Hi Nadia and everyone,

Excellent comments and thoughts.  Computers will play a role in how we
educate, but for many of the people we help educate, they will have to learn
basic computer skills as well as GED and such.  

As I instruct others, I am becoming aware that teaching is knowing more than
"the how", it is the understanding of how each student learns and their
motives for learning.  As an instructor/teacher, I look for knowledge that
will help me teach others where they are at.  What nugget can I learn that
will help my next student move onward.  I humbly must say that I am not at
where most of you appear to be in knowledge or education wise.  For people
like us, having access to this type of material that you are discussing
would be a great asset.  

Yet I fear that time is against us since there is only so much each day.  My
Grandfather once said..."Talk is cheap, it takes money to buy rum."  I hope
through this discussion that those that can will make a real effort to
provide training for those of us that help others learn.  I pray that there
will be money to help us develop those materials that are needed... to help
us help others.  I really hope that we will all matter in the lives of those
people we touch.

Regards to all,

Jeff Brown
Alpha Computer Training and Consulting
www.alphacomputer.ca
info at alphacomputer.ca

-----Original Message-----
From: professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Nadia and
Kevin Colby
Sent: December-09-07 1:46 PM
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1791] Re: itunes u

Thank you for the resource, David. I really think this
is a wonderful way to access higher education services
that ultimately will help our students.  Talking again
about professional development and professional wisdom
and the difficulty both to define and measure the
latter term I would like to add the following. I
wholeheartedly agree with Mev from WE LEARN in terms
of the political and social issues that frame adult
education and that we as adult educators have the
responsibility to be informed about.  My comments are
written with the outmost respect for all the people
that read this list.  That being said I think that in
order to better help our students and being aware of
all the challenges they face (which at times are
similar to ours since we live in a world where
everything, including knowledge, is a commodity) we
can use serious research in cognition.  As Universal
Design has been applied to the standards I have a
question for those who do research regarding this
"method" (is it a method, a philosophy, sorry, I
honestly don't know how to define UD).   What is the
relationship between UD and recent research in
cognition in first and second language acquisition?  
For example, will UD inform me about the relationship
between the lenght of a sentence, the salience of the
targeted linguistic item of the lesson, the potential
problems connected to form (say inflections for
singular third person) and meaning, short term memory
limitations, and the performance of my students?  I am
thinking about a population whose level of English is
oftentimes 0 when I start working with them.  And who,
as you all know, may be illiterate, functionally
illiterate, or literate in languages whose symbols I
know nothing about.  
We, as adult educators need quality courses in
cognition.  We don't need to be experts because then
we would  be doing mostly research instead of teaching
our students, but surely understanding some of the
components that pertain to second language acquisition
in a way that allows us to use them in the classroom
will be a great step ahead for ESL teachers.

Take these comments from someone that is both learning
to love linguistics and adjusting to being humbled by
the difficulty posed by research in language
acquisition

Nadia Quiroz-Colby

 
--- "David J. Rosen" <djrosen at comcast.net> wrote:


> Technology and Professional Development Colleagues,

> 

> itunes -- the Apple online music store -- now has a

> new area offering  

> free university and college lectures and other

> education  

> presentations. It is called itunes university or

> itunes u.

> 

> http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu/

> 

> If you have a look, consider the following:

> 

> 1. Is there anything there that would be useful to

> adult secondary  

> education classes (GED, EDP, ADP, or College

> Transiton) for  

> introducing their students to college?  If so, what?

> 

> 2. Would it be useful to have a new category on

> itunes u, under  

> "Beyond Universities" for Teacher Training or

> Teacher Improvement .  

> (For example we now have links to over 30 free,

> short adult ed  

> classroom videos on the MLoTS Web site [ 

> www.mlots.org ].  Itunes u  

> might include those as well as other kinds of

> professional  

> development videos and slide shows. Would it be

> worthwhile for me to  

> ask itunes u to set this up? If they did, would you

> use it?

> 

> 

> David J. Rosen

> djrosen at comcast.net

> 

> 

> 

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>

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nt

> 


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