Big Scary Google!

To anyone under the age of 50 (ish) the big world of WWW. is nothing too strenuous to navigate but to anyone on the other side of the big five-oh things can be a bit different. At this point in our journey my Grandma can email with the best of them and play solitaire and FreeCell like a pro... Google not so much. Time to set the scene on lesson 2 before we begin. Arriving for our lesson bodes no problem, but the first question of the day makes me smile. Over tea and chocolate biscuits I was asked "What even is a google? How do I 'Google it'? Is it hard?" So I decided that for lesson 2, a crash course on how to Google was in order, and is as follows...

Step 1: Be on the home page of iPad
Step 2: Tap on Safari (one of the bottom icons)
Step 3: Tap righthand button search (you may need to delete previous searches)
Step 4: Type in what you want to search
Step 5: Press search on the Keyboard
Step 6: Wait until loaded
Step 7: Any pages/links you can go to will blue coloured in blue
Step 8: Click any blue link and wait until loaded
Step 9: Browse the site
*To look at another page tap the back arrow in top left corner or to 're-google' repeat steps 3-8
Step 10: To exit tap X in top left hand corner of the page
Step 11: Hand thing to get main screen (spider)

Even re-reading the 11 steps on google'ing I can imagine people shaking their heads saying IT IS NOT THAT HARD!?!?! But remember it is simple to those of us who live on the internet but to someone who has never used Google, Bing or Yahoo it is a big adventure full of obstacles and confusing links, hyperlinks and pages.

I was told a story recently, where a mum came up to their child's teacher saying Guess What! Guess What! I found this brilliant new app last night on my iPad. It is like a sandbox and you can draw pictures and the sand moves just link the real thing, did you want me to send you the preview of the app?? The teacher replied why? There are 3 sandboxes at this school and if children want to draw in the sand they can go outside at lunch. It sounds like a really bad joke I know, but it is true, as young people are brought up in a society where it is more common to use the iPad to harness their imagination rather than raw materials it needs to be remembered that older people are being left behind.

Although my Grandad's philosophy is ignorance is bliss when it comes to all things technological, my Grandmas determination is wonderful. In her little purple box where she keeps all her iPad related things, is a notebook where she keeps all her instructions and handy hints I have been teaching her. We have made a page titled Things to ask Laura and at the start of every lesson I check that page and if anything is written down we go though it before we start. The notes can include: What is wrong with this game? Why is my iPad staying like that? Can I enlarge the writing? Basic, almost inconsequential things I and most people don't even think about, but things that pose issues to her.

In just a few weeks I can see that our training has payed off, my Grandma is becoming more confident and with everyday that passes becomes more excited about what she is going to learn next. Lesson three will be the ins and outs of Skype and the feat of reuniting two sisters living over 16,000 kms (or over 10,000 miles) away from each other.