Retooling the American Workforce: The Role of Technology in Improving Adult Literacy during the 1990s. Background Paper Prepared for Project on Adult Literacy

• Main Author: Packer, Arnold H
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: The Project on Adult Literacy, Suite 415 01.12.1988
• Subjects: Adult Basic Education; Adult Literacy; Computer Assisted Instruction; Cost Effectiveness; Delivery Systems; Educational Change; Educational Technology; Federal Government; Futures (of Society); Government Role; Literacy Education; Microcomputers; Program Costs; Program Improvement; Workplace Literacy

An estimated 25 million American workers will need to upgrade their skills during the 1990s if the U.S. economy is to stay competitive. The contribution of computers and electronic technology to productivity in education still remains to be proved. In the 1990s, technology for adult basic skills training will mean interactivity, multimedia, and sufficient record keeping so as to improve instructional methodology. Without appropriate courseware to provide specified upgrading of skills, electronic technology is useless. When selecting educational technology to use in workplace literacy programs, directors must consider the size and expected life of the program, the leadership strategy adopted, and the resultant per-unit cost of instruction. Workplace literacy programs should be designed around a flexible technology-based system that would allow course materials to be "transportable" across different hardware systems and that would give providers the flexibility to invest in technology and use it to serve clients from different programs in the same class. It has been projected that a total investment of about $3.5 billion could serve 25 million workplace learners over the next decade. (An appendix discusses how much technology can cost while still resulting in cost savings for a course.) (MN)