Computer Skills for Africa blogs

Video: How to complete the ICDL Sample test for Microsoft Word

john — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:28:22 +0000

Download files from the ICDL website.

Jaraj Bansiparsadh - Fundamentals

admin — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:58:41 +0000

Jaraj Bansipersadh received his Fundamentals certificate from Computer Skills for Africa. "Jay" learnt about us by attending one of our "Free Lessons". He then enrolled for the Fundamentals course, and passed with flying colours.

Well done Jay!

Kokstad produces another GCP graduate

admin — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 09:29:49 +0000

Kit Kötting presents Kerwin Beaton from Grain Foods with his General Computer Practice certificate.

Here's how Stucky Motors improves computer skills

greta — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:10:10 +0000

In June 2009 Stucky Motors embarked on a company wide computer skills improvement programme.

Employees were to complete an ICDL Start certificate. Those who were not yet ready to do ICDL would start with General Computer Practice.

Employees attended courses. Tranferring the skills learnt from attending the course to practical skills at the workplace proved difficult.

At the beginning of 2012, Greta Bosiers suggested to Reiner Stucky (Dealer Principal) of Stucky Motors, a system of “Floating Mentor”. As an added benefit employees can get advanced training on selected areas.

Reiner Stucky agreed.

In March 2012 George Kumlehn started mentoring employees from the Newcastle branch of Stucky Motors. From May 2012 John Fordyce started mentoring Stucky Motors Volksrust.

Was it a success?

We asked Reiner Stucky for his opinion of the “Floating Mentor” system.

We have used the Floating Mentor System with CS4A since March 2012. I like it because you can ask anything relating to computers that you have a problem with. The mentor is friendly and diplomatic and he visits on a regular basis. It is efficient because our employees don't even have to leave their workstations, and they can just ask quick questions that are relevant to what they need to do at work. The bottom line is productivity gain of employees.

Reiner Stucky, Stucky Motors

Do you think you can benefit from the “Floating Mentor” training programme?

Contact Greta or get more information from our offices at 51 Ayliff Street, Newcastle.

Uelzen Primary School's Claire Holliday shares her thoughts on the Primary Curriculum

greta — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:32:28 +0000

At the beginning of 2012, I introduced my grade 2 class to Primary Computer Skills for Africa. As they were new to the programme and not sure of what to expect, I started with the grade 1 activities. This worked very well and I have been able to complete 2 or 3 activities per lesson. The learners are now ready to progress to the grade 2 activities. The grade 1 class spent the first 2 terms leraning basic computer skills and terminology before starting the Primary Computer Skills for Africa programme.

Our learners have a wide range of computer skills, ranging from fairly advanced to very limited. Despite this I have found this programme to be beneficial to all my learners. The activities are short, simple and cover a wide range of basic and necessary skills that the learners will require when working on all programmes.

The learners enjoy their computer lessons and are having fun, learning and practicing valuable computer skills at the same time. The lessons are set out clearly which makes it easy for busy educators to follow. I have enjoyed using Primary Computer Skills for Africa and look forward to completing all the activities with the learners.

Claire Holliday

Educator
Uelzen Primary School
KwaZulu Natal

A Balancing Act

greta — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:22:41 +0000

Love, eat, pray, and work, learn, play. Which is the most important for you? How do you prioritise? Often enough we only realise our mistake too late, when we have given all our time and energy to one and seriously neglected the others. It usually comes back to bite us!

I have no solution; we all have to find our own balance. This changes from time to time, but on average, what does your chart look like? What works for you? Is it still the same as it was 10 years ago?

Just giving this some thought is already a step in the right direction!

Notice that our chart is just about the waking hours. Don’t forget to sleep!

Whatever you do, it is still a balancing act, especially when you own your own business. We tend to ignore our own needs and our family and make sacrifices on the altar of—KING OF MONEY, golden calf…

They say one doesn’t get rich by being nice. I say there is a time and place for everything and sometimes being nice and being balanced is the only way to go forward.

I salute all the people who make time for learning in between everything else and so keep their minds growing all the time. Something that doesn’t grow is dead or dying.

Computer Skills for Africa held another fantastic Graduation ceremony on 26 September 2012. Congratulations to all graduates. Your achievements are well deserved. Check out the photo gallery on our website www.cs4a.co.za to find pictures of the event.

