Improve Your Skills Anywhere, Anytime

TOWES is excited to launch Essential Skills Online (ESO) - a fully interactive learning tool that will improve the skills needed for success in training and the workplace.  Like TOWES, ESO learners assume the role of a worker who must solve a problem or complete a workplace task.  This scenario-based approach provides an engaging and practical learning environment for developing reading text, document use, and numeracy skill.  As one learner states, “ESO enables us to practice working with documents, as in real life situations.”
TOWES Essential Skills Online is effective at improving skills.  Preliminary national research found that:

• 45% of learners improved a full skill level after using TOWES ESO for about  5 hours;
• on average, learners increase by about 22 IALS points, with some learners improving over 125 IALS points; and,
• learners found TOWES ESO fun, easy to use, and helped them prepare for TOWES. 

TOWES Essential Skills Online is simple.  Users log on to the ESO website where they are directed through a series of lessons and exercises.  The learning management system tracks their progress and directs them to increasingly complex material as basic concepts are mastered.   Users are able to stop, start, pause, review or skip through the content to control the pace of their learning.  “The information is presented in a clear and comprehensible way … from simple to more difficult” said one user.  “The learning strategies are a very good tool.  ESO taught me to skim and scan the documents.”

TOWES Essential Skills Online provides affordable, accessible, and flexible learning.  Users may access the tool independently, or instructors and trainers can incorporate ESO into a classroom setting.  Along with ESO, instructors are provided with a comprehensive package of resources and authentic Canadian workplace materials which can be used to develop supplemental classroom activities.  Optional facilitator training and ongoing mentorship are also available.  One facilitator commented, “The strategies, vocabulary development, and reading attack skills taught in ESO were very useful.”

 ESO features:

• Comprehensive lessons in reading text, document use, and numeracy that range in difficulty from level one to level four;
• Interactive scenario-based practice exercise and continual feedback;
• A series of informal TOWES assessments and answer keys;
• Voiceover text audio to assist immigrants and lower-skilled users;
• A workbook containing user instructions and copies of all the workplace materials used in TOWES ESO;
• Optional access to a certified mentor who is able to provide support on the content; and
• Technical support

TOWES Essential Skills Online is available for purchase through your local TOWES distributor.  To see a Demo version of TOWES ESO click here or contact the TOWES department for more information at 403.410.3200 or toweseso@bowvalleycollege.ca.