By spending time with my French grandmother, I realized she was feeling alone and disconnected from everyone else’s busy life. All her grandchildren live across the globe and give news only by texting or emailing. This is when I encouraged her to get a laptop for seniors.
I was about to move to the US but I promised her that I would always be available to answer any question she might have. As a millennial, I found out that it was hard for me to explain basic technology skills to someone that doesn’t even know what a mouse is!
![](https://zight.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/5d3f423b661a432a03b26c0a_gNOb2OqwS1SokqW8gTk0_9JS-9MErfuJeCacVQ5sl7vQqW2cVVCicTOKTEzEiFhFbXIaHMxYIhAcJ-p4sO-SddJIX1UEhTX3IEy6jUAmTfzZerh1IbY5wTCZSSjbhjzrErY_T-in.webp)
How to use CloudApp to teach non-tech savvy people about technology:
Using tech to teach tech!
First, let’s identify a few obstacles to the teaching process:
- When you are not in the same room, you need to use technology (whether email, Skype etc..) to answer a tech question… getting the answer across is already an issue in and of itself!
- You are using words they don’t understand ‘Open a new tab in your browser’
- They might understand right away but forget how to do it a month later
This is the solution I found to overcome all these challenges!
Visual Step by Step Using Zight (formerly CloudApp)
I quickly created step by step visual answers. They don’t have to be pretty, no design involved. It’s only about easily conveying information.
![](https://zight.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Screenshot_32.jpg)
Here is an example of me explaining how to leave a Google review. (Sorry it’s in French but I guess you get the point)
To go even faster, I could have also just recorded my screen while going through these steps but I knew it would have been too overwhelming for my grandmother. That’s why I went for a simple email with annotated screenshots.
I am used CloudApp (now Zight) to annotate screenshots and then I just drag and drop them into Gmail.
It took me only 15 minutes to create an eight-step email when trying to write down all the steps without any visuals would have taken me about an hour and I am not even sure my grandma would have understood it. Now, if she forgets, she can go back to any of my step-by-step emails to get a refresher.
Grandma loves tech!
Making it simple for her to learn got her really excited about technology. Also, receiving emails with pictures from her grandchildren was a big incentive. She can now feel part of these 2.0 families, ruled by life abroad and digital communication.
![](https://zight.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/5d3f423dffba05dd7540abc5_gZJ65FtdgNxJ4cSSbZklSqEzZlVhFl1dRZ1XCJxKfj-awIP1mZKpLoW3ro0EnlmkAhTAPV0avpZGQ3i678eyG_n1E18OQksUxafvJrCtAoF-8pXBy1_KEi9wXIvbJb8dPDknOvuP.webp)
And the best part of it, is that she is really funny without knowing it. The other day we were on Skype and at some point told me: ‘Wait I can’t see you anymore, everything is black’. I answered ‘Your screen might have gone to sleep mode, you just need to shake the m….’ and this is when on her webcam I saw the entire room shaking….since she was shaking the laptop instead of the mouse.