Email Basics

• Tutorial with videos and texts 🇬🇧 and available in more languages Outlook tutorial by Microsoft

• Presentation Slides and Notes for Presentation 🇬🇧 Learn to use email (Digidel)

  Email is one of the most important functions in today's society. Without e-mail, there are few places on the internet where you can register as a user or order goods. Here, there are two different courses - one for Gmail and one for Outlook. Please note that some contents are based in Norway, but you can use slides and notes to get some tips on demonstrating and explaining this topic.

1. Creating an email address

Go to Gmail or Outlook

• Trainer: Open a browser.

• Learners: Everyone goes to the browser and opens the site.

Start the sign-up form

• Trainer: Click Create account → For myself.

• Learners: Fill in:

  • First name

  • Last name

  • Username (close to real name, no spaces, avoid special letters; add numbers/dots if name taken).

Create a password

• Trainer: “Password = at least 8 characters, with a mix of letters, numbers, or symbols.”

• Learners: Type password → Confirm password → Next.

• Tip: If “passwords don’t match,” retype slowly.

Add details

• Learners:

  • Enter birthday (month, day, year).

  • Select gender.

  • Add phone number (for account recovery).

  • Optional: add another email for recovery.

  
  

Agree to terms & finish

• Learners: Scroll down → click I agree.

• Trainer explains about email, it looks like username@XXX.com

2. Logging in & out

• Trainers:

  • show In Inbox, click your profile (top right) → Sign out.

  • Share about security concern: “Always sign out on shared computers.”

• Learners: Practice signing out and back in twice (enter email + password, then Sign in).

• Check also the mobile version: Make sure learners can access email from their mobile device as well.

3. Sending an email

Start a new message

• Trainers: Click Compose and explain the components of writing an email.

• Learners:

  1. In To: type trainer’s address (written on board).

  2. In Subject: type “Test”.

  3. In message box: write short greeting (start with “Hi”, end with “Regards”).

  4. Click Send.

• Trainer action: Reply to each participant

4. Opening emails

• Trainer: Explain inbox list (bold = unread, numbers show new messages).

• Learners: Click trainer’s reply to open it.

5. Replying to emails

• Trainer: Explain how to reply to an email

• Learners: Open trainer's reply and type a short reply → Send.

6. Wrap-up

• Trainer: Go through the steps you did in this lesson to recap what we learned, such as creating an email address, logging in/out, sending, opening, and replying.

• Remind: Always sign out on shared devices.

• Encourage learners to use email regularly.

• You can share the training materials with learners via email.

Quick Troubleshooting

• Username taken → add dot, number, or initial.

• Password not working → must be 8+ characters with mix; retype slowly.

• Can’t find Compose → look top-left.

• Email won’t send → check address spelling.

• Screen too small → zoom in (Ctrl/Cmd + +).