How you set up your lab space, your hardware and your software will depend
on what you want to do with the lab. Based on our experience at The Write
Place, we recommend a process like the following:
- Set objectives
- Choose software to meet objectives
- Choose hardware based on requirements of chosen software
- Choose an Internet service provider
- Allocate and set up lab space
The Write Place Computer lab: a case
study
In this section we will examine each of these steps, using The Write Place
experience to illustrate.
1. Setting objectives
Objectives are set first because you will base your software choices on the
objectives of your project. Your objectives might be to provide students with
computers to practice skills like typing or math, or to provide students with
the opportunity to do word processing.
The P4 Literacy Project had the following stated objectives:
- To promote communication and mutual support between adult literacy
students.
- To provide access to that communication and support through the
Internet
- To produce written confirmation of skills learned and share
information with other literacy students in the form of an information booklet
(this document).
- To partner with Literacy BC and take a leadership role in
developing a conferencing chatline for students (the BC Literacy Network).
An additional objective that emerged as we worked on the project was to
provide students with basic computer skills, including word processing.
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