Learning to use a computer efficiently can be a tough task if you weren’t born with one already at your finger tips. Solutions to simple problems typically aren’t obvious, and unless you have spent a great deal of time with one you won’t inherently know whether something needs to be clicked, double clicked, downloaded, uploaded, or just plain opened. J. McNulty understands your frustration and has developed a solution to alleviate these struggles over at  his site, 180techtips.com.

As a teacher working in a computer lab, J became the goto guy for all types of questions about technology. He took these questions and turned them into a service for teachers to help train them to be more fluent with those machines that sit on the their desks. The service is based on 180 short emails(one for each day of the school year) that answer these questions posed by  teachers. They provide quick painless training for topics covering hardware, software, and other general use situations. I could imagine that schools wishing to better train their teachers on how to use their machines could benefit a lot from these lessons, especially since they don’t require any more than 5 or so minutes a day. (Something that is a lot better than the after-school PD alternative.) As a matter of fact, it fits our School Improvement Plan quite well.

Here is a short description taken from his site.

180TechTips.com offers 15 hours of free computer training in 180 easy to follow 5 minute lessons.  This isn’t a boring 15 hour lecture.  We aren’t going to lock you in a computer lab for 2 days of ineffective staff development training that leaves you more confused than you were when you started.  This is the kind of relevant and uncomplicated computer training everyone needs.

You can check out the list of tips offered and check them out one by one, or by signing up for the daily email. Signing up, is easy, free, and with no strings attached. You can visit the site at 180techtips.com.