At the college where I teach, computer basics are Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Those are the only software programs taught to beginning students.
I have suggested adding an introduction (not full courses) in Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign - plus basic Internet and email usage.
What would you consider “computer basics” for first year college students?
Windows (Or OSX). Mainly how to use your operating system, keyboard, mouse, and monitor. And printer. And any other common, especially USB, peripheral (iPod? Digital Camera?).
Definitely basic image manipulation - cropping and adjustment of colour, tone, contrast, etc - Not necessarily in Photoshop though, for a basic course, any of a few dozen cheaper or free programs would do the job - although with Photoshop being widely used, I would steer clear of anything that uses a radically different control metaphor.
Some kind of database taster might be useful - Access should be fine for this.
Definitely agree with Internet. In fact, I’d ditch teaching PowerPoint altogether if it meant we could spend some time on Internet basics.
Basic computer setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting. Things like defrag tools and virus scanners. Also, everyone should know how to set up a computer out of the box. I’ll understand if you don’t want to tinker around inside the case, but plugging the peripherals to the case is child’s play. I mean that literally – any child who is old enough to recognise simple shapes and colours, and dexterous enough to insert a plug into the socket, could set up a computer. If you try to plug something into the wrong socket, it simply won’t fit. I think the only reason some people won’t do it is that they’re scared.
And in the end, I think that’s the main problem beginners have with computers. They are intimidated by this big complicated machine in front of them, and are unwilling to do anything new with it unless someone’s there to hold their hand. If we can make them confident enough to experiment and find out new things for themselves, the particular software packages being taught really don’t matter that much.
Handling files, so that you know how to copy a file, how to remove it, etc.
And also understanding the file structure, so that you know the difference between a folder and a file, and you should be able to find your way to the folder in which MS word (for example) is installed. Oh, and some basic understanding on what different types of file do (EXE, ZIP, etc). Assuming this is windows based, that is.
I never used Photoshop or… uh, what were the other two?
I’ve taught Paint and the most basic of Irfanview’s functions (rotate, red eye, resize, resample) to coworkers whose howls of “why didn’t anybody teach me this sooner?” would have made a pack of wolves feel right at home.
My idea of computer basics:
Once you know those and how to use a keyboard, you can plough your way through alllllmost any program.
Nothing! They should have learned all this stuff years earlier!
What the heck were they using for their high school papers and documents?
The only things the college should teach generally would be specific details to access the local college stuff – intranet access info, staff/student directory webpages, physical connection info (how to connect up in your dorm room, wireless access points, etc.) and maybe some info on college policies (porn, music downloads, etc.). A 2-4 hour session should be sufficient for this.
I suppose the school should offer remedial courses for students (poor or foreign exchange, probably) who have had no exposure to computers at all. But these would be special courses for students who needed them, not “basics” courses for everybody.
t-bonham, when Mom signed up two years ago for an Intro to Computers offered by the local council, 90% of the students were women of… a certain age. An age where you get age-based discounts and have people who can legally call you Grandma, that is.
The rest were female doctors. Four of them. The whole latest batch at the local Hospital.
SiL, also a doctor, never learned to use a computer until she was faced with one at work in that same Hospital. Her brother’s degree is in Comp Sci and she’s had one at home since she was 14.
Half of Lilbro’s classmates refused to use one. They’d always manage to make someone else do the typing…
I’m curious as to why you’d think image manipulation is a basic computer skill. In my experience, very few people ever do anything beyond pull their photos out of their camera and email them to their mother. What they need is basic file system skills, not image manipulation.
Even me, who’s at my computer 12 hours a day, rarely needs to do image manipulation. Unless you’re an artsy type who does it for fun or have some job-related duty that requires it, I don’t see why anyone needs to know this.
Agree with this, as well as Nava’s basic mouse skills. Specific pieces of software, image manipulation (?), defragmentation and all the other stuff can go hang as long as they have a basic understanding of what the hell is going on. Once they’re over that hurdle, the rest is figure-out-able. Which is a word.
