Lessons from these Examples
These examples demonstrate some principles and lead into some broader questions.

• Don't make assumptions about capabilities of learners, for example, that people with limited literacy cannot use new technologies.
  
  
• Are nonformal uses of technology more appropriately tailored for women because women are more likely to be making the decisions in these settings?
  
  
• Certain technologies can increase the participation of women. Courses that use e-mail or newsgroups discussion groups allow people to spend time "prethinking" what they're going to say, to paraphrase one respondent, and they don't need to interrupt anyone to say it.
  
  
• Introduction of new technologies can raise questions about longstanding educational strategies and their effectiveness. For example, using a lecture format is not usually effective in conferencing technologies, "So like how effective was lecturing beforehand?"

Following the Good Examples
Proponents of new technologies often put their "best cases" forward to demonstrate the value and viability of a particular application. It is useful to follow up these examples after the spotlight has faded to determine how well they continue to meet their initial promise. Criteria that can be applied to cases to determine whether they are, in fact, good examples are:

• Does it continue to demonstrate an appropriate use of technology, meeting context, content and the needs of learners?
  
  
• Does it continue to be a genuine improvement in providing access to learning and/or quality of learning?
  
  
• Is it sustainable, in that it continues to be affordable and manageable after the initial start-up phase?
  
  
• Is the technology sufficiently robust in durability and continuity (vs. continual updates, changes, obsolescence) ?
  
  
• Are there trade-offs in this example? For example, are there some "winners" in terms of increased access, but some losers, in terms of increased cost?
  
  
• Is this example a model that can be applied to other contexts, especially related to women's learning?

One would hope that examples that demonstrate effective use of new learning technologies, especially for those who have previously had limited access to learning, will influence the criteria for funding projects. This does not seem to be the case so far.

Industry Canada sponsors programs such as Technology and Applications Development (TAD), which provide up to 50% of the cost, to a maximum of $1 million, to stimulate innovative research and development of networking projects and applications for the marketplace in healthcare, education and lifelong learning. But in the promotional materials for TAD there is no mention of women or other disadvantaged groups. In fact, these references are conspicuous by their absence. This is not to say that women need not apply, but that it is not an inviting environment.