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Digital literacy is a crucial survival skill and many who have tried to remedy their deficiencies in this area have found, as I have, that they are humiliated by those from whom they seek instruction.  

Hannah Chauvet—the instructor for Multimedia Arts 200 at Berkeley City College— has provided exactly the opposite experience: in addition to being extraordinarily knowledgeable, she is respectful and considerate of all students and always willing to answer questions. Her class is, for those grappling with computer illiteracy, analogous to the Writing Workshop that is part of the English department at Berkeley City College in that it meets students at their own level of competence, takes them beyond it, and provides some one-on-one instruction. 

It is also appropriate for students at many levels. Specifically, the class teaches basics of the Macintosh Leopard Operating System, requires no textbook, and provides students who have no computer knowledge at all a good foundation for proceeding to learn to use any computer. 

My reason for writing about MMART 200 (“Digital Media Literacy”) is that shortly after I made flyers for the class in order to share my good fortune in having encountered it with the greater community, I found that it had been taken off the computer system (known as “Passport”—and other less printable names) through which students must enroll in Peralta College classes. 

  The class will still be offered if enough students enroll, but interested parties should enquire about the course or express their desire to enroll it by e-mailing Hannah Chauvet, hannahchauvet@yahoo.com as soon as possible. The original starting date for the class was Jan. 22, 2010, but the starting date may be changed to a slightly later time.