1. 2018 ACAL Conference

Lots of great feedback from our conference attendees - thank you!

Presentations available

Presentations from many sessions have now been loaded.

Happy birthday VALBEC

VALBEC celebrated it's fortieth birthday with a large card at the ACAL conference and invited particpants to add a comment.

2. Fine Print

Card games, tea rooms, neuroscience and pop-up schools are all to be found in the pages of Fine Print Vol 41#2 along with Nadia Casarotto's succinct overview of changes to the CGEA. In her article, Nadia Casarotto delves into the debate about 'paper based' and 'digital texts' and the decision to specify 'handwritten texts' as a requirement in lower level certificates. What is your view about teaching handwriting?

Does the introduction of the term 'web based texts' change the way you approach digital literacy in your classroom?

Get involved in the discussion by emailing fineprint@valbec.org.au and make sure your membership is up-to-date so you don't miss out on the next issue of Fine Print in November.

3. VALBEC Conference - administrator required

As part of VALBEC's commitment to provide quality professional learning to its members, an annual conference is organised, usually in May of each year. Our long term conference administrator, Don MacDowall, has done a great job for many years, however, he is no longer available to fulfil this role. Note: At this stage Don will continue to provide general admin services to VALBEC.
Therefore, VALBEC is calling for expressions of interest from individuals or groups to provide conference administration. We are interested in hearing about modern options and ideas for providing conference admin.
This is a short term contract position, initially for one conference. Work for the conference would generally be required from November to May.

Expressions of Interest should be addressed to Rhonda Raisbeck, VALBEC Secretary

Email Expressions of Interest to info@valbec.org.au

Closing date for Expressions of Interest: 24 October 2018

4. Resources

40 Stories of Adult Literacy Learners

15 Stories from Tasmania and the Tasmanian Council for Adult Literacy. TCAL

TCAL makes literacy and numeracy resources for practitioners to use in teaching. Here are some stories and readers that share stories told by adult learners for adult learners.  Many of these of stories are told by adults overcoming numeracy and literacy difficulties in order to gain independence in their lives.

All of these stories are freely down-loadable and can be used in an adult classroom setting. Steps and Stories – 9 Stories from Bernadette, Brian, Emma, Thylo, Gillian, Christine, David, Bronwyn and Julia.

Nine Tasmanians share their stories of childhood and school life and the steps they took as adults to increase their literacy and numeracy skills and gain control of their lives. Namaste Books – 6 Stories from Ghana,  Kibra, Layla, Eh Eh, Isaiah and Faisal. Six people tell of seeking asylum in Australia, fleeing their homeland under dangerous circumstances, living in limbo, and leaving everything behind for a new life in Tasmania.

Calling all adult literacy supporters – we need your input!

With support from the Reading Writing Hotline and State Library of Victoria, Adult Literacy Connect is currently conducting research towards establishing an online portal of quality curated teaching and learning resources for adult literacy practitioners (teachers, tutors, librarians, volunteers) who are supporting beginning level adult readers and writers.

We want to hear from all adult literacy supporter workers about what resources you use, and how you search for them.

Survey closes October 30th.

For more information about the project, or about Adult Literacy Connect, contact Sarah Ernst on 03 9205 5043 or at sarah.ernst@yarracity.vic.gov.au

Adult Literacy Connect is a group of LLN educators and Librarians working together on projects to improve adult literacy in Victoria. VALBEC is a member and currently the lead of the Adult Literacy Connect