Basic Computer Literacy
NOTE: This class was designed for use in the Camden County Library Technology Training Center. Therefore, if you are trying to use this another location many of the items discussed here may not be available to you.
What you
will know/will have done by the time this class is done:
How we’re
going to proceed:
Getting Familiar with the computer
(20-25 Minutes)
This section
will be dedicated to introducing you to “4” pieces of hardware that you need to
be familiar with when using a computer. Hardware consists of the physical or
touchable pieces of the computer.
One thing I
always want you to keep in mind is that computers are generally tougher than you
might think. Computer manufacturers
know that the machine has to make it past delivery people, little kids with
dirty hands, cats that will walk all over the machine, etc. Therefore, they can
take a little abuse. In other words
don't be too afraid of "hurting it".
Monitor: (look directly in front of you, the
thing that kind of looks like a TV is the monitor). The monitor is your window to the
computer. This is where you see
what you’re doing when doing any kind of work or play on your computer.
Generally, monitors come in screen sizes of 15", 17", 19" and so on. The bigger the monitor the more viewing
space you have, additionally, the bigger the monitor - the more it will
cost.
Keyboard: (look below the monitor
and there will be your keyboard, appearing generally like a typewriter with some
additional keys).
Mouse: (just to
the right of the keyboard you’ll see this little contraption with two buttons on
it and a cord (like a tail) that sticks out). We’ll be working a lot with this when we
get into the lessons on creating a document and even more when we get on the
World Wide Web. The mouse is
essentially your "pointing device".
Using the mouse, you will point to a particular area that's on the screen
and click on the button(s) one or two times to do something. Until you're more experienced with the
computer - Forget about the right mouse button and just work with the left,
trust me you'll be happier.
Central
Processing Unit – CPU: (by your knees
to the left or right you’ll see an upright box – this is the CPU). The CPU has places to plug in your
monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.
Generally the CPU is considered the “Brain” of the computer. Just remember it’s not an intuitive
brain; it won’t know what you want to do.
You have to work with software (which we’ll discuss in a minute) to tell
it what to do and how to do it. Just like you have a brain, but you need a
central nervous system, education and experience, etc. to function and do
things.
The parts of a CPU are, more
or less, the following:
You won’t see this item, but it matters a lot. The processor you have in your machine
generally determines how fast it can work.
Processor speeds are measured in Megahertz (MHz), with speeds usually
running between 266 and 500. The faster it is, generally the faster the computer
is able to work. Other factors
matter too, like memory, so processor speed is only one indication of the
quickness of the machine. When
buying a computer keep this in mind - the faster the processor the faster the
computer will work and the faster the processor the more expensive it will
be.
D:\ (marked with a yellow dot) – known as the CD-Rom drive
A:\ (marked with a blue dot) – otherwise known as the Floppy drive
C:\ (generally just below the A:\ drive, it's
inside so you don't
get
to see it) – otherwise known as the Hard Drive.
·
Modem:
The modem is a device inside the CPU, which allows your computer to
communicate with other computers.
The modem is generally just a translator - translating analog signals
that come through your phone line into digital signals that your computer can
use. If buying a home computer buy
a 56k modem.
Hard drive memory – Indicates how much storage you have on your
machine. Think of it like closet space, you only have so much room to put
things. But as you might buy a
house with lots of closet space or clear out those things that you might not
need any more, or build more closet space later, you have some control over how
much hard drive memory you have.
Generally computers come with 2gb-10gb of hard drive memory. Most computers will come with about 5gb,
which is sufficient for home use.
RAM (Random Access Memory)– Have you ever tried to do too many things
at the same time? If so, you’ve worked a bit with the human version of RAM. The amount of RAM you have on your
computer determines how many things you can be working on at the same time and
how efficiently your work is done. If your computer tries to do too much with
the amount of RAM that is has, it either won’t work well or it will stop working
until you reduce the amount of things you’re trying to do. Almost like a computer "nervous
breakdown". Computers generally come with 32mb-128mb of Ram. Generally 64mb is sufficient to do most
things a home user would do.
Peripherals:
Peripherals are like extras/options on a car. They're not things you HAVE to have to make the computer work, but they can make computing more fun, more productive, or more comfortable. For example, air conditioning isn’t necessary in a car to make it operate and get you from point A to point B, but it sure makes the ride more comfortable.
Peripherals on
computers are generally: Printers, speakers, scanners, joysticks, and other
items along those lines. Essentially you don’t need any of these items to work
with your computer, but they can make working with your computer more fun and
efficient. We’ve already discussed
the essential items – the monitor, CPU, keyboard, and mouse.
A quick lesson about software
(5 Minutes)
The official
definition of software is – “instructions for the computer”. Other words used
generally for software are – Programs and Applications.
