Computer classes for fortyplussomethings

Executed properly, this class would be a great idea for people who didn't grow up with computers, yet still want or need to use one. Here are the goals and a draft syllabus. Some of the input I've received so far suggests that skill levels of adults who take this class will vary widely, and that at least two classes at two levels over several weeks might be more sensible.

Here are the goals and a draft syllabus:

Goals and syllabus for Fortyplussomething Introduction to Computer Applications

Goals

· Introduce, familiarize, hone current skills or answer procedural questions about the personal use of a computer. Encourage responsible use, and enhance enjoyment of personal and social life.

Syllabus

· Introduction to PC hardware and terms

· Brief history of the computer

· Social aspects of computers, especially smartphones. Quote from Google CEO. Electronic distractions and driving.

· Introduction to programs

o Word Processing

o Spreadsheets

o Email and attachments

o Social Media – Facebook and Twitter

o Cameras – downloading photos and videos

o Evernote

o Others – Kindle, Contact lists

o How to talk to a Fortyminussomething about a computer (if you must).

o Gesture search on smartphone

o Bookmarks

o Copy and paste

o Setting up and using folders

o Passwords, Internet safety and hacking

· Of particular interest to women

§ TBD

§ TBD

· Of particular interest to men

§ TBD

§ TBD

My goals updated

In September 2009, when I became a staff reporter at The View, I was really excited about my new career. I listed several goals and published them in a column in the View.

A few months ago, my son Matthew asked me how many of my goals I had achieved. As I recall, I gave him some mealy-mouthed answer, something like I hadn’t yet won the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism. A few days ago, however, my daughter Kelly asked me the same question. When I told my wife Jan about it, she said she had been meaning to ask me the same question.

Are they talking with each other about this? Possibly. But it is a good question, one that bears answering. I’ve listed below the goals that I identified in 2009, 30 months ago, and I’m gonna give myself a Pass/Fail/Incomplete grade on each of them.

· To earn and to retain your trust – Pass. The other day, someone thanked me for accurate reporting. It wasn’t the first time.

· To win a Pulitzer Prize – Incomplete. Hope springs eternal.

· To answer questions you never asked – Incomplete. My “nose for news” has improved, but there is much room for improvement. I do enjoy stepping back from situations and analyzing, however. Examples include whether VBT police officer salaries are competitive with other nearby communities, a detailed look at the blended rate, and so on. Also municipal budgets. I like to do spreadsheets.

· To retire from this at age 75, if that – Incomplete.

· To entertain you – Pass, I think.

· To educate you – Pass. I’m nuts about knowledge, about learning new things, and I like to share.

· To send you to the dictionary every so often – Pass, sort of. I may make you wonder; whether you use the dictionary is up to you. By the way, I now know what the word “penultimate” really means. I misused it in a story a while back. Look it up.

· To ask you, when you think I’m wrong, to call me out – Pass. I’ve noticed about half-a-dozen bad mistakes that I’ve made, including misidentifying someone as the mayor of Ann Arbor. And a real public official once called me obtuse.

· To write in a way that’s easy to read, gets the facts right, and pushes you to think – I try to answer questions that are begged as I re-read the story a third time, and to structure a story that’s coherent. And I will frequently call a source to confirm my understanding of the facts.

· To encourage you to read, and I’m not talking about newspapers here. I’m talking about books - I have no idea. I hope so.

· To figure out how to write concisely, using Twitter and The View blog as learning tools – Pass. I’ve become much better at writing shorter stories. I’m on Facebook (way too often for some of you, I suspect) most every day, and I’ve begun recently to blog once or twice each week. Next step: to attract more blog followers (I have three at the moment, and two are blood relatives), and to “monetize” the blog, that is, to begin to make money on it.

· That, as I describe a story, to bring you right alongside me as it unfolds – Pass. Setting up a scene in my writing is one of my favorite things. I want with my words to bring you into the room with me. A recent example was a sidebar story featuring direct quotes from Van Buren Township elected officials, during an animated discussion.

· My secret next desire is to write a story to describe to you a song and the reasons I like it, using just words – no melody, no song sheet – Pass. My column on my favorite songs while traveling had a crack at that.

· To challenge your thinking - Pass. I like to write about issues as they arise from specific occurrences. Because I think most everything is connected, it’s helpful for me to understand and to try to explain the big picture.

· To analyze a situation when appropriate, not just report it. – Pass. I don’t care for the reporting that throws a figurative grenade into our midst, invites us to puzzle over it, and perhaps get overly excited. I think of it as “civic porn.” Better to ask and answer the questions that are inevitably begged – Is it good or bad? By whose lights? Is there another side to the story? What does it mean? What are the facts? Can both sides of the issue see the truth in what I’ve written? Tough test.

· To inject humor into the situation from time to time - Pass. I still have a 1960’s edge to my humor, and I enjoy laughing. I laughed very hard several times yesterday at something completely inappropriate, but absurdly funny. I’m not great at making others laugh, but I’m in there pitching.

