Course Structure

MS WORD

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications.

Word processors have a variety of uses and applications within the business world, home, and education. Business Within the business world, Microsoft Word is a highly useful tool. Typical applications include:

  • memos
  • letters and letterhead
  • legal copies
  • reference documents
MS EXCEL

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications.

  • Excel makes calculations of complex formulas easy;
  • Excel works great as a primary reporting tool; and
  • Excel is used extensively by just about everyone at work.
MS POWERPOINT

A software package designed to create electronic presentations consisting of a series of separate pages or slides.

 

Presentation structure:

  1. INTRO SLIDE:
  • Title of presentation, date, presenter name
  1. OUTLINE SLIDE:
  1. Key points of what you will talk about
  2. Then follow the structure you’ve laid out
  3. Start broad, finish specific
  4. Rank Information (What NEEDS to go on the slide)
  5. Simplify
  1. CONTENT SLIDES:
  1. Cover detailed information based on your outline
  2. As many slides as you need, as many as 1-2 per minute
  3. Remember Powerpoint is more visual than verbal: “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
  1. FINAL SLIDE:
  1. Audience will likely take away the last thing you say
  2. So make a point to have the last slide be meaningful
    • Provide contact information for follow-up?
    • Pose a question for discussion?
    • Finish with a joke/or light-hearted conclusion?
  3. At the very least put a blank slide at the end
    • provides a non-distracting placeholder for discussion
    • prevents clicking through back to Powerpoint application
  1. Slide types:

TEXT:

  1. Highlight your presentation, don’t create a substitute for it
  2. Bullet points, not complete sentences
  3. 4-6 points per page
  4. No large blocks of text, audience stops listening and reads
  5. Consider showing one point at a time, using animation
    • helps the audience focus on what you are saying
  1. IMAGES:
  1. Avoid clip art, everyone has seen it before, lacks emphasis
  2. Images should be good: not pixilated, out of focus, too dark
  3. Cropped to remove distractions
  1. GRAPHS/DIAGRAMS:
  1. Make them as simple as possible
  2. To be grasped in just a few moments, not studied at length

 

Basic Internet

The Internet, sometimes called simply “the Net,” is a worldwide system of computer networks – a network of networks in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get information from any other computer (and sometimes talk directly to users at other computers).