From: Tim O'Donovan (tim.odonovan at domain sun.com)
Date: Fri 10 Aug 2001 - 11:53:51 IST
Paul McCourt wrote:
>
> On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 05:51:31PM -0400, Wesley Darlington mentioned:
> >Yeah. Everything about it annoys me, though - each of the words `computer',
> >`driving' and `licence' makes me grind my teeth in anger. `Computer'
> >because it's only about windows, word and excel (AIUI, in practice
> >at least), `driving' and `licence' because it isn't a darn licence
>
> Go easy now, ECDL unlike popular belief is not M$ cetric its actually
> generic enough to be used on any platform and any well capable word
> processer, spreadsheet, database, presentation package or internet browser.
> What happens is that the examiners/teachers decide what to use and what
> would be more saleable for the students. Bear in mind though that the
> students are mostly either 35+ or 18- who were dupped by the ESB into
> getting a 'Bargin' computer. These tests ensure that they see the
> functinality of the various applications. And to make them more sale-able
> out in the workplace they use the most comman office suite and most comman
> operating system that employers have. And best of all gets them actually
> using those machines instead of playing solitare.
>
My mother did the ECDL, and I had a look at the course book - She can
now
produce these brilliant presentations in powerpoint, write fancy letters
in
word, but she still has difficulty in renaming a file, finding a file -
all the simple stuff like directory navigation etc. There should be a
much
bigger emphasis on how to use the damn thing - and it's exclusivly
Windows
based, which isn't much good for the Linux cause. (although, I'd never
expose
a newbie to Linux...)
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