Which is why the question should be split in two. PC hardware basics, and PC software basics. Image manipulation is in the top 10 for software basics. I was shading my own pixels at 14, it isn’t that hard. It would also be nice that when these people pull their photos out of their camera and email them to me, they’re not 1600x1200 and 10 megabytes.
Resizing couldn’t hurt either. My husband at one point found several gigs worth of images on his mother’s computer. Most photos are quite large when coming off the flash card.
One thing about those image programs…while they are awesome, I’ve come to find that everyone I know who has a digital camera seems to use the apps that come with the camera for organizing and manipulating photos. It’s just easier that way. Unless you plan on giving everyone a free copy of those apps you mention, I would just steer clear of photo and design programs as they are not normally found on a user’s machine (I’ve been using computers for almost 20 years now and I’ve never even touched InDesign or Illustrator).
If you feel you must do some image manipulation stuff, at least show them how to use a free program like IrfanView or the GIMP, as someone else suggested.
I would also suggest Internet safety and etiquette. How NOT to get phished, how NOT to click on every thing you see, how NOT to forward glurge, etc.
PRINT, GOTO, INPUT, FOR I = 1 to 10, … 
Do be aware that these apps are hugely expensive. Look for cheaper alternatives like Paintshop Pro and PagePlus. That said, mentioning apps like Photoshop on a resume can be a huge boost for the student.
Very basic fault-finding. In Windows, take a look at the Event Viewer and show them the three categories of message. Show them how to use Microsoft’s Knowledgebase. Restore points and how to use them. Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop.
Very basic security - the why (not the how) of firewalls and virus checkers.
How to deal with spam.
How to send a big file to someone. Emailing an attachment works great up to a few megs, but after that, somebody has to know how to set up an FTP server (or something similar), and the other somebody has to be able to connect to it.
How to multitask. I don’t mean actually doing many things at once, but the ability to switch between programs and use one without disturbing another. I finally set up a guest account after the umpteenth time I lent my computer to a friend who wants to check her email (I know it’s not just women who have this problem, but all my guy friends are computer geeks.) and got it back with one stupid browser window open, after they’ve closed everything else I had open.
How to understand and evaluate internet security. This is a tough one to teach well, but a few simple rules make you way better off. Things like “look at the address line before typing in your password” and “don’t blindly trust what you read in an email” go a long way. And this will become increasingly important.
How to do basic troubleshooting using Google. If your application AwesomeApp.exe fails with the error message: “Failure in module foo, unable to construct flizbar” then go to fucking Google, and type “AwesomeApp “Failure in module” “unable to construct”” and see if anyone tells you how to fix the problem. 90% of the time, there’s a known and well-documented solution.
How to describe problems. (I guess it’s pretty clear that I have tech support experience). At some point, you’ll need to describe a problem to someone more knowledgable than you. Learn proper terminology so you can describe what’s actually happening. Monitor, Computer, Card, Window, Mouse, Frozen, Client, Operating system, Error message (write them down!). There are a lot more. “When I try to send an email, my email client is nonresponsive for a few minutes, then displays this error message [reads error message]” will get you to a solution orders of magnitude faster than “My email doesn’t work” “When does this happen?” “All the time. It just doesn’t do anything.”
Oh, for first year college students. I came in here to tell you about my library patrons, who often need to be taught basics like double clicking, where you put the URL, how to print, how to center text, how to make italics…
You would not believe the hard time people have with double clicking.
This is the best piece of advise in this thread, in my opinion. Being able to describe a problem clearly and accurately not only is essential when it comes to finding help, it often steers people towards the answer themselves. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started to describe a problem in an email and halfway through figured out the answer myself.
For first year college students, if they are persuing engineering or a physical science, I think you’d have to add programming in something simple like Basic or maybe Java, and using one or two technical applications like a simple CAD program, and a basic statistics or numerical package.
Adobe Acrobat