Touch and Go

26.2, thing 17

Having worked at MIT for eleven years I cannot fail to mention a phenomenal example of free online courses - OpenCourseWare - over 1800 undergraduate and graduate courses to check out! I heartily applaud all of the free online learning that now exists and feel that the trend (well, clearly at this point it's more than trend, which is great) will only continue to grow. I don't want computers to take the place of people, but online teaching can be more far-reaching.

My online instruction fantasy brings things down to basics.... I want to create a virtual me for simple computer use instruction - make it simplistic - a way to learn on the computer when you don't know how to use the computer - Apple iphone, touch screen style.

A patron would be able to walk up to a dedicated large, colorful screen that would welcome him/her and give basic instructions on the first screen about how to start. The user would be able to touch the boxes on the screen that correspond to the topics that he/she wants to learn - then a virtual presentation would start. I'd want to keep them in small bits and as few steps for each as possible; focus on topics like how to sign onto a public access computer, how to set up an email account on gmail, yahoo, etc, how to search the online catalog for books and other materials, how to search databases for articles, how to find job listings, post to Craigslist ... ever-changing depending on what the most needed topics of the moment are. It should be fun and friendly and come with all the tech support necessary to keep it operating smoothly!