Remember to play and take care of the child in you.

Graduation Ceremony 2012

john — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 09:11:32 +0000

Computer Skills for Africa held another fantastic Graduation ceremony on 26 September 2012.

Congratulations to all graduates. Your achievements are well deserved.

Check out the photo gallery to find pictures of the event.

Photo Gallery

IC3 Competition a success

sebenzile — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:28:01 +0000

IC3 Competition went well at Computer Skills For Africa.

The commitment of the employees and the dedication of the participants(students) made this event a wonderful campaign. As part of the Educational Group our target is to educate people to know more about the current Technology.

Computer Skills For Africa would like to thank all our participants,they are the one's that made the event to be a success and not forgetting to congratulate our winners hope they will claim their vouchers soon.

These are our winners

Warricker, Steve From Amajuba High School

Mbhele, Londiwe From Amajuba High School

Zwane, Siphesihle From Hope High School

We would also like to thank the following teachers who helped their students to take part in the IC3 Competition

Mrs S Schoeman From Amajuba High School

Mrs C Weyers From Hope High School

Mrs E Pretorious From Hope High School

View Pictures from the event

How to create order by group in Microsoft Word

admin — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:13:13 +0000

Order by group for MS Word

It is impossible to order by group using Mail Merge in Microsoft Word without programming. You can create the same effect by first making a report in Microsoft Access and then exporting the report to Microsoft Word.

Basic Technique

Create Tables in Access.
Create Relationships between tables.
Create a grouped report.
Make each employee appear on one page.
Export the report to Microsoft Word (Rich Text Format).
Save the RTF document as a docx.

Detailed Technique

Create Tables in Access

Open Microsoft Access.
Create a new blank database. Call the database sickleave.accdb.
Create a new table in design view. Click on the Create tab and choose Table Design from the Tables chunk.
Add the following fields with the associated properties.

Field Name	Data Type	Field Size	Caption
Number	Text	6
FirstName	Text	25	First Name
LastName	Text	25	Surname
Department	Text	50

Set the Number field as the Primary Key.
Save the table as Employees. Click on the Save icon. Close the Employees table.
Create another table with the following fields and associated properties.

Field Name	Data Type	Field Size	Format
Number	Text	6
StartDate	Date/Time	Short Date	Start Date
EndDate	Date/Time	End Date	End Date
DaysTaken	Number		Days Taken

Save the table as Absences.
Add data to the table. You can copy and paste this from Excel or another database. It might be easier to import from excel into your tables.
Make sure that the data for both tables is accurate.
Close all open tables.

Create Relationships between tables

Open the Relationship Tool. Click on the Database Tools tab and select Relationships.
Create a One to many relationship between the Number fields of the Employees table and the Absences table. You will need to add the tables to the grid first. After adding the tables simply drag the number field in the Employee table to the number field in the Absences table.
Save and close the Relationships tool.

Create a grouped report

Create a new report using the report wizard. Click on the Create tab and from the Reports chunk select Report wizard.
From the Tables/queries dropdown list, select the Employees table and add all fields.
From the Tables/queries dropdown list, select the Absences table and add the following fields, StartDate, EndDate, and DaysTaken.
Click on Next.
View your data by Employee.
Click on next.
Group by Number. Select the number field and then click on the > button.
Click on next.
Sort in ascending order by StartDate. Click on next until you see finish.
Click on Finish.
Save the report. Leave the report open for the next step.

Make each employee appear on one page

Click on Close Print Preview. The report will open in Design view.
Select the Number header by clicking on it. Open the property sheet for this object. The object will be called GroupHeader0 or similar.
Select the Format tab, and change Force New Page to Before section.
Save the report and leave it open.

Export the report to Microsoft Word

Export the report to word. Click on the External data tab and then choose Word from the Exports chunk.
Follow the wizard prompts. Click on Ok.
Open the document in Microsoft word.

Save the RTF document as a docx

Access can only export word documents as Rich Text Format (RTF). You can save the resultant document in Microsoft Word document format from within Word.
Click File, and then Save as…
From the dialog box choose Word Document from the Save as type drop down list.

Stage II IC3 Winners Hope High School

john — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 12:42:17 +0000