How to Help Someone Use a Computer

Things I should tell myself before I help someone use the computer:
I chose "You've forgotten what it's like to be a beginner" because I felt like I can relate to that the most. When a teacher or anyone is teaching me something I often feel like they have lost sight of what it feels like to be a beginner on the particular topic. Sometimes I feel as though the person who is teaching me about technology or a subject area should put themselves in my shoes and remember what it was like when they were a beginner. I feel that if you do not take this into consideration the student or person you are teaching will become really frustrated.
Important Rules to Follow:
I chose " Whenever they start to blame themselves, respond by blaming the computer. Then keep on blaming the computer, no matter how many times it takes, in a calm, authoritative tone of voice. If you need to show off, show off your ability to criticize bad design. When they get nailed by a false assumption about the computer's behavior, tell them their assumption was reasonable. Tell *yourself* that it was reasonable." I chose this because I thought it was a great idea! When I personally do something wrong on the computer I always blame the computer. It is a lot easier than blaming yourself because when you blame yourself you feel as though you cannot do anything and you become frusterated more easily. When you blame the computer it lets you release your frusteration on something else rather than yourself.

Since many people in the class know how to use an ipod it is hard to incoorperate these pieces of advice into my presentation. We could have demonstrated more patience with the old man because he is a beginner and our whole class already knows so much about ipods that we have forgotten what it was like to be beginners.

http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/how-to-help.html