Developing the use of Information and Communication Technology with Adult Literacies Learners in Scotland

A overview of the
E-learning Support Project

August 2007 – March 2008

Scottish Government

Peter Lanigan
Development Co-ordinator
Learning Connections

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Background to the Project

During the period 2004 to 2007, funding was provided by Learning Connections for some 26 innovative projects around Scotland using ICT in adult literacies learning. The funding provided small grants of up to £6000 to support developments and has encouraged the use of ICT / e-learning in various different context and locations.

In reviewing this programme in 2007, we decided to adopt a different approach for 2007/8 which would encourage and support local integration of e-learning into literacies learning. We engaging the services of Sheerface Ltd. to work with individual literacies partnerships across Scotland.

Project Aims

The contractor appointed worked with Learning Connections to develop and support local initiatives for integrating ICT / e-learning into adult literacies learning in their particular area. Funding was available to support local initiatives to try out ideas for using ICT which were new to their literacies partnership.

The aims were

• to raise awareness of the lessons learned from the ICT Innovations projects undertaken 2004 to 2007, and other work undertakes by Learning Connections during that period • to promote and encourage the use of e-learning in literacies provision.

We were particularly keen to see if we could engage with areas and organisations in Scotland who had not previously had grant during the previous 3 years of innovations funding. We also wanted to see how far the ICT developments Learning Connections had promoted over that period, including the ICT workshops programme, had been cascaded to practitioners and how far some of these approaches had been replicated or adapted in local settings.

The Approach

1. All 32 adult literacies partnerships were contacted in order to explore, discuss, negotiate and respond to local situations with regard to the extent to which ICT / e-learning is being used routinely with adult literacies learners.

2. The lessons learned from the Learning Connections ICT innovations fund projects, ICT workshops, the ICT and Numeracy projects and other developments were disseminated to local literacies partnerships and other adult literacies provides as appropriate.

3. Support and advice was offered to adult literacies practitioners on how they might incorporate the use of ICT / e-learning in adult literacies learning locally.

4. The Adult Literacies Online resource bank was promoted to encourage practitioners to share their own approaches by submitting these to ALO.

5. Local practitioners were encouraged to use ICT / e-learning in a range of adult literacies learning situations.

6. The possibility of access to small grants from Learning Connections was discussed, with help given to consider how these funds could support ideas for promoting the use of ICT / e-learning with literacies learners. These ideas did not need to be “innovative uses of ICT” in terms of Scotland as a whole but “innovative” for the local area or for the practitioners concerned.

By the end of the project, a total of £33,000 had been committed to a number of diverse activities around the country. Other support and advice was also provided which did not require a grant to help people develop their ideas.

An overview of the activities undertaken

Following the advertising of the programme in August 2007 discussions took place with adult literacies partnerships around Scotland, with contact by phone, email and often followed up by face to face discussions. Overall, practitioners in 19 out of the 32 adult literacies partnerships in Scotland were supported to develop their use of ICT with learners. More details about the kind of activities undertaken are provided in the following pages, broken down by partnership area.

Activity by partnership area

1. Aberdeen City
Electronic Individual Learning Plans
Contact: Simone Sinclair

Having heard about the development of Electronic Individual Learning Plans in other parts of Scotland, Aberdeen City partnership wished to create e-ILPs for use with their learners.

A grant of £1705 was awarded to allow them to purchase some additional hardware and also to pay for access to some training in order to allow them to try out this approach.

2. Aberdeenshire
Using video with learners
Contact: Janette Taylor/Val Smith/Lynda Wilde

One of the aims was to produce a DVD documenting lives / learning activities of Young Carers in North Aberdeenshire, and in doing so help raise awareness about caring.

A grant of £842.80 was awarded to support staff costs and training. Training in using video camcorders and Moviemaker took place in Stonehaven, Peterhead and Inverurie. Using Sound with Adult Learners training is also being rolled out.

The Young Carers joined the group to have fun, learn some new skills and raise awareness within their communities as well as across Aberdeenshire. They wanted to make a difference – and clearly did.

Outcomes included:

• The DVD. • Raised awareness across Aberdeenshire • Interpersonal skills developed. • Learners’ communication and confidence skills improved. • Training in the DVD production – operating camcorder and working on script and format of the DVD. Editing and cutting techniques. • Use of storyboards in planning • Improved writing, reading and presentation skills. • In presenting the DVD to others, learners were able to share the experience of being involved in such a project. • Learners were encouraged to become active members of their communities. • Having fun and sharing collective skills. • Further filming is under way – individual projects after the initial training. • An awareness that all learning takes time, patience and understanding.

3. Angus
Using video with young people
Contact: Donald McNeill

Young people in Angus received some ICT training in using the video camcorder, audacity and movie maker which became part of their adult literacies activities.

A grant of £1009.85 was awarded to pay for some hardware and to support training hours for tutors and a training day for practitioners to help them to develop webquests and learning and teaching resources for the Video Workshop Training Programme. Practitioners created blended learning material which integrates ICT into the learning and teaching practice for young literacies learners.

Outcomes for the young people were: • engaging in discussion to decide on the content for their video • creating story boards • following technical instructions • confidence in speaking out loud into microphones • researching topics of interest on the Internet • writing and editing scripts • conducting interviews in the community • editing sound files • adding captions to video clips.

