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• Teaching word processing - the theory behind

  119-137

  Mária Csernoch

  Views:

  14

  It is widely thought and believed that word processors – especially MS Word – are software, which everyone can use. However, if we take a closer look at the documents we find that the picture is not at all that clear. In most of these documents even the basic rules of word processing are broken. The question is how it is possible that most of the users are satisfied with their performance, and do not realize that they only use a less noisy typewriter, and not able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by these software. In the search of clearing this misunderstanding I found that there are no publicly available sources, which would clearly set the rules to determine when the documents are properly formatted. Here I set three maxims which, together, are able to control the tools applied in word processing in order to create properly formatted texts. In summary, they state that the layout of a properly formatted text should be invariant to modification, that is, any modification of the body of text should not initiate its re-formatting. To prove that these maxims work and to show that we desperately need them I give examples of works of professionals from the administration, of those who passed ecdl exams, of teachers of various subjects, and finally of teachers of Informatics.

• Teaching word processing – the practice

  247-262

  Mária Csernoch

  Views:

  20

  I compared two surveys, which were aimed to check the word processing ability of students in high schools and universities. The surveys were carried out ten years apart from one another, in 1997 and 2006. The results clearly show that most of the students are not able to use word processors properly. In the survey of 1997 I found explanation for this underperformance in the lack of computers and teachers. However, the results of the second survey did not prove any better than the results of the first, and in 2006 neither the number of computers nor the number of teachers can be blamed. What else then? I suggest that the reason for this general ignorance, for this `modern illiteracy' is the ignorance of the teachers. Until the teachers are not prepared and the senior students of the universities leave the education system without a proper knowledge of the required subjects, there is little chance that they would be able to teach word processing at a satisfactory level.