h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry, I never took any philosophy courses. Did I miss anything?

Later in life, I learned some philosophy from Monty Python:



Emanuel Kant was a real pissant,
Who was very rarely stable.
Martin Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.

Sorry to butt in to your conversation, but I was curious... Has anyone who has actually taken the ECDL out there actually found it useful in any way?

The reason I ask is that a friend in the UK asked me about it a while ago - and whether it really was Europe-wide - and when I looked around a bit I found their French website - which has got to be the worst 'professional' website I've ever seen... Most of the users of this site could produce a better designed site - so if the organisation can't even produce a reasonably looking website - what's the point of the course?

It seems to me to be a course designed to get people up to a basic skill level, especially those who haven't used computers or used them much before.

Ca ne va pas.

I think I'll skip the whole thing. I should not be operating heavy machinery anyway. Computers are heavy machines, aren't they?

My experience of the ones in Canada is that they were mostly make-work projects for those who were already in the workforce as opposed to actually stimulating the economy so that people could have real jobs. It may be useful, but I would look into it carefully. IT is probably something you would want to get some paper behind, but the right kind of paper: something that will a) get you a job that pays a living wage and b) something that will get you enough knowledge to move beyond that job in a couple of years. As opposed to building you a bigger and better trap.

Phil's right, the ECDL course is designed to give basic instruction in the most common applications and also to give a very rudimentary knowledge of computing.

I was asked to evaluate - by sitting - the course when I worked for the NHS as part of their drive to get all employees able to use a computer.

As I've already said, I didn't actually 'do' the course, just sat the exams (and passed them all with distinction) .

It looks good on the CV and can impress employers who are not them selves very computer literate. It is however self-limiting due to it being so very basic.

At the risk of being , quite a few of the IT specialists I've worked with over the years aren't too knowledgeable when it comes to applications like Access & even Excel and Powerpoint and the ECDL does show that you can create and maintain a database, create a simple spreadsheet and animate a presentation. All these are skills needed in many jobs these days.

I know it's pretty basic, so I hope I can get through it in a short length of time. Besides, I am learning stuff - today I did Mail Merge in Word, which I'd never come across before.

Also, I know it wasn't on the course, but I messed about with Microsoft's Equation Editor (3.0) for a bit. It does seem about as bad as everyone says it is. True it's instantly accessible, unlike the mathematicians' favourite TeX, but it's time consuming (click button, select integration symbol, type x, click button, select superscript, type 2, etc. versus type \int x^2 dx) and the maths just doesn't look very good.

There must be some keyboard shortcuts!

Well keep us posted Bagpus. I gather you are already in the course? Who can be in the course btw? Be careful; the last course I took like that (digital multimedia), I started smoking again and got hooked up to some truly weird people. I've stopped smoking now and de-hooked btw. Ani.

Anyone can sign up, Ani. I did get told that it might be best to have done something called CLAIT first, but I can only assume that CLAIT tells you which way up the mouse goes, because if you've used a computer before you can do ECDL.

Granny - Okay, turns out there were shortcut keys, but I'm sticking to the "looks cack" complaint. Besides, ^ is still easier than Ctrl+h.