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I chose this Banksy image of a girl watering a heart as my learning metaphor. Firstly because I love Banksy’s work and often use his pictures as a discussion point in classes, but it's also a metaphor for education, because if you water and cultivate a plant with love, it will grow. For me personally, education is about love of learning, and the more you put into it the more it blossoms.

Adult Education can also be about re-visiting your inner child and letting go of old ideas and fears that no longer serve us for example "I was always useless at maths". Adult Education and literacy programmes promote the idea that is never too late to learn new skills.

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In Adult Education assessment is used to monitor progress to achieve Learning Outcomes, but there is a tendency to become too focussed on the assessments in order to to feed the jobs market. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that Adult Ed is not always about the accreditation and can be undertaken for a wide variety of reasons: for the love of learning, for social inclusion, confidence building, or engaging in Community Education as a means to empower groups to find a voice in society.

If a programme is completely focussed on assessments and learning outcomes then the danger is that it can become a task-based curriculum rather than a student-centered learning experience :)

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UDL in FET sector

by Maria Butterfield - Monday, 7 March 2022, 6:06 PM

“Learning is as unique to individuals as their fingerprints or DNA.” (Hall, 2012).  Often their challenges are not visible and it is most definitely not one size fits all, therefore the challenge for FET tutors is to engage learners in a way that in meaningful and interesting to them.

Principles of UDL (Universal Design and Learning) can reduce barriers to student participation and learning by facilitating flexibility, inclusion, accessibility, and involvement in choices of interactions.

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Integrating Literacy using Infographics 

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Integrating Literacy using Infographics 

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I found this resource handy as it describes the different types of infographics and when to use them. You can easily create infographics using Canva templates adapted to suit your own palette and content, so I will definitely be using this for classes in the future. I also liked the idea of students designing creating infographics for posters, flyers, and also bookmarks in class, as it is a literacy friendly and creative exercise that could be used as an assessment tool. At the moment we do handmade/handwritten posters and collages so the infographic is a great alternative that incorporates the ed tech side also.

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8 Best Types of Infographics and When to Use Them

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These are the best types of infographics for your marketing strategy, and they'll help you increase engagement and capture your audience's attention.

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Bookmark created on Canva

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Internet Safety Tips - Bookmark Infographic

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I designed this poster to advertise upcoming "Skills for Work" courses in Tramore using Canva, and it was my first experience using this software. I had heard rave reviews from colleagues and classmates so I was interested to try it out, and I was not disappointed. It was so easy and quick to produce a colorful poster and is much more functional and user-friendly than MS Word or Publisher. I teach the module Desktop Publishing Level 3 so I will be investigating if I can use this in class for creating publications, and may request for the WWETB to pay the subscription of  €11.99 per month because the functionality is quite limited with the basic/free option.

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I created this short video using Biteable which I found very straightforward and easy to use. Initially it can be time-consuming getting used to the software and pulling the content together, but I think its is very useful for creating reusable clips to illustrate a point. The topic of non-verbal communications is something I teach all the time (I have 3x communications classes at the moment!) so I will definitely reuse it as a class resource.  For this piece I used Biteable stock images which gives it a nice uniform appearance, however to inject a bit more variety I would like to experiment and mix in my own images and infographics.

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Non-Verbal Communications - Maria Butterfield

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Video made with Biteable. The World’s Simplest Video Maker

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Go Team Thunderbolt!! Our team of Francis Paula and Arun collaborated to begin the design in Canva using two triangles and progressing the design to incorporate mountains, a lake some clouds overhead and of course our team logo of a Thunderbolt.

The metaphor is that learning is like climbing a mountain, sometimes difficult, even precarious at times, but ultimately rewarding as you reach the summit and view from the top, and feel a sense of achievement of your goals.

The collaboration aspect within the team was challenging just to make that initial contact, but we eventually got set up in MS teams which works well for group work.

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FREE UX course (pay if you want to take certification)
Duration: 6 hours of online videos

This course is geared toward novice learners that have heard about "user experience" or "user interface" design but don't really know much about these disciplines.
In this course the learner is introduced to the four step user interface design cycle. Along the way learners are exposed to a set of techniques to gather information about a) what the user needs b)how to design and model interfaces based on these and then how to evaluate the design to ascertain that the user's goals are met.

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The focus of this course is to introduce the learner to User Experience (UX) Design

User Experience design is design that is user centered. The goal is to design artifacts that allow the users to meet their needs in the most effective efficient and satisfying manner. The course introduces the novice to a cycle of discovery and evaluation and a set of techniques that meet the user's needs. This course is geared toward the novice. It is for learners that have heard about "user experience" or "user interface" design but don't really know much about these disciplines. The course mantra is that "Design is a systematic and data driven process." Design is systematic because it is based on a set of techniques and also on a cycle of discovery. In this course the learner is introduced to the four step user interface design cycle. Along the way learners are exposed to a set of techniques to gather information about a) what the user needs b)how to design and model interfaces based on these and then how to evaluate the design to ascertain that the user's goals are met. These techniques are tools that are used in a standardized manner and give us the data we use in our design. This means that anyone (regardless of their current training) that is willing to learn these techniques and follow the proposed cycle can be a UX designer!

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The focus of this course is to introduce the learner to User Experience (UX) Design User Experience design is design that is user centered. The goal is to design artifacts that allow the users to meet their needs in the most effective efficient and satisfying manner.

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Play Kahoot! - Enter game PIN 453 9738 to play!

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I love a good Kahoot quiz! Very handy and fun as a tool for class engagement in technology, and they can also be used for assessment purposes.
I created this one for my Computer Skills Level 2 ESOL class, where you have to name computer parts correctly and identify the correct names for items on your desktop.
With the basic version you are limited to either True/False or multiple choice questions, however with the subscription you can create puzzles, putting items in order etc which is a lot more interesting for the student.

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Join a game of kahoot here. Kahoot! is a free game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn - any subject, in any language, on any device, for all ages!

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Add a book to our class bookshelf, and a sticky note to explain why you chose it :) 

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During this module I tried out Mural which is an online collaboration tool for groups. There are several nice features, such as this virtual bookshelf where each member can choose a book and add it to the shelf, then add a sticky note beside it saying why they chose the book. This is a great exercise for literacy groups.
Another quirky template is the ski slope where you can have virtual races, add flags notes etc to different areas on the mountain. It also has a plugin fo MS Teams so this would be easy to share with a group of students.

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Join Slido: Enter #694 524 to vote and ask questions

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SLIDO POLL #694 524 (open until April 7th)
Question: What is your favourite technology that you used on this course?

We used several different polling apps during the module such a Vevox and doodle, but I found that slido had the best selection of features with the free version.

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Join Slido: Enter #code to vote and ask questions

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Participate in a live poll, quiz or Q&A. No login required.