Distance Learner’s Checklist: How Sharp are your Computer Skills?

Distance learners must be adept at using computers, if they are to succeed in achieving their online degree pursuit. Is your a good enough computer skills to learn online? Compare your computer knowledge and basic skills in the following list to see how well prepared your online degree.

The most obvious skill, perhaps, is a good understanding of how to navigate the Internet. You'll need to know how to open an Internet browser, how to maximize and minimize the browser window, and how to use the forward and back buttons to move back and forth between Web pages. Major browsers like Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox have extensive Help files where you can find answers to all of your questions about Internet navigation.

Second, make sure you know how to manage files on your computer. Make sure that you can use Windows Explorer to find your computer's hard drive folders and files. Practice to create, copy, delete and save the file, until you make sure you know how. If you suspect that your skills, choose the "Help" from the Windows Explorer menu bar, and then on the "document" information search.

If you don't know how to Copy and Paste, learn. Mastery of these basic Clipboard functions will save you tons of time when working online. These basic skills include the ability to left click and drag to highlight information in a document, to copy that information to the clipboard, and then to paste that information from the clipboard into a new document or spreadsheet. If you don't feel confident about copy-and-paste, search for a free copy-and-paste tutorial on any of the major search engines.

You also need to detail with sending and receiving e-mail. Make sure you know how to open and save email attachments, how much of your course material and other work obtained by e-mail. Your e-mail program is a section in its help file that all the questions you have about email and how to answer e-mail handle attachments.

Finally, as an online learner you need to know your way to a kind of word processing software. Microsoft Word as the default here, and most new computers are installed with Word. If your computer does not come with Word, it will not cost you a cent to get a very capable alternative. Note the OpenOffice from openoffice.org. OpenOffice is a free, easy-to-use software suite that includes using a powerful word processor called OpenOffice Writer. It offers all the features of Word, including the ability to open and create that file in Microsoft Word format.

Even if all of your online learning skills have been carefully honed, don't forget to check your computer system to make sure it can participate in the online learning experience. In most cases, you'll want a computer running Windows XP or MAC OS 9 or higher. Also, almost all online universities recommend Internet Explorer or Firefox, adding they've found that AOL users often cannot properly access online courses. You'll also want to have a minimum monitor resolution of 800 x 600 and a DSL or cable modem for best performance. Finally, say leading online institutions, you'll want to enable java script and cookies to optimize the learning experience.