e-college fas courses payment query

memeandmark

hi has anyone done any of these online courses with fas. i lost my job & i signed on a few weeks ago but still waiting for social welfare payments. when applying it asks you to pay a fee. if i am unemployed do i need to pay a fee, i dont have any documentary evidence to show im waiting on my claim. will my pps number be sufficient for fas to know i have signed on

Munster_Gal

memeandmark wrote: »

hi has anyone done any of these online courses with fas. i lost my job & i signed on a few weeks ago but still waiting for social welfare payments. when applying it asks you to pay a fee. if i am unemployed do i need to pay a fee, i dont have any documentary evidence to show im waiting on my claim. will my pps number be sufficient for fas to know i have signed on

From what they said when I was talking to them you need to send in proof of your social welfare. (a receipt or signing reminder) ie... you need to send in your application by post

Jevrdublin

Hi,
I lost my job a couple of months back and I am feel like I need to do something... Can anyone recommend fas e-learning course??

thanks

mobilecore

I am currently doing the CIW Foundsations couse. You have to do this before doing anything else in Website Design/Multimedia section ( http://s7.kalopa.net./site/pages/categories/CatWebDesign.html ) just so people know.

I also am out of work and as said above you have to prove that you are recieving payments (they just request the slip that you sign from the post office)

The course you choose is free, however i was told that the test you will have to pay for (which is usually 120 for each course)

so far this course (CIW Foundations) is 50/50 in the sense that there are some sections you'll know once you use the internet (like browsers, mail etc)
other sections are a bit more complex if you dont already know them. the course kinda feels like it assumes you already know alot at times.

mcgu

Hi there - just reading your post now and wondering how did you get on with the CIW foundation course??? Is it worth doing? Can you pay for a couple of courses???

I was a graphic designer with years of print experience - but I've fallen between the cracks as I have no web experience. I had a head impact and spinal injury last yr, so I got work with a company that didnt demand much physical pressure (residual damage done to my right arm)..only mental pressure instead!!! Just got news that they are letting 5 of us go in January.

So I need to upskill - to give myself a fighting chance in this market - to either get a job or work for myself. But have not got the money to pay for a private course (Bigwavemedia has a 7 day course for over 1600 euro!!!) ...has anyone done the more advanced web development course?? Is this the route I should follow?

Any advice much appreciated

woollysocks

i'm doing the CIW Foundations exam in 2 days and am a bit nervous that i haven't done enough prep (i have just done the course and taken notes throughout but haven't done any actual revision yet). hoping to swot over the next 48 hours and pass it. the exam itself is MCQ and you have to get 54 out of 85 (randomly selected) questions right to pass.

i agree with the previous poster in that the course is 50/50. i found that alot of the info was quite boring and technical (like about different administrations regulating the Internet, etc.) and it was hard to decipher what information was actually important. the only reason i'm doing the course is so that i can progress on to do the web-design and e-commerce courses, where my interest lies, but having the Foundations qualification is a pre-requisite for this (clearly a money-making ploy by the organisation).

will update on the test itself after i (hopefully) pass.

Ian96

I am unemployed and am currently taking the Ecdl course. If you are unemployed and claiming social welfare the coures are free. You have to first register in your local FAS office and they will ask for your usual details and pps number to confirm you are claiming. Once you do this they will ask you what courses you want to do. They will register you to take the course. Which means your on a waiting list for your chosen course. You can ony register for two courses at a time.

Hope this helps.:)

dory

mcgu wrote: »

Hi there - just reading your post now and wondering how did you get on with the CIW foundation course??? Is it worth doing? Can you pay for a couple of courses???

I was a graphic designer with years of print experience - but I've fallen between the cracks as I have no web experience. I had a head impact and spinal injury last yr, so I got work with a company that didnt demand much physical pressure (residual damage done to my right arm)..only mental pressure instead!!! Just got news that they are letting 5 of us go in January.

So I need to upskill - to give myself a fighting chance in this market - to either get a job or work for myself. But have not got the money to pay for a private course (Bigwavemedia has a 7 day course for over 1600 euro!!!) ...has anyone done the more advanced web development course?? Is this the route I should follow?

Any advice much appreciated

I realise you wrote this in December, so probably will never see this. But just want to say I'm sorry about your situation, and hope the upskilling is going well for you. Also, you really should look into Wordpress as a platform for creating websites. Lots of people now use it, it's much simpler than the usual way but still if you work at it you can do amazing things that an amateur couldn't do. Also, it means that your client can easily do a lot of their own updating - a feature more and more clients want.
Check out the website of the charity Camara, it's made on Wordpress but you wouldn't know from looking at it.
Then again, you'll still need to know HTML and CSS so that's a good place to start.

woollysocks

woollysocks wrote: »

i'm doing the CIW Foundations exam in 2 days and am a bit nervous that i haven't done enough prep (i have just done the course and taken notes throughout but haven't done any actual revision yet). hoping to swot over the next 48 hours and pass it. the exam itself is MCQ and you have to get 54 out of 85 (randomly selected) questions right to pass.

i agree with the previous poster in that the course is 50/50. i found that alot of the info was quite boring and technical (like about different administrations regulating the Internet, etc.) and it was hard to decipher what information was actually important. the only reason i'm doing the course is so that i can progress on to do the web-design and e-commerce courses, where my interest lies, but having the Foundations qualification is a pre-requisite for this (clearly a money-making ploy by the organisation).

will update on the test itself after i (hopefully) pass.

here's an update on how the exam went. thankfully i passed - but to be honest it could have gone either way. i don't think i was prepared enough going in to the exam so it was a bit of a fluke that i got through it.

one thing i would flag with people is that doing the online course alone DOES NOT cover all the info you need to know for the exam. there were questions in the exam about CSS and XHTML and a whole heap of questions on designing IT and websites for business which the basic online course did not cover. i found this to be quite a shock (and was quite pissed off to be honest) and it was a case of using common sense to work out the answers. i'd recommend you go to the CIW site section on exam preparation and think about doing some extra work to ensure you have enough knowledge to get a pass first time round.

on the exam fee issue - i found this to be a real confusing mess... i had to book the exam centre through Prometric and in order to do so i had to pay the exam fee of . then i was told that i shouldn't have had to pay the fee cos i'm unemployed, then i was told i did, finally fas agreed to reimburse me. having said that, although it was a big confusion the people in the ecollege and my local fas co-ordinator in Shandon Street Cork have all been really lovely.

hope this helps