AOK Basic Skills Project
Portland, Maine
E: kirkjohnb5@gmail.com
W: www.aokbasicskills.gratis
2022- 11-20
Re: “How adults in the Adult Basic Education Program levels 3-10 can use the Internet at no cost to improve their studies”
Dear Director of the Institution:
I am a semi-retired ESOL and native/first language teacher over the age of 65. I lived in Ecuador for over 10 years before moving to Portland, Maine in the USA last year. I am the director of AOK, which is a charitable educational endeavor and my retirement project that was connected to my English school in Quito. AOK is not an organization. Before the Pandemic I wrote 18 AOK Life Skill Workshops and presented many of them throughout the Ecuadorian Sierra.
Workshop summary
“How adults in the Adult Basic Education Program levels 3-10 can use the Internet at no cost to improve their studies gives an overview of some websites that contain Spanish materials that can improve an adult’s educational at no cost. These materials can provide support for most of the basic elementary and secondary subject areas for adults, as well as an introduction of study skills and computer use.
Workshop materials
The workshop includes a written PowerPoint presentation (visuals can be added for the local area), director and participant evaluation forms, key handouts, and a list of free, annotated websites to use. The workshop is given in support of UN Global Goal/SDG 4: Quality Education and UNICEF objectives. It includes information on how nonprofit organizations can use SDG student badges and videos to increase motivation and promote inclusion amongst the students. It can last for one or more 50-minute sessions and can serve for follow-up, as well. The materials can be downloaded in Spanish on this website.
Workshop Objectives
The following are the workshop objectives. The participants will:
- Learn about some free websites that can help students who are behind or want to get ahead in their classes.
- Learn about some free websites that can help students improve their reading comprehension in fiction and nonfiction materials. They will receive a list of general reading questions applicable for all materials; also, some of these materials come with questions.
- Learn about materials on the internet for math and science that provide different ways of explaining and giving practice in the same themes. They also provide reading systems that are very useful.
- Learn about some interesting ways to improve their writing and materials with which to do so.
- Become familiar with and learn how to use the AOK file of websites useable for adult education with more than 70 websites. Also become familiar with several sites which teach how to navigate with Google to find more quality sites.
It is sometimes difficult to use the Internet for adult basic education since some good learning sites are difficult to find. For example, some sites for teaching basic computer skills in English can also be used to a certain extent in Spanish.
There are some of adult education literacy materials and ESL reading materials available for free on the Internet which only need to be translated. Some departments of education in different countries freely make adult education texts available on their websites. These could serve for free parallel reading materials for students in other programs.
A long-term goal of the workshop
A long-term goal of the workshop is to encourage UNICEF to provide multi-lingual materials that provide instruction on the Internet in literacy, basic digital education and study skills. It would be motivational for participants to learn some basic skills from UNICEF, and they would be written in a professional manner. A formed letter to this effect is included with the workshop materials on this website. It can be rewritten if desired.
I was registered with the National Human Talent Directorate in Ecuador and presented the workshops listed on my website to about 1,000 participants before the Pandemic. I hope the workshop materials prove useful to your program. AOK workshops are designed to act as a base for local organizations to individualize and update according to their needs…
Sincerely,
John B. Kirk, Director
kirkjohnb5@gmail.com