Not mine luckily!
I was in the college library, having arrived a bit early. A couple of computers down from me, were a couple of middle-aged ladies having a good giggle. I heard the one nearer me moaning cos she couldn't find Outlook Express and wanted to send an email. Thinking I might be able to help I leaned across and offered some advice. I suggested she could send an email from a web email service, like hotmail or yahoo. She had never heard of them (okay, she was a beginner). I had difficulty making her understand that she could use these anywhere a puter was hooked up to the Internet. Anyway I succeeded in persuading her to have a go.
Well, we managed to get her registered, without too much difficulty. And she got her email written. She was very pleased with herself!!!! She sat back to admire her handiwork - and accidentally touched the wrong key. The whole lot went disappearing into oblivion!!!! There was a kind of wail... Yes, that's right, she hadn't got round to sending it. Her friend and I just rocked with laughter. Gamely we persevered while she did it again. This time we succeeded. I told her to send a copy to herself. We retrieved it and had a look at it. All had gone well this time. She told me, proudly, that she had got a Distinction in part of her Clait.
I looked at the email,with her. Now you'll have to learn how to send attachments, I suggested, you could send a lovely picture to your friends, I told her. There was another wail. I've lost all my photos, she exclaimed. How did you do that, I asked in surprise. Well, she'd taken them on her new digicam, then lost them on her computer. They were somewhere on her hard drive and she couldn't find them!!! She'd lost them!!! And she'd deleted them off her smart card. I explained, patiently, that all she had to do was go into My Computer, go into her hard drive, and look for the filenames. There was another howl of anguish!!! They don't have names, they have numbers, she told me!!!
Hmm. Do I really want to teach computer skills I wonder?
Learning woes
Diane I would drive you mad, everytime my son comes down he patiently explains everything to me..I promptly forget and have to email him again to ask him to repeat what he already told me... I will go one step further as my son was the one who talked me into going with a computor [spending so much time at home these days] but they drive me mad...spent the longest time sending a ''letter'' off to my niece in Australia in the wee hours this morning..struck a wrong key and lost the lot..grrhhhhh !!!!!!
Well, Marion, you could compose the text contents of your emails in Word, and save them somewhere. Even the desktop would be fine, as you wouldn't want them permanently. Or a floppy disk, or your hard drive. Once you've finished composing it, copy and paste into the body of your email. Delete them when you've finished and sent the email. It's a little extra work but not much. That's what I do when I have a longer email to compose, though I don't bother for the short ones. It saves all those anguished yells!
I thought this lady's trials were very funny - but the lady herself was a very giggly lady. I've given her my email addy if she has questions she needs to ask. I wouldn't leave someone to sink.
good for you Diane, you are a good sport..I guess I do not take the computors seriously enough..sometimes it is such a grind especially when I know I have mail to answer and would rather be outside...that is why I stay up so late at night answering [ enjoy receiving them tho'] thanks a lot for the info...my son will be down also this weekend so he keeps me on the straight and narrow...the kids are so patient [ feels like the reverse, me the child and they are the grownups !!!] when I come to think of it they explain things to me like I was 10 years old...oh well !!!!!
I bumped into this lady again yesterday. She was using the puter, like me to check for emails. I showed her a PowerPoint presentation that I am working on, on storytelling. Got on really well with her. Turns out she's a Primary School teacher. Had a good natter with her friend and her (her friend is a Teaching Assistant at the same school). Great to make new friends!!!
I have an informal interview tomorrow at the Hope Institution, a charitable institute within Middlesbrough. I want to learn to teach computer skills. There's a course I'd like to go on, but I need practical teaching skills and I haven't been able to find a place to do them. Looks like I'll have to do them on a voluntary basis. Grr!!!!
just keep positive Diane and let us know how it goes, sooner or later something will ''click''...I agree with Sue that some things just aren't meant to be...and there is something else out there for you....
Been for my interview. It just didn’t click. They only have classes in the daytime and I really need my classes in the evenings to leave me free to look for daytime work. They have a constant stream of enquiries at the moment from other people all trying to get on to do their few hours’ teaching practice. She was insistent that they needed people who wanted to help their learners rather than simply wanting to teach IT. The learners are unemployed people, but unemployed people with issues. Asylum seekers etc.