how to teach a novice?

[GaryR]

ok, so my wife knows almost nothing at all about Excel, but she wants to learn so that she can get into a job doing admin or something. she's used it like twice in her whole life. But everytime i try to sit down with her and start with even the basics, she gets frustrated at how much there is to it and how powerful it can get so fast, and i get frustrated because i never really know where to start and how in depth to get with anything with her cause i'm fairly advanced.

who knows a really good book or a really good *free* online class for people that have never used excel before? I tried the microsoft.com tutorials but she got frustrated at how slow they went over the parts that she did know... grrr...


thanks!

 

[Kaps_mr2]

try Excel for Dummies ?

also ask her what she wants to learn and focus on that.

thanks
Kaps

 

[cornflakegirl]

Gary - I have the same issue with my husband - I'm not a very patient teacher! We did have a partial success with getting him his own MrExcel login so that he could pick some little projects on here and try to work out the solutions - then it wasn't just me doing the teaching. He wasn't especially motivated though, so hasn't done it a lot. Might be worth a try though?

If you do find a good way, please post back, 'cause I'd be interested to know!

 

[Fazza]

Difficult to teach anyone, I reckon, unless they want to learn.

And if someone wants to learn, they will do so without your teaching - in their own sweet way.

 

[cornflakegirl]

Come on, Fazza, you've got to admit that having a good teacher around significantly speeds up the process!

 

[SydneyGeek]

The projects approach is a good one. Pick something (better still, get her to pick something) fairly basic but useful, that she would want to use and that can be built in Excel.

Help her to build it, then encourage her to use it. Hopefully you'll achieve two things:
1. Give her a sense of having achieved something in Excel
2. Pique her interest to try another project.

The bottom line, is that you want to make something useful but keep it interesting. Start in her comfort zone, then extend her by showing another formula, or how to filter data to get what she needs, or how to create a chart.

Possible starting point: A Christmas mailing list that she can use to create a Word merge letter. That could be used to demonstrate data entry, formatting, sorting, filtering. Then move onto something using calculations.

Denis

 

[Joe4]

Of your three choices, how about none of the above?

If they are a very visual learner (like myself), I would recommend taking a course at a local college (many community colleges offer these), or there are also professional teaching companies that do this (most mid to large sized cities offer these).

Barring those, I would recommend working through a good Step-by-Step intro book.

 

[Kaps_mr2]

Yes. I think that local colleges would be a good bet. She would realise that she is not alone. Thanks

Kaps

 

[cornflakegirl]

Courses are only good if you learn at the same speed as most of the class - and if the teacher is any good. I was traumatised by several of my CIMA courses - only went to them because I don't have the self-discipline to study at home!

 

[Kaps_mr2]

at evening classes they tend to be people of the same ability.

give it a go., you may never know unless you try.

Kaps