In Ireland, 1 in 4 adults has difficulty with reading and writing and it is the mission of the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) to encourage these people to get back into learning and improve their skills. Back in 2008, NALA commissioned the creation of www.writeon.ie which was launched as part of a multifaceted approach to improving skills. writeon.ie is an online platform designed and supplied by Avallain which enables learners to learn at their own pace and in their own time.
The site can
- Help adults to improve their literacy and numeracy skills independently, and get a national qualification at levels 2 and 3, if they wish
- Provide a range of resources and learning activities that practitioners and teachers can use to support their learning programmes
- Support teaching and learning in education centres through a blended learning approach.
Learners using writeon.ie within one of the literacy centres provided by NALA
The learners access the site through the internet either individually or at literacy centres with tutors on hand. Elizabeth Crossan is one of those tutors, “writeon.ie provides a worthwhile practical tool to help learners achieve their goals and to become confident, self-directed independent learners”. She goes on to say “The learners found using the site was very enjoyable, worthwhile, interesting, and challenging and were delighted to get immediate feedback. Elizabeth’s colleague Elaine Clifford had similar praise for the experience “Writeon.ie is a fun, free and fruitful way of learning. For learners and tutors – I would say give it a go and try out this innovative learning experience – you won’t regret it”.Since its launch in 2008, writeon.ie has proved a huge success with over 20,000 learners registered and over 5,000 qualifications awarded to date. Of these, over 1,000 individuals have achieved 4,500 Level 2 Minor Awards and 250 individuals have achieved 750 Level 3 Minor Awards in subjects such as those listed above. However, not all learners will use the site to achieve accredited qualifications; some may just want to brush up on their skills.
In December 2011 NALA produced a report which looked at the effectiveness of writeon.ie which can be found at http://www.nala.ie/publications/blended-learning-report-2011. Part of the evaluation included interviewing students on their experiences with the learning software Many found the software a great help giving feedback such as “Great for starting out on computers and reading”, “Great for learning English as an ESOL learner” and “I like writeon, it helps with my English. I worked with my daughter (8) and son (7) on writeon at home. The kids love it.”
The collaboration between NALA and Avallain has been instrumental in the success of the project as Tom O’Mara, Distance Learning Co-ordinator at NALA explains “It’s been great working with such a small, flexible, experienced and capable company as Avallain. They have done a brilliant job in putting together such an efficient team. I know we both had experiences in working for large scale commercial e-learning organisations where the people creating the content were too far removed from the learners and so fixed on project management milestones and processes to be able to respond to learner feedback and need. The development team respond extremely quickly, often proactively, to any problems that crop up. Working with Avallain on this project has been a ‘dream’ from that perspective and the feedback from our learners reflects this ability to respond and change quickly.”
Learners using writeon.ie software supplied by Avallain can learn at their own pace
The system allows organisations to create their own material which helps to make the content of the system relevant to their own particular needs. Tom explains “the advantages of the authoring system far outweigh any negatives. Once we had our own team of authors trained up, we managed to create a huge volume of content very quickly and cost effectively. I haven’t done a count recently but I think since Sept 2008, we have created over 19,000 interactions with a core team of 4 authors, 3 editors and 1 instructional designer. I can’t begin to think how much it would have cost to outsource that to a large scale ‘traditional’ e-learning development house. And we retain full control of it so we can make changes daily without any additional costs.”Not only has the system proved to be cost effective but also reliable and dependable, “I think since the site launched over 3 years ago, it’s only maybe ever gone down once without warning. And even then, Avallain were on the case before we knew and had it back up within an hour. I think that the fact Avallain provide services for so many other larger organisations means we benefit indirectly from the need to have a very reliable platform running.”
Ursula Suter from Avallain was behind the project “Working with NALA was a fantastic and enjoyable experience and we are really pleased for them that the system and writeon.ie programme is proving such a success. As an organisation we are committed to improve literacy levels around the world. We are great believers in the power and freedom which education can provide to all. We work on a large number of not for profit enterprises which we hope will improve lives and opportunities for people from around the globe.”
The Avallain Basic Skills System carries no license fees or design costs and can be customised to fit diverse cultures and languages. This is only one small part of the work Avallain do. For more information visit www.avallain.com and contact info@avallain.com
About NALA
The National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) is an independent charity in Ireland committed to making sure people with literacy and numeracy difficulties can fully take part in society and have access to learning opportunities that meet their needs. According to the last international survey, one in four - that is, about half a million - Irish adults have problems reading and writing. Since they were set up by volunteers in 1980, they have been a leading campaigning and lobbying force on adult literacy issues. NALA have been involved with tutor training, developing teaching materials, distance education services, policy making, research and campaigns to raise awareness of the causes, extent and responses to adult literacy difficulties in Ireland. www.nala.ie
About Avallain
Avallain is a Social Enterprise based in Switzerland and Kenya. Experts in E-Learning and E-publishing, we are using ICT in Education to achieve a positive impact on human development. Our objective is to create solutions that develop the Internet as a tool for inclusion rather than an accelerating agent of the digital divide. At Avallain, we create software solutions which can be individually tailored to your needs. These systems provide you with the ICT support required to improve learning and lives around the world. www.avallain.com
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