As Our Parents Age

iPad for Dad, #16: Maps

Last weekend I visited my dad, and we had only a bit of time to enjoy the iPad together. However, quite by accident we started playing with the map application.

I turned on the location part of the map program and then showed my father how look over maps of his neighborhood and town. Next we put in a few favorite places from the — Carnegie Hall in New York City, Branch Brook Park in New Jersey, Rochester, New York, Ocean Grove, New Jersey, a town where he went to college and more. We even visited the Library of Congress.

Each time I showed Dad how he could enlarge the map to a point that allowed him see actual neighborhoods and streets that he remembered. He was just delighted to connect with so many familiar places. As we played together, we probably looked up eight or ten locations where Dad had visited, lived, or worked. Now I know that we can also do this on Google Earth, which not only gets to the street but also to a picture of the actual house or building  – but a year ago, pre-iPad — when I demonstrated Google Earth to my parents, it required way too many steps.

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October 18, 2010 Posted by Marti Weston | aging parents, family_memories, Intergenerational Interaction, iPad for Dad, Legacies, seniors and computers, Seniors and Lifelong Learning, Seniors and Technology | adult children, aging parents, iPad, lifelong learning, memories, parent legacies, seniors and technology | 1 Comment