National Adult Literacy Database

As summer vacation approaches for school-age children, thoughts for some people veer toward year-round schooling. This educational notion is slowly gaining traction all over North America. In Canada, about 100 schools have modified calendars, shrinking the summer holiday to five weeks.

NALD is pleased to announce that the ESL Literacy Network at Bow Valley College has won the 2011 Innovative Technology Award. The network was chosen for providing ESL literacy practitioners with access to innovative online resources that inform classroom instruction and support ongoing professional development.

Tweets and ‘likes’ are becoming more beneficial to business, a new Robert Half Technology survey suggests. More than four in 10 (44 per cent) of chief information officers surveyed said they permit employees to use social media sites like Twitter and Facebook on the job as long as it’s for business purposes.

“Each of these organizations is making an important and positive impact in their communities,” said Scott Mullin, Vice-President, Community Relations, TD Bank Group. “The TD Financial Literacy Grant Fund will help grantees foster innovation and extend their program reach to benefit more people.”

Many entry-level jobs – particularly ones in exploration such as bush work and mineral sampling – attract students from diverse fields of study, said Gavin Dirom, president and CEO of the Association for Mineral Exploration B.C.

A new report from AlphaPlus suggests that with the help of cloud computing, the future of cyberspace for adult literacy will see a proliferation of new and easily accessible literacy tools such as smartphone applications to help read signs and turn text into voice.

In his first public address as Minister of Industry, Christian Paradis reaffirmed the Government of Canada's commitment to a digital economy strategy. Speaking at the 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto, he underscored the importance of information and communications technologies to Canada's economic growth and global competitiveness, and acknowledged the private sector’s essential role.

Each month NALD releases Library user statistics in a feature known as the Top 20 downloads/20 Plus téléchargés. The report examines the number of NALD Library documents, in both English and French, which are viewed and downloaded by visitors to the websites NALD, NALD@Work, BDAA and BDAA@uTravail.

Immigrants landing in Calgary are confused by the dominance of English in that city, and express puzzlement that they don't hear much French spoken on the street or in buses. They wonder, under those circumstances, why Canada calls itself bilingual.

New research shows that bilingualism assists the brain in its ability to focus and can stave off the negative effects of Alzheimer's disease in old age.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy invited the spouses of the heads of state and government taking part in the G8 Summit in Deauville, France, recently to join her for a working session about overcoming low literacy levels.