Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibreOffice training in local community colleges
On Saturday 19 November 2011, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: Here is my thought. A certification course should/could be using some type of step by step training guide. Each section of that guide must be completed successfully before you can go on to the next section. Once you completed all the sections, you are given an exam. Completing the course and getting the required score on the exam should/could be the requirement for the certification. This seems reasonable for the certification part. But these community colleges do not usually provide any certificates to the students. Their purpose is to help people who want improve their skills in various areas (computing, languages, hobbies), not to provide any formal recognition. There are some exceptions but mostly people attend these courses just for fun and not for professional skills. My question was more about whether those who organise these courses need to be certified before we can list their courses in local LibreOffice event calendars etc. I'm definitely for requiring such certification from professional IT training companies. But community colleges seem to fall into complete different category and I have no idea on what to do with them. Harri -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to marketing+h...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibreOffice training in local community colleges
On 11/20/2011 08:02 AM, Harri Pitkänen wrote: On Saturday 19 November 2011, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: Here is my thought. A certification course should/could be using some type of step by step training guide. Each section of that guide must be completed successfully before you can go on to the next section. Once you completed all the sections, you are given an exam. Completing the course and getting the required score on the exam should/could be the requirement for the certification. This seems reasonable for the certification part. But these community colleges do not usually provide any certificates to the students. Their purpose is to help people who want improve their skills in various areas (computing, languages, hobbies), not to provide any formal recognition. There are some exceptions but mostly people attend these courses just for fun and not for professional skills. My question was more about whether those who organise these courses need to be certified before we can list their courses in local LibreOffice event calendars etc. I'm definitely for requiring such certification from professional IT training companies. But community colleges seem to fall into complete different category and I have no idea on what to do with them. Harri Well, the community college nearest my location is different. They offer several course structures that will prepare you for a certification. Both computer hardware and computer software types. Last time I looked, they had A+, CISCO, plus other groups of courses that would prepare you for different certification tests. They did not give the tests, but train your so you would be ready to take them. As for making sure the instructors were certified to teach the students, well, if you have a manual that gives the student the needed information to pass the test, then any professional who can teach should be able to help the students learn the needed information. Such a manual must have all the information, sample test questions, and practice exercises that will give the students the required hands-on skills. As for making the teachers be certified, well that is the chicken and the egg for you. How do the teachers learn the needed info to be certified when you must have a certification course be taught by a certified teacher? If the teacher is a professional, and has the skills to teach, then all we can do for the first few years is hope they teach the material correctly from the certification manual. After there have been a few certification classes, then we can require the teachers to have their certification. Maybe require the teacher to become certified with their class at the first testing opportunity after their class[s] finished the full course[s] of the preparation. I still think we need a class on each module of LibreOffice. Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, Math, and Macros in there somewhere. We could use the current documentation as the starting point for the preparation manuals. Then add sample questions [with answer keys], and practice exercises to work on those need hands-on skills. As a former Substitute teacher [3 years], and someone who has gone to college 4 times with 3 degrees, I do have some knowledge about what is needed to teach a class certification style of courses and creating the needed practice environment. I had to create the first network technology practice lab for my last college degree, for the professor before the first class ever started. He had the book skills and was a professional in the large-scale networking field, but he was not skilled in taking the scrap computers he was given and turn them into a working set of computers on a working network. So, I do know what it is like to have a instructor that does not have all of the skills to set up the course materials, but who could teach the course. As long as we give the instructors all the needed materials [PDF documents] to teach the material and practice what is taught, then we have done the hardest part of the work for them. Maybe someone should buy the certification books for MS's packages. See how they set up their certification courses. Also look into the other one that deal with software packages or technology certifications. They should know how to produce the needed instructional manuals. We can take their manuals as a guide to creating our manuals. This is a hard job. But if we get this right, then it will be easy for those who want/need certification to learn the needed material to pass the testing. Of course we could do something stupid like a job recruiter that required an individual have at least 10 years experience in computer languages from his list, when 2 on his list of 5 were not even beyond the developers' stage for more than 5 years. I actual saw an ad for such a requirements about 20 years ago. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibreOffice training in local community colleges
Good evening All, if i am not mistaken there is something similar to this for the EU on MS office with is ECDL (European Computer Driving license), do you think we could base it off to some what like the ECDL curriculum for the libreoffice modules? if so would it also be a good idea to ask for assistance by the EU? -- Warren Camilleri Founding Father Mobile: +356 7991 2004 Skype: ossmalta | Twitter: warren_oss Also a member of MLUG, The Document Foundation, Ubuntu Malta - Original Message - From: webmaster for Kracked Press Productions webmas...@krackedpress.com To: marketing@global.libreoffice.org Sent: Sunday, 20 November, 2011 4:07:37 PM Subject: Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibreOffice training in local community colleges On 11/20/2011 08:02 AM, Harri Pitkänen wrote: On Saturday 19 November 2011, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions wrote: Here is my thought. A certification course should/could be using some type of step by step training guide. Each section of that guide must be completed successfully before you can go on to the next section. Once you completed all the sections, you are given an exam. Completing the course and getting the required score on the exam should/could be the requirement for the certification. This seems reasonable for the certification part. But these community colleges do not usually provide any certificates to the students. Their purpose is to help people who want improve their skills in various areas (computing, languages, hobbies), not to provide any formal recognition. There are some exceptions but mostly people attend these courses just for fun and not for professional skills. My question was more about whether those who organise these courses need to be certified before we can list their courses in local LibreOffice event calendars etc. I'm definitely for requiring such certification from professional IT training companies. But community colleges seem to fall into complete different category and I have no idea on what to do with them. Harri Well, the community college nearest my location is different. They offer several course structures that will prepare you for a certification. Both computer hardware and computer software types. Last time I