• Teaching Old Farts
    14 replies, posted
[IMG]http://www.new1.com/jkohl/images/Mr%20Old%20Fart_350.jpg[/IMG] Old Farts, we all know one, and hell knowing today's world, some facepunchers may even be one. This summer I am embarking upon an historic endeavor to teach the old people at my local country club, exactly what a computer is, does, and how to work it. These people have absolutely no inkling the difference between teraflops and gigabits, so if anyone has any [U]extreeeemely[/U] [U]basic[/U] powerpoints on the workings of a mouse, keyboard, and screen etc. or even just a video on learning computers, I'd greatly appreciate it so that I can incorporate it into my lesson plan for the geezers. If not, discuss how you would best go about teaching an 84 year old Jewish man what a mouse is.
Heres some helpful hinters on the HIDs, (Keyboards and mice) Move the mouse on a 2d plane, to move the cursor on the 2d plane. To achieve the word you wish to type, press the corresponding letter on the keyboard. For the computer, press the power button till a light comes on. And for the retracting beverage/coffee/handle of skohl tray, just press the button right below that tray. If it breaks, its your fault for being an 84 year old jew. They had IBMs in the holocaust.
The Disk Tray is NOT a Cup Holder.
Get them to play solitaire to get a hang of the mouse
[QUOTE=benjgvps;21214807]Get them to play solitaire to get a hang of the mouse[/QUOTE] That's actually what I had in mind. That or hearts, I'll probably bring a router with me and set up a WLAN so they can connect if they've got a laptop.
just teach them the basics web browsing safety and how to make word docs
[QUOTE=JohnEdwards;21218471]just teach them the basics web browsing safety and how to make word docs[/QUOTE] Even that's a little much, my uncle is trying to teach his father how to get Email (With GMail) and if you so much as tell him to "enter your password and press Ok" he will lock up. Be specific and look carefully at what you do. For the password example, you might say "Move the mouse so that the arrow is over the blank box with the word "Password:" next to it. click the left mouse button once, type the password you chose, it will show up as stars to protect it from being seen by another person. Then move the move to the button with the text "OK" on it. click the box with the left mouse button.
Yeah, I've a little bit of experience teaching old people before, with a 68 year old alzheimers (we think) patient that was at the school, I had to teach her how to change her desktop background, I'd taken the time to make an entire FRAPS recorded tutorial with captions, arrows, text, and a voiceover with the volume maxed out, put it on her desktop with a big CLICK HERE icon and she said, "Oh, I couldn't find it."
Don't get to technical, don't be scared to explain something twice. And making a list of what to do seemed to help. I explained like how to check there, e-mail, made a list of it (while showing it on screen), and then let them do it from memory and if they didn't knew what to do they could check the list.
[QUOTE=Baldr;21241497]Don't get to technical, don't be scared to explain something twice. And making a list of what to do seemed to help. I explained like how to check there, e-mail, made a list of it (while showing it on screen), and then let them do it from memory and if they didn't knew what to do they could check the list.[/QUOTE] Almost exactly what I did, but I put the list in video form. And the only problem is I do tend to overexplain things.
"Okay, now, you click Okay." [img]http://myrtleturtles.com/sitebuilder/images/some-old-guy-306x388.jpg[/img]
Once you get the mechanics of working a computer down and begin explaining software, start by explaining stuff that they will find no matter what they're doing - window manipulation, how the taskbar works, scroll bars, icons and links, location of the cursor and text fields, and buttons. Plan your lesson to be as simple as you can make it, THEN MAKE IT SIMPLER. Few things to dwell on: - To type in a text field the cursor must be in said text field. Seems simple to us, but telling someone with no idea of how PCs work to "type x in that box" will almost always end up with them just typing randomly into nothing. - Single click links and buttons, double click icons. A good rule of thumb is that if the thing your mouse is hovering over changes its appearance, single click. If not, double. - Terminology of stuff! Taskbar, start menu, icon, button, window, define them before you start saying them. Oh yeah, and teach with your voice and a projection of your screen instead of a powerpoint. If they hear you describe something and see you do it on the big screen it'll be easier to understand than if they're just watching a video with you narrating. This way you can go back and do it again if needed.
Keep it at how it looks, how it is named on screen and what it does. All other info is unimportant, telling it is a ok but noting it down is making it wait to complicated form them.
I did computer tutoring for the elderly at my college. Use basic terms and explanations. For example, if a 70 year old woman is asking you how to send emails to her grand children you would not say: "Click on the start menu then program files, outlook express, click on new message, select the contact, and then attach the picture." A more appropriate method would be: "Click on the little globe on the bottom left of the screen, where it says search programs and files type outlook.exe. Next press the control key and the N key on the keyboard at the same time. (show them how to do it first) Click on the To and select your grandson's name then click OK. Then tell them how to attach a file and find the precious picture of their grandson picking his nose and then send it!
[QUOTE=Mister TBD;21241725]I did computer tutoring for the elderly at my college. Use basic terms and explanations. For example, if a 70 year old woman is asking you how to send emails to her grand children you would not say: "Click on the start menu then program files, outlook express, click on new message, select the contact, and then attach the picture." A more appropriate method would be: "Click on the little globe on the bottom left of the screen, where it says search programs and files type outlook.exe. Next press the control key and the N key on the keyboard at the same time. (show them how to do it first) Click on the To and select your grandson's name then click OK. Then tell them how to attach a file and find the precious picture of their grandson picking his nose and then send it![/QUOTE] That's exactly what I was thinking, and whoever said to project the screen, that's a good idea, but I'll have to get a computer that's not a customized as mine, because I'm definitely not changing my stuff for them, I'll just borrow someone's old laptop.
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