Chuck Elliot
ED TEC 671 - Project 2 - Tutorial - Module 2
POSIT: Helping Customers Learn New Skills
in progress - last revised: 11.26.1997 10:33 +0000GMT

CONTENT OVERVIEW

Purpose

The purpose of Module 2 is to teach One-Stop Career Center personnel how to help customers learn new skills related to searching job data bases on the computer, using data base programs and the Internet.

Objectives

The learner will be able to effectively communicate to customers about learning to search job data bases using

Topics

My tutorial topics will be parallel to Terry's tutorial. Eve's counterpart is a Computer Virgin (CV) named Sara who wants to access the computerized job database and write a resume, but who has no experience at all with computers.

The Computer Virgin (CV) first needs to learn to learn how to use the hardware

then the basics of the operating systems

then how to use pull-down menus, etc. for MS Word.

It is more likely that a modern career center would have the job data bases available on the World Wide Web than inputted into MS Word. The CV would want to learn how to search job databases on the web using the two prevalent browsers

Depending on the scope of the tutorial, there could be two Computer Virgins, with one CV being compu-phobic, and another being compu-friendly. Motivating the phobic one can be an additional objective.

Scenario

Sara, a Computer Virgin, comes to the One-Stop Career Center to find a job. She tells Joan, the Coach, that she wants to find a job. Joan says that they have lists of jobs on the computer. Sara says that she is afraid of computers. Joan reassures her. Sara says that she's never used a computer and is afraid of making it blow up if she does something wrong. Joan, in the different versions of "poor/better/best" says "I'll show you/help you/guide you" etc.

At this point, the different parts of the objective would come into play

However, a Compu-phobic Computer Virgin cannot use on-line tutorials or on-line help on their own!

. . .

Hardware

Joan works with Sara on the computer hardware. Sara stares at the monitor thinking that the monitor is the entire computer. Joan explains that it is one of the parts. Sara is intimidated by the 100+-key keyboard. She does not know how to type, and besides, all of the keys are in the wrong order. She cannot fathom the mouse or printer because she has no connection to anything like either of them in her life experience. Joan responds to all of Sara's concerns.

Operating Systems (OpSys)

[I've developed some content on using the on-line help for the MAC control strip. If we decide to pursue this area, I'll include it, and on-line help and tutorials for Win95 and 3.1.]

Software

Sara needs to learn to use the browser software to find a job. The computer has a job database on the screen. She needs to learn to input and submit data for a search, refine a search, submit her resume, use bookmarks, print and save pertinent findings to disk, and use search engines.

Sara sits at the computer. It has Netscape Navigator up with the Manpower Hot Jobs site visible. We will use a screen capture of the pages and error messages on the links that she will follow. The first screen says to enter the job description and/or geographical location desired. She does not know what job she wants, so Joan suggests just to type in San Diego for the city, and click the "Search" button. An error that happened when I tried this resulted in the error message, "unable to locate...no DNS listing." This would probably scare a CV to death. I re-clicked "Search" and got the results page, "Here's what we found".

She should click a link for a desired listing to get more details on it. The details page has options for mailing, faxing, and emailing your resume. Each option needs to be explained and shown. There is a link on how to submit by these three methods and by on-line application. The latter would totally destroy a CV, so there needs to be an explanation on how to fill in each step using subgoals, such as filling in your name, filling in your work history for each past job, etc.

Another option is free training in JavaScript which obviously is not for Sara, but there are 350 free courses that Manpower offers, so we might see if there are any to direct her to.

Hopefully Joan will realize that this site is for Manpower Technical and all of the jobs are probably totally irrelevant for Sara. So the next task is how to find another site. Joan shows the bookmarks feature where several other sites have been bookmarked, including

Printing and saving pertinent listings.

Finding additional job sites that have not been bookmarked using "search engines", a term that often intimidates Computer Virgins and Internet Virgins.

If you haven't submitted your name and email on my home page for this visit, please click here and do so, so I can know who is reading this. (optional, of course).
Thanks, Chuck

last revised: 11.26.1997 10:33 +0000GMT