Improving workplace literacy in Alabama—proposal for a telecommunications network

PROBLEM Thirteen percent of the population in the United States is functionally illiterate and many businesses are not able to operate successfully due to a lack of literate workers. In comparison to other regions of the country, the South has the highest proportion of functional illiterates and traditional educational schemes do not seem to improve the situation. A low level of literacy has been identified as a particular problem in the fields of banking, data processing, and telecommunications industry. OBJECTIVE OF PROPOSAL The objective of the proposed network is to improve the literacy rate/level of the workers in Alabama using computer and telecommunications technology. In particular, for the state of Alabama, we recommend developing application systems running on an ALabama Literacy TElecommunicetions Network (ALLTEN), that can connect workplaces having concentrations of semi-literate and illiterate workers to regional and central nodes (Universities). Using this network, knowledge transfer (via voice, data, and video) can take place between Universities and businesses with subject workers.----------------------------------Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copie« are not made or distributed for direct com­ mercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and tire title of the publication and its date appear, and notice Is given that copying is by permission of tlte Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific per­ mission. © 1990 ACM 0-P979I-356-G/90AV400/OIR1 $1.50 APPLICATIONS The application programs that are provided using this network are expected to help' workers learn survival skills, improve problem solving skills, improve organizational skills, and learn technical vocabulary. These important skills are needed by many adult workers in their Job environment. But, traditional adult educational programs are structured similar to elementary school programs, and do not address these needs. ALLTEN is expected to fill this gap since the applications supported by ALLTEN can be changed quickly depending on the response of the workers. The application programs of ALLTEN would be based on the software and workstations developed in programs such as ICON (developed by UNISYS) and PALS (developed by IBM). These vendor systems are being evaluated to identify the benefits they can provide to these students. New software may be developed during the project to fulfill the obj ectives. The ALLTEN network would be built using existing and new networks. New networks would be designed and leased to connect the central to the regional nodes. No longer should relative isolation from urban centers be an obstacle to obtaining needed help for these workers. Telecommunications could be used to overcome this isolation and thus, this project could significantly impact the standard of living and economic development of Alabama.