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Norfolk Family Learning Programme

Mary is an 83-year-old grandmother who had no previous experience with computers before she started using the laptop. They were an unknown and rather unnecessary quantity. The nearest equivalent was a small electric typewriter that she bought for herself a few years ago. Unfortunately this wasn’t successful because it wouldn’t function like the traditional manual typewriter Mary had been used to throughout her life. So she gave it away to a friend

Last year her granddaughter Elaine went to Australia to see in the Millennium and to travel around the continent for 18 months. It was to be the trip of a lifetime

The problem was that there was difficulty in keeping in contact. With no permanent address the answer appeared to lie with e-mailing. Elaine had a hotmail address, which she would access whenever she could get to a cyber café. Mary started to write letters so that they could be copied and e-mailed by others

One day I suggested to her that she try writing out an e-mail herself on the laptop. This she started to do and soon found that it was much easier to use than the electric typewriter she had tried before. The large size and clarity of the screen helped greatly, as well as the fact that it appeared more like a small typewriter rather than a threatening desktop computer with lots of accessories.

Of course the screensaver kept appearing suddenly and sometimes sentences would vanish, but I think this may have something to do with work that I had been doing previously!

Mary has now gone away for a month or so, but I am assured that it will not be the end of her Information Technology activities.

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