The Need for Parent Training in Computers

With our society relying so much on computers to move forward with progress, those who grew up without technology have almost fallen under the "learn it or life will be harder" kind of mentality. From my history classes, I cannot recall a moment in our world's history where this mentality around an innovation has been so impactful. Many parents of students struggle to utilize all the computer is capable of. They can check email and use about 5-10% of its true functionality. They learn how to text when their kids stop talking to them. It is done out of necessity to keep up. It reminds me of how the caveman must have felt trying to survive.

If school districts are looking for a way to improve their relations to the community, offering computer classes to parents at a low to free rate would be a tremendous approach to take. This is something that has been discussed at our school that I fully support. This gives parents the ability to come in and learn what they can do to use technology for its purpose, making life easier.

Whoever teaches the course needs to have a diverse knowledge of various devices and be comfortable with whatever the user works with at home not being the most up-to-date. I can't tell you how many tech guys who are smart as can be have a harder time instructing people on older machines because their brains can't fathom it. So what if the user still has a hotmail addreess? So what if you love Google and they don't? When I switched my mother to Gmail some years back, the first month or so was a struggle because she was not used to the set-up Gmail uses. Keep it simple.

Also, offer free stuff, like OpenOffice or train on purely Google because its all free pretty much.. Be willing to have people bring in computers so you can help them with their machine. Lots of great ideas.

Options are also key. Do not have your trainers pick up on one concept and run with it. Again, everyone's home computer and technology usage is different. You got to have options. If you are going to teach email, be prepared for all the big email clients out there. (Google, Hotmail, etc). Don't just throw up Outlook and assume that everyone will transfer knowledge. Trust me, they won't.

Basic course ideas include:

• Email
• Internet Navigation
• Social Networking
• Using phones
• Texting
• Word Processing

Advanced Ideas:

• Excel
• Web Design
• Video Editing
• Smart Searching
• Etc

Feel free to comment with additional ideas.