Lesson 1: Learning what you don't know

Ummm...first of all...my older brother failed me...he failed me with such greatness I am not sure I will be able to describe the awfulness he served me.  For a guy that has pretty good taste in beer and will try and like just about anything, I figured I was pretty safe.  I was shocked when I was offered Chocovine!  Suggesting that it tasted like baileys at least had my interest for a second, turns out it is nothing better than the Malt-liquor version of Yoohoo.  I do not recommend it if you like chocolate.  It is definitely NOT cream like Baileys it is chocolate with a killer bite that hits you just a few seconds after "well this isn't too bad" thought goes through your head.  


Ok, back on topic!  Lesson one of our series on catching him up on technology.  I was VERY happy with our success.  This was mostly just a discovery phase designed to help him understand what technology can do from a very high level and where it is going (at least as I see it).  We touched on hot topics he had heard but really didn't know much about...Twitter...Newsfeed... YouTube.  He has a little experience with Facebook and YouTube, but the overall understand of what they are, why they are important and how they can be used within day to day life just wasn't there.  I started with the video below.  I figured it would really help him if we strummed some of his emotional strings.  As a father of two daughters I figured it would resonate well as to why it is important and how technology can be used in your life.  

and the lights came on!!!!!  Now the questions started to flow.  We went through the series of "The web is what you make of it" videos and he general interest was increased.  We started talking about pictures from a phone and how to get them to a computer...how things could be used at work.  Why youtube is a better place to store your videos than the data abyss that is facebook.  I then showed him this video, which I had tagged him in on G+ but he didn't know it.  

As a physical therapist, he was captivated by the video.  I told him this could be done with a cell phone and a free piece of software.  We were switching gears and if it wasn't getting so late we would have kept going.  I am excited about this.  It was just discovery, but helping him understand what can be done and why it is important was a big step.  

His homework for the night:

Find the video on sophie, watch it in full screen, then share it with me on G+ with a comment on why he thought I would like it.  

We talked about Google Calendars and how they can be shared.  His next assignment will be to create a NEW calendar called whatever he wants, share the calendar with me and then add an event to the calendar and invite me to the event.  As we start to get more specific with these tasks I will do small instructional segments for him that I will post here for everyone to use as well. 

Stay tuned...it will get more interesting.  I am going to gear this towards the Google tools I know well, but there are many ways to accomplish what we will be going through.  Neil, if you have any suggestions that would be more advantageous...definitely like to hear about them!