4. East Lothian

Some time was spent with the partnership to discuss ideas for using ICT with learners. This allowed time to talk through extending the use of digital cameras to using the photographs to create fun learning and teaching material to inspire learners to write creative stories and factual writing. This included purchasing some desktop publishing software to help learners transform their writing and photographs into vibrant and colourful newsletters, cartoon strips / magazines and publishing these to a project blog designed and managed by the group. Having considered staffing and cost implications, the partnership decided they could not move forward with these ideas at present. However, having someone outside the partnership to bounce ideas off of was a useful experience.

The Bridges Project
Contact: Jim Boyle

Having already done some podcasting with young people, this project now wanted to work with them to create visual materials – comics, movies, new stories.

Outcomes for the learners were to look at: • the audience they would be appealing to • consider the words they use in their speech or writing • look at the spelling, grammar • story board their ideas • script out the text, edit it and type it up.

A grant of £1300 was awarded for purchasing software such as Comic Life for Windows, Moviemaker and Audacity. It also covered the cost of training in the use of these products.
Using digital cameras and Dictaphones
Contact: Caroline Davis

The plan here was to run 5 sessions with a group of 16+ year olds using digital camera equipment and Dictaphones. They will take the role of reporters and photographers. The first 3 sessions incorporated skills such as following verbal and written instructions, writing, editing and proof reading, using describing words to identify things which are going on in photographs. The learners were encouraged to use storyboard techniques to create a comic or write up a news article about the trips they have gone one. Two trips were planned to Raceland and the football.

As well as learning how to operate digital cameras and then putting this into practice on outings, they also learned how to operate Dictaphones, speaking into Dictaphones and microphones, reading from scripts and conducting interviews in the local community.

The learners were given the choice on the final session to either create a podcast, publish a blog on the internet or create a movie using the photographs and sounds recorded.

A grant of £551.82 was given to buy equipment.

5. Edinburgh

Using video in ESOL literacies
Sikh Sanjog
Contact: Pamela Couper

In this project a group of learners explored their journeys from India to UK and within the UK and the impact these have had on their lives.

A grant of £2030 was awarded to buy some hardware and pay for training hours for staff and creche facilities to allow learners to take part in the activity.

Outcomes for the learners were: • writing • reading • story-telling • proof-reading and editing • exploring language particular to Sikh culture • developing ICT skills (basic and multimedia skills)

Using Adobe Photoshop to produce posters
Contact: Susan Rodgers

The activity requiring support on how to use ICT to design a poster with images of local women attending literacies groups to be used for publicity purposes. Essentially a literacies activity but support was given in how to use Adobe Photoshop.

The process of making the poster would obviously involve a great deal of literacy as the group would need information on the programmes used and written instructions on how to build their poster. Many of them were familiar with computers but not with Adobe Photoshop. The initial plan for the finished product incorporated images of women who attended International Women’s Day but also key words of the history, politics, social context and cultures of women, women's struggles and positions.

6. Falkirk
Literacies elements in video creation
Contact: James Tate

Falkirk developed the work they had already began in using video creation. They wanted to give learners the opportunity to engage in literacy and numeracy learning in a practical and exciting way by learning how to create story boards and scripts, planning video and audio activities, working as a team and gaining the skills required to use a video camera, audio recording equipment and associated computer software (multimedia literacy).

A grant of £718.40 was awarded for some additional hardware to help facilitate these activities.

A Dell Inspiron 1501 notebook computer was purchased with Windows Movie Maker 6 to create video movies, authoring and DVD burning software, along with blank DVD discs, disc labels and case inserts. This meant the partnership now have a complete and portable set of video making hardware and software.

Learners who engaged in the video projects certainly enjoyed the experience and we always encourage critical evaluation of the work and maintained the focus on the literacies outcomes. Video project undertaken were:

• “Health Issues in the Community”, looking at the benefits of literacies learning in a health context • “Falkirk Town, the Landmarks”, looking at landmarks in Falkirk • “Denny, Past, Present and Future”, linking in with the Denny regeneration programme

7. Fife
Using ICT in ESOL literacies
Contact: Alan Elder

The aim was for ESOL literacies learners to develop their literacies skills by helping them have a greater understanding of and become more aware of their community. Groups and services were identified working in the community that they felt were essential to anyone moving to the area. The groups meet with a representative from the service/agency to learn more about the service/agency. A script was then written to outline the service provided. The script then formed the basis for recording short pieces of video material. These were then used to support new and old learners to our service. Technical assistance came from Fife's Educational Resource Centre at Auchterderran to compile and design the CD. Tutors devised methods of embedding literacies within the learning process.

A grant of £2440 was awarded to supply additional hardware for the project.

8. Glasgow

Charting the virtual learning journey
Contact: Ian Kelly

The aim was to make our paper-based writing more available to the wider learning community by utilising online resources.

The North West Writers’ Group are an amalgam of five community ALN projects from the North West of Glasgow where staff and learners from different areas of Anniesland College have contributed to creating valuable opportunities for learning.

We wondered how we could use technology to help those various groups to work together and feel part of one single group. We kept in contact through email and by using the Virtual Learning Environment that College technicians had developed. This was a steep learning curve for both learners and tutoring staff. However, without this technology this project would not have been a success.