Generally, there are two types of software: Operating System software and Application software. The difference is essentially the following. Operating system software is software that you have little interaction with and is responsible for how the computer works with itself. Application software is software that you use to do something.
Examples of Operating system software are Windows (‘95 or ‘98), Unix, Linux, and Macintosh OS. Examples of application software are Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access), Netscape Navigator, that Solitaire program that people like to play with, etc.
To be quite honest, don’t worry about knowing what software is, the bigger issue is working with software to get something done. Be more “concerned” about learning a skill like Word Processing or Surfing the Web, you’ll get more done that way. Work with the software to do what it is that you need to do. One interesting thing you'll want to know is that often you’ll find there are multiple ways to do the same thing with software and that one is not necessarily better than another.
Mouse skills and the World Wide
Web
(20-25 Minutes)
This next
lesson will help you learn some of the skills necessary to use the World Wide
Web. Essentially, if you can click
and scroll with the mouse and "hunt and peck" with the keyboard, those are
basically all the "computer" skills you need to work on the web. One thing I do want you to keep in the
back of your mind is this - there is generally NO need to double click when you
are on the Web, single clicking is basically all you do.
What we are
going to do today is use Netscape, a type of computer software, to get on the
web, go to a search tool, and find out a little information. Generally, we're going to simulate what
you might do when you connect to the Web.
There are many things you can do on the web, we can't do all of them
today, but the skills you learn today are generally all you need to do just
about anything on the Web.
Definitions:
·
Browser - Netscape is a "browser".
A browser is simply a computer program that allows you to view documents
created for the World Wide Web. The
two most popular browsers are Netscape Navigator/Communicator and Internet
Explorer. If you use America On
Line (AOL) at home, you have Internet Explorer as your browser. Both these programs do the exact same
thing, they just call some of the same things by different names.
·
Link (Hyperlink) - A link or hyperlink, whatever you'd like to call it,
is merely a connector taking you from one document to another document or from
one part of a document to another.
Generally links appear on a web page as blue underlined text, but that
isn't always the case. In a second
we'll see how to identify a link.
·
Web Page, Web Site, Home Page - A web page is merely a document which has
been created for use on the World Wide Web; a Web site is a collection of
documents put together by the same "author" to serve a set purpose; and, a Home
Page is the main document of a website.
Step #1 -
Double Click on the Netscape Communicator Icon on the desktop. This will start Netscape and open up a
new window on your screen. You will now see the Camden County Library
Homepage. Whenever you are in the
library and start Netscape, the Library's homepage will appear because the
computers have been set to do so.
If you are working at home and start Netscape or Internet Explorer, your
Internet Service Provider will generally have set the first page. Remember too that whenever you click on
the Home button on the browser's toolbar (the gray area at the top of the screen
with the pictures marked Back, Forward, etc.) you'll go back to this page.
Step #2 -
Click once on the Home button.
You'll notice that all the browser did was to load the page we were
already viewing. The reason for
that is because we are on the Home location for these computers.
Step #3 - Now
we're going to see what a link looks like.
Move the mouse around the screen slowly you'll notice the pointer
either appears as an arrow, a straight up and down line, or a hand with a finger
pointing up. Whenever the hand
with the finger pointing up appears you'll know that you're on a link. Clicking once on a link takes you to
wherever that link is set to go.
Step #4 -
We're going to pretend that we are looking to get a new dog, but that we want to
find out more about the various dog breeds (behavior, size, etc.) before making
a purchase. Unless we know of a Web
site, which does this type of thing, we're going to have to use a Search tool in
order to be able to find the information.
The library's website contains a list of search tools, and now we're
going to navigate through the site in order to get to the list. The first thing we have to do is
click on the link for Search. We're clicking there because I know that
the Web Search Tools list is available from there. The Search page should now
appear in your browser window.
Step #5 -
Click on the link for - Search the Web. The page will appear in the browser
window.
At this point
I want to point out 1-2 things, when you click on a link you'll notice that the
hand/arrow will turn into an hour glass and the N to the upper right of the
screen will show a little asteroid/comet shower. These two things are telling you that
the computer is working on contacting the other computer to get you the
information you want. It should
contact the other computer fairly quickly, but sometimes it takes awhile and
sometimes it won't be able to connect.
After you click on the link, the computer will keep trying, continuing to
click on the link won't do anything to help. You can stop your computer from trying
to connect to the other computer by clicking on the Stop button on the toolbar,
near the top of the screen. After you click on Stop you can click on the link
again to try to re-establish the connection, if it doesn't work after the second
time - give up and go somewhere else.
Basically it won't work now - it might work later.
