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Helpful Computer Tools
You don’t have to be a computer wiz to excel at
distance education, but a few simple computer skills
using common computer tools will make your learning
experience more successful. If you are already very
familiar with computers, you may want to briefly skim
through this section.
Email
You will need to know how to send and receive email
messages. Each email program is a little different,
so you may need to consult your email help menu to
answer specific questions you might have.
Email Attachments
One useful feature of email is that you can attach
documents, like Word files or illustrations, to your
email message. If you haven’t done this before,
you start by saving the document you wish to attach.
You can save the document on your computer’s
hard drive which is usually drive C:, on your
computer’s Desktop, or on a floppy disk.
Then open your email program and select the
"Attach" option. A new window will open. At
the top of that window will be a box with text
something like "Look In:" or
"Location:" next to it, and some text
inside the box. Click on the arrow at the end of
the box, which will give you a dropdown menu.
Use the dropdown menu to select the location
of your document, and then locate and select the
document name. Your email program will show you
that you have attached the document.
Copy and Paste Functions
Copy and paste options allow you to copy text to a
new location without disturbing the original text.
You may copy and paste between documents and even
from a document into an email message.
To begin the copy and paste process, the text that
you want to copy must be highlighted. You can
highlight by dragging your mouse over the text while
holding down the left mouse button. You may also
highlight by holding the shift key and using your
arrow keys to move the curser. Or you may select
an entire document by using the "Select All"
option in your program’s "Edit" menu.
While the text is highlighted, select the
"Copy" option by doing one of the following:
- Select the "Copy" icon in your toolbar.
- Select the "Copy" option from your
program’s "Edit" menu.
- Right click your mouse while it is over the
highlighted text and select the "Copy".
option.
- Hold the Control button and select the
letter "C".
Once you’ve copied the highlighted text, the
next step is to paste it. Go to the location where
you want the material to appear. Put your curser
exactly where you want the copied material, then
do one of the following:
- Select the "Paste" icon from your toolbar.
- Select the "Paste" option from your
program’s "Edit" menu.
- Right click your mouse and select the
"Paste" option.
- Hold the Control button and select the letter
"V".
You may want to try this a time or two to get the hang
of it. Try copying and pasting between two documents.
Open your word processing program and type a paragraph.
Highlight the paragraph and copy it. Then open your email
program and select the "New Message" option.
Click inside the message box and paste the message
into the box. It won’t take long before you are
using this feature often!
Web Browsers
Web browsers, such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer,
are used to navigate the Internet. Navigation buttons enable
you to move backwards and forwards between web pages. The
Address field shows the web site address, or URL, of the
page that you are currently looking at. You can type in
an address in the Address field to go directly to a specific
web site or page on the Internet.
Review the Technical Requirements
section of this guide for web browser requirements when taking
ADEC courses.
Search Engines
To enter a query into a search engine, just type in a few
descriptive words and hit the 'enter' key (or click on
the Search button) for a list of relevant web pages.
Since search engines only return web pages that contain
all the words in your query, refining or narrowing your
search is as simple as adding more words to the search
terms you have already entered. Your new query will
return a smaller subset of the pages found for
your original "too-broad" query.
For best results, it’s important to choose your
keywords wisely. Keep these tips in mind:
- Try the obvious first. If you’re looking
for information on Picasso, enter "Picasso"
rather than "painters".
- Use words likely to appear on a site with the
information you want. "Luxury hotel Dubuque"
gets better results than "really nice places to
spend the night in Dubuque".
- Make keywords as specific as possible.
"Antique lead soldiers" gets more relevant
results than "old metal toys".
You can also increase the accuracy of your searches by
adding operators that fine-tune your keywords. Each
search engine is a little different, however, here
are some standard advanced search features you can
use to narrow your search: “+/-”, phrase,
“OR”, and Domain Restricted searches.
For more search engine tips, go to:
http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/index.html.
Recommended Search Engines:
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