This is an encompassing review that addresses all aspects ofliteracy (reading, numeracy, and technological literacy, forexample) with a global perspective. It connects the objectives ofliteracy education with broader areas of social welfare, includinghealth, employment and political and economic empowerment. The second volume in a new annual series, this unique publicationfor practitioners in the field of adult learning and literacycollects in one yearly volume the best new knowledge and practiceadvances identified by the prestigious, Harvard-based andfederally-funded literacy center, NCSALL. A single, "user-friendly"source for information on best practices in the field of adultlearning & literacy. The editors' introduction in each volume covers news from the worldof policy and research, while six distinguished writers andpractitioners contribute articles on the most pressing topics inadult literacy. Each volume also includes annotated reviews of thebest books and key journal articles published in the past year.

Innovative Techniques in Instruction Technology, E-Learning, E-Assessment and Education is a collection of world-class paper articles addressing the following topics: (1) E-Learning including development of courses and systems for technical and liberal studies programs; online laboratories; intelligent testing using fuzzy logic; evaluation of on line courses in comparison to traditional courses; mediation in virtual environments; and methods for speaker verification. (2) Instruction Technology including internet textbooks; pedagogy-oriented markup languages; graphic design possibilities; open source classroom management software; automatic email response systems; tablet-pcs; personalization using web mining technology; intelligent digital chalkboards; virtual room concepts for cooperative scientific work; and network technologies, management, and architecture. (3) Science and Engineering Research Assessment Methods including assessment of K-12 and university level programs; adaptive assessments; auto assessments; assessment of virtual environments and e-learning. (4) Engineering and Technical Education including cap stone and case study course design; virtual laboratories; bioinformatics; robotics; metallurgy; building information modeling; statistical mechanics; thermodynamics; information technology; occupational stress and stress prevention; web enhanced courses; and promoting engineering careers. (5) Pedagogy including benchmarking; group-learning; active learning; teaching of multiple subjects together; ontology; and knowledge representation. (6) Issues in K-12 Education including 3D virtual learning environment for children; e-learning tools for children; game playing and systems thinking; and tools to learn how to write foreign languages.