Teaching Old Dogs New eTricks

Evan Washechek

References: https://techboomers.com/

With the vast amount of options for teaching tools online, I thought that I had knowledge of at least most of what the internet had to offer. Recently a coworker of mine did a demonstration on Techboomers.com this website provides ultra-basic tutorials for various websites, apps and online services and software. These range from Facebook, Google Hangouts, Angie’s List to Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, Overdrive, Amazon, Ebay and many more. If you simply go to the page you see that they are constantly updating their selection as new forms of media arise and gain popularity. This is all in addition to their 50+ sites and Internet 101, both services going after their target demographic as mentioned in their name (techboomers) Baby Boomers who aren’t as proficient with technology as they would like to be. These tutorials provide content that isn’t demoralizing or meant for children. While the language isn’t college level, the wordings are age appropriate. In addition, the examples used make adults feel at home using basic software, which is an accomplishment.

There are certainly patrons who avoid anything to do with technology and have to be forced onto the computer for life or death issues (taxes, critical contacts who only email, big ticket purchases from venders who only deal online such as tickets) This program (techboomers) might not best serve those patrons.  If they had support from someone to walk them through step by step, each program and explain why they would want to use these services it might be more relevant.

The target patrons here are those who have a desire to better themselves and think of this service as a MOOC or Massive Online Open Course. A student with that attitude would be able to pick and choose and would also be willing to go through one of the chapter driven sessions simply to find out what a certain program or service has to offer. The courses do have a small description concerning each one, so the patrons will have some idea but the idea of reducing amazon’s services to one or two sentences is certainly shorting some manner of their services.