Learn more about Bot-Reader!
Summer Burton • April 13, 2020
A new tool for online and distance literacy learners
Over the past year, Literacy Link South Central has been providing input on an application designed to help adult students with their literacy skills - specifically reading, pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary and word comprehension. The tool, called Bot-Reader, includes several key features of interest:
- Merge (Bot-Reader’s artificial being) supports and guides learners as they use the application. Merge listens, responds, offers challenges, and tracks the learner’s progress.
- The Bot-Library includes thousands of free books and articles, and allows both learners and practitioners to upload their own custom content.
- The dashboard allows practitioners to assign specific books or articles along with spelling, pronunciation, and comprehension tests to individual learners. Through the dashboard, they can also track learner progress and amount of time spent.
That leads us to the unique circumstances surrounding adult literacy in the age of COVID-19 and quarantines. We think that there may be an excellent opportunity for LBS programs to use the Bot-Reader to support distance learning during this time, and the developers agree. While there will be a cost associated with this tool when it is formally released to the public, they are offering it free-of-charge to LBS programs interested in using it with their learners from now through July 1, 2020. Details surrounding the cost of use in the long-term are still to be determined.
We would like to offer interested LBS program staff an opportunity to learn more about this application and hear feedback from those who used it during the pilot. To that end we have scheduled two online meetings where you can hear from the developers, watch a demo of the Bot-Reader, and ask questions. These meetings will be run on Wednesday April 22 at 3:00 pm , and Thursday April 23 at 10:00 am .
To ensure the security of these meetings, the links will not be posted publicly - if you would like to attend, please email us at literacylink@gmail.com to request the meeting link and password for either session.
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The Skills for Success are the nine skills the Canadian government has identified everyone needs to be successful in work, learning and life. Today we're continuing our look at the Skills for Success by talking about Writing . According to the Canadian government, writing is how we share information using written words, symbols, and images. For example, we use this skill to fill out forms and applications, and write emails, reports and social media posts. Learn more about writing and the other Skills for Success here , and think about the writing you do on an average day, from grocery lists to reminders to homework. If you'd like to build your reading, writing, creativity, problem solving, and other Skills for Success, Ontario's adult literacy programs offer free, individualized training that can help. Contact us to find a program in your area!
