Travel Guides: WES Product and Program Infomercials

Starring: Brigid Hayes, National Literacy Secretariat (HRDC)
Roving Reporter (Essential Skills Television Network)

Canada has produced a number of successful and innovative Workplace Essential Skills tools and products. These can be extremely helpful to trainers looking for effective ways to address essential skills in their training programs. The National Literacy Secretariat (HRDC) has supported the development of many of these tools.

Assuming the role of a roving reporter, Brigid Hayes from the NLS conducted on the spot” interviews with key individuals about Workplace Essential Skills resources available to trainers.

A special thanks to the presenters for being part of the workshop:

SkillPlan Products (Julian Evetts – Information By Design)
TOWES (Conrad Murphy – Bow Valley College)
Recognizing Learning Difficulties (Anne Price – Calgary Learning Centre)
WED (Marilyn Luft – Consultant))
ERIC and WIN (Hildy Hanson – Keyano College)

SkillPlan Products

SkillPlan, a joint labour and management initiative of the BC construction industry, was established as a not-for-profit society in March, 1991. The Council is the industry’s response to an evolving workplace that requires greater reading, writing, math, problem solving and oral communication skills. To this end, and with financial support from Human Resources Development Canada, a number of publications and other resources have been produced.

For more information, contact SkillPlan at (604) 436-1126, or email info@skillplan.ca, or visit SkillPlan’s website at www.skillplan.ca.

Numeracy At Work

Numeracy at Work is an excellent resource for trainers and learners. It is a collection of stories from twenty Canadian workers about how they use numeracy in their jobs. The publication introduces real workers and presents “real life” examples of how these workers apply their math and “number” skills at their workplaces. By reading the collection, learners are given a sense of what kinds of activities are performed in a variety of occupations and why numeracy is so important to employment success. Each chapter incorporates opportunities for trainees to complete numeracy tasks related to those described in the story, and makes suggestions for further explorations.