We are always on the lookout for good classroom text books, but have yet to find anything which covers the basics in a way we feel comfortable with. Teaching in the classroom in developing countries is very different from learning at home in the west on your own computer, so it's best to forget about how you learned computing yourself.
Facilities will be probably be much more limited - no internet, perhaps no printer; you may be using ancient computers and older versions of software; time will be at a premium; students will be learning in a second language and may not be used to following written or verbal instructions; and they will be learning to prepare themselves for work, not for pleasure.
The
kind of text book which are commonly available in developed countries are
often colourful and attractive, but emphasize too many distracting features
(screen savers, wallpaper, multimedia) instead of concentrating on what we
consider to be the important features. They do this to sell - editing a video
is much more exciting then learning how to format a document! But which is
more important in the workplace?
The text books available in developing countries tend to be the opposite - dull in the extreme. Usually printed on cheap paper in black and white, they are full of outdated photographs (anyone out there still using a daisywheel printer?) and text riddled with mistakes and poor English. They list every feature of every program, giving equal emphasis to the useful and the useless. This is the standard fare in schools, an insult to both teacher and student. Unfortunately it's often all that's available or all that can be afforded.
So
now you know why we write our own teaching materials for use in the classroom.
At the moment they are based on Windows 95 and Office 97 because that's what
we have been using for the last couple of years. A few of them are localised
and talk specifically about Cambodia or Nepal. We are continually updating
them and adding topics such as web design and maintenance, subjects which
we cover in an advanced course.
Links to all our teaching materials are included below. Click on the links to take a quick look at any document. You are welcome to download them (right-click on the links and choose "save as" from the pop-up menu) and use them in your own lessons for non-commercial purposes. They may not entirely suit your needs, but hopefully they will give you something to base your lessons around if you are short of materials. However, if you are a private commercial school then you must provide your own teaching materials!
Most of the lessons and practice exercises are in PDF format and can be read or printed using the free Acrobat reader. We recommend you install Acrobat on all your PCs. Some documents are meant to be opened and worked on by the students, so these are provided in their native document format too. Download both versions and compare them - if you don't have all the fonts installed on your computer then some of the documents will not display correctly in the native version. Set word to wrap in Notepad documents.
Oh yes - if you find any glaring mistakes anywhere please let us know!!
Teaching notes |
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| The basics | Notes 1 |  |
| Typing in Notepad | Notes 2 | |
| Using Paint | Notes 3 | |
| File management | Notes 4 | |
| Highlighting text | Notes 5a | |
| Copy & Paste using the mouse | Notes 5b | |
| Copy & paste using the keys | Notes 5c | |
| More Windows features | Notes 6 | |
| Basic Word 97 | Word 97 | |
| Basic Excel 97 | Excel 97 | |
Handouts |
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| The hierarchy of folders | Handout 1 | |
| Opening a document | Handout 2a | |
| Opening over the network | Handout 2b | |
| Saving a document | Handout 2c | |
| Saving over the network | Handout 2d | |
| Word 97 tips | Handout 3 | |
Practicals |
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| List of all practicals | |
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| Group quiz | |
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| (Notepad) | ||
| Common keys |  |
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| Using keys | |
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| More on keys | |
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| Example table | |
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| Shutdown | |
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| Khmer celebration - wrong | |
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| Khmer celebration - correct | |
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| (Paint) | ||
| Squares and rounds |  |
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| Selection box |  |
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| Text |  |
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| Barchart |  |
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| Colourwheel |  |
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| Heart |  |
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| (Word 97) | ||
| Using fonts |  |
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| Basic Word formatting | |
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| Virus | |
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| Lost luggage | |
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| Friendly letter | |
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| Word formatting | |
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| Khmer New Year - unformatted | |
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| Khmer New Year - formatted | |
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| Khmer New Year's Games - unformatted | |
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| Khmer New Year's Games - formatted | |
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| Animals | |
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| Recipes by Suntala didi | |
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| Recipes by Suntala didi - instructions | |
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| Recipe - chicken special | |
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| Recipe - chicken special, instructions | |
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| Drawing tools | |
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| Get well card | |
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| Losar card | |
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| Book list | |
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| Sales | |
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| Student attendance | |
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| Service report | |
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| (Excel 97) | ||
| Marks | |
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| Marks - revision |  |
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| Profit 1 | |
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| Profit 2 | |
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| Profit 3 | |
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| Profit - revision | |
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| Purchase bill | |