Glossary

A

adult

in education and in the Skills for Life strategy, adults include all learners over the age of 16; outside education, 18 years old can be a benchmark for adulthood since many activities, such as voting, become legal.

assessment

a process designed to obtain accurate information about learners' performance, potential and achievements using a variety of methods.

B

basic skills

the ability to read, write and speak in English and to use mathematics at a level necessary to function at work and in society in general (from A Fresh Start).

blind

unable to perform any work for which eyesight is essential.

Braille

the most commonly used tactile code using patterns of raised dots to represent letters and numbers, which can be read by touch. There are two forms of Braille: Grade 1, a letter-by-letter transcription, and Grade 2, which uses contracted letter and word signs.

browser

software used for looking at the internet. Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator are two examples.

BSL

British Sign Language: a visual-spatial language used by the British deaf community. The grammar is completely different from standard English.

C

chat

service allows visitors to communicate in real time in a chat room (a special window on a webpage). Text typed in this window is instantly visible to other people in the room at the time.

CD-ROM

an acronym for compact disc read only memory.

client

an IT term for hardware or software that connects to a server. A client is the source of the request - a server tries to satisfy the request.

context

the non-linguistic situation in which spoken or written language is used.

curriculum

a course of study, for example at a school, centre, university; the subjects making up such a course.

D

deaf

deaf people are often unable to communicate directly with hearing people without an interpreter. If they have been deaf from a young age they are most likely to be users of BSL (see above).

decode

to translate the visual code of letters into a word.

disability

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 defines a disabled person as someone who has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

dyslexia

derived from Greek: dys meaning difficult and lexia from lexikos, which means pertaining to words, Dyslexia means a difficulty with words, either seen, heard, spoken or felt, as in writing. In 1970, Dr Julian Critchley referred to it as 'a veritable syndrome of language-impairments'. Dyslexia can be seen as a difficulty with automatic language processing affecting people in reading, spelling and writing, and a difference in cognitive style, which affects learning, organisation and memory. (Demystifying Dyslexia: Raising awareness and developing support for dyslexic young people and adults (1995), Krupska, M., Klein, C.)

E

e-mail

electronic mail.

H

http

hypertext transfer protocol. The technology that lets computers support hypertext.

hypertext

text or graphic material stored in a machine-readable form and structured in such a way that a reader can cross-refer between related items of information.

I

ICT

information and communication technology.

internet (the Net)

a network of computer networks and all the services provided on this network.

intranet

a network built using the technology of the internet (web pages, URLs, etc.), but with access limited to users from a particular organisation.

L

language experience approach

using the learner's own words and way of expressing themselves to help them develop literacy skills.

learner

in the context of this pack, a learner is any adult undergoing a programme of education or training in any context.

Learning and Skills Council

set up under the Learning and Skills Act, 2000. Responsible for post-16 education below higher education.

learning difficulty/disability

The White Paper Valuing People (March 2001) defines a learning disability as a significantly reduced ability to understand new or complex information, to learn new skills (impaired intelligence), with a reduced ability to cope independently (impaired social functioning), which started before adulthood, with a lasting effect on development. The Learning and Skills Act 2000 states that a person has a learning difficulty if (a) he or she has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of persons of his/her age, or (b) he or she has a disability that either prevents or hinders him/her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided by institutions providing post-16 education or training. However, a person is not to be taken to have a learning difficulty solely because the language (or form of language) in which he or she is or will be taught is different from that which has been spoken in his/her home at any time.

learning plan

the output of initial assessment; sets out what the learner plans to learn, by when, and ways they will undertake the learning journey.

learning programme

an explanation of how the learning plan(s) will be implemented and the learning achieved; includes the curriculum and methods.

lesson plan

a plan for a learning session.

listserv

a mailing list service. A mailing list is a group of people with a common interest who communicate by sending emails to the list server (computer). The listserv software automatically sends each message to every member on the list.

M

minicam

(or webcam) a small video camera attached to a computer. Video images from the minicam can be transmitted across the Internet and watched on another computer.

mental health

psychological or psychosocial wellbeing.

Moon

a simpler form of tactile communication symbol than Braille, for use by visually impaired people.

P

partially sighted

substantially and permanently disabled by defective vision caused by congenital defect, illness or injury.

phonic

relating to vocal or speech sounds. Phonics is a method of teaching people to read and spell based on establishing the link between the sound of a word and its graphical representation.

physical

can take many different forms; impairment a disability that can be temporary or permanent, fluctuating or stable, affect only one part of the body or the whole body.

R

real time

'live' or happening instantaneously.

S

search engine

a website that is devoted to finding and cataloguing pages on the internet, allowing people to search for and find pages containing words that have some connection with what they are seeking. Some popular search engines are Yahoo, AltaVista and Excite.

self-advocacy

people with learning difficulties, and other people, advocating for their own needs rather than having their needs represented by others - for example, parents, teachers, social workers, doctors and so on.

server

a computer that provides a service to 'clients' over a network. A print server helps you to print. A file server lets clients store files and retrieves them on demand. Sometimes pieces of software are also called servers because they provide a service.

site

all the pages that make up the website for an organisation. The entry to a site is called the home page and is usually situated at the address www.XXXXXX.com for companies, www.XXXXXX.ac.uk for UK educational institutions, www.XXXXXX.org for nonprofit organisations, www.XXXXXX.gov.uk for UK government, and so on.

STT

speech-to-text software.

surf

to browse the internet looking for something interesting. It is often used to mean a more leisurely, unfocused use of the internet, rather than searching for specific information.

V

virtual

something that exists electronically rather than physically.

visual impairment

irretrievable sight loss.

W

web page

a page on a website.