Photograph by Robert Scheer
De Anza student Elizabeth Ridley gets help from Harry Pottol at the college's CAOS computer lab.
By ANNE GELHAUS
At De Anza College's Advanced Technology Center, working in CAOS is actually a good thing for a couple of Sunnyvale volunteers.
CAOS stands for the Computer Applications and Office Systems department, where Harry Pottol spends his Saturdays answering students' questions about various programs.
"You get a different clientele in here than you do on weekdays," says Pottol, a retired Lockheed engineer. "It ranges from kids just out of high school to old guys my age."
Pottol has been a CAOS volunteer for a year; prior to that, he provided technical support via telephone for a software company. Through that experience, he says, he found that many people--regardless of age or background--are scared of computers.
"People are afraid they're going to blow them up," says Valerie Millar, who coordinates the ATC Lab Volunteer Program. "Here, we get them to go further than what their course mandates. The whole goal of teaching here is to make people comfortable and self-sufficient [with computers]."
Pottol says he's most frequently asked questions about specific programs, "from the very fundamental elements of working a PC to enhancing word-processing programs."
Millar says students who use the ATC, which houses both CAOS and the Computer Information Systems department, are taking self-paced courses in a variety of subject areas. In her volunteers, Millar looks for a working knowledge of either PC or Macintosh programs.
"We need two kinds of volunteers: experts in the field and people wanting to do basic support like filing and manning the information desk," Millar says. "The number of student hours spent here is enormous, and the staff is so small. Our goal is to support the staff and free them from the more routine questions and procedures so that they can do the necessary [curriculum] development."
Millar, who retired from a software company in January 1995, first volunteered as the ATC's volunteer coordinator that March. Before she came on board, students enrolled in CAOS courses were also acting as volunteers.
In addition to coordinating in-house volunteers, Millar wants to develop a program whereby mentors can answer students' questions by phone or email. For more information about the volunteer program, call Millar at 739-7869.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, June 5, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.