Blog #4

Since my last blog, we have switch residents at Brookhaven. My new resident's name is Nancy and she seems very nice. Her and her husband have recently bought a new mac and Nancy just needs some help with learning how to use it. She already has a iPad, so she knows the basics of how to use an Apple product, but making the change from a PC to a mac is confusing to her. The first time we met, Nancy and I pretty much just took some time exploring her now mac and she wanted to know how to make a new folder so she could organize her files. Nancy knew what she was doing, but she wasn't that confident so she just needed some reassurance. The next time we met, Nancy wanted help downloading Microsoft Office onto her computer so I walked her through how to do that. Then she wanted to see of she could open the iTunes store and log in, using the same account that she has on her iPad. since she stays logged into iTunes on her iPad, Nancy had forgotten her password, so I walked her through how to reset it by having an email sent.
The things that I have been working on with Nancy relate to what we have been learning in class because Nancy and I debated whether or not to download the newest version of Office, or stick with Office 2010.

Blog #3

In the two weeks since my last blog post, I was only able to go to Brookhaven once due to Hurricane Sandy. The most recent time I went was on Monday, November 5th. That day, my partner, Helen was unable to meet because her husband was sick and she didn't think I should be around him. So instead I met with a man whose partner had cancelled for later in the day. This man wanted me to teach him how to use a program that his regular partner had downloaded onto his mac for him. But because I don't use a mac on a normal basis and had never worked with this program before I couldn't be much help. After I explain this to him, he instead had me open his photos file and we looked at pictures of his family and pictures he had scanned of his drawings. When I first explained to him that I had never used the program and didn't know how to run it, he was frustrated at first, but then I think he understood and relaxed a bit. This session taught me that I have to be more patient when working with the people at Brookhaven, because his frustration made me angry. The only way I can relate the activities done during this session to what we've learned in class is that we talked about what to do if our partner has a mac, and we also talked about the importance of speaking loudly to our partners.

Blog #2

As of now, I have met with my partner, Helen, three times. The second time we met was on October 15^th. On that day, Helen wanted to know about how to open an attachment in an email. I explained to her that all you have to do was click on the paperclip icon under the subject line of the email, but because she didn't have any emails in her inbox with something attached, she wrote my instructions down. Helen also expressed that she had been having trouble viewing something that she had downloaded from The Globe’s website. I asked her to show me what happened when she clicked to open it, and all that opened was a blank web browser page. I looked to me like when she had originally downloaded the file, something went wrong and that was what was prohibiting her from viewing the download. I suggested that we try downloading the file again. However, the Globe had featured the article at the beginning of the summer, and therefore Helen could not download it again. I suggested that she contact the Globe and explain what happened and see what they could do to help her. Helen then expressed an interest in knowing more about my laptop, because she said she was interested in purchasing one for herself. I explained to her what I know about it and told her that I would bring it the following week so she could see it herself.

            The next time I met with Helen was October 22^nd. On this day I brought my laptop so she could get a feel for typing on the keyboard and things like that. In order to get used to the keyboard, I opened a Word document so she could type something herself. This is what Helen came up with. As you can see, for the most part, Helen is a very proficient typer and got accustomed to typing on the keyboard quickly. Helen again asked me how she would open an attachment in an email and I suggested that before we met again I would send her an email with an attachment so I could show her how to do it instead of just explaining it.

           Both times that I've met with Helen, she has responded very quickly with what I teach her, and I think that writing down my descriptions helps her. What I have been teaching her relates to what we have done in class because recently we have been learning about downloading files and how they have to be saved in order to be opened correctly. Helen and I talked about this when she was having trouble opening the file she downloaded from The Globe.

Blog #1

The first time I met with my partner, Helen, was on Monday, October 1^st. She had a list of questions to ask me and tasks to accomplish, but she seemed to have misplaced it. Therefore, we didn’t do much because she couldn’t remember any of the things she wanted to ask me. The things we did get accomplished included adding and deleting a contact from her email, learning how to navigate around her gmail account, reinstalling the favorites bar to the top her Google Chrome browser, and adding and deleting favorites from her favorites bar. The entire session, she took notes so that she would be able to do these things on her own. After I taught her how to do each of these tasks, I undid them so that she could do them again herself using her notes, which she managed without any trouble. In this session, I learned that Helen is rather tech savvy and can take instructions well. I thought it was very smart of her to take her own note. Had I done them myself, she wouldn’t have been able to execute the tasks because it would have been in my words and not hers. Her notes consisted mainly of little pictures to help her remember where she was supposed to click. The tasks done in this session relate to what we have been learning in class because we have learned about different internet browsers, Google Chrome being one of them.