graphic header: CONNECT - Canada's Resource Publication on Technology & Adult Literacy
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 5 JUNE/JULY 2003

Building Learning Webs –
A Decade or Two Later

BY MARTIN BUCK

“The alternative to dependence on schools is not the use of public resources for some new device which ‘makes’ people learn; rather it is the creation of a new style of educational relationship between man and his environment. To foster this style, attitudes toward growing up, the tools available for learning, and the quality and structure of daily life will have to change concurrently” (Ivan Illich, 1971).

For the last two decades I have been researching and implementing educational tools to improve the quality and structure of the learning experiences in my instructional practice. In the early 1980’s I brought an Apple IIe and educational software into my French 8–12 classrooms. In the late 80’s I piloted a Pathfinder Computer Managed Learning system in my college Adult Basic Education classroom. In the early 90’s, I completed a Masters in curriculum and design with a focus on the use of technology to assist adult upgrading learners.

The resulting thesis project hypothesized that adult educators could use the tools provided by the rapidly growing worldwide connection of communities called the Internet to support the development of independent, self-directed, lifelong learners (Buck, 1995). Furthermore, these tools could be harnessed to help the college develop partnerships with literacy learning communities to create for our learners and ourselves a “world made transparent by true communications webs” (Illich, 1971).

Inside this issue. . .

Learning with Side-Effects
Computer Guides

Software Reviews:
Reading & Writing for Life
Tap'Touche
Type & Talk

Navigating the Web:
TV411
The Study Place
Math Goodies
Grammar Practice
Many Things

Lesson Plans:
Using Tables
Page Setup
Resumes
Newsletters
Word Processing 9, 10
Handouts

Technical Tips:
Buying a Computer V

Tech. Literacy & The Matrix

Continued on page 2...

CONNECT Launches a New Website

We are happy to announce the launch of a new and improved CONNECT website. With the assistance of the National Adult Literacy Database we are now able to provide readers with easy access to over two hundred articles contained in previous issues of CONNECT.

Our website continues to provide readers with a freely accessible online version of CONNECT. You can peruse all of the 5 volumes of CONNECT in our online archive.

The newest feature of our website is a search tool that allows you to quickly select articles of interest to you. Articles can be selected based on title, date, author, keyword or subject. We often receive questions about what software we would recommend. You can now find a list of the software we have reviewed by doing a search based on the subject “Software Reviews”. This feature is available for our website reviews, lesson plans and technical tips articles. To visit our website, go to www.nald.ca and click on CONNECT. We’re in the bottom left corner.

As we wrap up this volume of CONNECT, I’d also like to take time to thank all the people who have helped to make this publication possible. Thank you to our funders, the National Literacy Secretariat, the National Adult Literacy Database for their web services, our Advisory Committee members, our contributing writers and our staff at the Ottawa- Carleton District School Board. All of your hard work was much appreciated and we couldn’t have done it without you!            Diane McCargar, Editor

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