LEARN 8

This week's post is late because I have not yet LEARNed to be better with my time management...

This week's post is also about someone else's LEARNing experience...

All together now, let's welcome Mom to 2014 - she got an iPhone, thanks to Middle Sis!!!

It arrived on Wednesday, and while I'm as excited as can be for both of them and their new phones, the big LEARNing moment for me this week is (drumroll, please), I've discovered that I LEARN well and easily, but I don't TEACH others as well.

I am apparently incapable of breaking it down to the basics.

I keep forgetting that I have to teach her from step one, something as basic as how to double-click that home button.  I continually explain it as if she has basic smartphone knowledge, which she does not...  There's a good amount of basic skills that she has to LEARN and it's so innate to my use of the phone that I'm struggling to remember it's all new to her.

I'm so excited for her to be able to have access to it all - just FaceTime blew her away the other day!

I've had those conversations, the ones that flood the internet:  "Yes, nephew, Cioci had to go to the computer lab in college, put her name on a piece of paper on the door, to reserve 30 minutes on the computer."  "Yes, nephew, Cioci used a manual typewriter in high school - in fact, 1/2 the class did have electric typewriters but if you arrived on time, it was too late to get one of them and you were stuck with a manual one."  "Yes, nephew, both of your aunts remember the day we got our first word processor."  [Side comment:  Remember Crazy Eddie?  That's where Mom got it!]

I'm old enough to have been in that generation that LEARNed computers.  I didn't grow up with them.  I have a visual in my head - my 2-year-old nephew sitting on his grandfather's lap in Mr. U's office, playing with the computer, moving the mouse where Grandpa told him to, pressing the buttons as instructed...  And I remember being amazed that at 2, he was already so fluent with a computer!

I went over to Mom's again last night.  She was already being negative about having forgotten about closing out her apps so they don't run in the background.  I went over and over simple phone stuff - no internet, no games, only the briefest mention of texting (although she did text my sister to say hi!).  It's such an eye-opening experience - I find LEARNing new things on the computer fun and easy although I really never grew up with them.  I have to keep remembering that Mom LEARNing the iPhone is like me LEARNing to knit - I can do it, but it doesn't come easy.  It's just going to be a LEARN-as-you-go sort of thing for us both!