| Week One |
| Wednesday - Lesson 01 |
Whether you're looking for a new job or looking to improve your
position at your current company, computer skills are essential to your
success. In our first lesson, we'll examine how companies set up and use
technology solutions. Then we'll take a close look at some of the components of
those solutions. Just understanding how technology fits into the overall flow
of work at your company will advance your position relative to your peers.
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| Friday - Lesson 02 |
Your computer has a software program installed on it that's
referred to as an "operating system." Most often, this system is Microsoft
Windows, but it could be others, such as Macintosh or Linux. In this lesson,
you'll learn how this system controls many important parts of the computer and
how you use those controls every day for tasks like managing where you keep
important files, and printing hard copies of documents. We'll also talk about
menus, taskbars, and shortcuts along the way.
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| Week Two |
| Wednesday - Lesson 03 |
Copying and pasting are two of the most important
things you'll learn to do with your computer. These simple tasks leverage the
enormous power of computers and can save you hundreds of hours or work. We'll
cover these two tools in today's lesson. We'll also discuss the dialog box—again,
a simple concept once you know how to use it, and once you master it, you'll
have come very far in understanding how to interact with your computer.
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| Friday - Lesson 04 |
Next to e-mail, the word processor is probably the most
frequently used application software in the workplace. Yet, if you've never
taken the time to learn the basic features of most word processors, you're not
performing nearly to your potential. In today's lesson, you'll learn and
practice the important capabilities of word processors like Microsoft Word.
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| Week Three |
| Wednesday - Lesson 05 |
During this lesson, we'll address three additional areas of word
processing: formatting, organizing information, and using special tools. Once
you understand formatting tools, you'll be able to make your text take on a
special appearance so that it draws attention where you want it to. For
example, you can underline, bold, or italicize text in the middle of a
paragraph for emphasis. After you learn about text formatting, we'll go over
paragraph and page formatting. We'll also examine how to organize data in
tables and lists.
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| Friday - Lesson 06 |
During today's lesson, we'll go over some important fundamental
concepts related to spreadsheets, including spreadsheet organization,
formatting, basic formulas, and data sorting. Once you discover how to create a
basic budget spreadsheet, you'll see how the skills and knowledge you gain from
this lesson can have a powerful impact on your ability to contribute more in
the workplace.
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| Week Four |
| Wednesday - Lesson 07 |
In this lesson, we'll discuss more details about the
spreadsheet, and how to provide easy-to-understand, accurate data. You'll learn
how to build graphs that can graphically display numeric information so you can
easily demonstrate trends, analyze past results, and predict future
performance. You'll also find out how to use some advanced spreadsheet tools
that can make your spreadsheets even more effective.
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| Friday - Lesson 08 |
E-mail affects your work performance in two ways: First, it
allows fast communication among geographically dispersed workers, and second,
it provides rapid dissemination of large documents and files to those same
workers. In today's lesson, we're going to study the best ways to use e-mail to
enhance your work performance. We'll examine some rules for writing business
e-mails, and you'll learn about e-mail etiquette and how to insert emotions
into your messages. Then we'll discuss some of the advanced functions
associated with e-mail, such as attaching documents.
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| Week Five |
| Wednesday - Lesson 09 |
During this lesson, we'll examine the components of a database,
focusing primarily on the user interface. In your job, you might use this
interface to perform a lot of different functions, including data input, data
output, and data maintenance. Clerks work with databases to input information.
Other employees might work with databases to filter, sort, and read
information. Database-management personnel interface with databases to keep
them accurate, reliable, and secure.
|
| Friday - Lesson 10 |
In today's lesson, we'll go over some of the computer's utility
programs to help you better understand the operation and organization of your
computer. Additionally, these programs will help you manage and safely maintain
the data on your computer. The utility programs we'll discuss here deal
primarily with file maintenance. Some of the functions associated with these
programs are viewing files, compressing files, diagnosing problems,
uninstalling software, defragmenting disks, backing up files, and running
screen savers.
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| Week Six |
| Wednesday - Lesson 11 |
Today, we'll go over the major storage media available in the
workplace, as well as their corresponding characteristics. These major media
types include hard drives, memory sticks, compact discs (CDs), tapes, and PC
cards. We'll review some of the terms people use to describe memory size, and
then we'll compare file sizes to different storage options. We'll also relate
storage options to the different work tasks you might perform, and we'll
discuss when each option is most appropriate for a certain task.
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| Friday - Lesson 12 |
| In our final lesson, we have three specific goals. The first is
to identify ways to use your computer skills to find a new job. The second is
to use those same computer skills to get a promotion within your current
organization. Our third goal is to explore strategies for continued learning in
order to support your ever-growing employment goals. |