We now felt ready for the next step: to increase our knowledge and experience of using technology by charting the learners’ virtual learning journey through podcasts, vodkasts, blogs and talking-heads which would be accessible via a link to Anniesland College’s web server. By recording a virtual diary of our experiences of training, learning and acknowledging the barriers we encounter on our journey, we could in turn aid others interested in learning more about the use of technology and, furthermore, encourage others to use technology as a way to facilitate learning.

The project would be learner led, and would therefore also be a fantastic way reach potential literacies learners who want to access support. We have seen, first hand, how our learners have grown in confidence, empowered by their involvement with paper-based projects; we now felt they were ready and eagerly awaiting a step-up to the next challenge: the technological leap forward.

Last year we published our own 84 page full colour book and CDROM, a collection of reflective personal learning experiences, launched at the Aye Write International Book Festival. This year, our learners significantly contributed to a Glasgow’s Learning collection of ghost stories, Grave Tales, which was also launched at the Aye Write festival in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library. Several of our learners read their stories aloud to an audience of over two hundred people!

All learners have learning plans with negotiated short and long-term goals set and review procedures in place. Learners are engaged in a range of communications work from basic literacies, to SQA accredited qualifications.

A grant of £1549.30 was awarded to purchase the hardware required to develop this project

9. Moray
ICT Champions
Contact: Althea Forbes

Some literacy learners in Moray were supported to become ICT Champions within the Moray Essential Skills Service. Their task was to meet with learners and tutors and show how to use various pieces of ICT equipment and software which could enhance and facilitate literacy and numeracy learning. Childcare and travel expenses were reimbursed to ensure that there would be no financial penalty to participating in this project. The ICT Champions also had the opportunity to extend their own literacy skills by talking to groups; giving others instructions; solving problems and making decisions.

The current ICT Champions were approached because of their existing ICT confidence and competency. They received training so that they could understand a little about the needs of other literacy learners, as well as ICT training and ongoing e-support via email and telephone from Sheerface Ltd. Their biggest achievement so far has been delivering a Comic Life workshop to a group of 10 volunteer tutors and there are a number of bookings in the diary for this ongoing project including a training session for the Moray Adult Learning Co-ordinators; working with a literacy project in Keith using Windows Movie Maker and delivering a Comic Life workshop to a Youth Project in Keith.

A grant of £1982.80 was awarded to support the various expenses involved in running the project.
10. North Lanarkshire

Two activities took place with the support of the project.

Using ICT in Polmont Young Offenders Unit
Contact: Kirsten Sams, Motherwell College

The project was to encouraging prisoners to engage with the learning centre and to improve their literacy skills via participation in a music project. The idea developed of doing a “song book dads” for young prisoners to work with the songwriter to create songs and record them using Garageband for their children and maybe burn to CD to distribute.

A grant of £1459.00 was awarded to purchase an Applemac laptop and associated software.

Developing Online Learning
Contact: Laura McIntosh

North Lanarkshire Partnership began to develop an online learning environment using Moodle for learners to be able to access learning anywhere there is an Internet connection. This could be through Open Learning Centres in Libraries, through Colleges, Community Centres or via home computers.

This would allow learners to access learning at a time and place best suited to them and their current life. It would also encourage learners to access more ICT resources, improve ICT skills through use of site and help other workers in North Lanarkshire be innovative in their approach to how they offer learning in North Lanarkshire.

A grant of £1788 was awarded to support this development.

11. North Ayrshire
Online learning
Contact: Sharon McNamara

The aim was to develop a Moodle online learning site and create online elearning literacies resources which would be delivered in a blended learning approach.

Our VLE worker was employed on a temporary contract to build the site up ready for launch later this year. The site needed to be tested and user friendly applications and designs applied.

In the future we aimed to develop new resources using Course Genie. At present, the main aim is to get the site ready for launch. We have put some materials on though and as I come across more SCORM packages they will be added.

A grant of £1953 was awarded to support the employment of a support worked who would set up and develop the Moodle site.

12. Perth and Kinross

Using ICT in offender literacies
Contact: Brian Cunningham

A laptop and software was set up in the quiet surroundings of the prison library to help both literacies and ESOL learners. We felt that this would improve the learning experience and allow us to engage reluctant learners in literacy and Numeracy skills. It would help open the door to learners who might feel stigmatised by attending literacies classes – “I’m going to the library” sounds better to them, in what is perceived to be a “Macho” environment. This would allow a relaxed introduction to literacies and learning in an informal and non-academic environment.

Also part of the plan was to engage literacies learners from other areas of the prison who for one reason or another cannot attend the Learning Centre. This includes prisoners in the Segregation unit and the cell bound, and an outreach facility to those prisoners in vocational training areas such as Painting and Decorating, Plumbers and Bricklaying. Often these prisoners’ own shortcomings in literacy and numeracy skills are only recognised by them when they have to think about quantities, areas, dimensions, volumes or costing. Taking literacies to these individuals in the workplace, with the use of laptops, was more acceptable to them than coming along to the Learning Centre. It also helped them realise that literacies is part of work rather than learning being separate from “real life”. It may also provide a way back into formal learning for some.

A grant of £2110.85 was given help purchase the equipment and support tutor time to try out this approach.