Step #6 -
Locate the link for Yahoo on the screen, it should be under the Subject Guides
category and click on it.
Yahoo is a Subject Guide or Directory of Websites (30 million
websites). We're going to use Yahoo
to find out information on dog breeds.
The Yahoo site should now be on your screen.
Step #7 - If you look about 1/3 of the way down the screen you should see categories of information. Let's assume that dog breeds should be in the Animal category that is under Science. Click on the Animals link and we'll go to the first sub-category under that listing.
Step #8 – Here
we’ll see more listings dealing with animals, the information ranges from Pets
to Animal Behavior to Worms. Since
we’re interested in a dog as a pet, let’s click on the Pets link.
Step #9 – Once
we get to the Pets area, we see there are even more choices ranging from By
Animal to Virtual Pets. Since we
know we are looking for Dog information let’s click on the By Animal
link.
Step #10 –
Here we finally see dogs. The thing
that is nice though is that the way we’ve gone in to find the information has
set that we’ll be seeing information dealing with dogs as an animal rather than
say the dogleg of a race. Click
on the link for Dogs to go to that category listing.
Step #11 –
Once there, we’ll again see a rather large set of possible ways to go. Always keep in mind when you’re on the
Internet that there are many ways to think of things. To some people dogs are pets, to some
they are work equipment, to some they are lunch, etc. This time let’s click on Breeds,
as we want to get more specific info on Dog Breeds.
Step #12 - You
should now see the page listing dog breeds. From here we could go to listings of
websites for any dog breed that is listed.
Just to make it easy, let’s click on the link for Afghan Hounds
and go to information dealing with that specific breed.
Step #13 –
Once we’re on the page listing websites dealing with the Afghan Hound, let’s
click on the link for the Afghan Hound Club of America to go to their
website.
Step #14 – You
should now be on the Afghan Hound Club of America website. If this had all the information that we
were looking for on Afghan Hounds we would be all set. We could take the information down,
print it out, etc. If this site
doesn’t have what we’re looking for, we would click on the Back button on the
toolbar to return to the previous page and then try the next link. For right now let’s click on the Back
button on the toolbar to go back to the list.
Oh jeez, after
all that work we just remembered that we did know a good website for dog breed
information after all - the American Kennel Club's site. The Uniform Resource Locator (URL),
commonly known as the web address, of the site is www.akc.org . Let's forget
about all this Yahoo stuff for now and go to the AKC site.
Steps #15-18 -
To get to a website that we already have the address for all we need to do is:
Click in location bar where the present Address is, Use the Backspace and/or
Delete key on the Keyboard to erase the contents of that area, type the new
address (in this case www.akc.org), and press the Enter key on the
Keyboard.
You should now
be on the American Kennel Club homepage.
…Well that's
enough for now, that's pretty much what the Web is all about. If you have an idea of the information
that you're looking for but don’t have an address - use a search tool, such as Yahoo to find
it. If you do have the address you
merely type it in the location bar, press the Enter key and go there.
Using MS (Microsoft) Word to create
and save a document
(30-40 Minutes)
Step #1 – On the desktop of your computer, find the icon for MS Word. An icon is just a picture which represents part of your computer or a type of software, and the desktop is the area of the computer where you see icons for “My Computer”, the “Recycle Bin”, “My Documents”, and several other things.
Step #2 – Double click on MS Word. Using the mouse put the arrow on top of the MS Word Icon and click two times quickly on the picture. NOTE: it’s “safer” to click on the picture than the words as if you don’t click quickly enough on the text the computer may think that you want to rename the icon. If you click to slowly on the picture, the computer will basically do nothing. When you do any "clicking" or "double-clicking" remember that you can't move the mouse up down, sideways, etc. else you'll be telling the computer to do something other than what you intend.
Step #3 – Locate the black blinking line ( | ) on the screen. The black blinking line is called the cursor or the insertion point. Wherever it is, is where you will type. The black blinking line should presently be at the upper left of the “document”. Try using the arrow keys on the keyboard to move to the right or down. You’ll notice that you can’t do it – the reason for that is that you haven’t put any text on the page yet so your unable to move. Essentially, you’re trying to use the arrows to move around nothing, so they don’t go anywhere.
Step #4 – Type your first and last name using the keyboard, putting a space between the two “words”.
Step #5 - Press the Enter key 2x and notice what happens on the screen. Essentially what you’ve done is made a carriage return or 2 paragraph breaks (or more simply you’ve moved the cursor down two lines). If you see a red or green line underneath your text, that's just Word telling you there is either a spelling (red) or grammar (green) mistake with what you just type. As names aren't necessarily in Word's dictionary, it might think you typed something in incorrectly. Don't worry about this, the lines won't print, they are just guides.
