Top researchers, administrators and practitioners from North America and Great Britain will address ways to fight illiteracy using the Internet, interactive multimedia CD-ROMs and other innovative technologies. Georgia has more low-level readers than the neighboring states of Alabama and South Carolina. Most of the participants are adults reading below a sixth grade level. Classrooms are equipped with television monitors, satellite receivers and a telephone. Each classroom is managed by a trained facilitator who supplements the broadcast and interacts with the students.
Students have access to both the on-site instructor as well as the television instructors.
Students have the use of a toll free number to ask questions, give responses to aired activities and to interact with on-air teachers. Call-ins are heard across the state. According to the February 1995 edition of the Education Journal, this type of distance learning reduces the sense of isolation often experienced by low-level readers. Students bond with one another, realizing that they are not alone in their struggle, and there are many other non-readers in Georgia. Tech's literacy program focuses on reading, writing and critical thinking.