ICT and Learning Disabilities
Contact: Liz Watson

Adults who access the services of PUSH (Perth and Kinross) Ltd. sometimes feel excluded from many aspects of life that we take for granted because of their lack of computer literacy. Some would like to be able to write their own stories, some would like to be able to use a digital camera and upload pictures, and many adults who live alone feel isolated and would love to be able to join online communities such as messaging services, or receive e-newsletters about things which interest them, or simply book tickets, look up information about local activities, and so on. They would also enjoy the opportunity to produce a CD-ROM on a safety theme to share with others.

The aim of the project was to accommodate learners with learning (and often physical) disabilities so that there was scope to enhance their knowledge of what IT can do for them, and what they can do with it. We acquired some adaptive tools to make it easier for them and someone to spend time with them, in pairs or one to one, to help them learn how to use the applications of their choice.

A grant of £2000 was given to purchase hardware, software and the training needed to develop skills in using these resources for adult literacies activities with this group.

13. Renfrewshire

Youth Literacies and ICT
Contact: Shelley Mellor

The aim was to try to reach hard to engage young people by using ICT to stimulate their interest. The focus was on the driving and theory test and on road safety generally, with literacies work embedded in all that we did.

Also included was the young people developing a video on safe driving for a target audience of older school pupils and youth groups. This creative approach allowed the young people to develop their literacies skills using technology as the undertook the following tasks:

• planning • script writing • storyboarding • developing a leaflet to promote their video

A grant of £1968 was given to help purchase the necessary hardware and software.

14. Scottish Borders

Using video production in the Borders
Contact: Clare Stewart

The Borders partnership wished to build on existing work done by a group of learners working with video to cascade the capacity to use video as part of literacies learning to another group of literacies learners and their practitioner. Since the Borders is a wide area and most literacies delivery is community based in disparate areas, all community based learning is done in bookable spaces and access to ICT is difficult.

Literacies practitioners were limited to one laptop each that they can use to work with learners but this laptop does not have the capacity to support the size of files created by movie making activity.

At a recent conference, learners identified that speaking to other learners and challenging the stigma attached to literacies were two things that were important to them in their experience as literacies learners and this was what they wanted more opportunities to do. This project, therefore, would address that need as well as individual learning needs.

Learners who had already used video as part of their literacies learning were asked to work with a group of learners and one practitioner in a different geographical area of the Borders. They were supported by a practitioner/ trainer. Together their task was to produce a video as part of their existing learning / learning journey. The theme / subject was learner led as a result of exploration and discussion. Some of the themes discussed were supported integration of migrant workers to the community; exploring the idea of success in learning; local investigations; creating a record of how they used social practices, visual literacy and / or numeracy diaries.

A grant of £2620 was awarded for this project to purchase hardware and software.

15. South Ayrshire

Discussions took place with the partnership where different ideas for using ICT were considered and demonstrated. This provided the stimulus for staff to think through some of the ideas and looking at what ICT training practitioners might need for them to make use of such things as moviemaker and editing recordings using audacity. Consideration was also given to what practitioner hours would be needed to deliver a group film perhaps on the topic of health or local history. This would encourage more group work and would build practitioners confidence in using the media prior to moving onto using camcorders.

16. South Lanarkshire

Discussions took place with the adult literacies partnership to help them explore different ways they could make use of ICT in their literacies work. The partnership had just purchased 3 AppleMacs (2 laptops and 1 iMac) with relevant software. A training session was arranged on basic navigation of Applemac, introduction to using the camera, Comic Life software, podcasting and Garage Band.

17. Western Isles
Developing a website
Contact: Annabel Mackenzie

The aim was to provide training for the Western Isles Learners’ Forum to develop a website which would provide information to learners and potential learners, have a referral facility and provide an interactive forum for communication between the Learners’ Forum groups in Lewis and the Southern Isles.
A grant of £1344 was awarded to help set up the site.
The following websites have been launched. www.wilearningshop.co.uk www.wilearnersforum.co.uk

18. West Lothian

Creating distance learning resources
Contact: Ruth Plevin

Over the last few years we have had a large influx of economic migrants to the West Lothian area, increased the demand for ESOL classes and stretched the skills of our tutors to accommodate such a variety of cultures, languages and ability levels. We are aware that an number of ESOL learners work long hours and find it very difficult to attend a class on a regular basis, hence we decided we would like to develop our practitioner skills in creating blended e-learning tailored to the local area and including recording to support ESOL learner to understand the accent and dialect from West Lothian.

The site uses the free open source software Moodle to build the learner interface areas and in this project we wanted to train up practitioners to use Course Genie software, which provides an easy way to convert the resources they currently have on paper into HTML files which can be directly loaded into Moodle. This in turn would allow us to have a greater pool of tutors able to create blended elearning resources which can be uploaded to the Moodle site by the website editor.

A grant of £2636.20 was given to buy the software and licences. It also paid for tutor time to both train on different software packages and develop e-learning materials for uploading to the site.

