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Posted on 03/27/2025
Suggested Resources for Further Exploration
This is a compilation of the suggested resources for further exploration from each chapter in the IDEAL Distance Learning Handbook: Appendix A.
Acknowledgments
– The EdTech Center @ World Education advances digital equity to enable everyone to thrive as learners, workers, family members, and community members in today’s increasingly tech-enabled world. It supports organizations and communities to use technology to increase the reach and impact of education and other humanitarian initiatives.)
IDEAL Consortium Community of Practice External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The Innovating Digital Education in Adult Learning (IDEAL) Consortium, a project of the EdTech Center @ World Education, works to support quality technology-enriched instruction in adult education and literacy programs across the United States. For over 15 years, the IDEAL Consortium, previously Project IDEAL, has provided technical assistance, web-based tools, and publications to member states to help them design distance, blended, and HyFlex learning options.
Chapter 1 – Setting the Stage
NRS Tips: Adult Education Participants in Distance Education External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This page includes a tip sheet that summarizes key points such as definitions and reporting for adult learners participating in distance education.
Pew Research Center Internet, Broadband Fact Sheet External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Includes data to show how adults in the United States access the internet, use the internet, and use smartphones to access the internet.
– Features a report highlighting the need for digital skills across every industry and state digital divide fact sheets.
Chapter 2 – Recruitment
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Chapter 3 – Assessing Readiness
ESOL Placement Oral Screening Form External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Seminole State College developed this sample placement tool for English language learners.
Habits of Mind Self-Assessment Rubric External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The Institute for Habits of Mind developed this self-assessment tool that learners can use to informally gauge soft skills.
Teaching Skills that Matter in Adult Education External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education developed a toolkit, including lesson plans, that supports adult learners to develop nine key skills using approaches that work across five key topics.
Personal & Workplace Success Skills Library External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – World Education’s searchable repository of tools to support learners’ success includes assessment tools, advising and career coaching resources, instructional materials, skills frameworks, and more.
YWCA National Capital Area Learner Readiness Survey External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This short survey was developed in Google Forms specifically for intake in adult basic skills programs. It covers a range of readiness areas, including study environment, time available for distance learning, access to devices and the internet, and how students problem-solve.
YWCA National Capital Area Motivation Inventory External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This short survey may help you understand a learner’s current motivation and commitment to working independently. You could use the survey results as the basis for a conversation during an intake session.
Penn State Self-Assessment External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This brief quiz asks questions about time management, study skills, personal organization, and technical skills. The quiz offers feedback that teachers can use as the basis of a conversation about readiness.
BRIDGES Digital Resilience Toolkit External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The EdTech Center @ World Education created this toolkit with adult educators across the country. It includes a variety of checklist templates that can be adapted to self-assess and monitor learner progress around sets of skills relevant to common goals, including this set of checklists which organizes competencies aligned to goals common for diverse user types. These checklists can be used by teachers and learners both to self-assess and to monitor learners’ skill strengths and gaps. BRIDGES also includes instructional resources and supporting guidance to help teachers shape digital skills instruction that will help learners build digital literacy.
BRIDGES Digital Skills Framework External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This framework is designed to help address the inequities that learners face when they have limited access to technology and therefore are less able to accomplish common tasks in work, schooling, and daily life. The BRIDGES Digital Skills Framework includes 75 skills across 10 domains organized into three overarching categories and subtopics.
Digital Navigator Resources website External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The Digital US website features tools that Digital Navigators or other practitioners can use to meet the needs of learners
Northstar Digital Literacy Assessment External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This popular and free digital literacy assessment was developed specifically for use with adult learners to assess essential computer and software skills. The standards on which the assessment modules are based were developed by librarians and adult education and workforce development practitioners. Each of the available assessments takes about 30 minutes to complete. Programs could choose which assessments are most relevant to their learners’ goals and the distance education program.
Digital Skills Library External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Managed by the EdTech Center @ World Education, the Digital Skills Library is an open repository of free learning resources designed to help all adult learners develop the digital skills needed to achieve their personal, civic, educational, and career goals.
