Computer Caper

This is a follow-up to a previous post found here.

So this coming year I will be teaching computers, and because I truly do not like re-inventing the wheel, I thought I would look online for material.

To be perfectly honest, I was not expecting a lot.  I tend to find pieces/parts of things I like but it is rare indeed for me to settle onto a single item and declare it “good”.

So, you need to keep that in mind when I say I found a FANTASTIC computer literacy program!

Here’s the address:  http://www.jegsworks.com/Lessons/index.html

Please note, you can do the class on-line for FREE!

(For my class though, we will purchase teacher/student licenses, as I can too easily see kids saying, “Mrs. Christine our internet died and I couldn’t do my homework.”)

Now, in reference to my prior post. . .this online class far surpasses the college level computer technology course my son took!  I still have his books that he purchased for that course – for well over $100, that the college wouldn’t accept back – and they far exceed the material in there.  I have the memories of his gripes from that class because he said he didn’t learn anything that he didn’t already know. . .except for the computer tests that they took were so limited that if it asked you to copy and paste an item it would only take one of the multiple ways you could answer the question, and that was always a crap-shoot.

So, let’s think about that.

Cost for class at local college:  $366.  Cost for books:  @ $150 — we’ll just round it to $500 for a sub-par course. (per student)

OR $30 for teacher license and $5 per student license for a brilliant course.

Which makes you wonder at the amount we are paying for a piece of paper rather than for the actual knowledge gained. . .

Now, this course is from a “Windows” point-of-view.  However, you can certainly apply a good portion of it to Macs as well (and for Windows users you needn’t have a very specific OS or Office version).

Oh, and I will say the one thing I have currently found this course “lacking in” is teaching “internet safety”.  (It does discuss worms / Trojans / malware, etc. Yet, I was hoping for something more.)

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Too bad I can’t say the same about economics.

The one thing I can say about economics is that it seems as if there must be some unwritten law that all economics text producers adhere to.  Somewhere in the preface or forward of every text you will find some statement akin to, “Welcome to the exciting study of economics; it is not as dull as you may fear.”

Yet, the very first chapter of each book though will have you so thoroughly bored to tears that you will very quickly come to the conclusion that these authors are seriously warped.

*sigh*