College Computer Skills Tutorials

Introduction

These tutorials focus on efficiency with your mouse/trackpad, keyboard shortcuts, file structures, organizing a Word document or Google Doc, and your overall computing environment. They are designed primarily for college students. Readers should know how to touch type, use text editors or word processors like Google Docs or Microsoft Word, and have a basic idea of how to download files.

Depending on your screen size, links to each section of these tutorials will appear either in the left hand navigation panel or from the list icon at the top left of the screen. A link the next section is also included at the bottom right of each section.

Choose your approach

Here are suggested options for completing these tutorials.

Option 1: Complete each section independently. This is best if you know which skills would benefit you most.

Option 2: Start at the beginning. The sections on “Keyboard Skills” and “Mouse/Trackpad Skills” are short and will provide the quickest gains in efficiency for most users. These sections and “Organization within a Document” can be completed on a tablet or computer.

Option 3: Start at “Environment Setup.” Proceed to “File Management.” These sections provide the biggest gains in efficiency. They also take longer to complete.

• Both sections are designed for PCs and Macs, which have sophisticated file management systems and flexible environments.
• “Environment Setup” demonstrates how to download, save and organize your work in one document. This allows you to
  1. save your work,
  2. practice skills while going through the tutorials in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, and
  3. avoid rote copy-pasting text into a new Word document or Google Doc.

Option 4: Complete the Computer Skills Assessment now, later, or in parts. Just like these tutorials, the assessment is modular. Depending on your comfort with the material, you can complete sections of the assessment or all of it. If you are already familiar with the skills and simply want to run a quick self assessment, skip these tutorials. Head straight to either the online or downloadable assessment.

Know the skills and practice them

Each section below is divided into skill and practice subsections. Just like learning the piano, computing requires knowing the skills. It also requires applying the skills through practice. You can train your fingers to dance over the computer keyboard like a pianist’s fingers dance over piano keys.

Skills: Gain knowledge of core computing skills by working through the tutorials. You can also Google topics such as “computer shortcuts,” “file management,” and “navigation pane” to find additional tips and tricks.

Practice: Incorporate these skills every time you use your computer. Practice the skills in the “Practice” section at the end of each skill tutorial. In some cases, practice them repeatedly. Play the computer games Minesweeper or Solitaire. Computer developers originally made these games available on the computer to incentivize users to learn key mouse/trackpad skills.

Assessment

Complete the Computer Skills Assessment either online or by downloading a Word version of the assessment. If you cannot complete the tasks in the assessment, do not fret. Simply come back to these tutorials, practice, and return to the assessment later.

Examples

The following are examples of the speed possible with a brief amount of training in the following skills. Each example is drawn from the practice sections throughout this tutorial.

Mouse Skills

Using only your mouse you can quickly select text, bold it, select more text, delete it, and paste it back in. See “Mouse/Trackpad Skills”. Note that almost all of these tasks will be quicker with just your keyboard, as demonstrated in the next section.

Keyboard Skills

Using only your keyboard you can select text, bold and unbold it, delete blocks of selected text, replace text, and remove it again. See “Keyboard Skills”. Note that these tasks took 16 seconds with a mouse, and only 9 seconds with just the keyboard.

File Management

This video shows using your mouse to organize screens, your keyboard to create and rename folders, your mouse to move folders around, and your keyboard to create and rename more folders. See “File Management.”

Organization within a Document

This video shows document organization in Microsoft Word. Google Docs has similar capabilities. Watch the keyboard turn section headers into parts of the outline, the mouse and keyboard adjust the format of headers and then rapidly jump between sections of your document. See “Organization within a Document”.