Whale Cove (Oct 01/03) - Five hamlet of Whale Cove employees were among six people introduced to the world of computers this past month.

The course, an introduction into personal computers, covered such topics as hardware, operating systems, basic applications, multi-media devices and the Internet.

The six students (Sharon Okalik, Barbera Enuapik, Agnes Turner, Veronica Maktar, Irene Oklaga and Eva Voisey) learned the basics of file management, creating, copying and moving files, opening programs, and constructing a data base, word-processing file and Excel spread sheet, among others.

The program was organized through the Municipal Training Authority.

Yellowknife-based instructor Jan Fullerton said the students had positive attitudes and worked hard during the five-day course.

"They had different levels of computer proficiency and it wasn't easy for some of them," said Fullerton.

"But, they worked their way through it and were quite determined not to give up, even though it was an overwhelming amount of information at times."

Like many visitors to the Kivalliq, Fullerton was pleasantly surprised by how welcome she was made to feel in the community.

She was taken on a seven-hour tour of the bay and even invited berry picking by one of her students.

Fullerton said Whale Cove is no different than anywhere else in that people new to computers often have to get past the intimidation factor.

She said new students tend to be afraid to try things for fear of breaking something.

"We tell our students it's highly unlikely they're going to break anything, physically, and we can fix the software.

"That's the nice thing about having a computer lab -- instead of trying to learn on your home computer, you can try things and know there's someone there to save you if something goes wrong."

Okalik, a hamlet employee, said she had a bit of computer experience before taking the course.

She said she enjoyed the program, and picked up some important pointers on using her Word program, but did have one complaint.

"I found the course was a little too short," said Okalik. "It left me wanting to learn more. I'd like to take another course here, but one that's longer and teaches you more."