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Computer Tuition & Training - My Methods
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I employ many teaching methods but my preference is to teach from the ground up, step by step. I believe understanding, as well as information, needs to be conveyed. Otherwise, the individual may not be able to transfer their learning to a new situation.
For example, I have been surprised by just how often people confuse a file with an application. (Of course applications consist of files too, but these are normally irrelevant to the user). When a file association is changed due to the installation of new software, the user sometimes thinks that their files have disappeared or become altered! Moreover, they often do not realise that there may be another more suitable application they could use to create or modify the same type of file.
Another common confusion is one I find when teaching people to build websites using WYSIWYG web editors. These programmes tend to make the file paths of images (etc) relative to the drive of the user's own pc, rather than the web server. The result is that the images they insert into their web pages, do not appear when they upload their pages. Explaining to users the difference between their own pc and a web server (this is a source of confusion to some), how uploading via FTP works, how HTML web pages are distinct from the images that they include, and how to understand file-paths, clears up this common mistake.
From my own experience of using a PC, one function that I have found more useful than any other, is the clipboard, and the many different ways in which this is used in various applications. It might seem irrelevant to teach all these ways of copying and pasting (CTRL+C/CTRL+V; Edit|Copy/Edit|Paste; Right Click Drag & Drop|Copy Here; Right Click|Copy/Right Click|Paste; Right Click|Send To; etc.) but full mastery of the clipboard is one of the most time-saving processes that can ever be learned on a computer. Backed up by efficient use of both the mouse and the keyboard to select items for the clipboard, and the efficient use of multiple windows where items are being copied and pasted into different documents, folders etc., the student can be given one of the most powerful techniques for manipulating data and images across multiple applications through learning a few basic principles.
Hands-on experience is, of course, essential, especially in developing confidence, which is why a step-by-step format is better than presenting a lot of rather generalised information. I find that the generalised information and understanding is best added during the process of taking the student through the steps. "The only way to remember is to do".
For more information about my approach and the levels I teach please refer to the following page.
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