Step #6 – Type your last name and then your first name, putting a space between the “words”.
Step #7 – Utilizing the dark gray arrow keys on the keyboard, move up and left until the cursor is to the left of the first letter of your first name on the first line. Basically this is just showing you that once you’ve typed text on a document you can now use the arrows to move the cursor.
Step #8 – Using your mouse click one time on the second line between your last name and first name, just to the left of the first letter of your first name. For example, my name would appear as Garwood Steve, what I’m asking you to click just to the left of the S so that the cursor is just to the left of that letter, but still touching it something like Garwood |Steve. Essentially, this is just showing you that in addition to the arrow keys you can use the mouse to move the cursor. If your name became highlighted it's because you moved the mouse when you clicked. You don't want the word(s) highlighted for reasons you'll see in a minute, so click somewhere in the white area of the document and try it again.
Step #9 – Move the cursor back to the left side of your first name on the first line using either the mouse of arrow keys.
NOTE: What we’re going to do now is format your first name. Formatting simply means setting how a word or word is going to look when printed. Making things bold, italicized, bigger, etc. are all examples of formatting. In order to format text that you’ve already entered on the document you have to first “select” the text.
VERY IMPORTANT- if you don’t select
that text that you want to change you can’t change the formatting, as the
computer won’t know what to change.
Step #10 –Select your first name by clicking and holding down the mouse button just to the left of the first letter of your first name. SLOWLY and in a completely straight line drag just to the right of the last letter in your first name and release the mouse button. When you’re done the text would appear something like this: Steve You only want to have your first name highlighted/selected so if you have your whole name or other lines also highlighted, just click somewhere on the white area of the document and the highlighting will go away.
Step #11 – Now that you’ve selected your name, look up on the gray toolbar above and you’ll see a button that looks like a B. Click on it one time with the mouse. You’ll see your name get bold. To really see the effect, click on the white part of the document so the highlighting disappears. That’s all it takes. In addition to the B, the I will italicize text and the U underlines selected text.
Now we’re going to save the document we’ve created. For this exercise we’re going to save to the A:\ drive.
Step #12 - First look down at the CPU and you’ll see that there is a floppy disk sticking out of the A:\ drive. There won’t always be a disk sticking out. I just put it there for the class.
Step #13 – Gently push the floppy disk into the drive until you hear a click. The click means that the disk has successfully entered the drive. Sometimes it’s helpful to think of this as parking the car in the garage.
Step #14 – Just above the toolbar is the menu bar. Click once on the word File. After you click you’ll see that a menu drops down.
Step #15 – Locate the word Save on the menu that has dropped down and click one time on it. A dialog box will appear that has many options on it. You don’t want to click on the Save button just yet as you need to tell the computer where to save the file and what you want to name it.
Step #16 – Along the top of the dialog box you’ll see an area precluded by the words Save in: To the right of this there will be a name of an area of the computer. For this example we’re going to be saving to the 3 1/2 Floppy (A:) drive, so we need to change the Save In: area to indicate the 3 1/2 Floppy (A:) drive. To do this – click on the down pointing arrow to the right of Save in: A drop down list will appear with many options. Click on 3 ½ Floppy (A:). You should now see 3 ½ Floppy (A:) next to the right of the words Save in: What you’ve just done is told the computer where to save the file. You don't always have to save to the 3 1/2 Floppy (A:), you can save anywhere on your computer, just remember that you're going to have to remember later where you saved an item.
Step #17 – Now you need to give the file a name that you can remember, lower down in the dialog box, you’ll see the words File name: Click just to the right of the name that is there now. For example, I would see File name: Steve Garwood, so I would want to click to the right of the d in my last name. Next, push the Backspace key repeatedly until all of your name is gone.
Step #18 – Now type the following – first document – into the area where your name was. What you should now see is File name: first document. Therefore, what you have done in the last 2-3 steps is tell the computer where to save a file to and what to call it. As you have done this, you’ve greatly increased your chances of finding the file again in the future.
Step #19 – Now click on the Save button on the dialog box. The document will save to the 3 1/2 Floppy (A:) drive with the name you gave it. To check to see that it worked, just look at the blue title bar – it should now say First Document
We’re now done with MS Word.
Step #20 – First we’re going to close the file we’re working on (In this case the file is a document). To do this just click on File on the menu bar again, move down to Close and click once on it. The document should then close. Notice that MS Word is still open. All we just did was close the file, not the program that created the file.
Step #21 – Now we’re going to close the program itself, for this we’re going to do it the easy way. If you look on the upper right hand side of the screen you should see an X in a box. Click on the X one time and MS Word will close.
You should now be back to the desktop area where we started.
Questions?