Earlier this week a colleague and I were interviewed by Katherine Glover of MinnPost.com for an article about our efforts to create free online self-study resources for immigrants preparing for U.S. citizenship.
You can check out her story here: Minnesota Literacy Council piloting software to help immigrants with citizenship test.
The new self-study resources are under development as part of the Learner Web (LW) project, of which the St. Paul Community Literacy Consortium is a regional partner. While the Learner Web materials will not be available except to LW partners for the duration of the original 3-year demonstration project, once that project is complete, the goal is to have LW released as open-source learning management software, something akin to Moodle, but focused on delivering self-access, self-paced learner-directed resources rather than semester-based, instructor-led online courses.
But Moodle and Learner Web shouldn't really be seen as competitors: the two systems in our case work together in partnership. Using our existing Moodle site we were able to create lessons and practice exercises and host our own content. That content can be seen at: http://online.themlc.org/ -- click on "Study for the U.S. Citizenship Test". Those lessons are then linked into Learner Web, which is a system for organizing existing resources (such as online courses, websites, books, community organizations, etc.) around the steps a learner needs to take to achieve a goal.
Anyone is free to browse through the Moodle course, which is open to guest users. While you're there, you might want to check out our other online training courses for adult educators and volunteers.
Friday, February 6, 2009
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