All users need to have a good grasp of these if they are to have any success in using IT at any level. I've found I always come a cropper when I expect delegates or students to have prior knowledge, no matter how advanced they are! So now I always prepare to run through the basics if need be - a quick poll at the start of the class can identify any particular issues which should be covered. I tend to teach it as a matter of course on any introductory session.
This is best done using the filing cabinet analogy, and sometimes even by getting cardboard folders and pieces of paper labelled 'Word document', 'PowerPoint presentation', 'Excel spreadsheet' and so on. Displaying the folder list can make it easier for some people to grasp the idea of the tree structure and subfolders.
Confusion can arise from the word 'file' - a file is a generic computer term, referring to spreadsheets, documents, photos, databases and so on. A lot of people have heard of the terms 'jpeg' and 'mp3' and you can use these as examples of files. The other problem is using 'file' as a verb - you file a file in a folder - see the problem?!
Take advantage of the icons that are used in My Docs/My Computer. Folders are always yellow.
The best explanation I have come across is available here. I start this bit of learning by asking the class, when it's time to save a file, what the difference is. If they want guidance, this gives them the chance to say. I then say something brief like 'Save As is when we haven't told the computer what we want to do with the file yet' and then direct them to click on Save instead. When the Save As dialog box comes up, it enables a discussion that it will always come up when the computer doesn't know what to do with the file. Walk the group through the dialog box indicating the three things that the PC needs to know in order to save something properly.
You can also cover the different drives such as A: and C: (and ask why there's no B:!), which can also cover a company's internal shared servers and arbitrarily named drives such as those allocated with removable media. I have been known to take along an actual hard drive so people can see the disk and that it spins (hence being driven) and an old floppy so people can peep through the sliding panel and see that inside the hard case is indeed a floppy disk.
Sometimes it's fun to compare sizes of different media. How many floppies can fit on a USB pen drive? If you have an SD card in your phone you can also mention those - and the ones you get in digital cameras, which a lot of people can relate to. They're still called drives even though there's no mechanical, moving parts, because that's how computers have evolved.
It can be quite tricky to explain the relationship between My Docs and My Computer. Essentially, the Desktop is an area of My Computer, but it looks to be the other way round in the folder list. I describe the My Docs part as being a dedicated bit where you can put all your own stuff, so you don't mess up essential important files for running the computer.
I sometimes get the students to find My Docs and My Comp on the Desktop, open them both up, and move between the two to show similarities.
Emphasise that navigation is easiest when you click or double-click on the icon, rather than the name. That way, you don't run the risk of accidentally doing two single-clicks, which tells the computer you want to rename the file or folder.
You can then guide them through the different buttons on the toolbar (some will be familiar with Back and Forward from Internet Explorer), drawing attention to the Folders button and the Views button. Sometimes people really appreciate knowing about the Folders list, it helps them visualise the folder structure.
The Views button is most useful when you're demonstrating file size. (You'll note that folders don't have a size but files do - that can also help in explaining the differences between files and folders.)
Windows Explorer is the old name for My Docs and My Computer. You can access it nowadays by holding the Windows key down and pressing E. It automatically shows up with the Folder list.
Vista Notes: hooray! Vista shows the folder pane all the time.
All aspects of file management still apply, but of course
My Computer is now
Computer,
My Documents is now
Documents and
My Pictures and
My Music and other extra folders
are listed as Pictures,
Music, and so on and are no
longer subfolders of Documents.
It's important nowadays to help learners understand the concept of remote drives (shared servers) and removable media, and how these show up in My Computer. You might be able to show them via shared servers which are already in place, but if you have stand-alone PCs you can still show this via C:\ and D:\ - and even on older machines, A:\. Sometimes I like to ask students what they think B:\ is for (5¾" floppies)! I also have a demonstration floppy which I can show to learners, sliding back the panel so they can actually see the floppiness of a floppy.
It helps sometimes to discuss the word 'drive' or 'driver' and the concept of things being round and therefore needing to spin up in order to begin accessing information - hence the whirring noise when people first put in a CD-ROM or boot up their PCs.
I've also found it useful to have a few cheapy USBs/flash drives/pen drives/whatever you call them (from eBay or the likes) so that each student or pair of students can have a go at inserting, waiting for install (if necessary) and seeing it appear as a new letter in their My Computer. They can also then save or copy a file onto it and swap USBs. Incidentally, you can then discuss the fact that although they are sometimes called 'drives' there are no mechanical parts requiring a driver, and the similarities between them and digital cameras with their flash cards - and sometimes even mobile phones have a slot for a tiny extension flash card.
The fun part comes when you have a selection of demonstration items where they can see how each item shows up as a separate drive. I've been known to plug in a mobile phone via USB, have a pen drive, and a digital camera, one after another, so they can see how the computer handles a) recognising it and b) assigning the next available drive letter.
It's best to start this after you've got your students to create a file in, say, Word. Then they can create a folder and practise moving the file into and out of it.
Use the standard My Docs view, without the folder list. Then they can see an option for Make a new folder. I demonstrate making several, then show how you can rename, drag and drop to have subfolders, and so on. (This is where showing the folder list can be useful - people can then see that a folder is within another folder.)
Drag and drop your new Word document into your new folder.
At the start of each subsequent class, you could have some files ready-loaded in a generic area, so that students can practise creating folders for Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc, and dragging or copying these new files into the folders. I did this very successfully with one group, and by week 3 they were logging in, checking what was new in My Docs, and moving the files around without me even reminding them!
These can also help people understand the different types of file, but do check for system lock-downs before actually showing how to display them. It can be playing with fire allowing people to furtle around in the options. Use your judgment and only show students how to do this if you think they're particularly switched on - or responsible!
A file extension is the dot and letters after a file name which tells you what program is needed to open it. Common ones include
To display them in My Docs/My Computer, go to Tools -> Folder options; from the dialog box pick the View tab and take the tick out of the box for Hide extensions for known file types.
As new releases of software are brought out, extra features become available and some old ones are dropped or tweaked. If something is 'backwards compatible' it means that the new product will read old formats, i.e. if you create a Word 97 document it reads fine in Word 2003.
Usually this doesn't cause a problem, but if you use a newer version of MS Office at work, say, and an older version at home, you may experience problems where features don't fully work. A classic case is font formatting, where later versions of Word have more fonts than older versions.
An even worse case is the Office 2007 format. By default Word '07 documents have the extension .docx, Excel '07 has .xlsx, PowerPoint '07 has .pptx and so on. This means that it's not just the features that are or are not backwards compatible, but the entire file format. You can't read an '07 file in its earlier counterpart, you just can't. This causes enormous problems when you save a file at work (which uses Office '07) and try and read it at home (where you're using Office '03).
To get around this you can either: