Observations of the computer class at Age Concern

Due to the snow and weather conditions the turn out to this class in January 2010 was rather small. When I arrived at the class I met Robert (in his 50s), the course leader, Vic (possibly in her 70s), who was there for her last session of the beginner’s class and Harry (possibly in his late 60s, early 70s), who was a first timer and complete novice to using the computer.

Robert has a soft voice and speaks very articulate. He explains the options of the right mouse click and talks about the ‘file extension’. I wonder how much Harry can follow him, but I notice that Robert doesn’t dumb down his language to explain these words, but he provides Harry and Vic with explanations. For example, Robert describes ‘sites’ in the Internet as ‘they live in the computer out there’ pointing outside the window.
Robert sets Harry up to play Spider solitaire, so he can practice the eye-hand-mouse coordination. Harry is surprisingly good at using the mouse and is clicking in the right areas, but he didn’t know solitaire before and has trouble understanding the rules of the game.
Robert asks Vic to check her email in Googlemail. Vic comments that mobile phones are much simpler to use and that she sees the computer as a “necessary evil”. Vic continues explaining that she has no affection for computers. In her opinion “computers create young people that are neurotic”. In the future she thinks that rather than being isolated at home, people will be isolated at home with an “all-seeing machine”.
Robert explains ‘email’ to David and that he will need a browser to access ‘http’- places, which work like postcodes. Robert opens Internet explorer and shows Harry how to set up his homepage. Robert continues: “As soon as you type ‘http’ you’re looking on the world wide web and not inside the computer.” Harry wonders: “So if I want to send an email to my wife, I type here…” and points to the URL entry field.
Robert stops him to explain about the 2 forms of email, one stored on your computer and one that you can access from any computer because it’s stored on the world wide web. Harry looks a bit puzzled. Robert suggests that he should start with an email that can be accessed from any computer such as googlemail.
For this they go to Google. Robert points out how Google had changed the first screen, so that the links to email on the top left only appear after the mouse hover over the screen. He explains that this has confused many other participants because they thought they had lost their email link.
Robert and Harry set up Harry’s email account. Vic is listening with great attention – she doesn’t mind that this is a repeat for her. They have trouble finding a unique email for Harry since his full name has already been taken.
Harry wonders about the security questions and Robert has to explain CAPTCHA. Finally Harry is in his email account. Robert deletes the welcomes messages straight away. Harry asks with concern: “Is this spam?”
Vic is supposed to log in and to send an email to Harry. She has trouble logging in because her computer has timed out and she needs to log on as a user again. However, she confused her email password with the windows password and gets stuck.
Once in her email Vic goes to compose email and sees the blank screen. But when she types in the email address she types it into the search box at the top rather than the ‘to’ field.
Harry in the mean time is supposed to send an email to Vic. He’s amazed by the keyboard. Robert explains to him the uppercase - ‘shift’ and the carriage ‘return’ buttons.
Harry receives an email from Vic and is supposed to reply. Typing a short sentence takes him a very long time. Vic receives his email, but when she tries opening it, she just clicks on the check box to the left and thinks that she had opened and read Harry’s reply. This was partly due to the fact that she was able to read his short answer in the one line preview.
Robert reminds her of needing to click onto the subject line to see the full email.

This description of this lesson shows how complex just opening and sending an email can be for beginner users. It was Vic’s 6th time at the computer class and she still had trouble to open her email. She says that she won’t use computers in the future. But Harry explains that he has to because he’s still in business with his son and his son is insisting on him having to use email.

I would like to thank Age Concern for allowing me to observe the computer class. Please note, names have been changed for confidentiality reasons.