Almost all my computer experience has been self taught. There were plenty of mistakes along the way let me tell you .The best way I have found to learn is by having someone post screen shots of exactly how to do something where you can actually see what you need to be seeing and follow along in the picture with their text description. Thankfully there have been many fine people along the way that have shared how to do things so I always try and return the favor whenever I am able to help others out too.

I never knew what a computer was until after I graduated from high school and I had never taken typing either figuring I would never need that. My typing form is certainly not the way that they teach it but I have taught myself to do type pretty fast now but thank goodness for the spell check feature.

I see quite a few commercials for those Video Professor CD's that you put the CD in the computer and follow along on the screen to learn how to do certain things. I've never tried them or heard of any first hand users feedback but that might be an option. The other thing that can be tricky is many times there is more than one way to accomplish the same thing. That can be confusing sometimes when hearing others describe it.  Copy and paste commands come to mind in that regard.