Making College Classes Accessible to the Terminally Disorganized

(This would have been an answer on an e-mail list, but it was sort of off topic, but i just HAVE TO SAY IT. That's what blogs are for!)
I took a web design class here. In every lesson, our directions included where to put files and how to open & close things. There were also built-in backup procedures and any "whole class" exercise files were sitting on a file I could access at any time. I'm pretty computer savvy... but severely organizationally impaired. I lost count of how many times I had to use those built-in backup systems, and halfway through the course I realized that I would never have been able to find files if I hadn't been walked through a good system for keeping them organized. While the things I learned about design were important, the "how to manage a project with a whole lot of files from different programs" stuff I learned were even more important to my everyday life. I know other folks learned a lot of the more mundane computer skills; the consciously built-in margin of error meant that "stupid mistakes" didn't cost hours of time.

So... I was trying to figure out how that could apply to other courses. This wasn't an online course, by the way. However, basically every time we saved a file, we saved it to our disk as well as onto the network - with things set up so the files were organized the same way. At the end of the class, you saved to disk and network. And, if I remember correctly, not only was it in the directions, it was said out loud and then he waited for us to do it and didn't move on until it was done (and not in an eye-rolling way :-)) You had to consciously *not* follow directions to lose a file.
The assignments and the "base files" for them were online all the time. In another class, I think I would have some kind of file with some of the assignment's structure online for my assignments. If it were reading or English, it would have that scaffolding and support that our guys need (I just spent ten minutes getting a fellow from "where do I start ?!?!" to "okay, three ideas and supporting details, fill in the blank" and his ideas were flowing).
The class calendar was online. I could *always* find out what was going to happen ... so right before class I could take a quick look and at least have an idea, even if I were otherwise totally unprepared. The teachers had that same routine: you make a lesson, you save it to your file and you also save it to the "online" place. Yes, this would be hard to get people to do... but I suspect that some of them would be willing if they could be helped with the "able" part - as in, getting a sort of "faculty support" group together to learn the routine. (I mean, how did those guys do it? It seems to be the whole department.)