About
About
This website was created for you, the Literacy and Basic Skills practitioners in Ontario. It contains task-based activities to use with your learners. All the materials have been aligned to the Ontario Adult Literacy Curriculum Framework (OALCF). All activities are versatile, preparing learners for test taking, for using workplace authentic documents, for post-secondary academics, or for living independently. More so, these documents will help you prepare your learners to complete milestones.
Where did the idea come from?
What's next?
Acknowledgements
When the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities introduced the OALCF, practitioners across the field started to think about how they would implement the new framework. Two practitioners in the QUILL region, Heather Robinet with the LearningHUB and Maria Bertrand with the Walkerton Adult Learning Centre talked about working together to re-cast existing demonstrations in the new language and to house the material on the internet in one site. QUILL took action on this idea and partnered with Literacy Northwest and AlphaPlus to create a wiki site on PBworks - http://taskbasedactivitiesforlbs.pbworks.com.
When programs received extra funding at the end of 2011, Literacy Link South Central in London thought it would benefit programs if they re-cast demonstrations for their partner LBS programs. When QUILL heard about this initiative they asked to be involved, as the wiki already existed, and felt it would be a great place to house the re-cast materials. Literacy Northwest in Thunder Bay also partnered on re-casting demonstrations. Together with the three networks, more than 30 organizations participated in the work. Demonstrations were re-cast and placed on the Task-Based Activities wiki. Originally, Karen Farrar was hired to re-cast the materials, but when her cancer made it impossible for her to continue, Jane Tuer and Lorri Sauvé continued the work. Since work began on this website, more than 80 documents have been uploaded onto the wiki, and almost 100 users registered.
In early 2012, QUILL received project funding from MTCU to create a more useful site to house the resources and to include materials for the Francophone, Native, and Deaf streams. The Task-Based Activities for LBS/Activités axées sur les tâches pour l’AFB portal was created. More demonstrations were gathered from the field, Ontario Skills Passport, and SkillPlan. The number of resources rose to over 200, and included nearly 1000 tasks.
To ensure that the re-casted materials were useful for the field, they went through a multi-stage process.
- Materials were submitted to QUILL by programs and sectors from across the province.
- All documents were reviewed by the Task Development Team for suitability, and most were re-cast into OALCF language.
- Review teams from each sector reviewed all the materials and recommended which task-based activities would be housed in each sector’s section on the portal.
- All documents were edited for clear language and consistent formatting.
- All documents were reviewed for logistics (i.e. to ensure that current employment standards were being represented, etc.)
- All resources are in the Anglophone section.
- Resources that were recommended by a majority of reviewers from each stream were uploaded to that section of the portal (after being translated if necessary).
When this website was first showcased with the regional networks, streams, and sector support organizations, there was an overwhelming response that the Task-Based Activities for LBS/Activités axées sur les tâches pour l’AFB portal will be a great resource for the field.
It took a field of people to create the site and it will take the field to use it and prove its value. 2013 project proposals submitted to MTCU for funding consideration have identified as a key outcome, supporting the portal by increasing the number of resources on the site. As you use this site, you’ll notice that new resources are being added as they become available. Your feedback is always welcome whether for specific documents or the site in general. It will be used in part to drive future project proposals, and fill gaps that you have identified.
Acknowledgements
QUILL would like to acknowledge all the funders, partners, and contractors who worked to make this portal a successful resource. In addition, without assistance from the LBS field, this project would also, not have been so successful.
Project Manager: Debera Flynn, Executive Director
Administrative Support: Karen Coutts, Executive Assistant
Reference Committee Members: Robyn Cook-Ritchie, Susan Lefebvre, Heather Robinet, Tim Nicholls-Harrison
Website Teams:
AlphaPlus - Greg Gulas, Executive Director
Web-based Content Management System (CMS) project management – Alan Cherwinski and Monika Jankowska-Pacyna
CMS programmer and developer – Chris Caple
CESBA: Jane Barber - ESKARGO
Task Development Team:
Jane Tuer, Lead Developer
Cindy Davidson, Lesley Hamilton, Karen Morgan-Bowyer, Anne Ramsay
Task Review Committees:
Coalition ontarienne de formation des adultes - Michel Robillard, Executive Director
Task Review Team - Denyse De Bernardi, Louise Lalonde, Célinie Russell, Normand Savoie
Deaf Literacy Initiative - Peggy Anne Gordon, Executive Director
Task Review Team - Patrick Cross, Katie Kostid, Janet Morden, Christine Nelson, Sonia Proulx-Prusin
Ontario Native Literacy Coalition - Marlene Lamarche, Executive Director
Task Review Team - Stephanie Fisher, Barb Hill, Pedobnoque Shawbedees, Katherine Shine, Linda Wright
Evaluator/Sustainability Plan: Tamara Kaattari
Graphic Designer: Nadine Noble, The IdeaNest
Editing Team: Karen Coutts, Joan Rawski
Translator: Janie Bertrand