looked, they had A+, CISCO, plus other groups of courses that would prepare you for different certification tests. They did not give the tests, but train your so you would be ready to take them. As for making sure the instructors were certified to teach the students, well, if you have a manual that gives the student the needed information to pass the test, then any professional who can teach should be able to help the students learn the needed information. Such a manual must have all the information, sample test questions, and practice exercises that will give the students the required hands-on skills. As for making the teachers be certified, well that is the chicken and the egg for you. How do the teachers learn the needed info to be certified when you must have a certification course be taught by a certified teacher? If the teacher is a professional, and has the skills to teach, then all we can do for the first few years is hope they teach the material correctly from the certification manual. After there have been a few certification classes, then we can require the teachers to have their certification. Maybe require the teacher to become certified with their class at the first testing opportunity after their class[s] finished the full course[s] of the preparation. I still think we need a class on each module of LibreOffice. Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, Math, and Macros in there somewhere. We could use the current documentation as the starting point for the preparation manuals. Then add sample questions [with answer keys], and practice exercises to work on those need hands-on skills. As a former Substitute teacher [3 years], and someone who has gone to college 4 times with 3 degrees, I do have some knowledge about what is needed to teach a class certification style of courses and creating the needed practice environment. I had to create the first network technology practice lab for my last college degree, for the professor before the first class ever started. He had the book skills and was a professional in the large-scale networking field, but he was not skilled in taking the scrap computers he was given and turn them into a working set of computers on a working network. So, I do know what it is like to have a instructor that does not have all of the skills to set up the course materials, but who could teach the course. As long as we give the instructors all the needed materials [PDF documents] to teach the material and practice what is taught, then we have done the hardest part of the work for them. Maybe someone should buy the certification books for MS's packages. See how they set up
[libreoffice-marketing] LibreOffice training in local community colleges
Hi! I was wondering if it is appropriate to mention on our localized web sites or somewhere else any upcoming LibreOffice courses in local community colleges. In Finland the community college system is partially state funded and the actual colleges are usually operated either by local municipalities, non- profit organizations or in some cases for-profit groups. They are open to everyone and classes are usually held during evenings and weekends, allowing even those who have regular jobs to participate. The subjects range from computer skills to archeology and pottery making. During the past years Finnish community colleges have been quite active at offering basic computer skill courses using OpenOffice.org. I believe this has been good marketing for OOo, especially among the elderly people who quite often learn their computer skills on such courses. Now I see that some community colleges here have switched to LibreOffice which is of course great. There are participation fees to these courses but thanks to government funding they are often relatively low. One community college is offering a 12 hour LibreOffice course with 120 euro fee in April 2012. Another just finished a combined OOo/LibreOffice course, 12 hours with 35 euro fee. I know that there is a certification program coming and this kind of activity would most likely fall within it. But these community colleges could have hard time finding resources to participate in the certification programs at the same level as typical IT training companies since the companies collect much higher participation fees (typically around 1000 euros for courses with similar length). Community colleges often do not even have permanent teaching staff for their courses but just contract someone who happens to be available and has the sufficient skills. Should we take the difference in business models in account when we set up the rules for the training certification program? Or should we just exclude community colleges from the certification program and assume that the government supervision is enough to guarantee sufficient quality? Harri -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to marketing+h...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibreOffice training in local community colleges
On 11/19/2011 07:48 AM, Harri Pitkänen wrote: Hi! I was wondering if it is appropriate to mention on our localized web sites or somewhere else any upcoming LibreOffice courses in local community colleges. In Finland the community college system is partially state funded and the actual colleges are usually operated either by local municipalities, non- profit organizations or in some cases for-profit groups. They are open to everyone and classes are usually held during evenings and weekends, allowing even those who have regular jobs to participate. The subjects range from computer skills to archeology and pottery making. During the past years Finnish community colleges have been quite active at offering basic computer skill courses using OpenOffice.org. I believe this has been good marketing for OOo, especially among the elderly people who quite often learn their computer skills on such courses. Now I see that some community colleges here have switched to LibreOffice which is of course great. There are participation fees to these courses but thanks to government funding they are often relatively low. One community college is offering a 12 hour LibreOffice course with 120 euro fee in April 2012. Another just finished a combined OOo/LibreOffice course, 12 hours with 35 euro fee. I know that there is a certification program coming and this kind of activity would most likely fall within it. But these community colleges could have hard time finding resources to participate in the certification programs at the same level as typical IT training companies since the companies collect much higher participation fees (typically around 1000 euros for courses with similar length). Community colleges often do not even have permanent teaching staff for their courses but just contract someone who happens to be available and has the sufficient skills. Should we take the difference in business models in account when we set up the rules for the training certification program? Or should we just exclude community colleges from the certification program and assume that the government supervision is enough to guarantee sufficient quality? Harri Here is my thought. A certification course should/could be using some type of step by step training guide. Each section of that guide must be completed successfully before you can go on to the next section. Once you completed all the sections, you are given an exam. Completing the course and getting the required score on the exam should/could be the requirement for the certification. I needed to fill in some credits in college one semester and took a three part course. Part One was basic computer skills. Part Two was skills using Word. Part Three was skills using Excel. The LO certification would take each Module as a different section, or part, and deal with all the needed skills that the certification developers feel that is needed for proper use/skills for LO. I took a certification course in CISCO networks and they used a combination workbook and computer [online] based training and browser based testing. Then after you completed the course, you went to a testing place for certifications that was held twice a year. The exam was a flat fee, while each course at a college or training center had their own fee structure. That way you could either take the course with an instructor, or do it on your own. Then twice a year, the certification exam was held for every one. That type of course and exam structure seems to work for many different certifications. Or, it did when I was preparing to take some of these certifications. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to marketing+h...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
