Computer Skills Tutorials

Introduction

These tutorials are designed to help you become an efficient and effective computer user. You will find that you can write a simple essay quicker and with better organization. If you pursue more advanced computing, such as complex research projects or coding, you will find that these skills are critical.

You can choose how to approach these tutorials:

• Complete each section independently. This is best if you know which skills would benefit you most.
• 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, as well as “Organization within a Document”, can be completed on a tablet or computer.
• Start at “Environment Setup”. This is the section that demonstrates how to download your own copy of the entire tutorial, so that you can save and organize your work in one document. Proceed to “File Management.” These sections provide the biggest gains in efficiency. They also take longer to complete. Note that both sections are designed for PCs and Macs, which have sophisticated file management systems and flexible environments.

Each section below is divided into two subsections: theory and practice. Just like learning the piano, computer skills require both.

Theory: Gain knowledge of the theory of computing by working through the tutorials. You can also Google “computer shortcuts”, “file management”, “document navigation” to find additional tips and tricks.

Practice: Each section ends with a set of tasks. Complete them, and in some cases, practice them repeatedly. Incorporate these skills every time you use your computer. Some sections will suggest that you play computer games such as Minesweeper or Solitaire. Computer developers originally made these games available on the computer to incentivize users to learn key skills.

Assessment: You can assess your own skills by completing the linked Computer Skills Assessment. If you cannot complete the tasks in the assessment, come back to these tutorials.

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.

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”.

Mouse Skills

Using only your mouse you can quickly, but not as quickly as with your keyboard: select text, bold it, select more text, delete it, and paste it back in. See “Mouse/Trackpad Skills”.

Organization within a Document

This video shows document organization in Microsoft Word; Google Docs has similar capabilities. See the keyboard to 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”.

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.”