[Baynet] Infopeople's "The Savvy IT Consumer" online course

Wed Aug 8 11:50:22 PDT 2007

Since some people who may be interested in 
participating might not receive this notice 
directly, we would appreciate it if you would 
print and post or route this announcement to staff and colleagues. Thanks!

Title:  The Savvy IT Consumer (online learning course)

Date:  September 25, 2007 - October 22, 2007

To register for this workshop:  Use the online registration form at
http://infopeople.org/workshop/346

Fee: $75 for those in the California library 
community and $150 for those out-of-state.

It's 11 AM, and a frustrated five-year-old asks 
you to reboot game computer number three for the 
eighth time today. Every Internet-equipped 
terminal, including those for staff, is moving at 
a snail's pace and you don't know why. You've 
just received a heartrending email plea for 
assistance from a very nice-sounding gentleman in 
Nigeria and are unsure how to respond. You don't 
know the difference between RAM and hard drive 
space, but your manager expects you to keep an 
eye on available memory on all of the public 
computers. You wish you could get help, but you 
don't know where to look, and the thought of 
calling your software and hardware vendors induces a panic attack.

Welcome to being an IT person by default! This is 
a beginner-level course for library staff working 
as Jacks & Jills of all trades.

Workshop Description: This four-week online 
learning course will provide you with the basic 
technological know-how to understand and use 
computer jargon, free your library's computers 
from malicious software, fend off phishing 
attacks, and develop and maintain good 
relationships with vendors. The instructor will 
provide a comprehensive webliography, 
foundational readings, and exercises designed to 
assess and hone your ability to handle a variety of computer issues.

During the course, you will be doing exercises, 
taking quizzes, and building your own IT 
caretaker's toolkit. You will also participate in 
convivial online discussion forums as part of the online learning process.

Preliminary Course Outline: : Using your web 
browser and your Internet connection, you will 
log in to the Infopeople online learning site and 
complete the following learning modules:

Module One: Introduction and Basic Concepts
--IT is everyone's job
--Terminology and basic concepts
--Diagnosing large and small problems

Module Two: Things That Go Bump in Cyberspace: 
Spyware, Spam, Phishing, and Security Issues
--Know thy enemy: spyware and malware
--Identifying phishing attempts

Module Three: DIY Tech Support: Finding, 
Selecting, and Using Online Support Resources
--Get help without picking up the phone
--Choose the resources that are right for the problem at hand
--Keep track of resources

Module Four: Communicating with Vendors
--Making friends with your vendors
--Learning to speak knowledgeably with vendors

Instructor:  Sophie Brookover.  Sophie is a Youth 
Services Librarian and a self-taught, savvy IT 
consumer. She has 10 years of experience with 
learning by doing, from mastering Reveal Codes in 
WordPerfect for DOS in the early 1990s, to 
independently configuring her laptop's Ethernet 
card in graduate school, to managing documents 
and software applications on PCs and a Mac at 
work and at home. The Savvy IT Consumer marks 
Sophie's debut as an online trainer, although she 
has several years of experience as an in-person 
trainer and conference presenter on topics 
ranging from blogging, RSS, and Web 2.0 to 
popular culture and The Long Tail's impact on libraries.

Pre-workshop assignment: Prior to the start of 
this course, please open an account with 
http://del.icio.us. Del.icio.us is an online 
bookmark site that will allow you to access your 
bookmarks or favorites from any internet-equipped 
terminal. Your del.icio.us account will also let 
you share your IT finds with your classmates.

Online Learning Details:
This four-week course will be taught online using 
the web. When you register, you will receive a 
registration confirmation that will include the 
URL to get to the course, as well as a username and password.

Every student proceeds through the online 
learning modules at his or her own pace. Students 
should expect to commit to spending a minimum of 
2 to 2½ hours per week on this course in order to 
be successful. You can work on each module at 
your own pace, at any hour of the day or night. 
However, you will be expected to log in to the 
course each week to do that week's assignment. We 
ask that you log in sometime during the first 
week of the course to begin the course work.

Your instructor will be available for limited 
consultation support for two weeks after the 
official end date of a course, and the course 
material will stay up for an additional two weeks 
after that, to give those who have fallen behind 
time to work independently on the
course. However, you will be expected to 
accomplish the majority of the course in 
synchronization with your peers during the first four weeks.

Who Should Take This Course: Anyone from the 
library community who must respond to common 
computer problems, including support staff.

Prerequisites:
This course is taught over the web. You must:

--Have an Internet connection and Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher.
--Be able to save Microsoft Word .doc or Adobe 
.pdf files to your computer and print them out. 
(For .doc files, a free Word Viewer is available 
at 
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en. 
Search for "Word Viewer." For .pdf files, a free 
Adobe Acrobat Reader is available at 
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html).
--Be comfortable navigating on the web and 
navigating back and forward on a website that uses frames.

System Requirements: The online learning product 
that Infopeople uses is called Angel. The 
following are minimum system requirements for 
using Angel. You will need access to a computer 
that has at least these specifications to participate in an online course:

Windows:
--Internet Explorer 6.0 and above, Netscape 7.1 
and above, or Firefox 1.5 and above

Macintosh:
--Mozilla 1.4 and above (which is the same engine 
as Netscape 7.1), Safari 2.0 and above, or Firefox 1.5 and above
--OS X and above (OS 9 will NOT work with our online learning product)

If you are not comfortable with any of the above, 
please consider taking this course with a 
colleague who does meet these requirements.

To view a complete list of Infopeople workshops 
and for general information about Infopeople 
training opportunities, go to the main Infopeople 
Workshops page at http://infopeople.org/workshop

If you have questions about registration or 
scheduling of workshops, please contact Linda 
Rodenspiel, the Infopeople Project Assistant, at 
assist at infopeople.org or by phone at 650-578-9685. 