Digital Literacy Self-Assessment Tool External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The EdTech Center @ World Education created this tool, which can be adapted to meet the needs of your learners.
Digital Skills and Access Survey External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This Google Form can be used to assess digital skills and access to technology.
Digital Literacy Skills Checklist External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Briya Public Charter School educators went through a comprehensive process of identifying the skills that learners need to effectively participate in remote instruction based on the technologies they were using. They then developed this checklist to support educators and learners to track skills to ensure learner readiness.
Laptop Loan Agreement External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The Dover Adult Learning Center developed this agreement for adult learners who are borrowing laptops from their program.
EveryoneON External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This site provides information on where learners can access lower-cost technology, internet, and training.
Distance Learning Technology Access Survey External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This survey developed by the YWCA National Capital Area can be used to get a sense of your learners’ technology access and digital literacy needs.
Northstar Digital Literacy Screener External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This print-friendly screening tool can be used to assess learners’ understanding of basic computer skills.
Chapter 4 – Orientation
– An example of a learner goal setting form that could be completed by the learner or completed with an educator.
Learner Interview Goal Setting Form – Any Context External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – An example of interview questions that could be used to identify learner goals.
Sample Learning Contract External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This learning contract developed by Northern Shenandoah Valley Adult Education outlines expectations for learners, support they can expect from their instructor, and expectations for behavior.
Mobile Hotspot and Device Agreement External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This agreement by Northwest Michigan Works is an example of a user agreement between a learner and the program for the distribution and use of mobile hotspots and device agreement.
Digital Navigator Playbook External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Digital US developed this comprehensive guide to help programs establish and improve their Digital Navigator services.
Upskilling New Americans: Innovative English Training for Career Advancement External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This report includes an example of how one program offered a robust remote onboarding and orientation process.
Chapter 5 – Instruction
– This guide by David Rosen and Jen Vanek and published by New Readers Press helps program explore a blended learning approach by presenting descriptions of different blended learning models and offering examples showing why they are employed to meet particular programmatic goals.
Student Internet Survey External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This sample survey by David Rosen can be used to determine learners’ access to the internet and experience completing certain tasks using technology.
Teacher Tools Listing External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – CrowdED Learning created a listing of edtech tools teachers can use for communication, instructional content, assessing learning, and managing and sharing assignments.
Triple E Framework External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – A framework teachers can use when designing learning that focuses on what students do with the technology to help them learn. It includes focusing on student engagement and how their learning is enhanced and extended by technology.
Triple E Framework for More Effective Technology Integration in Adult Education External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This blog article by adult educators Susan Gaer and Kristi Reyes shows how the Triple E framework can be used in adult education instruction.
Resources to Support Mobile Learning External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The EdTech Center @ World Education has a bank of resources to support educators who want to increase or enhance learners’ mobile learning opportunities.
EdTech Strategy Toolkit External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The EdTech Center @ World Education developed a resource to help educators create and maintain edtech routines by identifying technology they can use to build these routines.
Digital Resilience in the American Workforce External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Includes resources to encourage building learners’ digital resilience, including a self-assessment reflection roadmap, playbook, edtech routines, templates for ABE, ASE, and ESL topics, and instructional resources. DRAW is an initiative from Jobs for the Future (JFF), World Education, and Safal Partners, with support from the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE).
Top Instructional Strategies for Digital Resilience External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This webinar from EdTech Center @ World Education staff Alison Ascher Webber and Jamie Harris shares top instructional strategy findings, best practices, and resources from the DRAW project.
Criteria for Choosing EdTech Tools External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This page includes criteria educators can use to evaluate EdTech tools’ effectiveness.
The Change Agent External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This online magazine publishes the writings of adult learners on important topics such as racial equity, re-training for work, working and caring for children, voting, and mental health and includes resources you can use with learners that deepen the learning from the articles.
Creative Commons Licensing External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Open Educational Resources often use these licenses to provide clear guidance to users as to what they can and cannot do with the resource.
