Student Guide
Module 10
Claude Cowork: Your Desktop Operator
Claude moves from browser tab to desktop colleague. Cowork reads your files, creates documents, saves them where you specify. The shift from "I type, it responds" to "I direct, it works."
Charter Oak Strategic Partners · Claude Mastery Program
- How Cowork turns Claude from a chat window into a desktop colleague
- How to direct Cowork to read files, create documents, and save outputs
- The sprint: build a quarterly business review from three source files in 60 minutes
- How to delegate effectively — clear instructions produce better work than micromanagement
From Chat Window to Colleague
Everything before this module lived in a browser tab. Cowork lives on your computer. It reads your files. It creates documents. It saves them where you tell it to. It connects to your tools. This is where Claude stops being a chat window and starts being a colleague.
- Read files from your computer (CSVs, documents, transcripts)
- Browse the web for real-time information
- Create presentations, reports, and documents
- Connect to Slack, email, and other tools
- Write and run code
- Save output files directly into a workspace folder
The Sprint
Setup: Open Claude Desktop. Select the sprint folder containing three files: a sales CSV, an interview transcript, and an employee handbook excerpt.
Deliverable:
- A quarterly business review presentation (6+ slides)
- A one-page executive summary
- Speaker notes for every slide
- All three source files used meaningfully (extract data, pull quotes, reference policies)
Tell Cowork what you want the slide to say. Give it the data. Let it write. You edit. You do not draft.
Participants who give Cowork a detailed brief at the start produce better results than those who feed it one slide at a time. Treat Cowork like a colleague you are delegating to. The clearer the delegation, the better the work.
Scoring Rubric
| Dimension | What It Measures | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Data Integration | Did the presentation use real numbers from the CSV? | 25 |
| Narrative Quality | Does the story connect data to decisions? | 25 |
| Source Coverage | Were all three files used meaningfully? | 20 |
| Presentation Quality | Clean slides, useful notes, executive-ready summary? | 20 |
| Completeness | Six slides, speaker notes, executive summary? | 10 |
Reflection
Questions to Consider
- What worked? What required extra turns with Cowork?
- What would you do differently next time?
- How does Cowork change what is feasible for a one-person deadline?
Cowork
Claude’s desktop application. Reads your files, creates documents, saves outputs to your computer.
Delegation Rule
Give the full scope upfront. One detailed brief beats ten incremental instructions.
Requirements
Claude Desktop with a Pro or Team plan. Workspace folder selected with source files loaded.