Free How to Use Gmail Course New on ALISON

Sept. 23, 2008 - PRLog -- GALWAY, Ireland - ALISON teaches how to set up an e-mail address for the first time with its brand new course “How to use Gmail”. The course is aimed at individuals who have some IT awareness but are new to communicating via the Internet. Most specifically, the course is provided as an aid to teachers, trainers, and community volunteers who are helping others to get online so that they can communicate with their friends, family and contacts.

How to use Gmail was developed by ALISON as part of its programme to provide high-quality interactive learning to assist in the bridging of the so-called ‘digital divide’. Communicating by e-mail has become one of the world's favourite means of communication. Knowing how to send and receive information and correspond online is a tremendous way of enabling people to become more self-dependent, and to become more confident contributors to society. ALISON is especially keen that older people and people with special needs can take advantage of this new completely free course. ALISON chose to develop courseware based around the Gmail service over other excellent webmail services such as Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo!® Mail, as we found Gmail to be the most popular of such services chosen by new learners registering with ALISON.

Webmail services such as Gmail allow the user to access their e-mail from anywhere there is an Internet connection. This short How to use Gmail course from ALISON is designed to cover the basics of Webmail, from understanding the concept of e-mail and signing up for a Gmail account, getting started using Gmail, and the detail involved with the sending and receiving of e-mail messages. The potential Gmail user will receive a thorough grounding in the basics of Gmail use, including such features as formatting text, spell-checking, and working with attachments.  

Ivan Morrin, Publishing Manager at ALISON: "An e-mail address is essential for accessing the free online courses on ALISON, and as we have so many new learners who are new to IT and to the Internet, we decided to develop this specific course to help them on their way.” While ALISON has thousands of new learners from developing countries across Africa and Asia, two very important groups of people in the developed world are:

   * The marginalized who are in need of IT skills in order to join the workforce or to encourage their promotion in their existing careers;
   * Senior citizens wishing to take part more fully in the online world.

Across the UK and in North America, the ‘over fifties’ is one of the most enthusiastic groups of learners on ALISON. Early users of the How to use Gmail course have found it extremely useful in teaching recently arrived immigrants to communicate inexpensively with their families back in their homelands. In the coming months, ALISON will publish case studies of just this activity of teaching this skill to immigrants within the Midwest United States.

Commenting on the launch of How to use Gmail, Mike Feerick, ALISON CEO said: "The new Gmail course on ALISON is aimed specifically at any individual who is new to the Internet and to e-mail. I believe that How to use Gmail will be particularly popular with Seniors, Workforce Development Programs and emerging economies with Internet training requirements."  

For the purposes of How to use Gmail, the technical and instructional design teams at ALISON implemented some brand-new, eye-catching course features, including innovative graphics and the regular use of richly-interactive multimedia with audio. How to use Gmail is free for any registered learner with ALISON. ALISON also provides companies and organizations with access to the monitoring of the course and management of their learner's progress for a limited charge.

ALISON
Launched in April 2007, ALISON provides freely accessible learning to individual learners. With registered learners in every country and territory worldwide, its mission is to enable anyone, anywhere, to educate themselves for free via interactive self-paced multimedia. Based in Galway, Ireland, the focus of ALISON is interactive learning for basic and essential life and workplace skills. If your organization has a mandate to provide education on any subject of public interest, or has high quality interactive content it would be happy to share worldwide, the ALISON team would pleased to facilitate its publication and promotion.

Google Inc.
Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top Web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall Web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

* Gmail™ is known as Google Mail™ in the United Kingdom and Germany.

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press@alison.com
www.alison.com

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ALISON is the world's leading free online learning resource for basic and essential workplace skills.