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Sep. 18th, 2007 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eiffel_71Started ECDL tonight. While we were waiting in the foyer for our tutor to take us over to the IT block, a familiar face appeared - Jackie, who'd been on my CLAIT course last year. As she'd struggled for a while on the CLAIT, I said to her "You got in, then?" but she replied that she wasn't doing the book-keeping course she'd planned to. She asked what I was doing and I said ECDL, expecting her to be on the same course, but she was doing Maths and English.
No-one else from the old gang was doing the ECDL. Our little band of fourteen included a pleasant middle-aged husband and wife, and a couple of unemployed young men who seem to be real 'lads'; the rest are women of varying ages, but I didn't get to say much except hello and, at the end, goodbye to anybody, because our tutor, Pathenia, made it clear early on that she doesn't believe in coffee breaks. We're to work for two and a half hours without a break. Gulp.
At least tonight the first hour was taken up with Pathenia giving us an introductory talk about herself and the structure of the course. She handed out a calendar with a guide on how we should progress through the modules. I immediately noticed that we have a class on 18 December after all. Bye bye Pogues. The next shock was that we all have to supply our own memory sticks, so I have to buy one by next Tuesday. With the state of my finances, and a dentist's bill imminent next week, I've been reduced to crawling to my mother for a loan until pay day to buy the stick.
When Pathenia asked who among us had done the CLAIT, mine was the only hand to go up. So I could have done the ECDL from scratch last year after all. But I think having that knowledge is going to help on this course.
But when we got down to work it was painless. We're starting with word processing, and the exercises were all familiar stuff, though from the handouts I learned a couple of handy tricks I hadn't known before.
Just been on Amazon and found a used good-condition copy of the course book going for £16.50 including postage and packing. Kushti.
No-one else from the old gang was doing the ECDL. Our little band of fourteen included a pleasant middle-aged husband and wife, and a couple of unemployed young men who seem to be real 'lads'; the rest are women of varying ages, but I didn't get to say much except hello and, at the end, goodbye to anybody, because our tutor, Pathenia, made it clear early on that she doesn't believe in coffee breaks. We're to work for two and a half hours without a break. Gulp.
At least tonight the first hour was taken up with Pathenia giving us an introductory talk about herself and the structure of the course. She handed out a calendar with a guide on how we should progress through the modules. I immediately noticed that we have a class on 18 December after all. Bye bye Pogues. The next shock was that we all have to supply our own memory sticks, so I have to buy one by next Tuesday. With the state of my finances, and a dentist's bill imminent next week, I've been reduced to crawling to my mother for a loan until pay day to buy the stick.
When Pathenia asked who among us had done the CLAIT, mine was the only hand to go up. So I could have done the ECDL from scratch last year after all. But I think having that knowledge is going to help on this course.
But when we got down to work it was painless. We're starting with word processing, and the exercises were all familiar stuff, though from the handouts I learned a couple of handy tricks I hadn't known before.
Just been on Amazon and found a used good-condition copy of the course book going for £16.50 including postage and packing. Kushti.
