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Tips for Teaching Seniors About the Internet?
ColGraff asks: "I'm spending this summer teaching senior citizens how to use the Internet - specifically, email and the world wide web, so how do I teach them in a way that will meet their needs in the best way possible? Some of these people have no computer experience and I don't know if should I plunge right into web browsers (while filling in knowledge gaps as needed) or give background info first? How do you teach someone to use a mouse effectively? (Sure, it seems simple, but think about it a minute. How do you know how far to move a mouse? How fast to double-click?). What about tips on using search engines, and how to sort the wheat from the chaff? Finally, what else should I teach? Is there anything in particular I should know about when tutoring the elderly?"
Well, I think the elderly will learn computers just like everybody else does. By screwing around on them and doing random stuff.
The main thing about the elderly and others who haven't learned computing yet is that they fear the complexity of the machines. If you show them that the user interface is designed to be consistent and helpful and not contrary and impossible, if you show them just a few cool things and what you did to get there, and if you convince them that they can learn it and that it's relatively simple once you've got some practice, then there's no problem.
Essentially there's no difference between the elderly as a specific group learning computers than any other group. Teach them not to fear the computer, show them a few cool things, and then let them loose. That's how I learned computers, I'm betting that's how you learned computers, and that's probably the best way they can learn them too.
It's the attitude that's important. If you try to learn going into the experience thinking that the machine is going to do everything it can to thwart you and that really it's a very difficult task, you'll fail. If you approach it with confidence, then it will be easy. Giving the confidence to approach the machine is your job more than actually teaching the mechanics is. If they have the confidence, the mechanics will teach themselves to the user.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Showing someone how to play solitaire on a computer is a great way to help them learn basic mousing skills, while becoming comfortable with the idea of sitting in front of a computer. Pretty much everyone knows the rules behind the game, and it's easier to make the mental leap from playing cards to the graphics on the screen than understanding concepts such as "desktop" and "file", which are abstracted much further.
Whenever I starting teaching someone who is new to computers, I try to make as many comparisons to real life as possible.
For instance, when I explain about the different between RAM and a hard drive, I tell them to thing of the computer as an office desk. The "hard drive" is the file cabinet where everything is kept. The "RAM" is the top of the desk. They can work on as many files at the same time as they can spread out on the top of the desk. Once they run out of desktop space, they need to close up one file, stick it back in the drawer, file the next one, and lay it out again. I tell them that in computer terms this is "swapping", and that's what the computer is doing when it starts getting very slow and you can hear the hard drive making noises...
--Cycon
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
I'm a high school student with too much going on this summer to get are real job, so I do computer work for people for $10/hr. In addition to fixing things when they break (windows), I also teach them things. Most of my clients are retired people who want to be able to do certain things. For example, scan pictures and email them, use voice recognition software b/c their arthritis makes typing a problem, etc. I've found that having them sit in the chair and do everything works best, me showing how to do something usually goes in one ear and out the other.
As to you question, I would show them how to use (I assume) windows. Basic things, starting programs, closing them, using the start menu. Maybe deleting files. Use some kind of word processor as a demo for all this, so they can learn something useful, as well as how to use the OS. Show them how to start a web browser and basic things, like how to go forward/back, favorites, the history, etc.
Just my $0.02
Justin Ingersoll
Having spent a number of years assisting older new computer users in becoming accustomed to their machines, I think I can offer some helpful suggestions. My advice is perhaps best broken into three categories: attitude, metaphors and technology.
Attitude
One of the most common mistakes I see among younger people working with the elderly, even well-meaning younger people who are volunteering to help in the first place, is a patronizing or condescending attitude. Most older computer users expect that computers are going to be frustrating, to some degree. They don't need to be "soothed" and can deal with frustration. By the same token, they don't need to be faced with two sources of frustration: the computer and the instructor. To avoid contributing to frustration:
Speak clearly and at a moderate pace and a volume perhaps slightly louder than you are used to using with twenty-somethings. This is a generally good habit to get into with people in their seventies and eighties. Don't scream, but don't mumble, either.
Don't digress. While you may think it is profoundly important to explain how the software is working in the background, or what the difference between RAM and the hard drive is, this extra information is just clutter to someone trying to accomplish a task. Only bring up extraneous information if you are asked a direct question.