Lessons Learned

In the course of the ICT and Literacies support project contact was made with all adult literacies partnerships in Scotland, though not all of these contacts resulted in further support being provided. Sufficient contact, however, was made to allow us to gauge a number of points and issues which might suggest how ICT is currently being used with literacies learners in Scotland and what barriers need to be overcome to encourage further developments. We were was able to stand back and be more reflective and informed about the ICT and Literacy learning that was taking place. These are some of the findings that we have observed during this year ELearning Project:

Observations of literacy learners:

• Literacy learners using the internet now have an expectation that “the answer is out there” • Careful support is needed from tutors to help learners to learn how to comprehend, decode, synthesis and disregard information. Technology can sometimes lead to learners using little thought and hiding behind professional finished documents which have not substantially developed their learning beyond what they had already achieved using traditional methods of pen and paper. • Some learners who would describe themselves as unable to read and write properly were observed naturally and unconsciously skimming, scanning, synthesising, rewording and discarding information they saw on the internet in their quest to find the “right” information. • Many literacy learners seem to grasp the technology quicker than their tutors who can caught up in trying to resolve technical issues. Tutors also need to encourage learners to work on their literacies learning, e.g. characters and plot analysis, stay focused on purpose, enhance story development, explore their opinion, look at historical reference, and work on personal evaluation or judgment. • We observed that literacy learners encouraged to problem solve can quickly work out how to operate quite complex ICT equipment such as video camcorders, digital Dictaphones, without written instructions or lengthy training. • We noticed that seeing peers progress and produce visual products like comics, movies – increases learners’ desire to work faster, ask for help quicker and look to their peers for support and tips. • Literacy learners do not expect their tutors to be ICT experts and like the responsibility of taking the lead or working with tutors to understand and maximise the use of technology in their literacy learning. • Literacy learners make very quick decisions about whether or not they are prepared to engage with an ICT package or a piece of equipment. So tutors need the first session to be well planned and the activities need to be engaging. • Many tutors reported that using personal photographs encouraged, inspired and supported literacy learners to express their opinions and tell a story in a way they hadn’t achieved previously. • A few literacy learners told us that using technology to develop video stories was ego free – it’s fictional and not to be taken seriously so is less intimating for them to take risks in their storyboards, script writing and drama enactments. This opens the door to creativity and appears to encourage more relaxed, inventive and expressive learning. • Using ICT in literacy learning gives learners a visual accountability for the development of their storylines. Learners start to take ownership and look at continuity of their characters, giving them specific attributes, dress style or attitudes which are often shaped by their cultural beliefs. • Using ICT gives learners a desire and greater belief that they can produce better quality literacy work. • Without guidance and task focused searching some learners can get lost on the journey without picking up any information on the way. • Learners can often complete more complex ICT tasks but struggle to press the correct keys on the keyboard, type out a URL address, remember passwords and save their work effectively. Some loose their patience and become frustrated and angry trying to control the mouse and format objects. • Initially literacy learner engaging with a task whether it is ICT or not, will show a degree of doubt, anxiety, confusion and apprehension. By working through the task step by step and seeing the product (comic, movie, and website) literally evolve in front of their eyes; they begin to develop confidence, optimism, increased enthusiasm and patience. • It appears that literacy learners who are encouraged to present the work they have produced using ICT seem to show a greater understanding of the work process, feel a higher degree of pride, show more relief on completion, set high expectations and may be more disappointment and have a great sense of the collaborative and individual achievements. • Using ICT packages to create movies, produce a comic or record a story and so on, encourages learners to progress through a number of transition points in their learning. These transitions points reinforce learning that has taken place, breaks the task into manageable chunks, encourages reflection and review, and requires the acquisition and selection of different skills, information and resources. • Literacies learners when asked, often did not recognise the skills that they had developed or that they may be reapplying these to different contexts in other areas of their lives. This is supported by research “We were surprised at the extent of similarity it is possible to have between two problems, without learners realising that the two situations require the same type of solution.” Perkins and Salomon, 1992 • By encouraging ICT Champions to apply, re-apply, re-teach and feedback the learning in different contexts and to different audiences, it was very apparent that the learning had been fully comprehended. Perhaps there are more opportunities for encouraging model of supporting literacy development using peer tutoring. • Peer tutoring created additional learning outcomes such as addressing different audiences; being prepared for different situations; problem solving; using their initiative; spending extra time learning out with the classroom; taking responsibility as a learner to make sure that they understood by recapping; and understanding more about the speed, tone, vocabulary, expressions they use to express themselves and how this is interpreted and understood by others. • Producing an end professional end product (digital story, movie, video clip, comic) is easy and achievable.

Future opportunities for literacy learners:

• Some young literacy learners said that the literacy learning and ICT used in the classroom does not provide the excitement, high impact visual interaction or stimulus they experience at home using game console such as Nintendo WII, Xbox 360, Playstation 3. There is definitely more opportunity to look at ways to incorporate gaming into the literacy classroom. • In the last few years Scottish Household have more and more technology including microwaves, electronic weighing scales, digital radios, ipods, mobile phones, video camcorders, juicers, laptops, wifi and so on. There must be a way to include more home technology inside the classroom environment so that literacy can be embedded in their everyday lives. • Western Isles literacy learners to developing their website by remote support from Sheerface using Skype, online chat and telephone communication. As many services in everyday life now have centralised call centres rather than door to door engineers, it would be useful for literacy learners to get more exposure to this type of experience and learning. • More learners have access to the internet at home and are using social networking sites such as facebook, myspace, bebo and utube. There is more research and huge potential to support literacy learners to be able to participate and communicate effectively and safely within this environment. • More and more learners have a email account but little is done to encourage literacy learners across Scotland to communicate online and share stories, movies, opinions and so on. • Whilst many literacy learners are given help to close read a book, there was little evidence they are taught how to close read a visual narrative. However for many literacy learners, but from our conversations it seems much more common for them to spend time watching a film, television or playing a computer game. Therefore, perhaps there could be more focus to help literacy learners to unlock the visual libraries they have in their heads and give them the skills to analyse and understand visual narrative, challenge some of the beliefs they have developed through the media. • There may be lots of opportunity to explore cultural literacy and encourage literacy learners to explore and be reflective about believes and opinions that they may have developed from watching Taggart, The Bill, Rivercity, Hollyoaks.

