Workshop for Office Attendants

Workshop for Office Attendants

A workshop was conducted in four parts where we had taught the office attendants (students) the basics of computers with the help of:

• MS-Word
• MS-Excel
• Search Engine
• Mail Account

Each Student Instructor had taken up responsibility of doing one of the four components of the workshop we had designed for the students. And the other instructors were helping them one on one while the head student instructor of the particular activity was teaching.

The teaching started with the instructors teaching the basics of Ms-word to the attendants. They were taught the basic function of copy and paste. Where we provided them with a text and then had to use the copy paste function. In the Ms- Word we included teaching them about the Bold, Italics and the highlight function as well along with the know how of changing the text size and font. We taught them how to save the document and at the end of the teaching they were given an assignment to solve as well.

After teaching them the basics of Ms-Word, we went on about teaching them MS-Excel. For those students it is most useful for making budgets. So we started off by teaching them the basics of Excel like the addition and subtraction function along with the drag on function. After teaching them this we also introduced the concepts of pie charts to them.

In the next section we gave the students a brief of how to use the Internet. We primarily focused on features that could be of use to the attendants. We started off with how a basic search engine such as Google works and how they could use it to access all sorts of information with a click. Next up we taught them how to use Google maps. We explained to them how they could use it to search locations, directions, and view the estimated time it would take them from one place to another with reference to the traffic on each route. We also taught them how to download files from the Internet. A demo of downloading basic photos, files etc were given. At last we showed them certain fun websites such as YouTube. They were really excited to see that all cricket World Cup matches were on that website. Overall we believe it was an enriching experience for them.

Next we taught them the use of an email Account. The students were first taught how to create an email id in a step-by-step procedure. Next they were taught the functions of the mail account. The “cc” and “bcc” were explained while drafting the email and how the “subject” has to be appropriate for the content the mail has. The use of the forward, reply to all, spam etc was also taught to the students.

Lastly, the use of attachments were taught to the students, where the assignments they had done previously using MS-Word, Excel, and the Google image they had downloaded. All the students were instructed to upload the documents they had saved and send it to the instructor.

The activity was highly beneficial for the students as in the fast forward world of today one has to know the basics of Internet communication. It was very interactive and fun to teach them the use of Gmail and how they grasped the knowledge was incredible.