· To acknowledge the value that my “home editor,” my wife Jan, adds to my stories before my real editor sees them – Pass. Jan will read this and provide input on it to me before it’s published. Most anything that’s remotely sensitive I seek out her opinion. She has been, and continues to be invaluable to me, in countless ways.

· To never set out to intentionally hurt someone – Pass, with a caveat. I’ve never set out in my writing to intentionally hurt someone. But I can at times be harsh and use hurtful, chiding words in my blogs on political issues of national consequence. Someone suggested the other day that I tone it down when I began to compare the Obama administration to the beginning of the Nazis in Germany in the early 1930’s. I’ve concluded that if clever phrasemaking or observations stultify dialogue, they should be thought about once or twice before publishing. But my attitude is born of an increasingly serious concern that we’re at risk of losing this beautiful nation and its people that I’ve enjoyed and admired for 60 years. I can’t see it threatened without making a fuss.

· That I am a political conservative and that my writing will sometimes reflect that - Pass.

· To help my editor make The View the newspaper that is commonly referred to when locals talk about local issues - Incomplete. Getting or regaining traction in a community so well-served by so many newspapers is not a short-term task.

· To compete with the other newspapers in an honorable way – Pass. I’m on speaking terms with my competition, and we will help each other on occasion.

· To raise the bar for all local reporting – Incomplete. I’d like to think I have.

· That, as I listen to a UM game in the next room as I compose this, to declare proudly that I am a Notre Dame Football fan, and have been for 25 27 years. But to acknowledge abjectly that Tate Forcier is brilliant, as is the rest of the team, and to admit in advance that Michigan will win the next four national championships with Forcier at the helm. – Fail. Boy, did I miss that one.

Jerry LaVaute is a special writer for Heritage Media. Follow his Pa’s Blog at http://jlavaute.blogspot.com. He can be reached at glavaute@gmail.com or call 1-734-740-0062.

The sailing ship

I promised Noah we would go to the zoo next week, but I forgot to tell Jan. In particular, I said that we could see kangaroos. I don't know if they have kangaroos at the Detroit Zoo. I sure hope so.

I was vulnerable. He was seated in the passenger seat, the Taurus was in the driveway, motor running. He played with most everything in reach - rear view mirror, the CD player (I helped him insert the discs) which played the Spencer Davis Group ("I'm a Man"), the center console, which I taught him how to open, the sun visors.

Inside the console, he found the chap stick. He struggled to remove the seal and handed me the detritus. He climbed into the backseat for some reason and began applying it to his lips. You have to watch him because he's still learning, and sometimes he'll bite off a small piece. But he's learned it doesn't taste very good, so that's fixing itself.

In the back seat, I pulled down the center console, which surprised him. I showed him the cup holders, and told him he could rest comfortably in the back seat with a cool drink at the ready, while I drove, although I'm sure he would prefer to drive. I envisioned a trip to South Bend to visit the University of Notre Dame.

I showed him the napkins in the rear console, and for some reason he began saying "No napkins." There was a clear emphasis on the first syllable; don't ask me why. I repeated it, and together we said it several times.

In the end, it was like a sailing ship with two passengers. We traded captaincy, each of us happily surrendering the authority for a short while. The point was to explore, to discover, to test. That we did. What a delightful kid.

The people you met

We bought a new land line phone system recently, and my wife has been transferring names and numbers from the old phones to the new ones. The next stage has her looking at our hard copy address books to be thorough. It's a work in progress.

Yesterday, I looked at our address books to see whether I needed to put any addresses into my cell phone. I found a few and entered them in about 15 minutes. What was noteworthy, however, were the names and addresses that I didn't add.

Some were deceased. Some we hadn't seen for years. Some were divorced.

What was particularly amazing was the number of contractors with whom we no longer work. We've gone through several of them over the last three decades that we've owned a home, parting often on terms where we're less than fully satisfied with the service, or parting in an angry way, feeling as if we were wronged or lied to. One we even sued in small claims court, and won.

As you grow older, you begin to notice the number of friends and acquaintances and associates and contacts you've had, and you realize that dozens of people walk in - and out - of your lives over the years.

How about all the parents of the kids your kids played sports with? Soccer, track and field, basketball. Heck, you used to travel together to soccer tournaments in Ohio, staying overnight in a hotel with your team family, and you had a ball. The games themselves were the point, but the fun and the socializing are more easily remembered than the scores of the games.

School-based associations are another example. Teachers, classmates, events - a whirlwind of activity for a dozen years, and it's gone. Off to college, and things change, forever.

I spent over 30 years walking the halls of a dozen different buildings in which I worked at Ford Motor Company. Given that I was in Finance in Product Development, I worked with hundreds of design and development engineers over the years, more than I could remember as I acquired more and more working relationships, and my memory was asked to stretch back and cover what began to seem like an unreasonably long period of time.

If I suddenly chanced upon a familiar face as I walked down a hallway, early on I would attempt a name as I said hello. But you don't have to make too many errors doing that with names before you learn not to use a name, and to simply say hello.

It's an odd phenomenon, one that you begin to realize as you grow older. Stuff not only happens, it changes over time. Good? Bad? Like O says with respect to his views and public policy on abortion, that's above my pay grade.