Technologies used

Using Applemacs and Comic Life
The Bridges Project found that using Comic Life helped literacy learners with language acquisition problems by providing visual clues to the context of the narrative. By using digital pictures taken of learners by learners, “comics can contain all the complexity of 'normal' written material which the learner must decode and comprehend, such as puns, alliteration, metaphors, symbolism, point of view, context, inference, and narrative structures”.

A single pane in a comic can represent paragraphs worth of written material in a manner that is enjoyable and effective for the challenged learner. The panelled interface of a comic lends itself to breaking larger concepts into smaller, easily digested ideas that can be strung together in a coherent and entertaining way. Creating the imagery used in the comic can draw a learner into the story or character in a way that a written story simply can’t.

Comic Life helped learner participate in writing that traditionally would have been written with little to no imagery. By using comics with learners, they were starting to think creatively, add humour, link their ideas through the storyboard, understand how to use speech bubbles and stretched their writing skills to include new vocabulary and phrases. Learners seem so engrossed with the technology and making sure they express themselves that they were openly volunteering for help from their tutor with their literacy.

Moray’s ICT champions, who are literacy learners enthused by ICT, were provided with training from Sheerface Ltd.and were able to quickly go out into the community and teach other learners, tutors and volunteers how to use Comic Life. The learning curve for using Comic Life is made easier by the drop and drag images and pre-made templates, styles and fonts.

HIPPY Project started to use Comic Life to illustrate photographs about events that they have organised for learners.

Literacy tutors can extent work with literacy learners to include character and plot analysis, thematic content, purpose, story development, historical reference, and personal evaluation or judgment.

In North Lanarkshire comics are being used to create how to guides or raise awareness with young people of difficult topics such as knife crime, bullying at school and so on.

North Ayrshire ALP have extended their work on developing Electronic Individual Learning Plans by using Comic Life with learners to create creative and fun reflective diaries on their literacy learning. The comic provides evidence to the tutor that the learner has learnt what they had been taught, shows distance travelled and progress made and provides opportunities to identify new learning.

There is an opportunity for comics to be printed, shared and distributed across the Scottish Adult Literacy field providing new reading material and opportunities to share and showcase good work.

Comic Life is available for Windows and Macintosh users for less than £20 per single licence and cheaper for multiple licences. Free 30 day trial available from http://plasq.com/downloads/

Using Video Camcorders
Several adult literacy partnerships including Aberdeenshire, Angus, Falkirk and The Scottish Borders and individual projects such as Sikh Sanjog in Edinburgh and Dialogue Youth in North Berwick, choose to focus this year Elearning Project on the use of cameras and video camcorders and creating movies.

Learning Connections developed Unit 6 Using Video Camcorders with Adult Literacy Learners to support this growing demand. The workshop was delivered to tutors across Scotland and is available to download from Adult Literacy Online. Over 60 tutors and learners received training at part of this project.

• Creativity Tutors were surprised at how creative their learners were when they were given the opportunity to learn in a new way. Reading and writing skills did improve through using this medium, as literacy learners were being encouraged to think and analyse what they are filming.

• Writing scripts Literacy learners are encouraged to write down ideas, plan work, write scripts and take notes; when the emphasis is on creativity and not the correct spelling, literacy learners seem more likely to engage. It was observed that learners making films were not judged by their ability to write perfectly, but are motivated by their ability to communicate clearly through words, drama and images.

• Taking on roles Tutors felt it was useful to give specific roles to individuals making a movie, this helped learners to achieve an identity and gave them confidence. For example, one learner, after she was asked to write down the groups ideas, went from feeling excluded to having an identity/role in the group.

• Coping with attendance Erratic attendance at groups often meant changes needing to be made to the nature of the narrative, the script and the edit, working out how best to fake dramatic situations, etc and solve continuity problems when scenes were shot over a number of weeks. This provided opportunities for literacy learning as “every session began with a review, a discussion of what we would do that week and how we would go about doing it. Learners were always made aware of the challenges and took part in group discussion of how to solve these problems and move the project forward.”

• Using Microsoft Moviemaker For literacy learners, using Microsoft Moviemaker can start by being purely visual in nature which helps provide practice with sequencing as well as concrete to abstract transitions using illustrations instead of written words. The written component of a movie can be introduced at a later stage when the literacy learners are ready to connect words with images. • Doing drama During the making of some of the movies the tutors and literacy learners had to take risks to produce high impact drama, such as “dressing up as super heroes with homemade stick on ears” or appearing in front of the camera. This was a major achievement as a lot of literacy learners have very fragile egos and are worried about others laughing at them. Tutors and learners felt that “they all took a chance, worked hard and produced a top quality product as a result”. • Peer evaluation and reflection It was interesting to see elements of peer evaluation and reflection which encouraged the literacy learners to take others opinions into consideration. “….they developed diplomacy, allowing each other to speak, more discerning about what they were writing”.

