Vent: Trying to teach my mom MS Excel...

[Down Range]

Save your sanity, buy your mom "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Excel" or something similar, wrap it up and place it under the Christmas tree.

[Satex]

GAH! I help her and she gets upset... I don't help her and she gets upset. F'ed if I do, F'ed if I don't.

Be patient and try again. She changed your diaper, she was patient when you screamed your head off, she taught you everything you know. Pay her back.

[Syst3m Ov3rrid3]

Save your sanity, buy your mom "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Excel" or something similar, wrap it up and place it under the Christmas tree.

That plus probably pay for a Microsoft Applications Class for Office at the local community college. At least she'll get the proper lesson and training.

[Down Range]

That plus probably pay for a Microsoft Applications Class for Office at the local community college. At least she'll get the proper lesson and training.

Agreed, I first learned to use Excel via a community college class when I was transitioning from Lotus 123 a long, long, long time ago.

[Syst3m Ov3rrid3]

I learned Microsoft Office Suite 2003 in High School. The only ones I learned on my own were Access, Publisher, OneNote, and FrontPage (which is no longer called Frontpage anymore)

[georound1]

I did computer training for a living for years. Let her take notes. Let her do it. Draw pictures of the buttons next to the function like "bold". Don't show more than one way to do things. Don't let the person get frustrated. Think of less technical ways of saying things, repeating yourself or changing tone doesn't work. Have the student show you what they learned. If they can't teach you back, they didn't really learn it. Encourage them to use the help section especially office products. Its frustrating, but pick a time when you both are in a good place and ready to learn.

Anyway, just a few things I thought of immediately....good luck.

[georound1]

Oh, Yeah.... Use Crossloop for remote tech support. Lets you see what they're trying to tell you.

[Syst3m Ov3rrid3]

All of my tech support is on-site, no remote control support needed. If remote control support, I have LogMeIn

[intheknow]

Youre better off asking her to take a class... there is no way in hell you can teach people to fully utilize exel.... unless youre a computer programs windows specific pro

[Nessal]

Last week I spent over 1hr 30 minutes telling my mom to do something on the computer that would have taken 10 minutes if I was there. UGH VERY VERY VERY frustrating.


Here is a tip. Install VNC on their computers so any time when they need help, you just log in and do everything for them.

[Syst3m Ov3rrid3]

I have LogMeIn for that... no need to do port forwarding, or any firewall configurations or static ip setups. It's all dynamic and I never have to worry about the IP changing..

[Librarian]

I did computer training for a living for years.

Let her take notes.

Let her do it.

Draw pictures of the buttons next to the function like "bold".

Don't show more than one way to do things.

Don't let the person get frustrated.

Think of less technical ways of saying things, repeating yourself or changing tone doesn't work.

Have the student show you what they learned. If they can't teach you back, they didn't really learn it. Encourage them to use the help section especially office products. Its frustrating, but pick a time when you both are in a good place and ready to learn.

Anyway, just a few things I thought of immediately....good luck.

^^ This ^^

My mom needs to learn Excel because its for her church, since the person who normally handled this stuff left.

Ah! That helps.

First item of business: teach her to make backups!

Absolutely the biggest frustration for a new user is to lose everything.

So, find a way that works for her. I like the following; she might not.

I would try creating a new folder for the church stuff, and inside that create a folder named "BACKUP".

Windows, yes? Show her how to make a copy of a file, and then how to put it into a folder.

Write down the instructions: Before you open the Excel program and begin to work, make a copy of the file and put it in BACKUP. Here's how to do that: 1, 2, 3, 4 ...

If she does that every time before starting to work, her biggest exposure is losing the work from her latest session.

Then, teach her to never walk away from the open file without saving her work first. Not to answer the phone or the door, not to let in the dog, not to cook dinner, never - always, Always, ALWAYS save your work before leaving the computer.

Then, with those defense mechanisms in place, you can start with the program itself.

First, no one can learn it in one night. When MS used to provide printed manuals, the Excel volume was about the size of a paperback bible. I shudder to think how big such a book would be today.

As I mentioned before, you need to teach her vocabulary; all commercial programs are written as if you/the user and the programmers each know what the other one is thinking. That's not true, unless the user IS the programmer.

So, you need to ask her 'what do you want to do?' and then say 'OK, Excel calls that idea XXX; here's the place you find that..' But to get that far, you're going to need to explain the concept of menus, and to get there you need to explain the concept of tool bars, and to get THERE you need to explain, at least a little bit, about the parts of a 'window'.

It's all doable. But each student, especially an adult with a specific task in mind, will have different needs.

[Syst3m Ov3rrid3]

I create her backups for her. I have a NAS (Network Attached Storage) that backs up her documents and anything else in her personal folder at night or during IDLE. The backup isnt the issue, its the learning part that she's having trouble with this particular program. Her computer experience isn't total noob, but its far from Intermediate. She knows how to upload photos to Costco, get travel information and book tickets for a Destination (along with a Rental Car), how to access Wireless Internet. She has over 60GB's of Photos and Videos from Family Stuff and Church Stuff. She only has maybe 1gb or 2gb of Music for her iPod Nano. My mom knows menu's but I guess she just isn't looking or doesn't know where to find them. She knows the difference between single and double click. Not to use Internet Explorer or Open E-Mail Attachments from ANYONE (even trustworthy people) My mom is very stubborn and hard headed (like me) so its a little hard to teach her something new.

She's using Windows 7 Ultimate on both her computers. And Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise Edition.

[zfields]

Sorry to hear. Good luck.

I spent the last 10 years before my grandfather passed teaching him how to use a computer. He was a determined SOB, learned a ton on his own once he got the basics and just ran with it.

[Nolyrics2]

I am a fan of finding specific YouTube links that show the user exactly how to do a specific task. This works for Windows, Mac and even Android/Iphone users. It saves me time from explaining how to accomplish a task and they can bookmark the video to refer to it later.

Ex.
How to use excel

http://youtu.be/IBT_sBzFcOA