[Lias] International Computer Drivers license

[Jacqueline McNally]

At 09:00 PM 05/21/2002, you wrote:
>I done a little research on the International Computer Drivers License. This
>qualification regardless of its merits is being pushed by both Federal and
>NSW Government. When I have approached the Australian Computer Society that
>licenses this product in Australia, I have found either a lack of knowledge
>about Linux or a very negative approach to Linux.

Hi Craig

I have been looking at the ICDL from a Linux point of view, and the only 
place where it does get tricky to follow the ICDL Syllabus is in the module 
that covers databases.

Looking at the ACS web site, it appears that they have only listed those 
training organisations that can offer PC or MAC training materials for 
self-paced learning. There are heaps more on the ICDL site. If I didn't 
find any (Linux focused), I was going to look to preparing some myself. I 
am still working my way through the list on the international site.

Currently, I am working with the OpenOffice.org project and I see that I 
may be able to prepare training materials in parallel with the ICDL, and 
the training materials that I wish to prepare for OpenOffice.org. At the 
moment, OpenOffice.org does not have a database, whereas StarOffice does. 
There are ways of using a database with OpenOffice.org, but I think it is 
not at the rudimentary level that is required for the ICDL. I have come 
across a group in the UK that have been using StarOffice 5.2 so that their 
students can take home a disk and acquire the ICDL at low cost.

I am a bit confused as to why the operating system needs to be considered 
with the ICDL. The ICDL Foundation and the Syllabus appear to go to a lot 
of trouble to be vendor neutral. I guess the reality is that Linux is as 
yet not ubiquitous with computers and the Internet.

All the best
Jacqueline
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/users/zenryaku/

Community Contact, Australia/New Zealand
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
(www.openoffice.org)

Are you a computer angel? (www.ca.asn.au)