Letter to Software Developers
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July 9, 1998

Dear ESL Software Developer,

Presently, a team at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is updating the Annotated Inventory of ESL Computer Resources (for adult learners), a project we are doing for Citizenship and Immigration Canada. I invite you to explore our web site at <http://207.236.117.20/orlac. Please search the on-line database for reviews of your ESL software. If we have not reviewed your software, I invite you to submit it to us.

This inventory, which currently has 264 software/web site reviews, has been demonstrated at TESL conferences in Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa. Over three-hundred copies of the database (in FileMaker Pro format) have been distributed to ESL sites across Canada. Already we have one of the most complete databases of ESL computer resources on the web and, as it continues to grow, it will attract the attention of ESL professionals, both inside and outside Canada. Teachers and administrators who have used the Annotated Inventory have found it to be quite useful. Feedback, such as reviews in TESL journals, have been very positive about the inventory.

At this juncture, I invite you to submit any products which you would like to be given consideration for review in the inventory. Please remember, that this is an inventory of ESL products for adult learners. It should also be noted that because of the formidable review process, we generally require full working versions of software - and not demo versions. A description of the review process, which includes assessment using students and the Canadian Language Benchmarks, is also available at our web site.

Please send your software to my attention at:

ESL Software Inventory
LBS/ABE/LINC
Rm. 302
300 Rochester Street
Ottawa, Ontario CANADA
K1R 7N4

If you are sending software from outside Canada, please specify that your shipment contains materials for review purposes with a declared value under $10.00 CDN. This will expedite the shipping process - and allow us to receive your package without excise taxes and duties.(It will also eliminate the risk of the software being returned to you due to these excise costs.)

As we do not have a budget to purchase software for this project, software will be returned to you should you request this on your shipping invoice. Also, be sure to include ordering information and a brief product description, which we may use in the inventory to describe the product. You could also include a company logo in JPEG or GIF format for inclusion in the web database.

For further information, you could contact me via email, or Kevin O'Brien, the project coordinator, at (613) 239-2656.

Sincerely,

Jim Edgar
jim_edgar@ocdsb.edu.on.ca

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