how to teach a novice?

[GaryR]

ok, so my wife knows almost nothing at all about Excel, but she wants to learn so that she can get into a job doing admin or something. she's used it like twice in her whole life. But everytime i try to sit down with her and start with even the basics, she gets frustrated at how much there is to it and how powerful it can get so fast, and i get frustrated because i never really know where to start and how in depth to get with anything with her cause i'm fairly advanced.

who knows a really good book or a really good *free* online class for people that have never used excel before? I tried the microsoft.com tutorials but she got frustrated at how slow they went over the parts that she did know... grrr...


thanks!

 

[Joe4]

Like Angelicus, I use Word so infrequently that I just don't have the programming experience with Word that I do with Excel or Access. So that is probably part of some of the frustration.

But the thing that aggravates me most about Word is how it tends to "think" too much for you (and usually makes bad assumptions in my experience). I hate when I am typing up an outline and it starts shifting my tab stops all around. As a programmer, I like programs to do what I tell them, not make guesses as to what it might think I want to do.

 

[Angelicus]

Same here. This lot had been made redundant so they had been given a training package as part of the severance pay. They could (and did) sit any course they liked over 12 months. There were some real no-hopers.

I always make sure to note in my report, the ones who should not have been there.

Deniis

I once saw a Macro course being taught by colleague to someone who cannot even type properly. Corp Trainer in Hong Kong doesn't have much right to "evaluate" the user in return unless they do cause severe disturbance during course. Inability in fundamental linguistic, computing or even fundamental attitude as a trainee is a non-issue.

 

[Cindy Ellis]

I hate when I am typing up an outline and it starts shifting my tab stops all around. As a programmer, I like programs to do what I tell them, not make guesses as to what it might think I want to do.

Good point...I didn't mention that I turn off all of the auto-format and "auto-fomat as you type" options...they drive me crazy.

 

[Joe4]

Cindy,

That is probably the source of most of my frustration. Where can I find those options? I looked under Options, but do not see them. I am using Word 2000.

 

[Cindy Ellis]

It's in Word's Tools - AutoCorrect... menu
There are 4 tabs there, AutoCorrect, AutoFormat, AutoCorrect as you Type, and AutoFormat as you type. I leave a few things active in AutoCorrect so I can type specific shortcuts for some long phrases (my co's product names with full trademark compliance, etc.), but I've turned off all of the auto-format options under both tabs.
Hope this helps,
Cindy

 

[Joe4]

Thanks Cindy. That does help. I turned off most of the features which I know drive me crazy.

 

[Smitty]

Thanks Cindy. That does help. I turned off most of the features which I know drive me crazy.

I'll be doing that the next time I have to use Nerd.

Outlines frustrate the hell out of me! If I wanted sub heading #2 to be ARIAL 14pt Bold Italic I would have done it that way myself! Especially when everything else is 10 pt!

 

[Cindy Ellis]

(...still talking about Word...)Also check the heading style definitions to make sure they're not set to AutoUpdate. Use Format - Style - Modify, then uncheck the "AutoUpdate" box if it's checked. Otherwise, if you apply a style, then make a one-off change, it may back-propagate to all of the paragraphs formatted with that style.
Cindy

 

[Smitty]

Thanks Cindy,

I'll check that out.

 

[arkusM]

I don't have a particular math bent, (in fact I am not a big fan, Lol)
But I love to solve problems, excel give me the ability to solve problems, that happen to coincide with problems that tend to arise at work.
I once took a course at a local university it was an "advanced" excel course. Many of the folks in the class did not know how to save file to/from a disk....
I will now share the sum total of the knowledge that I gained from that class, ready? ctrl + : enters the current date without a formula... Needless to say I was disappointed. This place has excelled my knowledge exponentially. Of course that does not help a newbie.

I found I did not have any desire to learn excel until I had a problem to solve with it. Going back to the OP, maybe your student needs a problem to solve to get into it. The thrill of success is addictive.

Oh oh, my two bits just ran out.