Larry (and others):

I think part of the answer to this call can be found in your own backyard
(smile). I know that there has been years of work and investment by the
Department (and by US Dept of Labor) which is very much what you've
described below. 

At Education Development Center (in Newton, MA) there is a team of
researchers, led by Dr. Joyce Malyn-Smith, that has been working to develop
an "IT Career Cluster Initiative" (http://www2.edc.org/ewit/itcci.asp).
Their work began by developing a national model and framework for the "IT
Career Cluster," working with an industry advisory groups and pilot sites to
validate the skills and knowledge. They've been working with states and
districts across the country to align their high-school into post-secondary
education ladders to this IT Career Development Model
(http://www2.edc.org/ewit/materials/CareerDevModel.pdf). While exciting,
this work is focused on the IT industry.

In addition, there was broad recognition that at the "core level" of all
"career clusters" there is an "information technology" component. The EDC
team was asked to focus on that. Over the past two years, they have worked
over to define and deepen an understanding of these core IT skills. The
result is a set of clearly defined skills and knowledge, validated across a
number of non-IT career clusters. They have also developed sets of
evaluation rubrics (on a four-point performance scale). Finally, last year
they piloted a series of performance assessments that incorporated the same
rubrics.

Again, these are not for IT professionals...this is "IT for living,
learning, and working."  I believe that these tools are a really great
launching point for a discussion about "standardized" test for core IT
skills in an educational context!

A review of the early report, IT Pathway Pipeline Model: Rethinking
Information Technology Learning in Schools (
http://www2.edc.org/ewit/materials/pipeline.pdf), will give you a sense of
the strong research base for the work. You may be also able to convince Dr.
Malyn-Smith to share more on this list or off-list... 

I would be curious to hear what folks think might be the possibilities for
translating this work for a community-based, and largely adult, learning
population. 

Regards, 

Rachel Kimboko
Director of Community Services
Jubilee Enterprise of Greater Washington

PS: In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I worked on
some pieces of this project during my four years at EDC (smile).

-----Original Message-----
From: nifl-pli-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:nifl-pli-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf
Of Sandy Strunk
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 8:14 PM
To: NIFL -PLI List
Subject: [NIFL-PLI] RE: Using NRS Data for Program Improvement


Date: 5/24/04 1:06 PM
From: Condelli, Larry
Hi David -

Computer literacy is an important skill and recognized as such by most
people in the field, including the Division of Adult Education and Literacy
staff at the Department of Education.  We have struggled for several years
(and continue to do so) about ways to incorporate these skills into the NRS
at the national level.  
To add them to the NRS we need three components: (1) a recognized, accepted
hierarchy of computer or technology skills appropriate for ABE students, (2)
a way to assess these skills, and (3) a policy for tying the assessments
into the NRS educational levels to define advancement. When the NRS was
first planned in 1996-97, the department did not think that any  of these
components existed in a strong enough way to allow the inclusion of the
skills into the NRS. However, since that time there has been a lot of work
on defining the skill set related to technology and computer use at
different levels of proficiency and some assessments have been developed.
We have currently begun reviewing some of these skill sets and approaches
toward assessment for the NRS and there are other Department of
education-funded projects that are looking at these issues. The Department
is also planning to refine and broaden the educational functioning level
descriptors in the future and the incorpo!
ration of technology skills into the descriptors will be considered.  So at
some point there may well be some inclusion of these skills in the
educational levels.

Of course, states may include technology-related skills into their local and
state accountability systems and several have already done so.

Larry Condelli

-----Original Message-----
From: David Rosen [mailto:djrosen at comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2004 1:49 PM
To: Condelli, Larry
Subject: Re: [NIFL-PLI] Using NRS Data for Program Improvement


From: David Rosen <djrosen at comcast.net>
Date: Sun May 23, 2004  1:39:29  PM US/Eastern
To: nifl-pli at literacy.nifl.gov
Subject: Re: [NIFL-PLI] Using NRS Data for Program Improvement

To Larry Condelli:

Sandy Strunk posted a message to the NIFL-PLI list  on May 10, 2004 from
Larry Condelli, Managing Director in the Education and Human Development
Division of the American Institues for Research, leader of the adult
education team, and project director for the National Reporting System,  in
which Larry  asks:

"What data do you need that NRS does not collect?"

The context of this and other questions in that message was using data for
program improvement.

I have recently been asked by a practitioner -- and not for the first time
-- if there are valid and reliable assessments for measuring computer
literacy -- that is,  basic computer competence and comfort.  These are
skills needed to use computer-assisted instruction, to word process writing
and to search for information on a CD or on the Web.

My understanding -- Larry please correct me I am wrong -- is that computer
literacy is not an area which is now measured through the NRS.   If it were,
I am not sure we have valid, reliable, standardized assessments.  Do we?

Yet, I would argue that these skills are now as important to adult learners
as reading, writing and numeracy.  They are required for many jobs, and for
participation in computer-based distance learning. Many programs offer these
skills because students have asked to learn them.  Programs, students, and
employers wonder how programs are doing in helping students learn these
skills.

Can the NRS include these skills?

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net


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