Another training session
Olivia, the trainee, finally sent me an attached document yesterday. As I suspected, she had forgotten one piece of the puzzle. Interestingly, we had gone over this a few times with her making notes as we progressed between steps. I am learning that being a trainer is harder than it looks. I do have an idea to help Olivia – perhaps making a PPT with narration. Now I have to make sure that she knows how to open the file! [:>}
PS Just had a talk with Dave, one of the Donka grads – have you heard about the free laptop rewards program advertised on radio? What a scam. All you have to do is fulfill their 10 requirements & you get a laptop of your choice free; they even pay S&H. Unfortunately, their 10 requirements will cost you more than buying the laptop. This facility is populated with adults living on disability incomes. A free laptop would be akin to winning the lottery. So, in making the internet more available, is this population becoming more vulnerable? Hmm!
another training experience
November 15, 2007
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: computer literacy; computer phobia
I have been given a new responsibility at work – to train one of the hospital library staff on the university’s lending management software & to make her as computer literate as possible. Yesterday was our first day as trainer & trainee. She is about my age which means that I understand her fears. Our big accomplishment was to learn how to attach a document to an email. I asked her to send me an attachment this morning.
Still waiting! {:>(
trackballs
November 10, 2007
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: computer accessibility, computer mouse, trackballs
In the digcit class pre-FT visit, there was a discussion about a young man helping his arthritic grand-dad with his computing skills. To help both you & grand-dad, I am enclosing the url of a page with different types/prices of trackballs. A trackball is a mouse especially designed for a computer user with physical disabilities. Every computer has one at my service learning site.
http://www.compuvisor.com/trackballs.html
diebold vs daley voting machine
November 10, 2007
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: Chicago Machine, Cook County Democratic Organization, Richard J. Daley
Because of commitments with my other class & work (hey, I gotta eat), I am now getting back into the digcit stuff. The vitriol directed at the diebold machine made me chuckle. I am a Chi-Town girl, borne & bred & this vote stealing stuff is old hat. Hasn’t anyone heard of the Daley Machine & the election of JFK? (Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Democratic_Machine.)
The Boss’ son has been running the city since the late 1980s; he is not as obvious as his dad was – perhaps not as powerful. Recently, Todd Stroger, the son of the ill County Board President, was voted (?) into his dad’s job.
Voting machine/code violations have nothing on the Toddlin’ Town!
Is this the answer?
Have you heard about the $199.00 computer available at Walmart/walmart.com? I am not sure of its memory capabilities. It comes with open source software but without a monitor. All the news information said that this would be the end of the digital divide. I am not sure. You still have to have almost $300.00 to purchase the items. You still need to have internet access.
Is that what the digital divide is all about? Buying power. I think not.
blogs from the medical mind
Have you heard of Medpage Today daily headlines? “The rest of the story” (as Paul Harvey says) on the world of medicine. It also has a blog; links to both below. If you want to know what is really going on in your doctor’s mind, do not miss the latter.
Missing post
Re: my last post. The NIH site has many capabilities – page reader, constrast change, text increase. I question why this is not more commonly used on the web. The clients at my service learning facility & other disabled 20 – 30 year olds will live for another 4 – 5 decades. Yes, they can overcome some of their disabilities; why can’t they be given an equal starting point to overcome more of them? I am finding sites that are available in different languages; why can’t the ‘net be just as helpful to another group?
an interesting conversation
So – Wendy was ecstatic about her 6 new emails, especially the one from Dr So & So. She called me over, proud of her treasure trove. Unfortunately, Dr So & So was phishing; Wendy just saw that she could win a few million $. (Interesting email – it started in Italy before it ended in Nigeria.)
I made sure that she deleted the email & began to speak to her about the originator slimeball. She did understand, so well that she wanted to know why I could not put the good Dr in jail. “Tell the police, Katy” or “Let’s take the doctor to court. This isn’t right.” It was an interesting 15 minutes, helping Wendy to understand that while the body of the email was illegal, the sending of the email itself was not a crime. She could not separate the document information from the format.
This got me wondering – is this how these scams succeed? How many others trust the document because it was sent by a “Doctor” & besides, I need the prize $. I just saw a news story about a woman in her 60s who had to return to work after retirement because her life savings were gone – she gave it to a scam artist. I am always surprised when I hear that normally careful people fall for such schemes. And then I remember Wendy’s delight when she opened her email & found correspondence from a doctor!!!!!
Wendy gave me more information yesterday than I gave her.
it takes more than the ‘net to keep the neurons firing
Another dreary gray day in the burbs of Chicago. ND lost yesterday (this makes 2 weeks that they did put points on the scoreboard); Devin Hester just scored – the gray skies may yet change to blue!
