computer use...over the phone

one of the most frustrating tasks is to explain to your parents how to use the computer...over the phone. in college i used to volunteer at a center that taught adult learners how to use the computer. my style of teaching involves providing people the tools, going through the task with the person, and then having them repeat the task without my help. i thought i was a decent computer teacher. i taught these adult learners how to save files, format word and excel documents, etc.
but when it comes to explaining tasks to your parents over the phone, it's a bit aggravating. i once had to teach my dad how to attach a file on an email and then send it to me. He did pretty well, I received the emaiil, and then realized that i could not open the file or convert the file so that i could open. I then had to teach my dad how to save the file with a different extension and then reattach it and email it to me. After another 10-20 minutes, I received the file.

today i had to explain to my mom how to open up a file i sent her, save it to the desktop, open it, and then how to use excel. it was frustrating because she was using an older version of excel and i had to think back about what excel looked like. then to make matters worse, something is wrong with th computer at home so my parents cannot type into any of the MS programs. auughh!!
so word of advice to all those college bound students. teach your parents how to use the computer and email before you leave home. and make sure that they know how to do those tasks.

it's amazing, i take those skills for granted, but apparently it made my mother so tired that she could not type in the wedding list.