The Instructor’s Forum
Learning Center
Huntington, NY
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The Instructor’s ForumDecember 2001
Editor’s Note
N
obody asked but it’s a slow month so why not?
The actual printing and mailing of this thing turns out to be something of a pain. Almost every-one has MSWord in some version or other. If you do, we could send this as a file and spare ourselves and the Office personnel the extra time and effort.
We’re going to send this issue as an email file attachment and see how you respond.
More on the Virus Problem
L
ast month’s article on Heber’s virus prompted Bob Bozzone to send us the following note:
If I could just add a little bit more to Heber Marquez’s interesting article on ‘The Nimda Infec-tion’ in the November Issue of ‘The Instructor’s Forum’:
In addition to the advice for downloading the latest virus definitions from Norton, it’s also recommended that all your hard drives be scanned on a regular basis. To do this automatically without your command, it means that your machine has to be on all the time. (I personally recommend this mode as opposed to turning your PC on and off every day).
In your Norton Anti-Virus Program, simply setup Scheduling\New Event and select ‘Schedule A Virus Scan’ to be performed (once a week should be OK). For example, in my case I schedule a scan of my hard drives at 2 AM followed by a backup of my data at 3 AM every Thursday. In this way, I’m pretty sure that my backups are virus free. Now you never have to worry about scanning, and your drives should stay clean from viruses.
If all this is too much difficulty, after your virus definitions have been updated by Live Update,
do a manual scan of all your hard drives. It should only take a few minutes and it’s well worth the trouble.
Bob Bozzone
Many thanks for the note, Bob, that’s why we call it a Forum. We hope that any of you with a thought to share, a suggestion to make or a disa-greement to air (as long as you’re not disagreeing with us), will send it to Dave or Dennis so that all may hear.
New Instruction Volunteers in 2001
O
ver the past year we have added new volunteers to our instruction staff. We wish to welcome all of you and hope those of you who recently joined us get the same satisfaction from instructing as those of us who have been doing this for a while. Those joining the instruction staff in 2001 were:
Ila Balchaitis
Dorothy Becker
Robert Benson
John Bourquin
Bob Bozzone
Marge Brennan
Pege Chellis
Janet Graves
Burton Grossman
Michael Hardy
Murray Kaplan
Frank Kratochvil
Jack MacKnight
Debra McKenna
Estelle Mullin
Moss Rawn
Sharon Spark
William Steibel
Special thanks to Frank Kratochvil for stepping up to teaching the Graphics course when Fred Atkin wasn’t able to for medical reasons and to Moss Rawn who bravely stepped forward and taught the Windows Course on short notice, saving the course from cancellation.
What Did We Accomplish
This Year?
A
t the end of each year it is interesting to see what we have accomplished in the education area. Well, in 2001 we sent 622 students through our courses. That’s 622 more people less confused by the new technology – note we said “less.” The breakdown, by course, of the students we’ve instructed this year is:
Beginners Workshop ...... 126
Introduction to Computers ...... 210
Windows 98 ...... 107
Word Processing ...... 43
Graphics ...... 36
Internet ...... 90
Quicken ...... 10
The reason we say they are “less” confused is, as we all know, it takes actually using the computer to learn it well. What we provide is at least a kick-start, and we think (and hope) a lot more in many cases.
From a broader perspective, since the beginning of our Computer Learning Center in September 1999, we have sent 1402 people through our courses. There is duplication here as many have taken several, and some all, of our courses. Not bad though for an all-volunteer group. The other interesting point that needs mentioning is that we really give a lot of help to our students. We can’t imagine anywhere else (non-volunteer organization, we mean) that could afford a teacher and one coach, let alone the fact that some of our classes have up to four coaches and a teacher. Nobody could afford to do that as a business, not on the fees we charge.
Darwin at SeniorNet
O
ur courses have evolved, as they must. On a volunteer basis it is not easy to keep up with all of this, but fortunately our parent SeniorNet is working on some of the solutions. If you want to see what courses SeniorNet and other Learning Centers currently have, go to: click on Learning Centers, then Learning Center Home, then Leadership Exchange. A dialog box appears for you to enter a user name and password. (You can get this from the Education Committee, Dave Bushnell or Dennis Hansen; we can’t print it here – it’s secret, if you know what we mean).
We use the SeniorNet headquarters courses as a baseline and are allowed to change these courses as our Computer Learning Center sees fit. We do endeavor to keep in fundamental compliance with our big brother however. If there are issues concerning the curriculum we make the changes we feel are necessary and, after testing them, pass them on to headquarters. We have made significant changes to the Intro and Word Processing courses, for example. We continue to maintain a strong relationship with the parent organization.
Other Computer Learning Centers also contribute. Many of these courses are on the SeniorNet web site. You’ll find a lot of other interesting items there as well, including Discussions, New Files and general information sharing.
