CALAT Croydon Adult Learning and Training
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Digital Skills

Overview

CALAT Digital Skills department offers a range of courses from beginner to Level 2, whether you’re looking to gain skills for employment or to simply be more confident with accessing and navigating information online.

Courses take place in CALAT digital skills suites where you will have the support of a qualified digital skills trainer to guide you through your learning in a safe and friendly environment.  

Most digital skills courses CALAT offers are OCN-accredited and recognised by employers.

OCN Essential Digital Skills qualifications are offered at entry level and level 1 – these courses are free to all learners who do not have a qualification in digital skills including those in employment.

We also run a range of short non accredited courses, on which you can learn the basic skills to effectively use computers and the digital skills that are needed for life and work, without having to take a formal exam. Those courses  are FREE if you are on a low income or claiming benefits. 

Courses

We offer:

This 3-weeks course is suitable for those who never used computers before and would like to learn the foundations skills that would enable them to progress to further studies. You will learn how to:

  • Turn on a computer, log in, log off and turn the computer off.
  • Use the keyboard and the mouse.  
  • Use a computer’s home screen and find the correct icon to take you to the application or programme that you want.
  • Connect to the internet and find and open websites.
  • Use MS Word to type a short text using small letters, caps, numbers and punctuation.

Enrol on this 9 week course to develop your basic digital skills and learn how to:

  • Use Gmail – set up account, send and reply to email
  • Do basics online search and use Internet safely
  • Join a video conference using Zoom
  • Use Google Docs for word processing 
  • Perform basic file management – save files, create folders

This 9 week Entry 3 level course is suitable for those who have basic keyboard and file management skills (or completed our Digital Skills for Life and Work – Beginners course) and want to be able to use their ICT devices confidently and safely and learn how to use Google Docs, which is a popular and free online word processor that is similar to Microsoft Word.

At the end of the course the learners will be able to:

  • Create, edit, and collaborate on documents quickly and easily.
  • Use word processing software tools to format and present documents.
  • Organise, store and access your files and folders on any device (Chromebook, laptop or mobile phone) .
  • Be able to respond to common IT system problems.

This 7 week course in basic Excel is suitable for those who have basic keyboard and file management skills (or completed our Digital Skills for Life and Work – Beginners course), who want to learn how to use Excel for the office or to keep track of their personal finances. At the end of the course the learners will be able to:

  • Create Excel spreadsheets and enter data
  • Create table borders, wrap text, merge cells, format data
  • Use Excel formulas and functions to calculate sums, averages, minimum, maximum and percentages and count cells
  • Filter and sort your data
  • Create graphs and charts to present your data

This course is for confident users of Excel, who are able to create formulas, charts and filter and sort data. It is designed for individuals who want to acquire essential skills for data analysis and reporting. These skills are in demand when looking for work. At the end of the course the learners will be able to:

  • Summarise large amounts of data
  • Organise data so that it is easy to analyse and report on
  • Load and process large data sets
  • Create basic data models & relationships
  • Visualise data
  • Create dashboards & reports

This 4 week introductory Power Point course is suitable for those who have basic keyboard and file management skills (or completed our Digital Skills for Life and Work – Beginners course), who want to learn how to use the most essential features of PowerPoint, in order to create an attractive and effective presentation. At the end of the course the learners will be able to:

  • Create a well-designed slideshow with text and images
  • Enhance your presentation through use of formatting features such as font size, colour, style or slide background, line spacing, bullets and numbering and shadow effect
  • Apply pre-set slide design
  • Guide the attention of the viewer to relevant parts of the presentation using animation and slide transitions
  • Add, delete, copy and re-order slides
  • Print presentations in different formats.

This course is for those with basic digital skills or have completed a pre-entry course and will help you to:

  • learn about communicating digitally
  • learn how to use digital devices and handle information
  • understand how to create and edit information
  • carry out online transactions
  • remain safe and responsible whilst online

This course is for those with good digital skills or have completed an Entry 3 course and will help you to:

  • learn about communicating digitally
  • learn how to use digital devices and handle information
  • understand how to create and edit information
  • carry out online transactions
  • remain safe and responsible whilst online

This course is for those who have good word processing skills or who have completed an Entry 1 course and will help you to:

  • use Microsoft Word to create and edit documents
  • use Microsoft Excel to work with formulae, sort and filter and create graphs
  • use Microsoft PowerPoint to create presentations and use animations and transitions 

Learners will also complete a Level 1 employability award.

This course will help you transition from sending emails with attachments to sharing and managing files. You will become confident in the principles of cloud use specifically using Google Drive and sharing documents, spreadsheets and forms. You will learn the different ways of sharing documents, how to co-edit them, manage your files and maintain security. You will also focus on how to use Google Forms to collate data. Finally, you will work on how to work across different devices. At the end of the course you will be able to:

  • Identify the difference between sending emails with attachments and sharing and managing files
  • Identify and recognise the principles of cloud specifically using Google Drive, documents, spreadsheets & forms
  • Sharing documents and co-editing them
  • Manage and organise your shared files
  • Maintain security
  • Use Google Forms to collate data
  • Know about alternatives to Google Drive including OneDrive, Dropbox and Flickr (time permitting))
  • How to access cloud services across devices safely and securely.

Dates and locations

There are multiple options on offer:

  • different venues across the borough
  • course duration from 3 to 12 weeks
  • courses run during the day and in the evenings, throughout the week (Monday – Friday)

How to apply

You will need to book an appointment to attend an information session at our  Croydon Clocktower centre before enrolling.

Contact us to book your session: