On 05/03/2012 10:57, Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
Bernard Peek wrote:

On 04/03/12 23:43, Tim Streater wrote:

[1] They need a lesson to understand what an OS is, and that there are
others besides Windows. They need two more lessons to understand what
Word and Excel are, and a quick overview of what they do and what they
might be used for. And that there are other programs which perform the
same sort of function. That's it.

It depends on what age they start at. My beef is that the reason why
sixteen year olds need lessons in word-processing is that they didn't
get those lessons at age eight when they would have been more
appropriate.

Why do they need lessons on the detail of word processors at all? On how
to add a footer or change the font? You'll teach them how to do that
with Word 2007 or something, next thing you know is that MS has changed
the front end completely. So all that teaching suddenly was a waste of
time.

They need to know what a word processor is. They need to know that you
*can* add a footer (and to know what a footer is) or change the font for
a paragraph or that you can justify the text. The detail of how it's
done, they can learn for themselves at home. They need to know that
there are other word processors than Word, too. It's the *concepts* that
matter, and the stimulation of their natural curiosity.


Children usually gasp when they discover that Excel knows the day of the
week you were born on