Donna Brookes

Firstly, hello and thanks for visiting my profile page. As you have probably already gathered my name is Donna and I teach Photography and Computer skills for the WEA!

The first time I encountered a computer was in 1982 at Art school.  A ‘new and exciting’ session once a week, learning the what and how of an Apple computer.  I went to one class!  I was an artist, what possible use did I have for this ‘revelation’? Throwing paint around was far more important, wasn’t it?

Six years, one husband and a son later, my old job as a graphic designer was being taken over by these alien machines, efficient, streamlined and ultimately faster than the human hand.  ‘Ok Donna, maybe you should have visited a few more of those IT classes afterall!’

Armed with the desire to not be left behind, I enquired at the local college about computer design courses, only to be knocked back by the ridiculous cost of learning something I could have got for free six years earlier!

Not one to give in without a fight, I enrolled on a free basic IT course at my local community centre…HOOKED!  Line and sinker!

CLAIT, ECDL, ECDL advanced, I couldn’t get enough!  I loved it!  But where was it leading?  I was just a learning junkie.  Here was me, dabbling with IT, taking computers apart on my living room floor to see how they worked and putting them back together again; with always a couple of screws left over!

But knowledge is immaterial, wasted if not put to good use, right?

It was a passing comment from my CLAIT tutor, “You could teach this you know Donna” That sparked a new desire and I went on to study for my teaching qualification.  I hung around, making a nuisance of myself at a local Learn Direct Centre in my town, until one day an opportunity for an IT teacher came about at a centre for visually impaired people.

“We can’t pay you” was the opening statement from the lady that ran the centre.  I didn’t care!  I had found my vocation.  Suddenly, something I had shied away from as a young girl became the most enabling and powerful tool to people who otherwise would be totally reliant on others.  Reading their own letters by scanning them onto a PC and listening to them with the use of screen reading software, sending emails and even going on to study CLAIT themselves, changed my students’ lives immeasurably.  I was in awe of these learners, their determination for independence made so much easier through ICT.

A life changing move ‘Up North’ seven years ago prompted me to start looking at ICT provision for the blind and visually impaired in West Cumbria.  There was none! Shock!  ‘I would provide it myself then’ I thought naively.  So, I proceeded to research every Adult Education provider in the area.  This led me to the WEA.  Not for a job, I must add, no, I was on a begging mission for an umbrella organisation to fund me to run ICT classes for the blind and visually impaired.

Ha!  I turned up for the ‘meeting’ with Elaine and Sarah at the Workington office with a ‘will you give me money’ agenda.  I walked out of there with a job!  How did that happen!?

I must say I haven’t looked back since. Teaching and ICT have become my two most valuable assets to make a real difference to so many people’s lives.

My other true passion is photography and how lucky I am to be able to share this passion with anyone and everyone that decides to come along to my Digital Photography classes! People often say to me, “I would never think of taking a photograph of THAT!” or  “you have to have the eye for photography.” I honestly believe that we all have that so called ‘eye’, we just have to know how to use it, to understand how to look at the things around us and truly SEE them! It is in us all and everything has beauty if only we took the time to notice it!

So, like a cat that got the cream, I would just like to say how lucky I am to be allowed to combine my passion for computers, art and photography, with my thirst for wanting everyone to experience that intoxicating feeling of learning and achieving something you didn’t even know was in you!

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