Advertisement The Cooperative Educational Service Agency No. 4 office at 923 E. Garland St. in West Salem is about to begin offering technology workshops to the general public. CESA works with educators year round in 26 school districts either out in the field or at the organization’s site in West Salem.
“We teach every day to educators,” said Jim Welander, who taught in the Onalaska and Holmen schools before retiring and will lead the technology workshops in February, March and April. “But to my knowledge this is the first time we’re offering courses to the general public. It’s nice because we have the instructors and the technology right here.”
“We’re here and this is something our technology department does do,” said Mary Freybler, technology program assistant. “It’s mostly for educators, but there’s no reason we can’t do it for the community as well. It’s an area we thought we could expand on. We’ll start in the West Salem area and see how it goes.”
Among the resources available are two fully equipped computer labs — one for Macs and one for PCs — similar to a university setting.
Besides the 12 Macs in one lab and 15 PCs in the other, there are Smart Boards in each, which can greatly aid the learning process.
The three one-day workshops cost $30 per person per session and will focus, respectively, on Mac basics, personal computers and social networking.
The number of computers limits the size of the classes, but “if someone wanted to bring their own laptop in, we could accomodate a few more,” Welander said.
Welander, whose official title with CESA is educational technology director, was an instructional technologist at Holmen High School for eight years and also has taught adult education at Western Technical College.
“What I know from that is that the general public likes basic education about their computers, plus things like storing photographs and social networking,” he said. “On the personal computer side, many beginners and casual users don’t know everything their operating system can do. And there are so many options on the Mac side — things like iPhoto, iMove, Garage Band.”
He also will help people understand how to use features that are common to both systems — podcasting and iTunes, for example. The classes will also teach people about the kinds of devices that can be attached to a computer, things like cameras and flash drives.
“I bet many people don’t even know what a flash drive is,” Welander said. “The idea is to help people get more familiar with what they can do.”
That will certainly be true of the third class as well, the one on social networking. For those who would like to know more about Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube, the social networking class on April 27 could prove to be a valuable introduction.
After noting that the Holmen School District has its own Facebook page, Welander suggested that the need to learn about social networking will likely become greater.
“The general rule for me,” he said, “is ‘Why fight it?’ It’s there, so why not teach kids to use it responsibly. There could be thousands of potential uses for it in the school system.”
Welander, who taught band before going into computer technology, said that another source of knowledge that has huge potential is YouTube. “I still judge music festivals and, if there’s a piece of music I’m unfamiliar with, I’ll look for it beforehand on YouTube and it will almost always be there.”
CESA officials are unsure how many community members will actually show up for the classes, but they are optimistic. “I’m hoping people will come and say ‘This is good, can we have classes in the future on Google Earth or whatever,” Welander said. “If the response is good, we could offer more classes in the summer and fall.”
Regardless of who shows up for the classes, Welander said he’ll try to tailor the classes to the skill levels of participants. “One of the nice things about this job,” he said, “is that you get to share what you know with others. That doesn’t just go for me — if you get a group together, one person might know something the rest don’t. It’s great to be able to share your knowledge.”
