A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or
more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two
months apart.
All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons
are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have
to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until
the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each
lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such,
we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.
The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final
exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work,
including the final exam.
Week One
Wednesday - Lesson 01
Are you ready to get organized and become more efficient? For a lot of people, Microsoft Outlook 2007 is the answer to increased productivity in the workplace and at home. We'll start with a whirlwind tour of the interface and the help systems so you can get familiar with the program if you're new to it. Then we'll get you hooked up with a Google Gmail e-mail account you can use with this course and ever after. We'll wrap up the lesson with a look at keyboard shortcuts that can make navigating Outlook a breeze.
Friday - Lesson 02
Now that you have an e-mail account, it is time to put it to use. In this lesson, you'll learn how to send, receive, and reply to e-mail messages. We'll also go over Desktop Alerts, Outlook's way of notifying you that you have new messages to read or tasks to do.
Week Two
Wednesday - Lesson 03
Now that you have the e-mail flowing, it's time to see how Outlook can help you manage it. Today, we'll look at how you can simplify your life by handling all your e-mail accounts in one place. You'll also see how you can use message groups and flags to keep track of conversations and organize your inbox. Plus, you'll love how Outlook helps you file messages with rules that do all the work of a personal assistant.
Friday - Lesson 04
Outlook contacts can do everything the proverbial little black book could do—and a whole lot more! In this lesson, you'll see how you can create contacts and use the information they contain in other areas of Outlook, like the address fields of an e-mail message. You can even search your contacts, making it easy to find information about that guy, John, whose last name you can never remember, or the phone number of that little restaurant on Santiago Street.
Week Three
Wednesday - Lesson 05
These days, there are many ways to communicate electronically. Outlook 2007 works with two new technologies (instant messaging and RSS feeds) to expand the ways you can communicate. So today, we'll take a quick look at instant messaging programs and how they work with Outlook. Then, we'll dive into RSS feeds, a popular new way to get news and other information delivered right into Outlook folders.
Friday - Lesson 06
It's time for a big change of gears. So far in this course, we've been using Outlook to communicate. But Outlook can also manage your personal information. In this lesson, we're going to focus on the personal information manager side of Outlook, starting with the calendar. The calendar got a major makeover in this version, so even if you're an Outlook veteran, you'll find a lot of new tips and tricks in this lesson.
Week Four
Wednesday - Lesson 07
Do you have tasks you need to do? Why not let Outlook help you keep track of them instead of relying on 50 random scraps of paper, each with a different notation? In this lesson, you're going to see how Outlook can help you keep track of all the stuff you need to do. You'll learn how to set automatic reminders that tell you when it's time to get cracking on a particular task so you'll always get your work done on time!
Friday - Lesson 08
If you're wondering how to keep track of all the stuff that doesn't fit into e-mail messages or calendar appointments or a to-do list, you'll find all the answers in this lesson. Outlook's notes and shortcuts will be your new best friends. You'll learn how top use notes to store bits of information and shortcuts to tell you where you stored something on your computer. These tools make life a lot easier!
Week Five
Wednesday - Lesson 09
It's time to talk about managing your Outlook information again. We'll go back to talking about folders and rules in this lesson, but this time we'll have a different emphasis. You'll also find out how you can print information you want to take with you when you're away from your computer.
Friday - Lesson 10
No matter how well you organize and manage information, there will come a time when you want to get old items out of the way without losing them. In this lesson, you'll learn how to archive your old information and back it up. We'll also talk about the tools you can use to help you find a specific item among the hundreds or thousands of items you may have stored.
Week Six
Wednesday - Lesson 11
There's a dark side to everything, and the unfortunate thing about using any e-mail program is that it's a door into your world. Spammers, hackers, phishers, and other individuals who want to spy on you, impersonate you, or even steal from you might try sneaking in through Outlook. Today, we're going to talk about Outlook's security measures and how you can use them to protect yourself from these unscrupulous people.
Friday - Lesson 12
Microsoft put huge efforts into making Outlook easy to use. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it does everything exactly the way you'd like it to. In this final lesson, we'll look at some ways you can customize Outlook to make it work more the way you want it to.