By Nicole Fletcher
Google announced the launch of TeachParentsTech.org today and to be clear, I thought of this idea first. Well, to be honest and clear, I think it’s a brilliant idea that I came up with almost a year ago about hosting seminars, or happy hours if you will, where adults could get together and pick their poison with respect to tech. Then, over a glass of wine, we would delve into the complexities of word processing, copying and pasting and finally the wide world of photo editing/uploading. Granted, I did not patent it nor did I execute it, so leave it to Google to seep into my brain and make millions off it.
Bitterness aside, this new site was researched by Mashable and is a pretty fantastic idea. It’s described as a “tech support passage” to help kids teach parents about computers and tech galore. This could be a great way to get kids involved in their parents’ education (talk about role reversal). Basically, kids can send their parents and friends tutorials via email with links to said videos. As a launch promotion, the first 10,000 to send this aid are also eligible to send a help package via snail mail to the tech virgin of his or her choice.
If it were up to me, I’d make the parent – child, or in this case, student – teacher, interaction more personable, as opposed to solely electronic. Perhaps this feature will roll out in the future, but it would be great for parents and kids to sit at the computer together, learning face to face. It would be quite the change from when your mom and dad helped you with your homework at the kitchen table, but how great would it be to move in this direction of tech evolution..since we’re pretty much there anyway. In all likelihood, kids know more about tech than their parents ever will, so why not take advantage of these valuable resources so long as they live in your home?
For the record Google, I was on this bandwagon before you so don’t get too excited but touche on the execution of this wonderful idea. I just hope it’s just as effective in practice as in theory.