SkillBlox External Link Icon opens in new window or tab –This platform is designed to simplify the process by which adult education teachers find quality free and open resources. It includes thousands of activities for adult learners that are searchable by skills frameworks and key words.
EdTech Maker Space External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Adult educators have developed projects to create instructional materials and share strategies for using open education resources.
Digital Skills Library External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Managed by the EdTech Center @ World Education, the Digital Skills Library is an open repository of free learning resources designed to help all adult learners develop the digital skills needed to achieve their personal, civic, educational, and career goals.
ESL Story Bank Lessons External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Co-created by adult educators using stories from the Pre-Beginning and Beginning ESL Story Banks, CrowdED Learning offers instructors Wakelet collections with engaging instructional activities for English language learners
Ways to Transfer In-Person Activities and High Leverage Practices to Remote Instruction External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Jayme Adelson-Goldstein developed this resource which provides examples of in-person teaching strategies, ideas for digital substitution, and how learners experience this on a phone.
Remote Instruction Observation Tool External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The EdTech Center @ World Education developed a tool that can be used by teachers and their supervisors to provide a supportive review of remote live instruction. It provides a structure for observation and reflective conversations to strengthen teachers’ capacity for remote instruction.
Open Prompt Book from CampGPT External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This resource provides guidance for teachers on leveraging GenAI to develop customized learning materials for adults. It includes sample prompts in several areas related to adult education.
The Guide for Design and Implementation of Hybrid–Flexible (HyFlex) Models in Adult Education External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The EdTech Center has developed a HyFlex guide based on interviews with 25 teachers and observations of the HyFlex model.
HyFlex in Adult Education Video Series External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This YouTube playlist features adult educators across the country showing key strategies and technologies they employ in their HyFlex instruction.
Chapter 6 – Assessment
– Educators can use this guide to determine what to prioritize when assessing learning. It includes using assessment for these categories: readiness, endurance, assessed, and leverage.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – UDL guidelines include three principles when designing learning: engagement, representation, and action and expression.
Creating Accessible Educational Materials External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The National Center on Accessible Educational Materials provides guidance on how educators can ensure their learning materials are accessible to all learners.
Blank Rubric Template External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – Use or adapt this template to create your own rubrics, so you and your students can evaluate learning using shared criteria.
Distance and Digital Education Definitions and Reporting Practices: What We Have and What We Need External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This report describes findings from a survey of adult education directors of U.S. states and territories examining how they define the different technology-enriched instructional modalities available to learners in their state.
Chapter 7 – Administrative Issues
– This framework represents the process of providing a learning experience that is collaborative and constructivist by developing three elements: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence.
Example Digital Navigator Program External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – This site shows how Colorado is improving learners’ access to digital devices and increasing digital skills through the use of digital navigators.
Digital Equity Act External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The Digital Equity Act provides $2.75 billion to establish three grant programs that promote digital equity and inclusion.
Digital Equity Act Resources for Adult Education Programs External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The EdTech Center’s Transforming Immigrant Digital Education (TIDE) has Digital Equity Act information and resources for programs serving all adult learners.
EdTech Center @ World Education External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The EdTech Center (ETC) @ World Education advances digital equity to enable everyone to thrive as learners, workers, family members, and community members in today’s increasingly tech-enabled world. It supports organizations and communities to use technology to increase the reach and impact of education and other humanitarian initiatives.
Digital Leadership Academy External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN) offers this two-year-long professional development opportunity for adult educators in California that includes training in distance and digital education using resources from the EdTech Center @World Education, coaching, and leadership training. While it is only open to California practitioners, it could be replicated at a state, region, or program level.
Adult Education Indicators of Quality Online Courses External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center has created a rubric that could be used to identify strengths and areas of improvement in adult education online courses.
Remote Instruction Observation Tool External Link Icon opens in new window or tab – The EdTech Center @ World Education developed a tool that can be used by teachers and their supervisors to provide a supportive review of remote live instruction. It provides a structure for observation and reflective conversations to strengthen teachers’ capacity for remote instruction.
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