Different types of Videos
Fife Council created a range of ESOL videos and are finding that, by using video, they are working with learners to recognise and understand the difference between formal and informal written and spoke structures, practice vocabulary and visuals, oral and aural ways to impart information to others.

Sikh Sanjog used the camcorder to record the group of Sikh women explaining their `journey` to Edinburgh whilst other groups such as Dialogue Youth were using the equipment to record local events which young people are participating in such as skateboarding, rock climbing and local bands.

Falkirk Council created a number of different collaborative movies with learners on health, landmarks, past and present, storytelling for mums and toddlers. They commented that “the projects we have delivered to date have maintained a high attendance record and learners generally are more conscious of spelling, punctuation etc and take more pride in their work knowing that the end product of their efforts will be a film on DVD”.

This project dealt with some very challenging issues for learners and provided a range of learning from being involved in interviews, writing poetry, telling stories and even researching history. This projects also provided support and advice to other projects including promoting some very useful plug-ins for moviemaker which were downloaded from http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net

Some projects benefited substantially from guidance to use preferred suppliers who could give an invoice for specialist equipment purchased rather than go through the lengthy process of order through their purchasing department.

Virtual Learning Environments
Many projects found that recent dialogue with learners and tutors has indicated an interest in using virtual learning environments (VLE). Positive features of having a VLE included the flexibility and convenience of ‘any time, anywhere learning’.

Learning Connections developed Unit 7 Working with Literacy Learners Online to support this growing demand. The workshop was delivered to tutors across Scotland and is available to download from Adult Literacy Online.

In North Lanarkshire learners are showing an interest in extending their current learning hours by doing additional work or by accessing work left for them by their tutor on the VLE should they miss a session. Fife ALP felt that this was particularly true of ESOL learners who because of work commitments were unable to attend literacy classes regularly.

It was a common feeling that many learners are already highly skilled in the use of ICT and the Internet, and North Ayrshire ALP feels that the “VLE could offer a method of learning that utilises learners strengths and aims to transfer these strengths into literacies learning activities. It is planned that the VLE may serve as a taster or bridging provision for literacies learners. In this way they will adopt it as an entry pathway into face-to-face learning provision that they may have otherwise not considered. In addition, many learners who request one to one tuition, may be more comfortable with learning in a group when interacting through the VLE”
Most projects opted to build Moodle VLE’s such as the one developed by Edinburgh CLAN www.clanlearn.org

Fife ALP tutors also participated in training in Course Genie and Hot Potato Software to integrate self testing and provide a way to help online learners stay motivated by doing quizzes, crosswords, puzzles, gap filling exercises and so on.

Lessons learnt included: ▪ Sharing information with other agencies that have been using Moodle and learning from their experiences. Also allows a comparison and sharing of ideas. ▪ Having support from the Elearning Team has also been valuable. ▪ Sourcing support from experienced Moodle Web Host Group – E-Learn Design. ▪ Having regular Moodle Team meetings to discuss any difficulties, progress and share the workload. ▪ Having an IT contact/support person who is able to understand and explain technical details. ▪ Examining other Moodle Websites and thinking about what makes a good accessible web site for learners. ▪ Planning what information we need to collect for data capturing purposes and considering various possibilities for doing effectively. ▪ Planning but also knowing that we need to allow a little trial and error and responding to feedback from actual learners to allow the development of the site.

Developing websites
Western Isles created and launch a learner’s forum website. www.wilearnersforum.co.uk

A domain and hosting package provides a step by step management system and 24 hour technical support.

The learners were involved in group discussion to decide on what their forum was about, discussed the pages they wanted, scripted out the text, choose the website template, added pages, typed in text, added logo, took pictures and imported them, added a request form, inserted a photo album and set up their email accounts. They were also the first project in Scotland to our knowledge to set up a Skype Account and receive support to develop their website from Sheerface by instant messaging and online telephone calls. During this time they developed their literacy skills by asking questions and listening to instructions and successfully managed to optimise the position of their website on Google, resize pictures, update text, access their email and upload document to their website.

All requests for improving the website were decided by the forum and through consensus they prioritise what they wanted and agreed how they would do it.

They plan to further develop the Learners Forum site and add in new features e.g. blogs, podcasts and so on.

Feedback included:

• It was very easy to understand • Enjoyed choosing the website template and adding the pages • Enjoyed setting up a website for the first time, found it quite easy to understand • Its nice seeing what I have written on the www • It was good to decide how to make it look nice, take the pictures and then add them in.

Recording and Editing Sound
Using a digital Dictaphone or headset to record and then edit in Audacity

“Digital storytelling is the process of writing about a story, and adding the multimedia elements of voice, imagery, and music to create a visual story.”

Many of this year ELearning Projects were enthused by the work of previous Innovations Projects and were keen to start to record and edit their own digital stories with learners. Almost 40 tutors across Scotland were provided with workshops using training material developed in Sound Scotland Training material available on Adult Literacies Online.

