fandomhigh | World History in a Nutshell

It's entirely possible that Daniel is looking a wee bit jetlagged at the front of the class and is clutching at a cup of coffee like it's a lifeline.

He smiles as the class files in, leaning against his desk. Once they're all seated, he begins.

"Good afternoon and welcome to World History in a Nutshell. I'm Dr. Jackson, and I'll be taking you through this whirlwind tour of the history of Earth. On your desks is a copy of the tentative syllabus

First of all today, I'd like to go around the room and have everyone do a quick introduction so I can put names to faces."

After that was done, Daniel dimmed the lights.

"We're going to start off with an easy class on prehistory today. I have a documentary, which is about human evolution.

Once that's finished, I'm happy to take any questions and then you can take the Caveman Challenge. I'll be interested to see what percentage you'll get at the end."

[[ooc: Crashing soon and thus will pick up tags when I awaken again. Will also be working from ~2.30- ~10.00 EST]]

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"Well, that's not a very good design," Evie commented, then looked embarassed. "I'm sorry, that was rude. Power button, and desktops, and, and, yes."

Daniel grinned. "Obviously English keyboards do have them," he said. "It's a bit of an ethnocentric design really. Now this," he indicated the screen, "is called an operating system. I'm running Windows, which is a very popular one and you'll probably see it in most computers that you'll be using. It has lots of different programs, such as Word." He double clicked on the icon. "This is your basic program which you'd type in."

"Just a little," Evie managed to not-quite-squeak. "Ahem. Right." She was very glad Isabel had shown her this earlier; it made listening to Dr. Jackson talk about it again a little easier. "So you type, and the words appear, but-- where do they go? I mean to say, how do you put them on paper? You *do* put them on paper, don't you?" She started nibbling on a fingernail with worry.

"You do, yes," said Daniel, smiling. "That requires something called a printer, which prints the text onto paper for you. I don't have one here, although if you ever visit me during my office hours, then I can show you it then. You can also save what you've typed onto your computer's memory, so as long as you don't delete it, it will remain there and you can edit it or print off another copy at any time."

"That's marvelous." Evie is just about following this enough to still think of it as magic, but the idea of a printed document you can go back and *edit* is too wonderful to escape her. She beamed at Dr. Jackson. "So, then, one could write a journal article, and do revisions, without reams of paper and red ink?"

Daniel nodded. "That's exactly right," he said. "It's certainly a great help, although I do tend to use reams of paper and red ink and do my revisions on my first printed copy."

"But *still*. All the time you'd save, that alone is worth it." Evie smiled happily, then pointed to the mouse. "What is that thing called? The pointer-thing? Everyone was using it, and I felt very awkward not knowing what it was for."

"This is a mouse, which you use to control the pointer on screen," said Daniel, demonstrating by making the mouse go around in circles. "There's a left and a right click. Mostly you just use the left button to select things you want to use on the screen."

"Like Isabel selected the 'sites' on the Library of Alexandria," Evie said slowly, working it out. "Ahh. So it changes things, and you're-- elsewhere, once you've chosen them. Right." She hugged herself, then wrote down a few notes. "Right, then. I *think* I understand it." She frowned. "What is 'save'?"

"'Save' is what you use to store a document or something to the computer itself," said Daniel. "It's an electronic version of you filing a report in a folder for later really."

"I do hope I can remember all this," Evie said, nibbling on her pen. "It all seems like, like, metaphor and magic to me. I'm sure I'l grow used to it, but it's very strange." She swallowed, then gave Daniel a cheerful grin. "But this has helped enormously, really."

"I'm glad to hear that," said Daniel, smiling at her. "If you need any further help, just ask and I'll be happy to guide you through what little I know."

Evie gave a little bounce, and gathered up her books and notes. "Thank you so much, Dr. Jackson. I shall see you next week, then." She banged into the desk, dropping afew papers. "Oh! That is, if I can leave without ruining anything."

"Don't worry about it, I do it all the time," Daniel assured her, kneeling down to pick up the papers. "It was nice to meet you, Evie. I'm looking forward to having you in my class."

"Thank you, Dr. Jackson," Evie repeated, blushing even more as she accepted the papers. "I-I'll see you then, thanks."

And she beat a hasty retreat, mumbling under her breath, "Oh, yes, very impressive, nice job, Evie..."

World History in a Nutshell - Week 1 (09/04)

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