I attended a pleasant free drop-in National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) Webinar for Adult Learner's Week around Thursday lunchtime. The domain of these organisations is what is loosely called in the UK Further Education. Whilst this is neither accessibility not standards many aspects are relevant particularly to cognitive disability as many of the solutions, such as plain language and simplicity of structure and presentation (one item at a time) are the same and it helps me keep in touch with conditions and solutions in that sector. And it is all good Learning Technology.

The main presentations were:

• How to use Xerte to enhance Basic Skills learning (Lisa Featherstone, TechDis)
• Learning strategies that work, for adults (Nick Jeans, ALT/Sero consulting). The importance of technology supporting the social experience of learning, such as the benefits of sharing machines between groups. Part of me wonders how this works with introverted learners - is group-working always best and the only approach to encourage ? I don't know.
• Eportfolios powering effective adult learning (Geoff Rebbeck). Geoff talked about the use of Mahara to support goals in the context of structured individual development and employment
• The Open Classroom: Experiences of sharing mainstream learning activity with learners online. (Ellen Lessner (Abingdon & Witney College)). This talk was about how people outside the classroom could use tools like Sype to participate in learning structured for the classroom.
• In at the deep end: Supporting learning communities in a sports environment (Lucy Stone (Amateur Swimming Association))

So - not my usual scene but all-in a very enjoyable and interesting way to spend a couple of hours