Site Update (May 12th)

I have checked all links on the main activity pages, English, Maths, ESOL Grammar and End Tests, removing dead links as well as adding a few new ones.

I have also checked some of the general pages and will try to cover as many as possible in the coming weeks.

All this activity is in preparation for imminent retirement at the end of next month. I don't know what will happen to the site in the future; I expect it to remain available but not to be updated.

Site Address Change

The Skills for Life Website will soon change its address (url) to the following:
http://learning.themanchestercollege.ac.uk/basic_skills
Please change all your bookmarks accordingly.
This is part of the ongoing incorporation of what was City College Manchester into The Manchester College.
The old links will work for a few days or even weeks, but they will disappear.

Dyscalculia Page (Jan 6th)

I have updated the dyscalculia page. Since I last did this - over three years ago - there are now useful information pages from The BDA and from SEN Teacher. I have also found a good research site from New Zealand and an American forum which is both informative and contentious.

ESOL Grammar Activities

I have added a page called ESOL Grammar Activities, linked from both the Teachers and Students pages. This page will carry our quizzes and links to other sites' activities for aspects of literacy grammar which particularly cause difficulty for second language learners.

More details on the Skills for Life Blog.

Speaking and Listening Page (April 9th)

I have added a new page for Speaking and Listening, linked of the Teachers Page. This contains so far:

• detailed links for all Skillswise listening activities
• lists of relevant units in printed DFES packs which have linked audio
• lists of relevant NLN materials

DFES and NLN resources are freely available within FE and Adult Learning in England and Wales.

Further details on Skills for Life Blog.

Embedded Learning Portal (Feb 8th)

I've updated today all the links to all the "DFES" Embedded Learning materials, mostly on the English Activities and Maths Activities pages, where all the E3, L1 and L2 activities are listed. I've also changed the key from "DFES" to "RW+".

I'll probably find more links that I've missed. I guess this a change of server following the break up of the old DFES.

Site Search (Jan 24th)

I've added a Google Custom Site Search to the front page (Index).

Additions 20 February 2007

There seem to be very few new usable Skills for Life links recently. One I have added today:

• Think Metric has a range of ideas aimed at the general public about all sorts of metrification issues; it also includes a neat quiz you could use as an icebreaker. The main link is in Learn Maths, the quiz is also in Activities Maths
  

I have added some of the Canterbury Cross quizzes to Activities Maths. As these are exe files they may cause loading problems on some servers and with some browsers.

I have added a section to the Elearning page, with details of wikis, blogs, podcasts etc with even the vaguest relevance to Skills for Life. Hopefully this list will develop into a page in time.

I have also corrected answers to Subtraction with Words in response to an email. I'm always happy to correct wrong answers in the quizzes.

More details on the Skills for Life Blog.

Purpose of this Page

This page, really a blog, is designed to record changes to City College Manchester's Skills for Life Website. All significant changes will be recorded here. Older changes are still at Old What's New. Please change your bookmarks accordingly.

The reason for this change is to allow changes to followed via RSS. You can subscribe to the RSS of this page by following the Atom link below, or by copying the link location into your RSS reader. There is a useful tutorial here, part of this wiki. I use Pageflakes as a home page, which allows a number of elements on pages including RSS feeds.

This change also allows you to add comments on the changes, although you will need to have or to set up a Google account to do this.