Computers for beginners lesson 1 and 2

Health and safety matters

Fire escape
Keep gangways clear
Computers and dehydration
Breaking from looking at monitors after 20 minutes
Body position

Ask everyone what their names are, give them the option to nod no if they don't want to talk

What have they come to learn about in particular

What level are they at

Explain my aim of trying to make them self sufficient

give a brief out line of the lesson and format

Discuss when break shall be and for how long

Lesson 1

How does a computer work?

Binary
ON OFF
Choices Flow diagram

Getting up

Open eyes > is it Dark >

0 Yes
1 No

If 0 Switch on light
If 1 Look at clock

What is a program?

A program is a set of instructions.

It is a list of instructions that tells the computer what to do.

What are the components that make up a computer?

The essential parts

Power supply Blood supply
Motherboard The nervous system and skeleton
Processor The Brain Thinking parts(but not the memory)
Bios chip The DNA / Instinct
Memory Memory
Input devices Senses

The secondary parts

Hard drive Innate and social knowledge like a library
Floppy disk Motor bike courier service to and from the library
CD Rom Truck Delivery
CD Writer New Depot where the library can send out copies of information by the truck load
DVD Reader Long Vehicle lorry delivery service
DVD Writer Long vehicle depot for sending out copies of information
Other storage mediums include ZIP, Jazz, Optical, Smart Cards (Mention why these are likely to be the future)

Sound Card Voice / sound output
Graphics card. Enables visualisation to humans Why isn't the graphics card an essential part?
Monitor Other output devices such as Braile or text to speech synthesis
Modem Telephone communication, Mention Being Digital and 590K faster than present connections

Extra cards Video capture, MIDI, graphics Tablets,

The Hard Drive and Navigating the computer

Data can be stored or got from different parts of the library, The hard Drive.
If humans worked like computers then every time were born we would have know what those who went before us had learnt.

Why can't the computer just be switched off?

Before the computer dies it prepares the information for its next life so it starts where it leaves, in order to do this the computer looks at itself and records it's present situation, that way next time it's switched on it doesn't have to learn about its environment.

What happens when the computer is switched on?

The start up process
Bios tells the processor where to load up the operating system

What is an operating system?

An interface between humans and computers that's generally more user friendly than working in machine code, but sometimes I wonder!
The personal settings and automatic programs are started up
Hands on session playing around with user settings, mainly graphics but also look at the control panel and show items such as add and remove software and hardware, modem, sound.
Also folder options hidden files.

Windows Help Menu

Lesson 2

Windows Desktop basic navigation
Copy cut paste icons to task bar or start menu or desktop. Appearance settings, line up, auto position.

File management

My computer V's Explorer
The C Drive
The concept of Partitioning or adding other Hard disks
What the folders on the C drive are about
Backing up folders

What kind of things are computers used for

Business
Creative
Communications
Archiving talk about advantages and disadvantages of digitising
Ask for other ideas

The future

Nano technology
User friendly interfaces
Storage and data transfer
Robotics

End

Home

Lesson 1

Lesson 2