Online Learning For Dummies. Susan Manning

is also an option for those who may experience painful carpal tunnel syndrome in their wrist or have arthritis. You used to have to purchase specialty software in order to take advantage of dictation features, but nowadays this capability is built into most operating systems — including mobile devices. (You may have used this feature for helping send text messages.) Dictation capabilities allow you to use a microphone to translate your speech to text. For example, all newer versions of Microsoft Word, including the online version, have a Dictate command that translates your speech to text, so you can do this on Windows, Macs, Chromebooks, and mobile devices. Some programs and devices come with accuracy training support to help learn your specific speech patterns.

      Organizing folders

      Have you ever gone looking for a file on your computer and been unable to find it? This tends to happen for two reasons:

       Learners are unorganized and save their files in different places on their hard drives.

       Learners save different files on several devices, forgetting which flash drive or folder the file was saved in.

      We recommend that you have one place where you save all your course files, whether it’s your computer’s hard drive or a cloud drive (see the nearby sidebar for more about these devices), and perform backups frequently. We also recommend that you organize your digital files the same way you would organize physical files in a filing cabinet, using folders and subfolders.

Image a 3-drawer filing cabinet. In the top drawer, you want to store personal information. In the middle drawer, you want to store work files. And in the third drawer, you want to store school files. In the digital world, we think of these drawers as folders. Therefore, you might create three folders on your hard drive with the titles Home, Work, and School, respectively.

      Now imagine opening the bottom drawer, where you want to store your school information. Inside the physical cabinet, you might create a hanging folder titled with the name of the institution. For example’s sake, assume that you’re attending Smarty Pants College. Then, inside that hanging folder, you might create a file folder for each of the courses you take at that institution. Your digital file structure should follow the same concept. Therefore, inside the School folder, you need to create a subfolder named Smarty Pants College and then a sub-subfolder inside for each of the courses you take — for example, ENG101.

By having a standard organizational structure on your hard drive, you can quickly and easily save and retrieve information when needed. Consistency is the key. Figure 3-3 is a screen shot of the drive structure where Kevin saves his school files. Notice for each term, he creates a folder for each course. Within each of those, he then creates four subfolders: Admin for administrative files such as the course syllabus, Assignments for course assignment files, Discussions for original discussion posts, and Resources for additional files provided by the instructor throughout the term of the course.

      FIGURE 3-3: An example of a computer's file structure.

      SAVING YOUR FILES TO A CLOUD DRIVE

Cloud computing is a way of offering services related to data where the end user (you) can access files and programs as long as you are connected to the Internet. “The cloud” is the ethereal place where this data is stored. Services such as Google and Microsoft now offer hard drive space in the cloud. These storage spaces act just like the hard drive that's connected directly to your computer; they are simply located elsewhere and are accessible via the Internet. The advantage to using cloud storage is that you don’t have to worry about accidentally leaving your files at home when you want to work on them during lunch or while traveling. These programs often have a bridge program that connects to your computer and makes them look and act just like any other drive on your machine. This allows you to create folders and work on files locally and then save them back to the cloud so that they stay up-to-date at all times.

      Navigating the web

      Being able to access and navigate the web is one of the most important skills you need when taking an online course. Specific navigation skills you should have include these:

       Opening your Internet browser: Locate and click on your browser’s application icon on the Start menu (Windows) or Dock (Mac).

       Navigating to a given URL: Type the HTTP address in the address bar at the top of the browser’s window — for example, http://google.com. In most cases, you can leave off the http:// and simply type the address — for example, google.com. The browser automatically assumes that you mean an HTTP address.

       Navigating to the previous page: Use the browser's Back button at the top of the screen, which has an arrow pointing to the left.

       Opening a hyperlink in a new tab or window: Right-click on the link and select whether you want to open a new tab or a new window.

       Switching between open tabs or windows: To open a new tab or window, click on the File menu and choose the New Window or New Tab option. To switch between tabs, either click on the desired tab with the mouse or hold down the Control (Ctrl) key and press the tab key on the keyboard. To switch between windows, click on the desired window on the taskbar.

       Refreshing the current screen: Click the Refresh button in your browser or press the F5 key on the keyboard.A QUICKIE ON RIGHT-CLICKINGJust in case you’ve never heard the term right-click, a PC mouse has two sides. Most of the clicking you do when surfing the web is left-clicking (and right-handed users do this with their index finger). But the other side works, too! You usually use the right side when you want to display a menu of options that can be executed depending on the location of the cursor. So, when we say “right-click,” you should use your mouse or trackpad to highlight or select the words or icon and then click on the right half of the mouse. For the “lefties” out there, we recommend that you locate your computer’s Control Panel (Windows) or System Preferences (Mac) and change the primary button to the right side, where your index finger is positioned. For you, when we say “right-click,” we really mean “left-click.” Confused yet?Mac users, you can also use Control+click. Laptop and Chromebook users, you can place two fingers on the track pad while pressing down on the click bar.

       Resizing the browser window: Click-and-drag the bottom right corner to resize the window to your liking, or use the Resize button in the top right (Windows) or left (Mac) of the browser window.

       Locating and opening downloaded files: Navigate to the Downloads folder on your hard drive and double-click on the downloaded file.

       Conducting a web search using Google or another search engine: Navigate to http://google.com and enter your search criteria in the search box. Then click on any of the links provided on the search results page.

      

If any of the preceding skills is unfamiliar to you, don’t worry: None of them takes long to master — it’s just important that you know how to do them. If you need help, you may want to check out the latest edition of The Internet For Dummies, by John R. Levine and Margaret Levine Young (Wiley).

      Downloading and installing software

Earlier in this chapter, we discuss the possibility of having to purchase or download and install software. You have to know how to do this. Most commercial software programs can now be purchased online. Even if you buy them