This recent Christmas vacation, we introduced our parents to the modern world of computers. A week has passed and most days were spent on buying a new PC, setting up the connections and an almost never ending tutorial on how it will be used to connect to the internet.
I recall more than a couple of years ago when my wife and I gave my mother a cellphone for her to join the SMS fad. I can still picture her out laughing out loud upon discovering that she has just sent a text message to herself. Luckily, after some patient sessions with my wife (with the unnecessary texting even when they are a couple of feet apart) she learned the basics and was able to send us messages while we are at the airport on our way back by the end of our holiday vacation.
Now is her time to transition to the more complex World Wide Web.
Fortunately, with some organizational and training skills I acquired from work, I got to somehow manage and make the sessions less stressful by labeling almost every wire at the back panel, capturing actual hardware pictures and screenshots. All of which were then transferred to a Word document as a training material and printed and made available for her to refer to while doing the start-up from the very beginning–from plugging the AC cord, powering up the UPS, turning the CPU on, logging in to Windows XP and then connecting to the internet via dial up.
Once connected, more were asked. “What is an icon?” “What’s a double click?” “Why double click on some and single click on the others?” “What’s a domain?” “Why’s there an @ character?” “What’s a shortcut?” “Why’s the Window’s Start button got the Turn Off computer option?” “Why did the message turn to Read status?” And these, are just a few of the long list of questions that I never anticipated.
Despite the newbie encounters, I think my patience is paying off. Mother has already sent a couple of emails to my sister abroad and some family friends. She has already started surfing the web and has already filed and accessed her Favorites.
Even with such progress, today I checked some books in our local bookstore expecting to see some computer self-help book applicable for people like my mother. Well, I saw Basic C++, How to Upgrade your PC, Do-It-Yourself: Fixing a PC and other books with fundamentals written on it but which contain a lot of computer jargons that would only intimidate more rather than encourage my mother to continue using her new PC.
I came near a book from local authors with the name “Internet Fundamentals” but that too lacks the basics on the PC’s operations. If I could have the chance to publish my own, I would have made some bucks out of it. It’s so frustrating, but so far I haven’t seen a book with a direct approach to Internet for Oldies. Hopefully, I’ll find one in Powerbooks once I get back to Manila.
I have few more days here in Bacolod. Tomorrow I’ll be teaching my father. Fingers crossed.
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