Announcements

ANNOUNCEMENTS
September 2, 2005

1. Labor Day - September 5th - The ABE office will be closed. There will be NO classes.

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2. Time sheets are due in the office by noon on Tuesday, September 6th.

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3. The tentative date for the Fall Consortium Staff Meeting has been changed. The September 17th date was not working for a lot of you. We are now looking at early October either October 1st or 8th. If you prefer one over the other, please let me know. Barb

Note: You can click on the link below to go on-line and send your preferences or comments

http://www.marshalladulteducation.org/sign-up.html

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4. The September Class Schedule has been posted - click on the link below:

http://www.marshalladulteducation.org/marshall.htm

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5. To All Marshall Region Consortium Staff

Student Attendance/Level Change Incentive Policy

Effective: September 1, 2005

Effective September 1, 2005, the SW ABE – Marshall Region will adopt the following policy to address both the need to (1) retain students for at least 12 hours of attendance and (2) increase the number of students for which we can document a level change while at the same time providing a means for students to be more invested in assuring that this documentation takes place. Level changes are to be determined by the CASAS assessments. Instructors are asked to share this with each of their current students and upon registering new students.

POLICY: Any student who has participated in the SW ABE – Marshall Region’s program for a minimum of 12 hours and attains a level change will receive $5 in the form of community bucks from their local chamber of commerce. A student may receive this only once in the student contact reporting year (May 1st to April 30th). Upon receiving proper documentation, the office will send the $5 in community bucks to the student.

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6. From Gail Perrizo - Please let your adult students know that the Lyon County Chapter of Habitat for Humanity is accepting applications for housing. Applications and information can be obtained at Western Community Action. Please explain that even if one applied in a previous year and was turned down, they still can apply, because it opens up every year. Also, a new application needs to be filled out each year. To qualify, a family member must work and be able to make payments on the house. Those who are poor enough to qualify for welfare cannot apply for a Habitat house. The loan given is a NO INTEREST loan..

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7. From Pat: Below is a request from Gustavo to promote ECFE classes for our minority parents in Marshall. Please send me names and phone numbers of persons who would want to be contacted for these classes and I will share them with Gustavo

Hi Pat
Last week I talked with you about ECFE and me will be offering Parenting classes to Minority parents and kids. These classes will be in the same way that ECFE does regularly. One thing that will be different is that, those classes will be available interpretation and translation for Hmong, Somalia and Hispanic speaking. These classes will be offer during 4 weeks (one day at week) 2 hours each class. These classes will be offered Thursdays - October 27th, November 3rd, 10th and 17th. Those classes will be from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

I would like to see, if you can help us to get people from Somalia. People from the Literacy program that you were providing. If you can give me some names, address and phone where I can contact them. Thanks Pat and You have a good day.

Gustavo Estrada
507 537 7973

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8. Here is an invitation to the upcoming Nutrition Forum being held at the YMCA in Marshall. This will be an opportunity for us to hear from various state organizations on the potential cuts to the Federal Food Support program (Food Stamps). Click on the link below.

http://www.marshalladulteducation.org/nutrition_forum.htm

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9. Read the Marshall Independent article, "Sounds of East Africa" - a community event sponsored by Iftiin and Lutheran Social Services. It was a great celebration of music, dancing, food and fellowship.

http://www.marshalladulteducation.org/sounds_of_east_africa.htm

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10. United Ways Bring Imagination Library to Preschool Children

United Way of Kandiyohi County, headquartered in Willmar, and United Way of Southwest Minnesota, headquartered in Marshall, are sponsoring Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The program will provide access to books in the United Way’s respective service areas, and will inspire parents to read to their children as much as possible. Educators emphasize that reading with a preschool child is the single most important activity to prepare a child for school, according to information provided by United Way. Babies learn rapidly from the moment of birth. It is never too early for children to start learning.

For every child enrolled in the program from the day the child is born until his or her 5th birthday, a carefully selected book arrives in the mail to the child’s home. The books are age-appropriate and free for each child in the family.

