propose. They have a health and literacy specialist there, Dr. Iris Feinberg, who manages the library, with whom you might also wish to talk.

There are several other free, online curated collections for low-literate health-related materials for adults and families. For a list of these see Family Health and Literacy, Non-print Health Information in Family Health and Literacy, A Guide to Easy-to-Read Health Education Materials and Web Sites for Families, by Julie McKinney and Sabrina Kurtz-Rossi, published by World Education.

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

Thanks David!

I would like to point out some aspects about our library:

If you go to:

http://csal.gsu.edu/content/readability

You will find an explanation about the readability that we use. And if you go to:

http://csal.gsu.edu/content/library

you will see different links for the library for learners, teachers, and researchers

In this library you will find links on all kinds of topics.

Daphne

 

 

Hi David,

It is great to meet you. Thank you for providing the additional resources. I will have my team review and I like what Georgia State University has done. The three adult reading levels is a great way to classify different topics. I will have my team focus on rewriting our health and technology articles in plain language. 

I look forward to making a positive impact within the community.

Michael

 

I love where this dialogue is going. It's exciting to see how things will develop! Thanks. Leecy

Leecy Wise
Moderator
Reading and Writing, and Diversity and Literacy CoPs
leecy@reconnectioncompany.com

 

Hi Mike:

It's pretty impressive that you found us!  Typically, we are a well kept secret, connecting literacy instruction and health to make a positive impact in our adult education classrooms and communities.  That said, our members represent the broader healthcare community, too.  Welcome aboard!

Cynthia Zafft

Health Literacy Moderator