David, Bruce and others 
Happy New Year to everyone 
this is an Auistralian online banking resource. Obviously the banking system will be different but it will serve as a useful model for someone in the US to develop your own resource.
http://www.onlinebanking.org.au/
 
I was interested in what Bruce said about his Russian students and learing English through online trading sites 
Certainly we have had a lot of success wirth that in one of the programmes where I work. We had an ESB client who was only really motivated to read because he did up old engines and he was told he could buy parts for them online through NZ's biggest online shopping site Trademe. 
So we went through the process of teaching Graeme the layout of the website - the various symbols and what they meant, how to use the search engine etc as well as consumer law which has led to him now using the Internet to order parts for some obscure pump he is restoring as well as write emails complaining about goods etc. Graeme would have not done this in any conventional sense but the online shopping site has changed his view of reading and certainly led to improvements in his reading abilities in these contexts. 
 
Susan Reid 
Manager, Consultancy Services 
Workbase New Zealand Centre for Workforce Literacy,
www.workbase.org.nz
www.nzliteracyportal.org.nz
 

________________________________

From: technology-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of David Rosen
Sent: Wed 4/01/2006 8:30 a.m.
To: The Technology and Literacy Discussion List
Subject: [Technology] Internet Use from Home, Simulations



Bruce and others,

You mentioned that a simulation to teach online banking and shopping 
might be valuable.  I agree, and think simulations have a lot of 
potential in adult literacy education. If Technology e-list 
subscribers will e-mail me or post to the list some of their favorite 
simulations I will compile these and add a section on simulations to 
the Literacy list. ( http://alri.org/literacylist.html )

Bruce, what % of your students (by gender) have access to the 
Internet from home? Of these, what % use e-mail?  What % use Internet 
telephony? What trends do you see in access and use of the Internet 
from home?  More ESL/ELL students getting access from home? More 
using e-mail? More using Internet telephony? Or something else?

How about other teachers on this list?  have you surveyed your 
students? What trends are you seeing? Are there differences between 
ELL and ABE students?

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net



On Jan 3, 2006, at 2:10 PM, Bruce Moon wrote:


> I suspect that the nature of the Internet and the abuses of it may 

> have

> already skewed what we teach. I doubt if very many of us are going 

> to teach

> our students how to download music or use a chat room.  Because it 

> involves

> setting up an account and submitting personal information, we 

> probably won't

> be teaching students to use auctions either. Perhaps we do need to 

> examine

> our teaching, though, to make sure that we don't direct our 

> teaching in just

> the way that we use the Internet. Here I am thinking of how elementary

> school teachers tend to teach fiction books when boys are 

> interested in

> non-fiction, perhaps unknowingly transmitting the idea that reading is

> "sissy stuff". If it there was a simulation to  teach online 

> banking and

> shopping, those might be valuable skills to teach our students of 

> both sexes

> to minimize the digital divide.

>       As a sidelight, I teach refugees from former Soviet Union countries.

> Sometimes within days of entry, the men in the men who are online 

> searching

> auto auction sites. Within their community, there is a network of 

> workers

> who can take a damaged auto and make it look like new. They are 

> looking for

> just the right car to take to their family friends. I drive a 1991 

> Toyota

> pickup; all of my students drive 21st century cars.

>       Thinking about my students, I don't think that the stereotypes

> necessarily apply as they are driven by their needs as newcomers 

> who want to

> continue their connections with their homeland. E-mail to friends 

> back home

> seems to be equally used by both. Both men and women like to 

> download music

> from "home". First language news sites are also popular, perhaps 

> more with

> the men. And a few of the  more net savvy of both sexes find the first

> language java chat sites that the school's proxy hasn't been able 

> to block.

> Bruce Moon

> Adult ESL educator

> Rio Linda, CA

>

>

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> National Insitute for Literacy

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