Teaching Word & Excel

[califoh]

Hi, I have been asked to teach a class on Word & Excel where I work. This will be a class for beginners. I know both programs pretty well but I have never taught anyone how to use them. I am not sure where to begin with and what features to show. If anyone has done this I would appreciate some advice. Thank you.

 

[jvinson549]

If the people in the class are from your place of employment and are using the same version of the program, I reccomend starting out with how you personally use the software. Such as your normal daily routine of using the software. Make sure you review the software help files thouroghly. Most of the questions that may come up in the class can be answered with the contents of the help files.

I have been placed in this position and everything has worked out fine. Good Luck.

 

[califoh]

Thank you for your reply. I am mostly worried about speaking in front of people. I normally do tech support over the phone or one on one.

 

[theMusicMan]

Hi

I'm sure you'll do great if you're used to offering support over the phone. I lecture regularly on a part time basis for my local university but I have the utmost respect for 'on the phone' support professionals.

It must be really difficult when speaking to people who EXPECT you to have all the answers there and then!!! At least when lecturing you can always say... "I'll get back to you on that one!!"

Anyhow, as I'm sure you will already know, there will be loads of advice and support over the web. I've just done a quick search using google for "word tips" and it has brought back load of stuff. here's just a few ....

http://www.wordinfo.com/links/tiplist.htm

http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/word/

I'm sure you will be great - go for it!

Good luck

John

 

[califoh]

Thank you John, I am going to check out the links now.

 

[theMusicMan]

no problem you're very welcome ......

Don't forget to do the same type of search in a www browser for MS Excel tips & tricks as well.

John

 

[Anne Troy]

I teach both.

Try this link:

http://www.lgta.org/word7/

And here's the TOC from one of the manuals I use for Word 2000, edited by me to be coherent:

Getting Started
Define Word processing software
Launching Word
Creating a shortcut
Viewing Word window (explain title bar, Exit X, menu bar, toolbars, status bar, scroll bars, etc.)
Entering and saving text
Autotext/autocorrect
Insert/Delete, Select/Replace
Using Help/Office Assistant
Preview/Printing
Close/Exit
Save -vs- Save as

Editing and Proofing
Copying/Moving
Spellcheck/Grammar/Thesaurus
Find/Replace

Formatting
Apply fonts/effects
Alignment/Tabs/Indenting
Paragraph spacing
Bullets/Numbering
Borders/Shading

Tables
Creating
Use instead of columns
Convert Text-to-table and/or Table-to-Text
Insert/Delete rows/columns
Sorting data in a table
Calculating (I wouldn't use this--too rarely used)

Formatting Pages
Headers/Footers
Using fields (page numbers/section numbers/dates)
Page orientation
Different first page/Different Odd-Even pages

Hope this helps! Of course, this is a 6-hour course and I've left out stuff that I wouldn't bother teaching.

 

[tderose]

I teach it for a living now. The biggest problem that I have with every class is underestimating how little they know.

Spend some time on basics, really basics. Don't be fooled by the know it all who yawns in your face. It's the quiet ones who pretend they know what they are doing because they're embarrassed by their inexperience.

Give them a simple assignment and then look over their shoulders. You might be startled to know how many folks don't know what to do with the buttons on the mouse.

Another thing I do is to teach with assignments. Instead of teaching cut and paste, I give them an assignment that needs it and then look around to see who does it AND HOW THEY DO IT. That way I can quietly give advice to the embarrassed and not waste the time of the knowledgeable.

Asking them to buy the step by step series and then supplementing it with lots of practice material helps.


Ted

 

[Anne Troy]

Good info, tderose.

I remember going to teach a Win98 class and thinking "this'll be a breeze". Four people. Only ONE had ever even touched a mouse before. Omigod!!

And you're absolutely right about the quiet ones...

 

[Raphael]

Welcome to the club!! Reader's Digest once joked that a deer caught in your headlights will just freeze... it thinks your headlights are stagelights and it has stage fright!!!
A fantastic website for lesson plans is Bigchalk.com. Besides for its own lesson plans, it has a great search engine.
I personally like to creat my lesson plans out of the Sams books, either Teach Yourself... In 24 Hours, or Teach Yourself...In 10 min. Both are very well organized
Don't forget the chinese proberb, "A teacher opens the door...but student must walk thru."

 

[Anne Troy]

Oh, and you can teach them some fun stuff, too.

Like what happens when you type =rand(5,5) and hit enter.

Go here for some, depends on versions: http://www.eeggs.com/tree/558.html

 

[Hect]

I teach for a living and I agree with tderose. Start with the basics and I mean very basic. I start with teaching the menus and buttons. Don't take it for granted that they know what the buttons do. In my first lesson I teach:
The Title Bar
The Menu Bar
The Stardard Toolbar
The Formatting Toolbar
The Status Bar
Things will go smoother if they have a good understand of this.
2nd lesson: Type a letter and save it to disk
3rd lesson: Finding your way around on the hard drive. I found that a lot of people save things and don't know where it went.

If you want me let me know and I'll send it. Allow lots of time. Some people are quite slow to catch on and it will probably take longer than you estimate.

 

[califoh]

Thank you all so much. I am sorry I have not been back to this board sooner to thank you. All of the advice is very good. Thanks again

 

[Anne Troy]

Don't worry about it. Some never come back and it's so nice when someone does.

If you tell them you're nervous about speaking in front of people at the beginning of the class--it'll be out. And you'll be able to relax. (It really works, too!)

GOOD LUCK!!

 

[Raphael]

I just started today a class for seniors... they had such a hard time understanding the concept of a mouse!!! I took them to paint, and had them scribble around a little to get a feel for it. Any ideas where to go from here??