Looking to get the classroom and contained dives completed before leaving for Thailand, I found Eco Dive Center’s PADI Open Water REFERRAL Course. This fits in to our travel schedule and is the same price as the eLearning offered alone by PADI.

Within minutes of purchase, Eco contacted me to confirm my email address and sent a gift pass to start the eLearning. I’ve completed the Introduction section. It’s the second time I’ve participated in distance learning, and so far I like the experience.

The audio transcript is available on the left, main content animates on the right. At the end of the slide, icons may show at the bottom for additional content. While the transcript does not highlight as the audio plays, and the tab name doesn’t match the purpose, I found it reasonably intuitive to figure out what was happening. Two of the three icons also perplex me, can you guess which ones? 🙂

As the content plays the first time, scrubbing and fast forward is disabled. After seeing the content, these are enabled. It took a little while to figure out that the progress bar could be scrubbed, as there isn’t a visual indicator. I just used the mental model of other players and took a guess.

In all, I’m excited to gain the knowledge needed to breathe underwater and become Open Water certified!