Having done more settling in than should be humanly possible, it's now time to get down to work. I will be teaching two courses in computers to begin with. The first one is a basic computer course and the other a more advanced class for people who have some limited experience with computers.
As the container of computers will not be arriving until December at the earliest, I need to focus on the theoretical side of the subject. There's little point in showing people how to format a letter or organise their files if they can't practice doing it. They would forget in a matter of days. Another factor to bear in mind is that there could be power-cuts before or during any of the classes. I am hoping to teach using a laptop (which was donated by Transtest) and projector (which was donated by Philips Ireland) so power is a real bonus. Where possible, I need to have a contingency lesson that doesn't need demonstration with a projector.
I will be teaching using Microsoft PowerPoint which is a presentation tool. I will have a projector connected to a laptop so the courses can be beamed up onto a wall for the whole class to see. PowerPoint comes with Microsoft Office so if any of you have PowerPoint and want to run though the modules, they are available for download below. After downloading the files, open them and hit the F5 key on your keyboard. Then to step through each of the slides just click your mouse button. To exit hit the Esc key.
I have broken down the basic computer course into 10 modules. The first five are finished and they are: -
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Introduction - What is a computer? (Download) |
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How a computer works - the mix of hardware, software and data (Download) |
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Hardware - looking at input devices, storage devices, processing devices and output devices (Download) |
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Software - looking at operating systems and applications (Download) |
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How to use software - Files, folders, windows and menus (Download) |
Each module should take about one hour to teach. At the beginning of each module there is a quick recap of the previous one so as to refresh it in the minds of the learners. Throughout the modules, real life examples are used to demonstrate to concepts being taught. In the downloads, some of those real life examples are missing so you may get a couple of errors.
Next week, if the power is back, I am hoping to finish the last five modules.