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[Ecrofirt]

By boss has set up a meeting of sorts between myself and one of her friends who owns a business. This woman has essentially no computer skills, so I'll be giving her tutoring sessions on a fairly regular basis.

The thing is, I've never really done this for anyone, so I don't have any ideas as to how to approach this. Does anyone here do anything like this? Can you give me some pointers for how Ishould go about this? Right now I'm thinking I'll just go and get a feel for her experience and fly by the seat of my pants from there.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Be gentle and use slow motions when you put her hands where they need to go.

 

[Wellington]

By boss has set up a meeting of sorts between myself and one of her friends who owns a business. This woman has essentially no computer skills, so I'll be giving her tutoring sessions on a fairly regular basis.

The thing is, I've never really done this for anyone, so I don't have any ideas as to how to approach this. Does anyone here do anything like this? Can you give me some pointers for how Ishould go about this? Right now I'm thinking I'll just go and get a feel for her experience and fly by the seat of my pants from there.

Just realize that fairly basic concepts to us will be new things to her. Explain what a right-click is, drag and drop, copy and paste, etc.

 

[Diablos]

:lol

You're giving one-on-one classes on how to use a comp with a woman.
And posted this on GAF.
I don't really think you are going to get many serious responses. :lol :lol :lol

 

[Ecrofirt]

:lol

You're giving one-on-one classes on how to use a comp with a woman.
And posted this on GAF.
I don't really think you are going to get many serious responses. :lol :lol :lol

I know that while I'll get a host of jackass responses, there will always be people like CK who will provide serious responses.

Yes, I knew from the moment I posted it how it sounded, and I actually typed up "I know this sounds like the start of a bad porno, but" before deciding that I'd have a chance at getting more mature responses without that line.

 

[Blackace]

Just realize that fairly basic concepts to us will be new things to her. Explain what a right-click is, drag and drop, copy and paste, etc.

if she has really ZERO concept then double click needs to be lesson by itself!

Me: "Ok dad, double the icon to get into the program."

Dad: *click* *moves mouse while holding down button* *2 secs later* *click*

Me: "..."

Dad: "what happened to the icon?"

Me: "It is in the corner!"

Dad: "How the fuck did it get there?"

However, now my father emails me everyda, uses his digital camera to send me pictures from Seattle and most likely surfs for porn.. so it can be done

 

[pnjtony]

teach the mouse, the basic areas of windows, some hot-keys and just really basic concepts like dragging and dropping, single click vs right click vs double click. The difference between closing a window and minimizing, how to stretch a window and how to deal with a window on top of another window. Also go over that her CD ROM does indeed have a drive letter. Teach her how when browsing for a file, how to change the current directory to look elsewhere and also how to select a destination when saving a file. Make sure she know the desktop isn't really her desk!!!

Sorry it's all rambled together, but this is just the shit I have to deal with from people on a daily basis

 

[Ninja Scooter]

there's something you need to do to her ass, but i can't remember what.

 

[tedtropy]

You fool! One moment you're showing a lady how to use a computer, the next they'll all be rummaging through out Internet cache and exposing our perverted interests.

 

[GDGF]

there's something you need to do to her ass, but i can't remember what.

:lol

Edit: Ninja Scooter, what was your old GAF user name. Not being able to remember is killing me.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

if she has really ZERO concept then double click needs to be lesson by itself!

Me: "Ok dad, double the icon to get into the program."

Dad: *click* *moves mouse while holding down button* *2 secs later* *click*

Me: "..."

Dad: "what happened to the icon?"

Me: "It is in the corner!"

Dad: "How the fuck did it get there?"

However, now my father emails me everyda, uses his digital camera to send me pictures from Seattle and most likely surfs for porn.. so it can be done

:lol

Yeah, it's amazing how something like the double-click totally escapes people, my mom is the same way. It's like they purposely click as slowly as possible thinking clicking too fast might hurt the computer or something.

 

[aoi tsuki]

In the old 95/98 versions of Windows there was a training program that showed you how to use a mouse and all that crap. i'm not sure if it's still in XP but if it is it would be a good place to start, if not teaching her directly, then something for you to use to get an idea how to go about this.

 

[Scrow]

It's like they purposely click as slowly as possible thinking clicking too fast might hurt the computer or something.

i think it's a case of them believing they need to give the computer time to process each click. if you double click too fast it might miss the second one! >_<

 

[temp]

When giving lessons the most important thing is to give the person you're teaching something to relate each action to. Try to make parallels with cooking or ironing.

 

[flsh]

I teached a few people that knew nothing about computers how to use them. The most important thing is to know how to use the mouse and keyboard so at first I recommend telling her the very very basics (right click, left click, enter, space, caps lock, double click), after there practice those with the windows games. You would be surprised what solitaire did to the people I thought. After showing her the games, ask her to write things in notepad\word so she'll know how to type. After that tell her about things like drag and drop, copy-cut-paste, paint, explaing to her about interface things (like changing the background, screen saver, etc. etc.) and from there the internet. Then see where she is troubled and mostly teach her what she wants

Oh, and be patient, it may take A LOT of time (I taught 2 old women and my grandfather, my father, mother, other relatives and friends - some times it takes forever to teach basic things).