A promotional film for the Euroform Micro Computing Skills Programme which features five individuals who all have problems using computers and how this course will improve their computer literacy skills. The five scenarios are the job seeker, the small business owner, the academic, someone returning to work after an absence and someone working from home. Title: Computer Serenade In what appears to be a discotheque with bright coloured lights hanging down from the ceiling, five computers set...

A promotional film for the Euroform Micro Computing Skills Programme which features five individuals who all have problems using computers and how this course will improve their computer literacy skills. The five scenarios are the job seeker, the small business owner, the academic, someone returning to work after an absence and someone working from home. Title: Computer Serenade In what appears to be a discotheque with bright coloured lights hanging down from the ceiling, five computers set up on tables on the dancefloor. Each of the screens shows first the Microsoft logo then numbers one through five. Title: Job Search Two young men walk over to a ‘Job Centre’ advertising board, one uses sign-language to communicate with the other. In an academic library one of the men seen previously looks through shelves of books. A poster on the side of a bookcase for ‘Microcomputing Skills Programme’ changes to a classroom and a female instructor handing out a booklet for ‘Unit One’ of the course. A pair of hands begins to flick through the pack. Back in the disco bright multi-coloured lights shine down on a computer screen changing to the man speaking with the female tutor from before. He sits at a computer and writes his Curriculum vitae (CV) before posting it into a letterbox. The sequence ends with him holding and reading a letter before pumping his fist in air having got the job. On a computer screen the number five, smoke now fills the space around the computers illuminated by the lights above. One the screens of each of the computers a different Windows page. Title: The Business Plan A pair of hands cuts a piece of cloth with scissors, in a shop a selection of children’s dresses on hangers or on display. Two women come into the shop changing to the woman shopkeeper working at a sowing machine making another dress. On the table in front of her a collection of business papers and folders, she picks up a flyer for the ‘Microcomputing Skills Programme’ course and dials a telephone number on it. In a classroom the tutor now works with the woman to write spread sheets and use accounting software. At another computer in her shop she types figures into it before presenting what appears like a business plan to another woman. Again, the computer screens and the number three on one of them. A man makes his way toward Wearmouth Hall, part of University of Sunderland and goes inside. Title: The Essay He takes from a pigeonhole a scruffy handwritten essay and looks at it shaking his head with disappointment. He presents the paper to a woman who has problems reading it. She gives him a brochure for the computer course. The man sits at a computer with a copy of the ‘Unit 3’ workbook under his arm. However, rather than beginning to write his essay he begins to play a game of Solitaire. He returns to the computer with a cup of tea or coffee followed by a second cup. He looks at his watch, the time changes. He picks up the cups, underneath the ‘Unit 3’ workbook. He begins looking through it and starts types his essay into Microsoft Word. Back at Wearmouth Hall the man places his typed essay into the pigeonhole of the woman seen previously. After he is gone she takes it, looks at it and smiles. In the disco the computer screens and the number two on one of them. Title: The Returner A woman enters a building, the name about the door reads Derwent House. At the reception desk she shakes hands and speaks with the man behind the desk and shows him two photographs of her children. She walks into an open plan office shaking hands with the woman sitting at the front desk. She is taken by the other woman over to a computer who then places a copy of the workbook beside her. The woman begins to us some of the software packages on the computer referring to the workbook on occasion. She returns to the desk where the other woman was sitting and gives her back the workbook. She them shows her a Certificate of Achievement with a smile. Again, the computer screens this time focusing on the screen with the number one on it. Title: Home Computing In a living room two children play Sonic the Hedgehog on a Sega Mega Drive. Their mother comes into the room and tells them to stop. After they leave she turns the television monitor off. In another room the woman’s husband becomes flustered using a computer. After he is gone she reads through ‘Unit One’ of the workbooks and tries to work out how to use the computer and software package on it. She telephones the tutor from earlier in the film and asks for help returning to her sorting a problem for her husband. Back in the living room the mother sits beside her smiling children plays Sonic on the Mega Drive, she pumps her fist into the air when she wins. The film ends back in the discotheque and the five computers lit up in the smoke. Credits: Camera Martin Graham Electrician George Bush Editor Paul Kendrick Music C.N. Productions Produced by Paul Black Associates Wearside Training and Enterprise Council Open Learning Centre, British Telecoms (BT), Euroform, University of Sunderland End title: for more information about the Microcomputing Skills Programme contact Learning Development Services University of Sunderland. Tel: 091-5152277