Radio Station Reports on GED and the Shakespeare Project

A story was recently released from radio station WBEZ Chicago reporting on the new GED test and on The Shakespeare Project at the Rondo library in St.Paul.

The audio excerpts and story can found at:

http://www.wbez.org/series/front-center/re-writing-ged-test-99286

In the first audio excerpt, (the small grey box) reporter Laurie Stern  interviewed Hubbs Center members and GED Testing Services President Randy Trask.

The interview also included Ericka Coleman, at GED student enrolled at the Minnesota Literacy Council's education program in the Rondo Library.

The video clip (large rectangular box) features a story on students learning Shakespeare's McBeth. One of the project's highlights was a very successful  Shakespeare Community Reading. There were 17 different readers and 80% of them were students of the literacy program.

A special thanks goes out to Heather Herrman and the staff at Rondo for all their wonderful work each day!

Doing More with Google Docs!

There’s still room for you in this Friday’s workshop: Doing More with Google Docs!


What?  Over the past year, many teachers, volunteers, and staff have had a chance to get started with Google Docs in the popular "Introduction to Google Docs" workshop. The "Doing More with Google Docs" hands-on technology workshop picks up where that session left off. Come back for a brush-up on key Google Docs features like uploading documents and sharing with other users, and then try out some new features like building web forms, making presentations, and using free document templates.

When?  Friday, May 4 from 1:30-3:30

Where?  Minnesota Literacy Council, 700 Raymond Ave, Suite 180, St. Paul, MN 55114

How do I register? Click here!

Questions?  Contact Susan Wetenkamp-Brandt at swbrandt@mnliteracy.org or 651-251-9090.

Employment Readiness: An iPad in the Field Exercise

    
     As iPad and other tablet computer use continues to grow, many programs want to know how to use them in their classroom. Sarah Lund, an instructor at one of the Minnesota Literacy Council's learning centers, was kind enough to share this lesson with us.

Last month, the Employment Readiness 2 class at Arlington Hills did a month long unit on job interviewing skills and using iPads.

Students started by watching videos of job interviews that were developed through Rochester ABE.  http://www.ricdwyer.com/ABE/Print_Materials.html 

The students watched the videos and then made decisions on if the video was a “good” interview or a “bad” interview and discussed why they thought that way.


They then spent time pulling out the interview questions and, in pairs, practiced interviewing each other with the same questions from the videos.

Once the students felt comfortable answering the questions, they began using iPads to learn how to take videos. Once everyone was comfortable, the students videotaped each other being interviewed. The teacher uploaded each video to Youtube and then the students watched all the videos as a class. Students rated each other’s interviews on the following criteria:

1. Could you hear?
2. Could you understand?
3. Was the person friendly?


The students rated each category with this following scale:

3 – Very Good
2 – So-So
1 – Not very good


This was the top rated video from the class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVuRgkP6NAI

And this was the bottom rated video: (because he answered his cell phone during the interview!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0s3RJtObVM


Thanks Sarah!
We would love to hear reader comments and questions.

Minnesota Literacy Council Wins .org Award !

In December , I posted the launch of the Minnesota Literacy Council's  new website http://www.mnliteracy.org/. 

This month, the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits selected our new website as this year’s dot.org award winner in the website redesign category! 

The award will be presented at the Nonprofit Technology Conference on March 16. Congratulations to everyone at the MLC , and a special "Great Job!"  to Melissa Martinson the project manager.

The Good News First !

Good News !

Yesterday was GIVE TO THE MAX DAY for many charities and as part of  GiveMN.org, the Minnesota Literacy Council raised thousands of dollars to help support our literacy work!

A mighty Thank You All to our supporters!



The Bad News

We have two Dell 713w inkjet printers and after putting in a new ink cartridge and printing 50+ pages it told me the official Dell ink cartridge is not authenticated and refuses to print.  (sigh)

This has been an ongoing issue for both printers, about every third time we put in a cartridge it gives us some sort of error. The first time they actually sent out "new" (refurbished) printers. Now, we contact the help desk, troubleshoot, then they send us a replacement ink cartridge.

Unfortunately the wasted time and frustration has led me to say... Bad News Dell ! I, as captain of this blog, officially do NOT recommend your 713w printer.