iPad for Dad, #15: Amazing Shared Memories
If a goal of the iPad is to connect people and media, that is what now happens between my dad and me. His iPad has added unexpected and pleasurable reading to my day as he sends, via e-mail, memories, reminiscences, and musings. This virtual interaction, so different from the other ways we connect with each other, is exciting as Dad passes along family history. The iPad makes it so easy.
In the past Dad, a journal writer for more than 65 years, would go to his computer, wake it up, log in, go to e-mail, log-in, write an e-mail and send it. However, if he wrote a short essay and wanted to send it to me or to a friend, he had added steps of attaching or cutting and pasting his writing into the body of an e-mail message. With so many steps Dad did not always remember one thing or another – not because of memory issues, but rather because Dad has a busy life and does not use the computer enough to make so many steps second nature. It is akin to the way I feel when I return to my work computer after a long vacation.
iPad for Dad, # 14: A Report from Dad
When my daughter and son-in-law provided this iPad, it was with the knowledge and recognition that I never honed my computer skills to my satisfaction. Nevertheless, I made significant strides using a laptop and writing paragraphs of opinion over the years. The laptop, while useful, could be complex. The iPad is not.
I have been keeping a journal in longhand since 1949. In addition, in this computer era I have written perhaps more than a thousand, not quite essays, but certainly multiple paragraphs on a range of subjects – poetry, politics, church, social issues, sports, music, family, etc., etc., etc.
My present experience with iPad is a delight. The tiny keyboard and screen belie the capacity. I rarely play games, but I can. This gadget has already ingratiated itself — what with Google, Wikipedia, keeping my writing on the yellow pad, e-mailing them if I wish, and soon printing. One can go on and on typing at a swift pace to keep up with the swift line of mental (and emotional) opinion.
So how useful is iPad? Notably it’s my stream of self-expression; then a source of information; then a place to listen. It’s not quite my reader as yet, because I prefer to snuggle up with the smaller book or periodical.
Read a post I wrote, Journaling Legacies, about dad’s lifelong enjoyment of writing.
If you like this post, read some of the other descriptions of our Father/Daughter iPad adventure. iPad for Dad, #1, iPad for Dad, #2, iPad for Dad, #3, iPad for Dad, #4, iPad for Dad, #5, iPad for Dad, #6, iPad for Dad, #7, iPad for Dad, #8, iPad for Dad, #9, iPad for Dad, #10, iPad for Dad, #11, iPad for Dad, #12, iPad for Dad, #13, iPad for Dad, #14, iPad for Dad, #15, iPad for Dad, #16, iPad for Dad, #17 , iPad for Dad, #18, iPad for Dad, #19, and iPad for Dad, #20.
Yes, Grandma is on Facebook
Join Facebook? For three years I avoided the site. I knew that some of my friends from work, church, and other activities were joining, but I just did not feel like it was a fit. My daughter, then in graduate school, used the social networking site, and she occasionally suggested I get started with Facebook. Still I refrained.
At some point, however, I became aware that my mother and my daughter were communicating with each other more than usual. They knew things about each other that I did not know. Finally my daughter mentioned that her grandmother – my mother — was on Facebook and that the two of them had “friended’ one another. That’s when I called Mom, at that time age 81. She explained that her fellow workers from the Obama campaign, exceptional young people she called them, had arranged virtual reunions on Facebook. They wanted her to participate and helped her get started.
So I found that I was in the middle, but basically out of the generational communication loop. By the time I tuned in, my mother had over 100 friends, all people she knew in one way or another (no strangers, she reassured me), and quite a few in her age range. I signed up for Facebook.
iPad for Dad #13, Keyboard Update – Next Step Printing
Is there any way to print directly from the yellow pad? Image from Apple website.
My Dad now uses his iPad keyboard to write on the yellow note pad multiple times each day. Sometimes he just writes, but at other times he taps the letter icon and send his writing off, via e-mail, to a family member or friend. I have received a number of these compositions and get a thrill out of reading each one that arrives.
Now Dad wants to print from his iPad. While I’ve learned to write a lot and print a little, printing is important to my father.
To learn a bit more I downloaded the Print Central app to my iPhone. I checked out a number of printing applications on the iPhone, and this looked most interesting, though it is also one of the most expensive applications that I have purchased. It prints e-mail, pictures, and documents easily, sending the files to my wireless HP printer.
Aging Parents: Senior Caregivers and iPads
Check out the August 3, 2010 ElderGadget posting on senior caregivers and potential iPad uses. As Our Parents Age has been featuring the iPad for Dad series over the past four months so other iPad information is always interesting.
Many people are interested in Dad’s iPad, so it is easy to understand just how much might be possible if seniors, especially people who are supporting or giving care to a family member, began using an iPad as an organizational tool. Here’s a paragraph from the ElderGadget post.
Read more »
Bloomberg News Features iPad for Dad!
Dad, me, and his iPad
… and other seniors, too.
In an August 5, 2010 article, This Is Your Grandfather’s iPad as Japan Elderly Embrace Apple, two Bloomberg News reporters, Pavel Alpeyev and Yoshinori Eki, mention the As Our Parent Age iPad for Dad series.
The piece has an international focus, describing how the iPad is becoming popular with seniors in Japan, but it also mentions my dad and the iPad series.
The authors interviewed James Cordwell, a technology analyst at Atlantic Equities Service in London, who comments, “Demographically, the world, especially in developed markets, is getting older and it’s probably where Apple is least penetrated.” Cordwell also comments that older users will be “a key source of growth for them in the future.”
So far there are twelve iPad for Dad installments. Check them out and stay tuned!
If you like this post, read some of the other descriptions of our Father/Daughter iPad adventure. iPad for Dad, #1, iPad for Dad, #2, iPad for Dad, #3, iPad for Dad, #4, iPad for Dad#5, iPad for Dad, #6, iPad for Dad, #7, iPad for Dad, #8, iPad for Dad, #9, iPad for Dad, #10, iPad for Dad, #11, iPad for Dad, #12
Learn more about the As Our Parents Age blog.
iPad for Dad, #12 – Adding a Keyboard!
I strongly recommend adding a keyboard to a senior parent’s iPad if typing is important! Dad thinks it’s a “game changer.”
Over the past three months he’s used his iPad in a variety of ways, but when he wants to type more than a word or two, he is frustrated by the iPad’s touch keyboard.
I purchased a keyboard at the Apple store, and yesterday when I took it out of the box, Dad was typing away on the legal pad within two minutes. He’s a quick study. By the time I left a couple of hours later, he had typed several half-page memos and journal entries. He especially likes that he can type on the yellow pad and then e-mail his thoughts with just a couple of touches. Because Dad is at heart an editor, he wants to correct his typos, so the new keyboard makes that much easier as well.
Printing is next, but my parents’ wireless printing is not working just now. And also in the near future is a word processing app. Read more »
iPad for Dad, #11 – Dictionary.com
If you like this post, read some of the other descriptions of our Father/Daughter iPad adventure. iPad for Dad, #1, iPad for Dad, #2, iPad for Dad, #3, iPad for Dad, #4, iPad for Dad, #5, iPad for Dad, #6, iPad for Dad, #7, iPad for Dad, #8, iPad for Dad, #9, iPad for Dad, #10, iPad for Dad, #11, iPad for Dad, #12, iPad for Dad, #13, iPad for Dad, #14, iPad for Dad, #15, iPad for Dad, #16, iPad for Dad, #17, iPad for Dad, #18, iPad for Dad, #19, and iPad for Dad, #20.
A devoted crossword puzzler, