IT Skills Self Assessment

Directions:

The following tool is provided to help you determine if you have the basic computer skills necessary to be successful in your coursework here at Nazareth. These tasks require a basic knowledge of word processing, creating and using spreadsheets, and designing a presentation.

You will need to have access to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint to complete these tasks. Although there are some differences in the version Microsoft Office programs between Mac and Windows and Office 2003, 2004, and 2007, you should be able to use any of them to complete these tasks equally well.

(You could also complete any of these tasks using any other word processing, spreadsheet, or presentation programs available to you.)

Part 1: Word Processing

1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. Create a new document in Microsoft Word and immediately save it. Name your document:  yourfullname.doc
3. Open the header and type your full name in the header of the document in Word.
4. Change the font your full name appears in to Arial and make it 14 point and boldface. Then close the header.
5. Copy the entire text found below about René Descartes and paste it into your new Word document under the header.
6. Change the font the Descartes passage appears in to Times or Times New Roman and font size to 12, Regular.
7. Center, italicize and boldface the font of "René Descartes" as it appears in the title.
8. Remove the numbers and hyphens between each paragraph and start each paragraph with tab indentation instead and leave 2 blank lines between paragraphs.
9. Set the page margins to 1.0 inch on the top, bottom, left, and right of the page.
10. Use the Find (and Replace) function to change all instances of the word "stuff" to "philosophy."
11. After the last word, in the last paragraph, add a footnote, then copy and paste the following text: http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/d/descarte.htm
12. Spell-check the document and repair any misspellings.
13. Save the document.
14. Print out one copy of your document.
15. Exit Microsoft Word.

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René Descartes (1596-1650)

      Burnham, Douglas & Fieser, James. René Descartes (1596-1650). 2001. http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/d/descarte.htm.

      1 - René Descartes (1596-1650) is one of the most important Western philosophers of the past few centuries. During his lifetime, Descartes was just as famous as an original physicist, physiologist and mathematician. But it is as a highly original philosopher that he is most frequently read today. He attempted to restart stuff in a fresh direction. For example, his stuff refused to accept the Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions that had dominated philosophical thought throughout the Medieval period; it attempted to fully integrate stuff with the 'new' sciences; and Descartes changed the relationship between stuff and theology. Such new directions for stuff made Descartes into a revolutionary figure.

      2- The two most widely known of Descartes' philosophical ideas are those of a method of hyperbolic doubt, and the argument that, though he may doubt, he cannot doubt that he exists. The first of these comprises a key aspect of Descartes' philosophical method. As noted above, he refused to accept the authority of previous philosophers - but he also refused to accept the obviousness of his own senses. In the search for a foundation for stuff, whatever could be doubted must be rejected. He resolves to trust only that which is clearly and distinctly seen to be beyond any doubt. In this manner, Descartes peels away the layers of beliefs and opinions that clouded his view of the truth. But, very little remains, only the simple fact of doubting itself, and the inescapable inference that something exists doubting, namely Descartes himself.

      3 - His next task is to reconstruct our knowledge piece by piece, such that at no stage is the possibility of doubt allowed to creep back in. In this manner, Descartes proves that he himself must have the basic characterisitc of thinking, and that this thinkang thing (mind) is quite distinct from his body; the existence of a God; the existence and nature of the external world; and so on. What is important in this for Descartes is, first, that he is showing that knowledge is genuinely possibel (and thus that sceptics must be mistaken), and, second, that, more particularly, a mathematically-based scientific knowledge of the matereel world is possibel.

      4 - Descartes' work was influential, although his studies in physics and the other natural sciences much less so than his mathematical and philosophical work. Throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, Descartes' philosophical ghost was always present: Locke, Hume, Leibniz and even Kant felt compelled to philosophical engage (often negatively, of course) with this philosophical giant. For these reasons, Descartes is often called the 'father' of modern stuff.

Part 2: Spreadsheets

1. Open the Microsoft Excel application.
2. Create a new document in Microsoft Excel and immediately save it. Name your document with: yourfullname.xls
3. Enter the information in the chart above into your new spreadsheet .
4. Resize column 1 to fit the text. Left align the Sales column. Center align the month columns.
5. Using auto sum, calculate the Total Sales for each of the months.
6. Using the function, calculate the average for each of the months.
7. Fill the highest total sales cell in Green and change the font of the lowest to red.
8. Create a 3-D chart using any style chart, (the default settings are ok to use) as an object in the same sheet.
9. Save the chart as an object in your spreadsheet, Sheet 1.
10. Move it so that is directly under the data.
11. Enter your full name in a Custom Header.
12. Set the print area to one page. Resize the chart if necessary.
13. From the Page Set Up select Landscape, center the spreadsheet vertically and horizontally on the page.
14. Select Show grid lines.
15. Print one copy showing grid lines.
16. Save the document.
17. Exit Microsoft Excel

Part 3: Presentation

1. Open the Microsoft PowerPoint application.
2. Create a new document in Microsoft PowerPoint and immediately save it. Name your document:  yourfullname.ppt
3. Create a blank presentation of 4 slides.
4. The slides are to have the following information/actions on them:

   Slide 1: Title slide, including a title of the document, your full name, today's date,  and "Nazareth College." Create a hyperlink from "Nazareth College" to http://www.naz.edu

    

   Slide 2: A list of four Bulleted items.

    

   Slide 3: A slide with an object from autoshapes found on the drawing toolbar, and insert a piece of clipart onto the same slide. Add a caption in a text box and color the text.

    

   Slide 4: Copy and paste a photo from the Photo Gallery on the Nazareth  College home page (www.naz.edu) onto this slide and add a text caption entered into a textbox.

5. All slides should have a footer with your name and slide number.
6. All slides should have the same formatted background. Choose a simple, light colored texture or pattern so that it will print well in black and white.
7. Save the document.
8. Print out a copy of the presentation Handouts with four slides on a page.

After completing each task you can open the documents below to compare your work to examples of acceptable documents.

View "René Descartes" edited document

View Spreadsheet edited document

View Presentation edited document

View Assessment Rubric

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