computer virgin

today i got a little hands on lesson in the digital divide. you see, for my new job i am having to train 3 MCOE classes in Tucci Learning Solutions- Competent Learner Model. part of this is having instructional assistants participate in online units that involve reading text, watching videos, answer questions, saving information. Well today i went to get this one assistant on the computer and quickly realized this lady knew ZERO about computers! she was asking me how to turn the computer on? where was enter? how to scroll? and "Now where is my pointer??" Granted she was in her later sixties but she told me she had never been on the computer before. she has only seen her grand daughter play games on one. WOW! i needed to write out play by play steps just to get her to the website and logged in. For a moment there i actually felt like i was a pro at the computer!LOL

the whole experience really surprised me. i mean, you think everyone has had some access or experience with a computer by now. especially if you working in a classroom! but i guess not. i think this training process is going to be a long slow road!! i joked with her and told her by the end of the year we would have her banking and playing online poker from home!! HA-HA