Use common language and avoid jargon. If jargon is necessary, define all terms. It's true that people benefit from explanations and context, but only if they understand those explanations.
This last point leads to my next section, on the use of appropriate metaphors.
Metaphors
The biggest conceptual leap for an older computer user is the idea of hierarchy in the computer, whether that hierarchy is expressed in the layers of the file system, or in layers of stacked windows. Operating system GUIs, all of them, fail miserably in terms of usability by allowing windows to be stacked, and allowing non-modality. Yes, of course you readers of Slashdot are power users, and these things don't confuse you, but have you ever been in a forty-five minute conversation trying to explain what happens when a pop-up window disappears behind the main browser window? It is impossible to overestimate how difficult this concept is for many older people. It is not, by any means, a lack of intelligence, capability, memory or any such thing. Rather, it is a learned concept that the average Slashdot reader was fortunate enough to pick up transparently in childhood. I don't mean to suggest older users _won't_ get the hierarchy concept, but that instructors should not brush by the idea without acknowledging what a big conceptual leap it is. Metaphors can help the transition.
There's a reason why the Macintosh has a "desktop"; it was presumed that the metaphor of the desk and working with static, page-like files would allow users to comfortably transition to the hierarchic file system. Use the desktop metaphor to explain the idea of layered windows, which are much like stacked pages.
The "tree" metaphor has also been successful with a lot of my clients. The hard drive is the "root", the folders/directories are the "branches" and the files are the "leaves". Go ahead and draw a picture; this isn't patronizing.
By the way, don't encourage new users of any type to mulitask. For example, never, ever, ever start by saving a document to a personal folder in the hierarchy. Save everything to the default location. Then, close all applications, and commence a completely different exercise: moving the document from one place to another. This prevents users from conflating the function of the application and the filesystem.
Technology
It is extremely worthwhile to attempt to set up your users' computers beforehand to make their experience better. Make sure that all applications are easily accessible from the Start or Apple menu. Make sure that all windows in applications are maximized, so the desktop is hidden (this is much less confusing). Make sure each user has a "My Documents" or personal folder accessible from the desktop. Make sure that to whatever extent is possible, applications present modal windows, and that Web sites you visit do not generate pop-ups or other screen clutter. Plan the lesson ahead of time and set the lesson up in your software, so that you are not in the position of confusing the user in the process of correcting an overlooked and extraneous step.
Now-a-days all you kids and your eco-friendly fancy schmancy respect-everybody want to teach old people how to use the internet.
Well, all I have to say is this... If old people needed to learn how to use the 'net, then they would learn it. Your typical old-nearly-dead (such as myself) spends their time watching Alex Trebeck and Pat Sajek and we have no need for the fancy-schmancy commerciallized contorsion that used to be the internet.
Back in my day, we used the internet to trace milatary sectrets and send information to colleagues. Now it's a commercialized joke that's dominated by too few large corporations.
Instead of teaching us old fogies how to use the internet, we'd rather that you gave us all sponge baths.
-vax computer, vi, lynx. 'nuf said
Over the past two years I have taught my 82 year old grandma to get on the computer, use the internet, send email, and draw with paintbrush. At first she was slow and couldn't remember where to click, how many times. The best thing you can do are to write down detailed instructions including little diagrams of what the buttons to click on look like, and catergorize them, like "check email", "send email", "shutdown computer", "open dial up connection". At first they will likely use these a lot but when they use the computers more, they'll find themselves using the instructions less. You have to remember their short term memory is not as good as a younger persons, and adapt to that. The long term memory still works great. Also, tie in the internet to things in their daily life. One of the favorite things my grandma loves is the cooking channel web site where she can print the recipie of what she sees Emeril or other chefs prepare. Spend the time to find out what they enjoy outside of the computer and then help find resources that expand on their interests. Also, show them fun things like paintbrush. I know it is a simple program, but sometimes its fun to just draw shapes and colors. Since I got her on the computer, she has gotten a couple of friends on there, who previousely didn't see any use for the interent. They just needed to be pointed in the right direction, and given the knowledge of how to use the computer.