Computer lessons for seniors

The honest bit

You were never taught. That is not the same as being no good at it.

Almost everyone I sit with opens with some version of the same apology: I’m hopeless with these things. It is almost never true. You were handed a device that assumes you already know fifty small conventions nobody ever explained, then told to work it out from a help page written for someone half your age.

That is a teaching failure, not a personal one. Given someone patient sitting beside them, the overwhelming majority of people pick this up perfectly well.

So we start wherever you actually are. If that means the difference between a browser and a search engine, we start there, and I promise not to make anything of it.

How a lesson runs

Your device, your table, your pace.

I come to you. That matters more than it sounds. Problems have a habit of not reproducing on someone else’s computer, and what you learn on a strange laptop does not always transfer back to yours.

Every session works the same way:

• You drive. Your hands stay on the mouse and keyboard. I will point, describe and wait, but I will not take over unless you ask me to.
• We repeat it. Once through is a demonstration, not learning. We do it again from the start, then a third time if you want it.
• You keep the notes. I write the steps down in plain words, in large print, specific to your machine. Not a printed booklet about computers in general, but instructions for yours.
• No jargon without translation. If a technical word is genuinely worth knowing, I will explain it properly. Otherwise I will not use it.

Bring a list. People often arrive worrying they have only one question and it is not worth my time, then remember eleven once we start. Write them down as they occur to you during the week.