WebActivate Course in Cork April 27th 2015

volvic99

After lots of research into both WebActivate and Webinnovate both run by the Digital Skills Academy in Dublin, I found out today that the Webactivate course which is funded by Momentum for Jobseekers is not running in Cork due to lack of numbers. The starting date was April 27th 2015.

Anyone else apply for this course. It is an 8 month course at a Level 6 which was meant to have run in Penrose Wharf for online and classroom work, mon - Thurs 9 - 4pm. This is all the info I got. I originally was going to do the Web Innovate course. This is also a 8 month course but it is an actual what they call add on degree. I went to the intro day at Penrose wharf to be totally misinformed and just when I thought I had all the information i needed to start the Webinnovate course in Cork I was told the following from DSA. It was home based, so no access to facilitates at all. The group work is done over skype and once every 2 weeks you can attend a meet up in Dublin in the evening 6 - 9pm. No software provided mostly open source you pay for your own student creative clod etc. It is a springboard funded course. So I opted to change my choice to Webactivate as it's Cork based and now told that is only run in Limerick due to lack of Cork numbers.


Anyone else have this problem?

Anyone apply for the Web Activate Course in Cork?

Anyone apply for the Webinnovate course based in Cork?

Really like to hear from you

Redditor

themoodyitguy wrote: »

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This is what I feared when I went to the information session last week.

Course delivered by video with a recent graduate babysitting us.

Other stuff I have read online is incredibly worrying. If I stick to my guns and call this course what it is, I can see myself being punished by DSA.

I also got asked to attend a another type of training course thing, that had strict requirement, which I didn't meet. That's a story for another day.

I'm sure the course tutor/babysitter is competent, I have no reason to suspect he isn't, but the whole setup seems very strange.

Employing a tutor but then having everybody watch videos all day...

Lumpy_Custard

Redittor, your instincts are spot-on.

I'm in the same class themoodyitguy was, and we're due to finish in about 2 weeks. We're currently waist-deep in the work experience, with other assignments somewhat clumsily overlapping.

Honestly, the course has been a disappointment - from start to finish. There were two TAs (technical assistants) in the beginning, but one soon left after being granted funding for an unrelated project. That left one for 40+ students, and you can imagine how that turned out...

Three or four of us effectively became surrogate TAs, picking up the slack and helping people through it. We balanced this with our own workload, and just got on with it. As dysfunctional as it was, we were all getting the work done and making progress.

After the first major assignment, cracks began to appear. With limited experience of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, everyone submitted an attempt at designing a logo for a coffee shop. To say they were graded harshly would be a massive understatement. The fallout from those results triggered a mass exodus Moses would be proud of. Dwindling student numbers and plummeting attendance caused the remaining TA to issue warnings, via email and in class - the grading had simply shattered everyone's confidence.

The class now numbers no more than 20, with attendance below 10 on some days. Last Friday brought another shock, with the latest assignment resulting in similarly ridiculous grades. The examiner, incidentally the same one as for the first assignment, refuses to acknowledge emails. We were told that failing one module, would fail the whole course - and this guy is seemingly picking percentages at random.

A visit from a Solas representative, surveying what the government's funding had bought them, also unearthed another gem - we were told that completion of the course would only get us 50 credits towards the level 6 certificate, something very few of us - me included - were even aware of. It seems we will only be given a component award.

It hasn't been all bad. I've learned quite a bit about coding and using WordPress, and I have genuinely found the work experience to be enjoyable - you're given quite a bit of freedom. Explaining to clients that their "free" website will only have a 3-month lease, on impossible-to-find DSA site addresses, hasn't been quite so fun though.

In the end, the decision to do it lies with you. Hopefully, this bit of insider info will help.