Teaching someone basic internet skills.

Yes, he does want to. Definitely. He was the one that initiated getting access when we switched from cable to dish.

Soz. I didn't choose excel because of the program. I chose it because he was having a hard time even clicking on things. For instance, I would say click here, and he would mash the left button on the mouse so hard the mouse would actually fly out of his hand. Or I'd say double click and he would do....click <pause> click....he seemed to be having difficulty mastering a soft touch quick double click. Again, an example, scrolling....He called me into the room saying he couldn't read what was at the bottom of a page. I said "just scroll down" he replied, "I am, it keeps going back up to the top"
From where I was standing I could see he was turning the scroll wheel, but then, instead of letting go, he'd inadvertantly scroll it back up. It's like watching someone who never drove a manual car try to figure out why it kept stalling, and why when this lever was flipped, the windshield wipers went on.

I didn't even show him ANYthing in excel, was just using it to get him used to moving the mouse and clicking on cells, to get the feel of when he was doing it correctly.

detano.....drop it, you akward comments are nothing but an embarrassment to you.....I'm discussing this with people I have come to know very well, not you, who can never resist making a clumsy attempt at insult. As a matter of fact, it's amazing how similar you are in your writing to another poster who can not resist putting others down to make herself look better.

When It comes to someone I love, there is not such thing as overreacting. Apparantly you don't feel strongly enough about another human being to understand that.

I'll tell you what. Why don't you say something even the slightest bit off about ehbeth, swimpy, ladydiane etc. and see the reaction you get from other parties.

What you call embarrassing detail is me asking for advice from people I consider friends. So I obviously wasn't addressing this to you.

Anyway, back on subject now that I don't have to address the peanut gallery again.....I am going to have to let him make his mistakes...he doesn't realize he can make them.

When he does "get it" I'll report back

Funny how we all have different approaches to this.

I still can't use Paint comfortably after more than a decade online, and using puters for about 30 years. Refdesk is kinda interesting, but wouldna sucked me in - initially. Excel is good for work, but I can't imagine using it as an introduction (for me).

Doesn't mean any of those approaches are wrong. They are clearly perfectly right for some people.

For me it was two things that made me mad to learn more when I really got 'into' the internet. The first was games. I'm a total sucker for shooting style games, that make LOTS of noise. I loved my Gameboy 15+ years ago. Once I went online and discovered all the free gaming sites, I was IN. Then I discovered how easy it was to research things I was interested in learning more about - which is where resources like refdesk came in for me.

So - not really useful training ideas - but maybe a suggestion that you try to figger out what'll suck him in ... finding the right lyrics to songs, different types of games ...

Once he WANTS WANTS WANTS it, I think he'll let you know how he learns this sort of thing best.