For more information, to sign up a child, or to make a contribution to sponsor a child’s books for one year, contact:

United Way of Southwest Minnesota

PO Box 41

Marshall, MN 56258

507-929-2273

unitedwaylc@iw.net

United Way of Kandiyohi County

PO Box 895

Willmar, MN 56201

320-235-1050

stacey@unitedwaykc.org

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11. The 4th Annual Hmong Resource Fair is October 22nd. Click on the link below to read more about this event.

http://www.marshalladulteducation.org/hmong_resource_fair.htm

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12. Here are some excellent math websites put together by Cathie Glaeser on her classroom website
http://cg079.k12.sd.us/math%20sites.htm
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13. The non-confidential job postings that Job Service shares with us are posted on the ABE Website each week. Check them out here.
http://www.marshalladulteducation.org/job_listings.htm
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14. From the Trivia Department: No trivia this week - rather, here is the FEMA site with a list of agencies that seeks help to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina. Go on-line and click on your favorite agency and donate to this relief effort.

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18473

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15. Thought for the week: We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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16. TECH TIP: USB Memory Devices

You’ve heard a lot about those memory things that seem to be so popular today. They are used to save your data in much the same way as a floppy disk – what are they called?

Well – they actually have a variety of different names. They are sometimes called USB Jump drives, USB flash drives, USB memory sticks, USB removable drives, USB mini drives, USB Micro-mini drives, USB pen drives, USB thumb drives. There is even one called the Rist Memory Watch drive – it’s a real wrist watch that has a USB flash memory. Check it out here:

http://www.meritline.com/meritline-rist-watch-256-mb-ml-1393-a.html

Notice the common term used in all those names – USB. USB, which stands for Universal Serial Bus, is the way that all these memory devices plug into a computer. The USB connection, also called a port, is a rectangular shaped jack into which you plug a USB device.

Now, these USB ports began showing up in the backs of computers as early as 1996. And more recently – say the last couple years, the USB ports are in the front of computers – nice, very nice – no more digging around the back of the computer to plug in your USB memory device.

So here’s what’s good about a USB memory stick.

It’s fast – really fast.
It stores a lot of data. A 128 MB USB flash drive holds the same amount of data as 88 floppy drives – Wow!
It’s small – hardly any bigger than your thumb (hmm – so that’s why people call them thumb drives).
It’s reliable – they don’t break – or lose data like floppy disks.
And now the best reason – they’re CHEAP! A 128 MB jump drive at Wal-Mart will set you back around 17 bucks (at least, that is their on-line price).

And one more good thing. USB flash drives are hot swappable. That means, you can plug them in without shutting down the computer and restarting. Your computer will recognize the USB drive the second you put it in. You can also disconnect them by ejecting them in the Task Bar. The older style parallel ports, serial ports, or PS/2 ports are not hot swappable and do require restarts when plugging in to them

USB memory drives come in a variety of sizes. There are the 128 MB, the 256 MB, the 512 MB and the 1 GB (which is 1000 MB). So which one should you get? Well, if you do a lot of computing, and you are working on large projects, and you frequently carry data back and forth to different computers or you just want to back up a lot of important information easily, go for a bigger one – the 256 or the 512.

A couple years ago, they improved USB by coming out with USB 2.0 – sometimes called high speed USB. If your computer is more than 2 years old, you probably have USB 1.0 (or 1.1). Don’t worry – if you buy a USB memory stick and it says 2.0 on the package, it will work in a computer with USB 1.0 (or 1.1). And vice-versa. That’s nice.

Here is Wal-Mart's assortment of USB flash drives – there are 69 to choose from.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/search-ng.gsp?search_constraint=0&search_query=flash+drive&ics=20&ico=0

So which brand name should you buy? I don’t think it makes any difference. USB flash drive technology has been finely developed and all manufacturers adhere to the same specifications. You should buy the cheapest one that fits your size requirements.

Here is a nice FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) all about USB flash drives if you want more information.

http://www.usbflashdrive.org/usbfd_faq.html

That's it for this week.

Charles

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Marshall ABE Links

Southwest ABE - home page for Granite Falls, Jackson, Marshall, and Worthington consortiums.

http://southwestabe.org/

Marshall ABE Bookmarks - tons of cool bookmarks - educational and non-educational
http://ikeepbookmarks.com/marshallabe

Tech Tips - Read new and old Tech Tips here.

http://www.marshalladulteducation.org/techtips.htm

Reading Skills for Today's Adults - new stories posted regularly

http://www.marshalladulteducation.org/reading_skills.htm

Announcements - Weekly announcements are posted here each week on Friday.

http://www.marshalladulteducation.org/announcements.htm