Adult education: computers and green skills

By FRITZ MAYER

REGION — For most people, learning doesn’t stop once the diplomas are handed out. With today’s rapidly changing technologies and shifting social environment, continuing education is now more important than ever for people who want to stay current, and perhaps learn new skills that might help them advance, whether it’s in their private lives or personal lives.

For people who live in the Upper Delaware Valley, the opportunities for continuing education are plentiful and varied. Below is a small sampling of courses that are offered, both for credit and not for credit, and the institutions that provide them.

Sullivan County Community College ( www.sullivan.suny.edu ), 112 College Road, Loch Sheldrake, NY, 800/577-5243.

The college provides a very wide range of courses for both credit and no credit in a diverse range of topics. There are many computer courses available. A new one that will be offered soon is Web 2.0, beginning on January 26. The course description reads, “Participants will be guided through the Web 2.0 planning process, learning how to utilize and measure social networking sites, blogs, wikis and other online media tools to better their business performance.”

There are also many “green” courses available, including one called “Intro to Opportunities in the Green Economy.” The course description reads, “This course will clarify what is meant by the ‘green economy’ by providing an overview of sustainability. The course is intended for individuals that think they might want to work in the ‘green economy’ or in a ‘green job,’ but are not really sure what that means or entails [and] business owners that would like to ‘green’ their company and/or take advantage of the business opportunities in the green economy, but are not sure what that means in terms of operations, products or services.”

Through a program with other colleges in the Hudson Valley, the college also offers continuing education courses via video link on more esoteric subjects. A couple of examples of titles are, “You and Pollution: the Real Cost of the Military Industrial Complex,” and “Health and Longevity: Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves.”

Sullivan County BOCES, ( www.scboces.org ), St. John Street Education Center, Monticello, NY, 845/791-4070.

BOCES also offers many green and computer courses, and related topics such as an introduction to digital photography. The course covers “different types and models of digital cameras, the basic components, settings, using a flash, how to download to your computer, and how to upload to a photo website such as Flicker Snapfish, Wal-Mart and Zenfolio.”

There are also courses in less technical fields such as writing. In a course called “Journal Writing,” the description reads, “you’ll learn the importance of maintaining a personal journal that will ultimately serve as an expression of your life experiences and events. Unlike a diary that generally contains a description of your daily events, a journal is a continued series of writings that can also include your personal reflections regarding the events that took place at a given time in your life.”

The continuing education courses at BOCES also has more practical offerings, such as one that teaches people multiple ways to prepare chicken for dinner, another that introduces the novice to the basic of automobile repair, and one titled “Introduction to handguns and firearms licensing regulations.”

Northampton Community College in Pike County and Wayne County ( www.northampton.edu), 837 Route 6, Unit 6 Shohola, PA, 570-296-4042 and 616 Main Street Honesdale, PA, 570-251-9335

Like the other facilities in the region, the Northampton campuses are big on helping students bone up on computer skills. Students, for instance, can learn to use an accounting program such as QuickBooks. The course description says, “Topics include setting up QuickBooks, handling payables and receivables, tracking sales tax, managing inventory and payroll.”

The continuing education classes in these two facilities are centered primarily on computer-related courses, but also offer a course that helps students learn to create professional looking resumes and develop one that will teach participants how to put their best foot forward during the job interview process.

Lackawanna College, Honesdale Campus ( www.lackawanna.edu ), 627 Main Street, Honesdale, PA, 570/253-5408.

This facility offers courses that are geared to a specific job title. For instance, one course provides classes to help a student become a healthcare office assistant. The course description says, “This training consists of four learning modules: medical terminology/transcription, basic computer applications, job finding skills, and the student’s choice of either advanced Microsoft Word with business letters or basic accounting/QuickBooks as well as practical experience working in a medical office setting.

And here, too, the coursework has a lot to do with computers. One class promises to teach students how to sell items on E-Bay. The description says, “All students will actually sell an item during the course of this class!”