Computer Basics

This unit details basic actions needed to effectively use a computer and serves as a reference document for mentees who want a guide/refresher for computer basics. Depending on your mentee’s level of digital literacy, you can either pair on each of the below actions during a session together, or your mentee can study this guide and come to your meeting with questions to dicuss about how to do anything on this list.

Turning On Your Computer

Computers often come with a specific power button. To turn your computer on, look for the power symbol (a circle with a vertical line through the top) and press it to turn on your machine.

Using Your Computer’s Mouse

On a laptop:

Laptops come with a trackpad (the square below the keyboard) instead of a separate mouse. To control the pointer on your screen, use one finger to move the pointer.

Click To click on an item on the computer screen, drag your mouse so it’s hovering over the item you want to click on or the application you want to open. Press down with one finger then release to click on the item.

Right click Press down with two fingers to right click on an item (this usually brings up a menu with actions you can take on a page - i.e. save, print, open a webpage in a new tab).

Drag Click on an item to select it, then without releasing your finger, move your finger around on the trackpad to move the item. Release your finger when you’ve moved the item to the correct folder/area where you want it.

Scroll To scroll, use two fingers and move them up and down across the trackpad to scroll up and down on a page. You can also move your mouse to hover over the scrollbar if the page has one (usually on the right-hand side of the page), press down with one finger, and drag your finger up and down to control the scrollbar/page position.

Highlight To highlight text or images on a page, press down with one finger, then drag it across the area you want to highlight. Release your finger when you’ve highlighted the portion of the page you want.

Additional trackpad gestures for Mac can be found here

With a mouse:

Click With your hand resting on the mouse, press down on the left side of the mouse with one finger to click.

Right click Press down with one finger on the right side of the mouse to right click.

Drag Click on an item to select it, then without releasing your finger, move the item around. Release your finger when you’ve moved the item to the correct folder/area where you want it.

Scroll Spin the wheel in the middle of the mouse up or down to scroll. If there isn’t a wheel in the middle of the mouse, click on the scroll bar and drag it up and down to scroll. If using an Apple magic mouse, you can run your finger up or down the surface of the mouse to scroll.

Highlight Click, then drag the mouse over the area of the page you want to highlight to select it.

Ports Depending on how old your computer is, there will be different kinds of ports along the side of it. These include headphone jacks, charging ports and USB ports for external harddrives and thumb drives. These ports allow you to connect your computer to other pieces of hardware to expand what you can do on your computer. Some common uses for the ports on your computer are connecting it to chargers to charge your computer, large screens or monitors to enlarge the screen that you’re working on, and harddrives to save materials on a backup disk. Sometimes your computer requires an adapter (an additional kind of wire) to connect another piece of hardware to the computer if the port on your computer is different from the connecting wire on the piece of hardware.

Using the Keyboard

An overview of the Mac keyboard can be found here.

An overview of a Windows/PC keyboard can be found here.

Make sure your mentee feels comfortable with the basics of typing: letters, capitalization, caps lock, numbers, and special characters with the shift key. Computer controls such as volume and brightness should also be accessible. Additionally, you can show your mention how to type special characters with the alt/option + shift combination.

Files & Folders

Creating Folders

This is Mac specific. The easiest ways to create a folder on your Mac is from the Finder window:

  1. Click on the Finder icon in the menu dock on the home screen (the menu dock is the row of icons at the edge of your screen). The icon is a blue/light blue smiley face
  2. Click on the Documents or Desktop section from the menu on the right-hand side (this step isn’t essential, but it’s the easiest place to find files or folders you create)
  3. Click on the wheel icon at the top of the Finder window and a drop down menu should appear. Select “New Folder”.
  4. A new folder will appear in the list of items with the title “untitled folder”. Click onto the title to replace it with the folder title you want
  5. If you double click on the folder, there should be a blank list because no files are saved to the folder right now.

Creating Files

Creating a new file depends on the type of file you want to create. When you open an application, you’ll be creating a new file using that program. For example, when using Microsoft Word, you’ll be creating a word document, or a .doc file; when using excel, you’ll be creating an excel spreadsheet, or a .xlsx file. The “file extension” dictates what kind of file the document is. Some common text file extensions are .txt, .doc and .odt; photos are usually saved as a .jpeg or .png file; articles or documents that are not meant to be edited are often saved as PDFs.

