Watching her two finger typing, getting bamboozled at sound levels and forgetting keyboard shortcuts so often I start to doubt they exist at all is painful. Normally this wouldn't matter, she'd just be that woman in your office who fills you with despair, but she's starting an OU course, which she's perfectly ready for, barring her technological illiteracy. It means a great deal to her, but there are a lot of things she can't do on a computer that could hold her back, at least in terms of confidence if nothing else. Have any of you got experience teaching relatives this sort of thing? Fiddling about on a computer is so innate to me it's difficult to know where to begin with someone who can't find the "downloads" folder. She's not even that old, she just spends most of her free time in a field.
My advice is to give up and get her a Chromebook or an iPad. Being "good with computers" is 20% knowledge and 80% attitude, IMO; you can figure out most things on your own, but some people just aren't interested in learning.
>>26779 Definitely agree about the attitude. As the 'computer expert' in my family I get asked to do things all the time and nobody appreciates that I just google the answers if I don't know them. No matter how many times I recommend that they do the same they won't, because the inbuilt presumption that anything they read will be beyond their comprehension is so strong they won't even try. It's an insurmountable mental roadblock. Additionally the older ones are so scared that a single slip-up will delete their entire hard drive/somehow let hackers in that they will never do anything they're not entirely comfortable with in the first place. It's frustrating but hey, what can you do. If she really is interested though I'd recommend just showing her how google and youtube can collectively be used to find the answer to anything computer-related you want to do, no matter how simple.
Maybe find her a touch-type tutorial program too, it's the sort of thing that getting good at builds confidence since it looks so professional. I should really get back to those, I have to glance at the keyboard half the time and my backspace is worn down to a nub...
