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What Should a Community Computer Lab Offer?
Ballresin asks: "A local computer company is expanding and including a computer lab in their setup, and they want me to come in as its Administrator. I am supposed to be giving them input on what to teach/host. What does Slashdot think a medium sized tourist town (Okoboji, Spirit Lake, Arnolds Park, Iowa) should have to offer to the locals? I was thinking something along the lines of 'How to Use Windows 101' and 'How to Use Office 101'. My compatriots want to offer some off-the-wall classes such as 'Hacker Ethics: Why and How' and a few other odd classes. I have polled people in the area, which resulted the discovery that 80% of them are from out of town, so don't really care. What you guys think; What kind of classes or what games/LAN party setups should a new, small business offer? Any ideas/input is greatly appreciated."
There's just 2 things that most users will want - the same 2 that made the internet what it is today:
Email
WWW
Email do's and don'ts would be good - including handling of spam and crap (the junk your father-in-law sends you that is either urban legend, or ancient, or both).
Web browsing, security (don't tell folks your passwords), and virii are all important things to know about.
Not really an idea for a course, per se, but I wouldn't let users install any software onto PCs. Good luck!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
Whatever you do, don't name your subjects "blah blah 101" the 101 just makes you look like a tosser. Everyone knows its not a university :P
We offer our locals a variety of courses and are always taking suggestions. When an interesting idea is submitted we usually set up a sign-up sheet and post a notice in the paper to test the interest levels. Our regular classes include:
Building a Webpage
Intro. to Windows
Intro to Macs
Office 101
Using E-Mail
Finances and Bills with Your Computer
An Introduction to Digital Photography
And depending on your community...We have a lot of immigrants in ours and we offer a lot of computer-based ESL programs/courses
Good Luck!
Seriously though, a course about how to find information could start out quite simple and end up being quite advanced. You could start out with something as basic as different search engines and what techniques they use to return results and go all the way through how to organize information effectively. It sounds like it could really be a good class.
I'ld also consider doing some publicity stunts for your lab. You know, to try to get people excited. The easiest one might be a LAN party with prizes.
Whatever you do, I'ld suggest concentrating on locals though, not tourists. Very few vacationers want to sit in front of a computer, even if it is to play a video game.
Alternatively, if your town is in a really nice place (you said it was a tourist town), you could offer some (relatively) advanced workshops and try to bundle them with a local hotel/Bed & Breakfast and cater to corporate executives.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
Why not spend $0 and install an operating system that doesn't need to be reimaged (network boot), or locked down because of proper user permissions. KDE actually includes a "kiosk" mode, that does not permit any desktop configuration changes. Administration is about 100x easier because you can do it remotely in your underwear at home.
Many parents of the 50's-70's generation have no idea what their kids are doing on the internet, and would like to know.
Download all the popular chat clients, some irc clients, and install all the common browsers.
Offer clases teaching parents how to find browser history, change their security and ratings settings. Show them how to review chat history and url history for IM clients. How to check file sharing folders and search their computer for images, movies, etc.
You'll find that (80%) disinterest or not, you'll draw quite a few attendees, especially if you repeat the course and offer a basic and advanced course.
Good question. I teach "Adult Continuing Education" (non-credit) computer stuff part-time at my local community college. My student's LOVE anything that saves them money... e.g.... . StarOffice/OpenOffice (instead of MS Office)... . using a free service such as MyDomain.com to "alias" their email and/or web space... . student discounts at sites such as www.academicsuperstore.com ...
. shareware and freeware offerings at www.shareware.com ...
. PopUp ad blockers such as www.webwasher.com ... ...and so on. See http://eselgroth.com/computers.html (Not exactly a stand-alone page... it's designed to support my classes).
_Very _basic newbies are enthralled by "tips" such as keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-X = 'Cut'), Line Returns (Ctrl-Return), "Tab" to jump to the next whatever, email using "bcc", exploiting "phrase quotes" and "+" or "-" in search engines, and so on.
--TE