Self-Directed Computer Training Project

The Working Centre

Published December 1999

Every day at The Working Centre people are learning about computers. Sometimes it’s someone who has never used a computer before. Some­times it’s someone who is learning a new formatting technique. Sometimes it’s someone who knows a lot about computers but is learning about how others learn about computers.

Everyone helps each other to learn. Some of the people who volunteer as computer support and many of the people who use our computers know a lot about computers. Their learning is self-taught. They don’t have a certifi­cate to prove this knowledge and ifs of­ten difficult to convince a potential em­ployer that they have this knowledge.

Getting this certification is some­times difficult —it requires an exten­sive loan for some or is completely out of reach for people who do not qualify for loans. In this spirit, we have decided to build on a project we are calling the Self-Directed Computer Training Project.

There are several steps in making this project a reality:

• Upgrading our computer hardware

• Upgrading our computer software

• Registering as a Certified Testing Centre with Microsoft and Corel

• Purchasing self-directed tutorial software to encourage this atmos­phere of self-directed learning

• Designing a way for people to ac­cess this training and testing ca­pacity during times the Centre is traditionally closed when comput­ers would otherwise sit idle.

Our plans are to offer the training time free with a small cost for testing to cover our direct cost to Microsoft or Corel.

We have been very pleased with the support for this project from:

Human Resources Development Canada, which has provided us with a worker for 10 weeks to do computer work and a grant towards purchasing the necessary hardware and software;

Waterloo Region Catholic Com­munity Foundation, which has pro­vided a grant towards purchasing self-directed software that will guide peo­ple through computer basics and key­boarding, all the way to the MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engi­neer) designation.

We are hoping this project is ready to begin by January 2000. Give us a month to get things stated and come by if you’re interested.