Good luck.

~~~~~~~~

Just remembering when someone was trying to get me more involved in the net, and I was exposed to all these crazy people and their acronyms. I thought LOL meant land o lake butter

Teaching someone basic internet skills
Perhaps he could learn more easily from someone else?

Oh lord.

I can't help, but I can join the moaning.


My ex, who uses his computer for the most complex of music editing tasks, and edits photos etc with ease, and does all his essays and all on the damn thing, could NOT 'get" the concept of a thread on Abuzz or here.

It didn't matter HOW I explained it, what analogies I used, how I stood over his shoulder and said: "Ok, now scroll down to the next post..." "WHat's a post?" "Remember, I said that is the next comment in this conversation" "WHAT conversation?" "The one we are reading" "But what is it a conversation ABOUT" "Remember, I said it relates to the question asked/comments made by the person in the first post. See here, I asked about advances in Parkinson's treatment for you...now see, here are some comments about possible new treatments." "I don't get it."


At least, when I was trying to teach him from afar, I could scream and pound the desk, and walk away, and consume alcohol and suchlike mature things.

This went on for MONTHS!!!!



Also, bless him, he had been able to master very complex stuff, in his field, which is sound, but had never discovered Google, or so many other basic things, though he had used a computed way longer than I.

I won't even TRY to describe trying to help him do his uni enrolment.

Suffice to say that a simple (to me) task took five days of awful pain and suffering.


I tried to help, but he would end up getting so anxious that my empathy neurones would go out in sympathy, and I just couldn't bear to watch, so I would have to leave for a few hours.

I UNDERSTAND the anxiety, I just couldn't bear it any more!





Thing is, it's all relative,

I remember Craven saying to me (though he is a patient teacher) that he had mastered stuff in the first ten minutes of using a computer that I had still never heard of.


Such is life.

Oh THANK you dlowan

You really did make me feel much better.

My husband can build a house from the ground up that will last 500 years.

He can take an engine apart and put it together with no manual.

He can shoot and arrow or gun with great precision.

He can't click a mouse.

Such is life.

Well, back at the end of the eighties my hub got a new computer and I used his old one to type all my research on piazzas. That is, I copied what I found in books, made my notes re who said what and who contradicted whom, did outlines of my sense of history of the spaces. Your basic wordstar thing. I did it from need, really. My need precipitated my learning.

I seem to remember some tension flying back and forth between us, re him telling me stuff and me hearing it. He is a writer, the computer was an immediate great tool for him. Interestingly, dumbshit that I am, I am probably savvyer now than he is re the computer, but he was the one who understood most the first.

I didn't get email until I got my imac in late '99. I had a certain duh-ness and fear about email, but not all that much. My main fear had been earlier, lest I break the thing by pushing the wrong button.

Perhaps the best teacher is being left alone to "futz" at first?


I am not by temperament or interest ever going to be a computer savvy person, but, when I got my computer, it was futz or sink.


There was nobody, really, I could call on to wend my way through the web.


There were people I could have asked re Word stuff (in which I have almost no interest).....and work Macs were there, but not connected to the net...so I knew mousing and all that, (Macs had a cool beginners' program to teach you that) but in terms of why I was there, in front of a puter of me own......well, nobody I felt really able to call on had half the curiosity and impetus that I did.

It was me and the net, sink or swim.



I guess I dogpaddle, eh?



Half the people I know think me a whizz.....half a puter retard.


Such is life.



Man, I am such a middle of the roader! So DULL!




Oh, I took to email, and chat with folk I knew, like a duck to water.


THAT'S where all my IQ is concentrated....WORDS! Nothing can stop me there. That's why I found the ex's incomprehension re "threads" incomprehensible.

Yeah, I think that is the common thread in our advice thus far.

Let him futz around, preferably with something that interests him, whatever that may be. No particular pressure or deadlines, just free-range futzing.

Nods to dlowan..

WHAT'S a post? WHAT conversation? What is it ABOUT?

Just a stab in the dark, now, but you were using Digression #72 to illustrate the perfect logic of internet usage, weren't you.

i bougth the 'teach yourself windows 2000 VISUALLY' book (from IDG books ) when i started, later added 'computer for dummies'.
while i few things still throw me, i'm not doing too badly.
i also write down my own instructions when needed .
my greatest problem is typing speed - or NO SPEED , but i'll live with that - some of the best reportes were two-finger typists in their days. so it's good enouhj for me.
writing my own instructioons definetely helped. hbg

NO!!!!


Odd thing is (he's a writer, too) he LOVED the digressions, (thanks to Margo's copying of them) without ever really understanding that the separate posts were connected in any way.


Here's one of the threads I tried to teach him with (I opened this one on his behalf...he has parkinson's and was terrifying me by reading and believing the most obviously lunatic sites on it, with no discernment of the loony from the sane: (part of whatever made "getting" the whole notion of threads impossible to grasp?)

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=44678&start=0


He even managed to open his own thread on Abuzz, and couldn't grasp how to answer it etc.

I truly think it was some sort of neurological "glitch"...that and panic when he couldn't get it, that got in the way of further attempts, because he is a very bright guy, though he does have specific learning problems from geting hit by a car as a wee kid.....he HAS to understand stuff in his own way, and if that does not happen, stuff does not go into his medium/long term memory.

Ohh Chai....
this thread has me sighing, laughing (I actually laughed at loud!), and getting aggrivated! I can soooo relate!

I took to computers as a wee one bc some teacher when I was a kid thought I had some gift and got me into special programs. Lucky me! In high school I was teaching on Apples to adults and people my own age; and I have never been exceptionally comp. savy - I just have no fear of breaking anything. If something interests me, I'll tear it open and figure it out, y'know?!
So people ask me, and I teach, but half the time I'm flying by the seat of my pants. hehe.

Anyways, I can think of a few people that have tested my limits and made me want to just cry! My own mother is one of them. She is basically illiterate comp. wise, but not for lack of people trying to teach her, and not for lack of trying. But she is stubborn. She wants to learn the computer One-way.....which doesn't really work when learning a new skill set!
