Numeracy and Arts & Crafts

I've been making 3D felt pieces for my City & Guilds Diploma in Stitched Textiles and yesterday set myself the task of making a felt hat that fitted me. My numeracy skills were put to the test!

Measuring around my head was straight forward enough. Then I had to measure over the top of my head from the same points, divide the head circumference in two, half the measurement of over the top of the head, allowing for shrinkage add 50% ....... and so on! (This isn't intended to be instructions on how to make a felt hat!)

(My hand writing will be a lot neater when this is a teaching resource!)

I reflected on the numeracy skills I was using and how I would input these skills when teaching. I tend to use metric rather than imperial measurements, I'd need to know which measurements each learner was most comfortable with. I'd need to have an idea of their numeracy skills. During initial assessment I'd need to ascertain their numeracy skills. Do other tutors have ideas to share on how to find out what numeracy skills learners have, in an interesting and fairly brief way?

I'd really enjoy a discussion on this.

My own numeracy skills have been put to the test and I'm pleased to say my hat fits very well!

Now here's an interesting challenge!

One of the blogs I follow is Jane Hart's Elearning pick of the day. Although the sites she highlights are sometimes of no interest to me, more often they fall into the "could be worth bookmarking" category. Then, every so often, she adds a link to one which is right up my street.

Like today.

The 140 University delivers learning in regular nuggets of 140 words, by means of Twitter or Facebook. There is a variety of subjects to sign up for and the material is archived to review later.

I'm not a Twitterer and not really a fan of Facebook either (though I have accounts for and have used both), but this could be something I'd like to take advantage of and I might well sign up to see what's what. It's also got me wondering how we might use this idea and take it further. Any ideas? Do share them here, in the comments!