I want to learn: Germany’s biggest e-learning portal for basic skills officially launched

Early school leavers prepare online for school leaving certificate
www.ich-will-lernen.de (I want to learn) is the new address for German speaking adults who want to catch up with their learning. In extension to the highly successful, award-winning German online learning portal ich-will-schreiben-lernen.de (I want to learn to write) for adult literacy learners, today ich-will-lernen.de was launched in Essen, Germany.

Welcome to the virtual learning centre: the start page of ich-will-lernen.de

Developed on behalf of the German Adult Education Association (Deutscher Volkshochschul-Verband, DVV) with funding by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, the online learning portal offers interactive learning material in two areas: basic education and the school leaving certificate.

The section for basic education offers interactive learning material for literacy and numeracy including all the established and familiar features of the acclaimed literacy system (comprehensive audio support, automatic feedback and additional help, individual learning file, online tutor support, learning material with reference to everyday and work life, newsfeed, and many more).

A new additional section offers scenario based learning units focusing on basic work skills (communication with colleagues and customers, task and time management, intercultural differences, and many more). Also new is the learning section for adults who are taking courses in preparation to obtain a school leaving certificate. They can access learning material for German, mathematics/arithmetic, English and also basic work skills.

Individual learning packages – automatic evaluation and tutor support
Learners access the portal at ich-will-lernen.de, decide in which area they want to learn, complete the initial assessment and get started. They receive daily learning packages, can play games, stay in touch with other learners and their tutor and much more.

New types of exercise New features include additional interactions. As a result the system now offers more than 60 exercise types.

New types of exercise

Accessible interface design New interfaces have been created to organise the learning material, reduce complexity and increase accessibility:

New interfaces have been created to organise the learning material,
reduce complexity and increase accessibility

In the section for the school leaving certificate, the complete curriculum for German (yellow), mathematics (green) and English (violet) is presented in the form of a board game. Thus learners always have a complete overview of the entire programme and can locate where they currently stand. Different token reflect the current stage of learners in the different areas. Learners have to complete each learning section – but they can leapfrog any exercises and access later learning units. (In contrast, learners in the basic skills section are presented with automatically assembled learning material based on their initial assessment and weekly results.)

The blue cards on the right offer learning units for basic work skills: communication with colleagues and customers, task and time management, how to deal with conflicts at work or intercultural differences. Learners can flip through the cards and access any topic they’re interested in.

Exercises are presented in this narrative context.
At the beginning of each learning chapter,

the background story is presented as an animation

Each learning chapter is based on a background story introducing a character in a work or life context. Exercises are presented in this narrative context. At the beginning of each learning chapter, the background story is presented as an animation (Image above).

Additional functions include audio supported chat and group chat, audio supported e-mail, games, an audio supported newsfeed and a vocabulary trainer (image below).


All in one: administration – content creation – online tuition – learning ich-will-lernen.de reflects a complex architecture which unites learner access, tutor support, content creation and user administration.

(image above) Four dimensions in one system: (from left to right) administration – content creation – learners management and tuition – learner access.

Background: More than 80.000 early school leavers per year
In Germany, there are more than 80,000 young adults who leave school without qualifications. For obvious reasons they have problems finding a job due to their lack of skills and qualification. But a school leaving certificate is no guarantee for a job. A growing number of graduates fail to meet the ever growing demands of the labour market. Employers complain that graduates perform poorly in basic competencies such as writing, calculating or basic skills, and lack the prerequisites to function at the workplace such as punctuality, reliability, accuracy, perseverance, communicating with colleagues, supervisors and customers and many more.

Adult education centres (Volkshochschulen) offer courses for literacy and numeracy (for German native speakers) as well as courses to prepare for exams for a school leaving certificate. Therefore, as the federal umbrella organisation of the Volkshochschulen, the German Adult Education Association successfully applied for governmental funding to develop the online learning system.

In 2003, the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research funded the initial development of ich-will-schreiben-lernen.de, the groundbreaking literacy online learning portal. Since launch in 2004, more than 120,000 learners have followed the online learning programme.

In 2005, the ministry extended funding to enable the expansion of the learning portal.
Thanks to the governmental funding, the use of the system is free of charge – for learners as well as for trainers. The project team at DVV provides support and training for interested trainers (also free of charge).

Further information:
The online learning portal at www.ich-will-lernen.de (German)

Information by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research on their Literacy programme (in English) at http://www.bmbf.de/en/426.php

Further information on the Avallain Basic Skills System at www.avallain.com/basicskills

Alphabund – based at UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning at Hamburg, Alphabund is the coordinating office for projects of the current literacy funding programme