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I was at a cross-roads in my life, through poor judgements of my own I was expelled from
school. It was a very hard road.
All I was doing [was] just going to work, and work, work, work, every day. I wasn't
doing anything for my future. I was seeing all my friends going to college, going to
university, pursuing their dreams.
I would want to help with the development of computers for generations to come.
My ultimate goal is to be a nurse.
Frontier College is a national literacy organization. We deliver programs in all provinces across
Canada, and we work with volunteer tutors to work with our learners. And they estimate
that about forty percent of Canadians don't have the reading and writing skills to make
them really be succuessful in their lives, and they become more and more marginalized.
One of the things we struggled with at Frontier College is how to take literacy to the next
level, how to make sure that all Canadians have access to our services, because we are
big country and people are geographically isolated. So we went to our technology partners
Compugen and Microsoft.
The whole idea of creating the learning portal came out of a one-day brainstorming session
that we had with Frontier College and Microsoft, that led ultimately to the application for
the Unlimited Potential Grant, which gave us the resources we needed to complete the
It helps me capture opportunities that I would normally not have. Before, I would simply
not be able to reach a person who lived three or four hours outside of the city.
We can bring together tutors and learners from different parts of Canada.
I use Lync as if I were tutoring a person one on one. For me to be able to teach them
in person the one day, and flip over to the Lync System the next day. It means I reduce
the amount of time between when they have a problem and when I can help them fix it.
I would have to say that Lync definitely empowers youth in the classroom now, in the sense that
they don't physically have to be in the classroom in order to be "there".
Frontier College has really changed my life. Lync made it easier for the students to have
the connection between the tutor and the student.
This partnership with Microsoft and Compugen in the development of this tool [is] really
going to change the context of literacy being delivered in Canada.
The new technology allows youth to change their world.
It can lead to improved lives, new employment possibilities, a whole new world.
I completed my high school certification. I am currently a student at Centennial College
and I would have to say that it really turned my life around.
So, in September I'm going to be going to Centennial College for [the] practical nursing
program. I'm very excited, and I think I have what it takes to be a nurse.