She sees the computer as some kind of magic box or something - and reads every single thing as if it were written just for her. Over and over again, I have explained that pop-ups are just advertisements. She doesn't get it. She trusts that there is some sort of police or universal regulation. She expects the Internet to be 'nice' like a country stroll. And she refuses to work with it as it actually is. Arggg!

I finally figured out that she simply does not understand what the Internet actually is. What she does know - upsets her bc she says it is "unorganized,silly, and out-of-control". So, she has Ideas about Learning that are the real sticklers!

It sounds like your hubby may be a 'hands-on' kind of person? Someone who thinks by physically doing? It sounds like he may be approaching the comp. like it is a physical tool - by he can't get a 'feel' for it, because the comp. is not a tool really of the body, but more of the mind.

I'm not much help, but I've come across people like that before.
They weren't interested in exploring the internet; they seemed interested in the specifics of what it will do as a tool to help them on their goals.
Your hubby seems fixated on getting that bow.
Maybe simplicity is the key with him?

Chai, you have always struck me as a very intelligent woman, and as someone who enjoys considering things from all sorts of angles, exploring, etc. The computer sounds like a natural haven for you, but maybe not for you hub.

Anyways, I feel your pain. I hope things calm out soon.

Yeah, that's him.

Oh, and the thing about if they sell recurve bows as one of their 10,000 items in stock, they should LIST it damnit!

I remember saying...."Well, when the client and the web designer got together, maybe they didn't think mentioning each item was a good idea, since apparantly that's not a common bow to sell."

him: "Well, if I was the only archery store in austin that sold recurve bows, I'd put it on the internet saying I was the ONLY supplier of recurve bows in Austin Tx!!!!!"

Really flushed, dlowan and all, you've given great advice. Later that evening, when it wasn't such a hot topic, it was agreed that he'll go back on and look up commonplace stuff, that won't be hard to find.

I think that way, he'll see that he's actually doing something.

BTW, try finding yourself a place in austin tx that sells recurve bows...I didn't myself, but I can just imagine.

Yes, definately, I'm going to just let him flounder about.

Thanks all.

Try mah-jong (called tai pei on most systems) or solitaire or another easy, slow-moving game.

This is how I learned how to double-click. Initially, I had such trouble with it -- it was one of those things where I would either end up triple-clicking or would click once then pause ever so slightly and click again. And that, of course, is not a double-click.

Tai pei (or the like) is easy and fast, and it definitely shows what happens when you do things. Plus it's nothing that's fraught with meaning, or that can be messed up if he does it wrong. So you lose a game of computer solitaire? Big freakin' deal.

It teaches mouse skills. And there's pretty much no reading, plus it's something (at least, most likely, solitaire) he already knows. He doesn't need real directions. And, if he wants to, you can even set him up with actual cards on the desk at the same time. Some people just kind of need that sort of a visual going on, with a tactile part. Okay, I want to move a card. How would I do that if I was wearing oven mitts? Well, I'd touch and slide the card. To pick it up, I'd have to have the oven mitt somehow stick to the card (left-clicking with the mouse). That kinda thing.

I cannot believe I had such problems with a mouse, but I did. That was, eek, back in 1990.

PS He may be less frustrated if he learns to type. You don't say if he is a slow typist but a lot of new users are, and that becomes an exercise in frustration all around. So he may need to practice typing a bit, too.

teaching a partner is a bit like trying to teach them to drive - don't go there!

I agree with Phoenix that solitaire or games is good for teaching mouse skills and double clicking - also, practice the double click in mid air so that they hear the sound it should make. I had a problem getting my mother to keep hold of the mouse - when she clicked she'd have let go and it slewed across the desk as she clicked so she'd end up clicking half way across the screen from where she meant to!

I created a really really basic simple set of instructions for my mother - colour coded red=buttons/icons and blue=how do I? and black=details

to open Word > click on START button (bottom left corner of screen)


 click on W icon and Word will start to open

a new blank document will open for you automatically and you can just start typing


to SAVE a document you need to give it a name the first time you save it. It's just like labelling a paper file. Give it label that will make it easy to find again without having to open it.

 click on FILE
in the top line of headings at the top of the page, on the left, just under the blue bar at the top of the screen

 click on SAVE AS
(if it doesn't show in the list, there is a little arrow at the bottom of the list that takes you down to more options and it will be there.

A text box will open up and you type in the name you want to give the file in the top of the 2 bottom boxes, Do nothing with the bottom box at all.
Then click SAVE, the little box to the far right of the box you just typed into. The blue bar at the top of the screen will now show the name you just gave the document.


it was neater than this - I've copied and pasted it and some of the formatting went a bit haywire

she's a technophobe so it had to be really step by step. We want her to write up her memories of growing up etc for a family history file and she touch types so that side is easy for her. She just loved the idea of all the editing and cutting and pasting etc that she could do.

"teaching a partner is a bit like trying to teach them to drive - don't go there!" - Vivien

Right on!

(I can't do proper A2K quotes; Firefox won't let me - along with underline, italic, etc.)

when ebeth needed her driver's license in a hurry some years ago , the driving instructor made me promise not to try and 'help' . without my help, she had the license in about ten days - who knows how long it would have taken, had i tried 'to help' . hbg

teaching
...TEACH YOURSELF......VISUALLY...

i have one of the earlier versions of this self-instructional book . i still keep it at hand to refresh my memory - more often as time goes on.
it's a small price to pay for peace of mind - and your marital happiness . hbg

And console yourself that the following tech questions need to be ansered by companies like Apple nd Compaq.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86816

http://web14.compaq.com/falco/detail.asp?FAQnum=FAQ2859

It really could be worse. The old story that always makes me laugh is the guy who called tech support to say his drinks holder was broken (a.k.a a CD drive).