Expanding role of hired consultants in public life

Van Buren Township is considering giving up the rest of its animal control business by outsourcing it to a facility in Romulus, to save over $30,000 per year.

The process to select the new Van Buren Public Schools Superintendent, and the process that led to the recent decision to close Haggerty and Elwell Elementary Schools, were led by outside consultants. I thought they did a great job.

Belleville's accounting and budget development process is supported by Plante Moran.

Sumpter Township fired its engineering consultants in December after a relationship of 18 years, I understand. No reason for the firing was provided in the meeting, although the question was asked.

VBT's code compliance inspectors include staff from McKenna Associates, the township's longtime planning consultants.

VBT was embarrassed a couple summers ago when the outside contractor they hired to mow the township's parks and cemeteries was judged to be doing an inadequate job, despite decent references. U.S. Flags decorating veterans' graves were not being treated with the proper respect. Quickly, they obtained help from another mower, a local business.

My point? Consultants are becoming ubiquitous in municipal operations. Depending on your views, you may some of that as good, some not so good. but there is no denying it - they are a larger influence on municipal operations each day.

Memory Lane is washed out

In the late 1980's, for about 15 years, I ran most days, early in the morning, when I lived in the city of Belleville. The alarm would go off at 4:45 a.m., and I would try to be on the road by 5:30, fueled by a couple cups of coffee.

The big advantage of running in the city was the streetlights, illuminating the darkness as I ran down sidewalks, often passing idling cars in the owner's driveway, warming up for the driver still getting ready inside the house.

Eventually, particularly on weekends in the daylight, I would venture farther, and one of my favorite routes was running Denton Road out of town, past Hillside Cemetery on my left as I ran toward the apartment complex. When I reached its far end, I would take a slight left on Old Denton Road, run down there, and often squeeze through the nominal barriers to the back entrance of Van Buren Park.

I would run down the hill, and as I reached its bottom I would pass Belleville Lake on my left, Willow Creek on my right. From the bottom, the road ascended again, and I steeled myself for the uphill climb, never my forte'.

Quiet, pretty, Belleville Lake, trees, water - it was a good run to and through the park.

In the VBT Board of Trustees meeting earlier this week, DPW Director Tom MacDonald said that the road had been washed out, a victim of gradual erosion, and that it needed to be fixed, because it exposed a sanitary sewer which needed to be protected from further natural insults.

Curious, I stopped by yesterday and took a few photos. I learned that Memory Lane had washed away, and if you weren't prepared to swim a short distance, you had to stop, right there.

Thanks goodness the project is in Tom's capable hands, and his fine staff. Shoot, if you replace the road, I might even begin running again.

Packing for Noah

The event rolls around once each week. I begin to anticipate it, like a little kid, about 48 hours before it's scheduled. There's a spring in my step as I look forward to it, and a lilt in my voice. Life just got a little bit - nay, a whole lot - better.

We begin to pack to go see him about a day before, putting stuff on the kitchen table to bring to him.

A tennis ball. Lunch. My work stuff, although I rarely do any real work that day; maybe a phone call or two. New teaching tools, cleverly disguised as toys, like a "shape ball" that holds inside it different plastic shapes like a circle, a square, a hexagon, and about a dozen others.

Noah is asked to find the right fit in the plastic ball for each shape. On our most recent visit, he mastered the skill of holding the shape at just the right angle to insert through the opening.

He knows now how to spell his name. I bring a small plastic license plate that I purchased in Walmart with his name on it, but I forget the zip ties that would secure it to something, and I bring it home. Next visit.

I work with him on how to spell "Pa." He can repeat the spelling when I say it, but when I check a couple hours later, he's forgotten. We'll work on it.

He points to where the poster of the Blue Angels, soaring skyward, used to be on his bedroom door. It's no longer there hanging on the door, and a couple missing paint chips are in its place. Pa did it.

He'd like a new poster of the planes, he says. I say I'll work on it.

There are as many as three trips to the car to bring in the stuff when we babysit for Noah. I bet the stuff, all told, weighs several pounds.

We sometimes don't use the stuff that we bring in, but no worries. It's best to be prepared.

When he succeeded at putting the shape in the right hole, I shouted "Ta-daaaaaaaaaaaa!" He got it right away, and as he worked on the next shape, we waited expectantly for the big moment, and when he succeeded the room exploded with shouting and laughter , among Amma, and Pa, and Noah.

Before we left to go home, Noah and I hid in the bedroom closet. I go in first, he follows and closes the closet door behind us. It's dark in there, but only for a moment, because as I look down I can see the little hand reaching for the doorknob.

The door opens (his parents have had to put new childproof locks that replaced the simpler ones he figured out), and we tiptoe through the bedroom, speed picking up as we reach the hallway, and it's a sprint toward the living room as Amma, who is evidently not aware not aware of our approach, is blissfully relaxed until Noah hits the arm of the couch and says "Boo!" to Amma. She is startled, and shouts, and few moments later I run up and shoot "Boo!" again. Once again, she is frightened out of her wits.

A good day, by any definition.