  1. To create a new file, open the application where you want to create a file. When you’ve added content to it, click on File in the menu, then go to “Save as…” or “Save…”
  2. A preview screen will pop up and you can select what type of file to save it as from the “File Format” dropdown menu
  3. You can select the file location from the “Location” dropdown menu. If you want to save the file to the new folder you just created, you can go to the section where you just created the folder and the folder should appear in the list of documents. Click on the folder to assign the file to this location
  4. Click “save”

Editing & Saving Files

  1. Open the file you want to edit (if you’re not sure where it’s saved, see “Searching for Files & Folders”).
  • If you’ve worked on the file recently, most applications have an option if you select “File” from the top menu bar and hover over “Open recent…” a list of recently opened files will appear. Select your recently opened file to open it
  • If you’re looking at a list of files in your Finder window application, doubleclick on the file, and it will automatically open in a compatible application
  • Files are usually opened in an application that specifically handles that file type. For example, spreadsheets will be opened in an Excel application; photos will be opened in iPhoto if you’re on a Mac; word documents will be opened in an application like Pages or Microsoft Word
  1. Add or change the content in the file. It’s best to save what you’re working on periodically in case the application crashes, but you can also save the file once you’re finished working on it.
  2. To save a file, go to “File” on the top menu bar and select “Save”. A preview window of your document might pop up with additional dropdown menus.
  • If you want to change the folder where your document is saved (most of the time the default is the Documents folder), you can select a different folder/location from the “Location” dropdown menu
  • To save the file as a specific type of file, select the type of file you want from the “Format” dropdown
    • If there isn’t a “Format” dropdown option while saving, go to step 5 Click “Save”
  1. To save the file in a different format, you might need to go to “File” then select “Export” from the dropdown
  • The Export option should show a list of file types (for example, Export as > PDF file) or there might be a preview window that pops up with a dropdown of file types
  • Saving a file in a different format is useful when you want to share it, but don’t want someone else to be able to edit it. For example, you might write a resume in Microsoft Word, but export it or save it as a PDF so others can open it and view it without changing the document you created
  1. Click “Save”

Deleting Files & Folders

  1. Find the file or folder you want to delete in your Finder window
  2. Right click on the file or folder so it’s highlighted and a list of options appears
  3. Select “Move to Trash”
  4. To permanently delete a file, go to your Trash application (see step 1 below on how to find it) Right click on the file or folder so it’s highlighted and a dropdown list appears
  5. Click “Delete Permanently”
  6. Click “Delete” Note: THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE.

Recovering Files & Folders

  1. If you accidentally delete a file or folder, open your Trash application (found either in your Dock or in your Finder window under the list of files and folders in the Home section, usually listed as your username)
  2. Right click on the file or folder so it’s highlighted and a dropdown list appears
  3. Click “Put back” or “Restore” from the list of items

Searching for Files & Folders

  1. Bring up your Finder application
  2. In the Search bar, type the name of the file or folder you’re looking for
  3. If you can’t remember the exact name, try searching for some keywords that might be in the document

Applications

What is an Application

  • An application is a software program that serves a specific function and allows you to perform specific tasks. For example, Microsoft Word is an application for word processing and writing documents, and PhotoShop is an application that is used for photo editing.

Finding & Opening Applications

  1. Bring up your Finder application
  2. In the Search bar, type the name of the Application you’re looking for
  3. Double click on the application to open it

Downloading New Applications

  • Most applications are downloaded from the internet. Search for the application you want online
  • Typically, there will be a page with instructions on how to download the application for your specific type of computer (Mac OS or Windows/PC)
  • Often after you download a new application, a window will pop up prompting you to drag the application’s icon over an icon for the Applications folder
  • Follow the instructions that come up after the download to complete installing your application
  • After installation is complete, the application can be found in your Applications folder

ACTIVITIES

Have your mentee search for a code editor online and download it (Sublime, VS Code)

Have your mentee create a folder on their desktop for EW work

Have your mentee take some notes using the Text Edit application to work on creating and saving files

  • Have them copy/paste useful information from an article into their notes and reformat it

Typing.com offers some free lessons for typing practice

Speed Coder has free modules for practice typing in different programming languages

Additional Resources

A full list of Mac keyboard shortcuts can be found here

A list of PC keyboard shortcuts can be found here