Learning Center Survey
I
n August of this year, SeniorNet conducted a survey of selected Learning Centers to determine how headquarters curricula are being used, what courses are being given and how many changes are being made to course structure and content. Through Don Weidman, we responded to the survey, and excerpts from the summary report are given below:
Responses were received from 63 Centers.
While the responses represent about 30 percent of the total Learning Centers, the Centers that responded include a fairly representative sample of Centers in each of our regions.
Most of the Centers seem to use a version of the SNHQ course even if they modify them extensively. Some Centers do write their own but appear to at least look at the SNHQ course materials.
There is a wide variety of courses offered by our Centers in addition to the core courses represented by the SNHQ-developed course materials.
Only a handful of the Centers that responded to the survey will still be using Works 4.5 in the Fall. About a third will be using Works Suite 2000 and a little less than half will be using Works 2001. The majority of Centers that responded (about 75%) are using Windows 98. Only a handful still use Windows 95. Some have Windows ME installed and two use Windows 2000. A few of the Centers have a mix of Windows versions represented on their computers.
About half of the Centers were not certain when they should upgrade to Windows XP although about 25% of them said that they would be ready to do so in Spring of 2002. Since we do not currently plan to provide the XP software to the Centers until Summer/Fall of 2002, we should make that known to the Centers.
It was assumed that many Centers took the summer off due to vacations of volunteers and/or students but 62% of the responding Centers say they offer some type of summer schedule of courses.
Eleven questions were asked in the survey. Where quantitative answers were expected, the statistical spread was quite broad but it is clear that the principal focus remains on the fundamental objective served by the Introduction to Computers course. Centers feel free to modify the course (just as we have) but it remains the most important of the course offerings.
If you’re interested in seeing the summary report, give Don W. a call.
Other Curriculum Thoughts
W
e keep an eye on curriculum changes in Headquarters material and consider changes to our course material based on differences as well as on the recommendations from the lead teachers in each course. Needless to say, we can’t change the manuals every time a good idea surfaces because of the cost of both printing and labor. We keep a list of the good ideas that come in and, when enough have accumulated (and the Publication Committee folks agree), we change the manuals.
A bit of data on that score. Were you aware that the Intro and Graphics manuals cost about $6.00 a copy? This doesn’t include the hard, hard labor of Fred Atkins and Pete Cann who put them together. Those are reasons enough not to change them often.
While on the subject, we should note that the teacher is running his class and should be able to make decisions on presentations and instruction materials that are in the best interests of the class. However, please don’t supplement or make changes to the curriculum without discussing them with Dave. He’s been asked to be responsible for the curricula and is in trouble if he doesn’t know what’s going on.
All of our classes deserve an equal shot at learning the material that we offer. If a good idea is being used in one class, it should be available to the other classes too. We don’t believe in tinkering with a proved and tested curriculum but we don’t believe that ideas are good just because they come from Headquarters, either.
Computer Hints
T
he following tips were taken from “Steve” at:
Floppy Refresh
Have you ever been looking for something on a floppy disk? You stick the first disk in, hit the icon for your A: drive, discover it's not what you were looking for, then you stick the second one in, go back to the drive A: icon, hit it again, and on and on. Each time you insert a new disk, you have to click that A: drive to get the computer to update what's on the disk. Or do you?
An easier way is to hit the F5 key when you swap disks. It will refresh the contents without you having to bounce back to your A: drive every time.
Open My Computer and give it a shot.
Oh, I suppose we could all start labeling our floppy disks. Yeah, I guess that would work too (but it would take all of the fun out of things).
Quick Restarts
I use this little trick everyday!
Need to re-start Windows (again)? Rather than making the computer boot from scratch, you can do a "warm boot", which is usually faster. To do a warm boot, hold down the SHIFT key while you click the OK button on your shut down screen. Windows will restart without re-starting the whole computer having to bounce back to your A: drive every time.
Back and Forward with a Wheel Mouse
(requires a wheel mouse and Internet Explorer)
Ever wonder what happens when you hold down the shift key on a web page and spin the wheel on your wheel mouse? Explorer goes either back or forward, depending on which direction you spin.
Give it a try. Open up Explorer and follow a few links. Then, hold down your SHIFT key and spin that wheel.
Cool huh?
Share Your Computer Knowledge
I
f you come across, or already have, some great insight into the foggy land of computer operation, whether software or hardware, please share it with all of us. Nobody, we repeat nobody, knows it all (or anywhere near), so let’s help ourselves learn.
The goal of this publication is also to provide a vehicle for your views, concerns and suggestions, so send us your thoughts.
December Calendar
T
he December Calendar of classes is essentially empty except for the Windows Monday and Friday classes which will meet on 12/3 and 12/7. If you wish to schedule the lab for any purpose during the open period, please mark the date and time on the calendar in the Office.
We wish you all a wonderful holiday season and a very happy New Year filled to overflowing with eager students.
The Instructor’s Forum
The voice of the SeniorNet Faculty
Education Committee Coordinators:
David
Dennis
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