Fife Council has started to create contextualized ESOL resources with a local dialect and accent.

PUSH Ltd in Perth found that it was very quick to create speech enabled documents with visuals to help illustrate the text. This was a great resource for their literacy learners who also have learning needs.

Perth Prison hosted an event supported by the ELearning Project for seven other prisons in Scotland who are all working towards creating banks of contextualized resources which will help provide a fun and supportive learning environment for their literacies learners who are excluded from using the Internet.

The feedback from tutors using sound with literacy learners was very encouraging:

• The finished product burned to CD provides literacy learners with a competitive and compelling voice by enlarging the boundaries of who learners can communicate with and by increasing the depth and power of that communication. • We are using Audacity to produce recordings of prisoners’ stories which can be sent to their children. • We are using digital dictaphones now to record comments from prisoners about their experiences in education. • We are planning to produce a presentation about PUSH using members. . tutoring with members with learning disabilities to script, record and edit their story. . and in the process helping them to develop their confidence • We feel that using sound is developing learners planning and creative skills and will build their confidence through recording and editing podcasts and songs. • We are creating some fun song recording about counting for mums and toddlers groups. • We are now creating contextualised training materials for literacy and ESOL learners. • We recorded learner’s peer tutoring other learners on technology and then replayed the recording and discussed opportunities to develop their literacy.

Using Garageband
Motherwell College, North Lanarkshire working with Polmont Prison worked with young males to study famous song writers, review different musical styles before writing their own lyrics, singing, playing instruments, and recording on to PC, editing in Garageband software and burning to CD.

The idea is to use the language of music to inspire people to read and write. There is some interesting research about how listening to songs inspired by literature, learners at all reading levels can connect to the author's message and how singing can be a fun way to learn that letter sounds can be manipulated and recombined to create many spoken words.

The literacy tutor has recorded real guitars and vocals into microphones in Garageband and created several tracks. However there were some technical problems with the sound quality which was beginning to impact significantly on the motivation and enthusiasm of the learners and the Elearning Project were able to show the tutor how to: • set the recording sound to external microphone rather than internal microphone so that the sound was clear and loud. • adjust the sound qualities on the mixer amp and in Garageband itself for best quality • fix the speakers and explain where all the cables went • get their microphone that they thought was broken working • manage additional output line and where to controls on the mixer amp corresponded to the equipment • organise song playlists and import projects into itunes • set up password secure folders for each group of learners

The tutor expressed some challenges in getting everyone involved in the music project as some learners didn’t want to sing or play a guitar. So the Elearning project was able to share with the tutor examples of podcasts created by other ALP projects, also explain how music could be imported into iweb and provided opportunities for different learners to take different roles in the final production of the CD Album e.g. they could write lyrics, type them onto the site, write a diary of each session or simple read a poem, tell a story and then just add sample music to it.

Useful websites from the projects

• www.slideshare.net/ Allows you to share and download presentations • www.skype.com Allows you to download some free software which lets you make calls from your computer free to other people who have downloaded the software onto their PC and who also have broadband. It is cheap to phones and mobiles across the world. • www.e-learndesign.co.uk Provide a range of hosting facilities for Moodle sites. They are Scottish based and focusing on Scotland's particular educational needs. • http://plasq.com/downloads/ Download a free trial or boxed copy of comic life which allows you to create professional comics using your own photographs and scanned images, selecting from attractive templates, style sheets, drop and drag speech bubbles and add fun effects. Available for Windows and Apple Macintosh. • http://moodle.org/ Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. You can download and use it on any computer you have handy (including webhosts), yet it can scale from a single-tutor site to a University with 200,000 students. • www.smilebox.com Allows you to create amazing greeting cards, scrapbooks, slideshows, and more using your photos, videos, and music. You are then able to email, blog, add to your Facebook account or print. • http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/moviemaker2.mspx Windows Movie Maker 2.1 makes home movies amazingly fun. With Movie Maker 2.1, you can create, edit, and share your home movies right on your computer. Build your movie with a few simple drag-and-drops. Delete bad shots and include only the best scenes. Then share your movie via the Web, e-mail, or CD. • http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. • www.1and1.co.uk 1 and 1 is a webhosting company where you can buy domain names, purchase hosting packages which make it easy for you to build and manage your website and email accounts. • http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp Camtasia allows you to record edit and capture the action and sound from any part of the Windows desktop and save it to a standard AVI movie file or streaming video. Camtasia screen recordings could either be shared on a Web site, or distributed via e-mail, the Intranet or a CD. Free trial available to download • http://hotpot.uvic.ca/ The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is not freeware, but is free of charge for publicly-funded non-profit-making educational institutions, who make their pages available on the web. • http://www.wimba.com/products/wimbacreate/ Quickly and easily convert Word documents to content for VLEs. From one Word document you can generate a set of webpages that include navigation and interactive features which can quickly be uploaded to your course. Trial version available to download. • http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband Garage band allows you to create your own personal recording studio, where you can create your own virtual onstage band and play along to your favourite instrument. You can record, edit and mix a song exactly as you want it, in pristine CD quality. • http://www.siblproject.org/resources.html provides a range of learning and teaching material about songs inspired by literature.