Basic IT Skills • Using the Mouse and Keyboard

Basic IT Skills • Using the Mouse and Keyboard
Using the mouse is more easily demonstrated than described in words, so you should ask the instructors for help. The techniques described in this sheet will soon become second nature.
Moving the mouse
Move the mouse around on the mouse-mat. If you are left handed move the mat and the mouse to the left of the keyboard. Get used to the feel of the mouse in your hand. Notice how the mouse pointer moves around the screen as you move the mouse on the mouse mat or any other surface. If you lift the mouse up in the air, the pointer no longer moves on the screen.
Clicking
There are two buttons on most mice. Unless told otherwise, use the left-hand button. “Click the mouse” means press once on the left mouse button. “Click on something” means move the mouse so that the pointer points to the relevant picture (icon) on the screen, and then click the left button.
Starting the office computers
Can you see the “Log on” box? If the screen is blank it’s probably because the computer is asleep, but it may be that either the computer or the screen has been turned off altogether.
Ø The computers are generally left turned on, in which case you should see a small light on both the monitor and on the main computer box. The monitor screen will often be blank, meaning that the computer is “asleep”
Ø Move the mouse or press the spacebar to wake the computer up (the spacebar is the long bar at the bottom of the keyboard)
Ø If the screen does not come to life after a few seconds, check the lights on the monitor and the computer to see if either needs to be turned on. The power buttons for both are at the front
Logging on
If you are using the classroom computers you will need to log on with the username and password for your University computer account. As you will see, to do this you need some basic keyboard and mouse skills.
Ø Click in the box labelled Username. You will see a flashing vertical bar. This is the cursor and it indicates where your typing will appear
Ø Type your username – usually your initials, perhaps followed by a number
Ø Click in the box labelled Password and type your password
Ø If your password contains upper case letters, press the Shift key and hold it down while typing the letterThere are two Shift keys, on either side of the keyboard. The Shift key is usually marked with an upward pointing arrow
Ø Click on the OK button
Selecting, dragging and double-clicking
Wait until the computer has completely started up. At first there are only three icons displayed on the screen; wait until there are six or seven.
Ø Point at one of the icons and click once on it. The icon is highlighted. When an icon is highlighted like this it is said to be selected
Ø Click once on one of the other icons, so that it is selected and the previous one is unselected
Ø Point at one of the icons, press the mouse-button and keep it pressed down and then move the mouse, still keeping the button pressed. The icon will move across the screen as you move the mouse This operation is known as dragging
Ø Release the mouse button, and the icon will remain where it is.
Ø Now start up the Web browser. Point at the Netscape or Internet Explorer icon and double-click: this means click the mouse-button twice very quickly.
Ø If you are too slow, or if you move the mouse while double-clicking, it will not work. Wait to see if you have succeeded: you will know because the mouse-pointer will become a timer or hourglass and quite soon the program will start up
Ø If after a few seconds the timer has not appeared, perhaps you did not double-click successfully, so try again
Some people find double-clicking difficult. An alternative is to click once on the icon and the press the Return key. (This is the big key at the right side of the main keyboard, with a bent arrow on it.)
Web links
One common use of the mouse-click is to jump from one Web page to another. When the browser starts up it will display the Classroom home page. This page contains a list of links which will take you to other pages.
Ø When the Classroom home page appears point at where it says University home page and click once
Scrolling
This will take you to the University home page. You cannot see the whole of the page on the screen at once, so you will have to scroll downwards.
Ø Look at the scrollbar on the right hand side of the browser window. Part of the scrollbar is a darker grey than the rest. This darker part is called the scroll-box
Ø Point at the scroll-box, press the mouse-button and keep it down while dragging the mouse downwards
Ø As you drag downwards the lower part of the page will be displayed, and the top part will disappear. This is known as scrolling down
Ø Now try scrolling upwards
Ø Another way of scrolling is to click on the little arrow-heads that you see at the top and bottom of the scrollbar. Try doing this
To practise scrolling on a longer page, click the link to The University on the University home page and scroll down and up through the information.
Start another program
At the top right corner of the browser window (and all other windows that you will use on the computer) are three buttons:
Ø Click on the first of these buttons, known as the minimise button
Ø The browser window will shrink. This means the program is still open, but the window is shrunk away to just an icon on the taskbar at the foot of the screen
Ø Click the browser button on the taskbar to bring the window back
Ø Then shrink (minimise) the window again
Ø Now double-click on the Microsoft Word icon to start up Word.
Shift and Return keys
Word will start up and display an empty page for you to type in. Notice the flashing cursor. What you type will appear immediately in front of the cursor, and as you type the cursor moves across the page.
Ø Locate the Shift keys. There are two, on either side of the keyboard. The Shift key is usually marked with an upward pointing arrow
Ø Type your name: to get a capital letter press Shift and hold it down while typing the letter
Ø After your name, press the Return key (the big key on the right with the bent arrow). This will take the cursor onto a new line.
Only use the Return key when you want to force Word to go onto a new line, for example at the end of a paragraph or after a heading. Usually when you reach the end of a line, allow Word to wrap the text round onto a new line automatically.
Ø Notice that some keys have two characters on them, eg 5 and % are on the same key. Use the Shift key to get the upper character
Ø For example press Shift and keep it down while typing the key with the ?
There is also a Caps Lock key. If you press Caps Lock every letter you type will be a capital until you press Caps Lock again. Only use Caps Lock if you have a sequence of capital letters. To get a lower-case letter while the Caps Lock is on you can use the Shift. The Caps Lock key will not give you the upper character on the two-character keys.
Backspace and Delete
There are two keys for deleting characters, Backspace and Delete. The Backspace is at the top right of the main keyboard, usually marked with a left-pointing arrow.
Ø Point and click somewhere in the middle of the text you have typed. The flashing cursor will appear at the point at which you click
Ø Press the Backspace key to delete the character to the left of the flashing cursor
Ø Press the Delete key to delete the character to the right of the flashing cursor
Exit from Word
Ø Click on the X in the top right corner of the Word window to close the window and exit from Word
Ø Word will ask if you want to save the document: you will learn later how to save documents, so this time click No. This means the text you have been typing will be lost