Basic Computer Literacy
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What to do when an error comes up. I know some people who see an error but don't actually read it, and then wait for somebody (ie me) to come along and click 'OK' and tell them to try loading the file again or whatever.
My current favourite word is: I'm starting to run out of fav. words!
-SK Genius
That requires teaching them to *THINK* a completely different process from teaching PC literacy.
You know, every time I tried to win a bar-bet about being able to count to 1000 using my fingers I always got punched out when I reached 4.... -- El Corazon
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What to do when an error comes up. I know some people who see an error but don't actually read it, and then wait for somebody (ie me) to come along and click 'OK' and tell them to try loading the file again or whatever.
My current favourite word is: I'm starting to run out of fav. words!
-SK Genius
SK Genius wrote:
What to do when an error comes up.
That reminds me.... I was checking my son in with youth services here on site, for summer camps. The lady was having trouble entering in the data to sign him up for the schedule. Everytime she brought up the program an error message popped up, she clicked okay and tried again... again... and again... and again. I could here the error message, so I asked: "having problems accessing the network today?" "I don't know what is wrong, it brings up an message in front of what I am doing so I close it." "what did the message say?" "I don't know, I was just trying to get rid of it so I could acess the program for entering data." She shut down the computer with the power switch... I tried hard not to flinch, and rebooted, escaping from the check-disk... I bit my tongue, and kept from asking anything more. After the 3rd reboot it worked, not sure how, or for how much longer....
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
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I'm giving someone a crash course in this subject this weekend. She operates a computer daily, but only a very small, well learned set of tasks, e.g. capture an invoice. I'm so far removed from this person in this context, I'd like some outside input on what to teach her. I'm looking at a very quick coverage of booting, logging on, locking workstation, drives, folders, and files, Windows Explorer, creating, copying, moving files, common functions such as copy, paste etc. Have I left anything out?
Semicolons: The number one seller of ostomy bags world wide. - dan neely
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I'm giving someone a crash course in this subject this weekend. She operates a computer daily, but only a very small, well learned set of tasks, e.g. capture an invoice. I'm so far removed from this person in this context, I'd like some outside input on what to teach her. I'm looking at a very quick coverage of booting, logging on, locking workstation, drives, folders, and files, Windows Explorer, creating, copying, moving files, common functions such as copy, paste etc. Have I left anything out?
Semicolons: The number one seller of ostomy bags world wide. - dan neely
Generally, I would say your plans are far too advanced. You should start with: 1. Where the power cord plugs into the wall. 2. Where the power cord plugs into the computer. 3. The "power on" switch for the monitor is not the same as powering on the computer. 4. How to correctly operate the "power on" switch for the computer. 5. Avoiding the use of coffee mugs near keyboards and mice. 6. Remembering to power on the monitor after you realized the computer lights are on, but there is no video display. 7. Understanding that the printer must be turned on before it will print. 8. This one is important: Do not use the battery backup unit as a foot stool. 8a. Be prepared to jump back when a cord gets kicked loose! 9. Do not rest legs on network cable stretched between computer and wall. 9a. #9 is particularly useful when you've just started a long running network operation. This is my personal list. I know it is accurate and functional. I write software, I do not write hardware. I consult it several times a day for my own personal use. :laugh:
CodeWiz51 -- Life is not a spectator sport. I came to play. Code's Musings | Code's Articles
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I've always found that it is the fear of damaging the computer that stalls most users: they appear to believe that if they make a mistake, of any kind, that they will destroy the computer. Once that is overcome I find most people become very receptive. Usually start with simple stuff and see how much they can soak up: surprising how many people don't know what Windows Explorer is or how to use it or how to save files to their hard disk, etc.
That reminds me of my mother in law. I was teaching her Front Page so she could update her very basic website for her business. All of a sudden the page rendered and it didn't look like what she expected. She threw the mouse down like it had given her a shock and moved away from the desk. I said, 'here mom is your new best friend called the undo key.'
Shhhhh..... http://craptasticnation.blogspot.com/[^]
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I'm giving someone a crash course in this subject this weekend. She operates a computer daily, but only a very small, well learned set of tasks, e.g. capture an invoice. I'm so far removed from this person in this context, I'd like some outside input on what to teach her. I'm looking at a very quick coverage of booting, logging on, locking workstation, drives, folders, and files, Windows Explorer, creating, copying, moving files, common functions such as copy, paste etc. Have I left anything out?
Semicolons: The number one seller of ostomy bags world wide. - dan neely
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I'm giving someone a crash course in this subject this weekend. She operates a computer daily, but only a very small, well learned set of tasks, e.g. capture an invoice. I'm so far removed from this person in this context, I'd like some outside input on what to teach her. I'm looking at a very quick coverage of booting, logging on, locking workstation, drives, folders, and files, Windows Explorer, creating, copying, moving files, common functions such as copy, paste etc. Have I left anything out?
Semicolons: The number one seller of ostomy bags world wide. - dan neely
Tell them about this great autobiographical novel that came with all the equipment about a guy name manual.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway -
SK Genius wrote:
What to do when an error comes up.
That reminds me.... I was checking my son in with youth services here on site, for summer camps. The lady was having trouble entering in the data to sign him up for the schedule. Everytime she brought up the program an error message popped up, she clicked okay and tried again... again... and again... and again. I could here the error message, so I asked: "having problems accessing the network today?" "I don't know what is wrong, it brings up an message in front of what I am doing so I close it." "what did the message say?" "I don't know, I was just trying to get rid of it so I could acess the program for entering data." She shut down the computer with the power switch... I tried hard not to flinch, and rebooted, escaping from the check-disk... I bit my tongue, and kept from asking anything more. After the 3rd reboot it worked, not sure how, or for how much longer....
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
El Corazon wrote:
"what did the message say?" "I don't know, I was just trying to get rid of it so I could acess the program for entering data."
Well, there we go, another instance confirming the rule: users don't read dialog boxes.
DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991
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That reminds me of my mother in law. I was teaching her Front Page so she could update her very basic website for her business. All of a sudden the page rendered and it didn't look like what she expected. She threw the mouse down like it had given her a shock and moved away from the desk. I said, 'here mom is your new best friend called the undo key.'
Shhhhh..... http://craptasticnation.blogspot.com/[^]
My family have had home PCs for 17 years. My mum still hasn't adapted to the experiment-and-see approach to learning software. A particular problem was always printing booklets in Publisher 2000, which never made a lot of sense, and you had to do it slightly differently depending on whether you wanted to do the booklet directly on the printer, in which case you had to get it to stop so you could feed the paper back in to do the other side, or whether you wanted "camera-ready copy" to feed into a photocopier. The trouble then was which page number to give to Publisher to print it properly. Still, there were only a few possibilities, at the cost of wasting a small amount of paper and ink. We recently upgraded them to Office 2007 which I think is a bit clearer when doing this. My dad is a 38-year industry veteran and his patience with her can be very limited, so I end up doing a lot of the helping.
DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991
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SK Genius wrote:
What to do when an error comes up.
That reminds me.... I was checking my son in with youth services here on site, for summer camps. The lady was having trouble entering in the data to sign him up for the schedule. Everytime she brought up the program an error message popped up, she clicked okay and tried again... again... and again... and again. I could here the error message, so I asked: "having problems accessing the network today?" "I don't know what is wrong, it brings up an message in front of what I am doing so I close it." "what did the message say?" "I don't know, I was just trying to get rid of it so I could acess the program for entering data." She shut down the computer with the power switch... I tried hard not to flinch, and rebooted, escaping from the check-disk... I bit my tongue, and kept from asking anything more. After the 3rd reboot it worked, not sure how, or for how much longer....
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
Amazing isn't it. I write software for use on sophisticated multi-axis CNC controls and PLCs controlling machines costing close to a million dollars and systems reaching several million dollars. If I had a nickel for every time one of our own service techs called me looking for advice on a problem and knew there was an error message displayed but didn't bother to note the error # or exact text... :wtf:
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Tell them about this great autobiographical novel that came with all the equipment about a guy name manual.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest HemingwayManual has absconded.
Semicolons: The number one seller of ostomy bags world wide. - dan neely
-
Amazing isn't it. I write software for use on sophisticated multi-axis CNC controls and PLCs controlling machines costing close to a million dollars and systems reaching several million dollars. If I had a nickel for every time one of our own service techs called me looking for advice on a problem and knew there was an error message displayed but didn't bother to note the error # or exact text... :wtf:
I was bout to respond to El Corazon that it's not only users that don't read them. Hell, I even get fellow developers, never mind our techs, asking me why something 'didn't work'.
Semicolons: The number one seller of ostomy bags world wide. - dan neely
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Generally, I would say your plans are far too advanced. You should start with: 1. Where the power cord plugs into the wall. 2. Where the power cord plugs into the computer. 3. The "power on" switch for the monitor is not the same as powering on the computer. 4. How to correctly operate the "power on" switch for the computer. 5. Avoiding the use of coffee mugs near keyboards and mice. 6. Remembering to power on the monitor after you realized the computer lights are on, but there is no video display. 7. Understanding that the printer must be turned on before it will print. 8. This one is important: Do not use the battery backup unit as a foot stool. 8a. Be prepared to jump back when a cord gets kicked loose! 9. Do not rest legs on network cable stretched between computer and wall. 9a. #9 is particularly useful when you've just started a long running network operation. This is my personal list. I know it is accurate and functional. I write software, I do not write hardware. I consult it several times a day for my own personal use. :laugh:
CodeWiz51 -- Life is not a spectator sport. I came to play. Code's Musings | Code's Articles
CodeWizard1951 wrote:
I write software, I do not write hardware.
Yes, people often think I "do computers". No, I do stuff on computers. Techs 'do' computers.
Semicolons: The number one seller of ostomy bags world wide. - dan neely
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Brady Kelly wrote:
She operates ...
Is she hot? ;P
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008)Attractive, but not hot. Also my friend's girlfriend, and house-mate.
Semicolons: The number one seller of ostomy bags world wide. - dan neely