Building Computer Literacy

Elizabeth Tucker, Class of 2011

Computer skills are something that most college students take for granted. But this year I’ve learned that not everyone has the computer knowledge you might expect. On most Tuesday evenings, the public library sponsors computer classes for people in the community. The classes are very basic. We teach them how to use word, the internet, and some other basic information about computers. Most of the people who come are computer illiterate or close to it, so they need to learn how to open documents, type, save, and print from Microsoft word, and perform basic internet searches.

The classes are small; I’ve never had more than seven people come. We start by teaching them some terms and functions of the computer such as: what the monitor or tower is, what we mean by “click the mouse,” what the cursor is, and what icons are. We teach for about an hour and a half, spending a lot of time walking them through steps and helping them understand basic terminology.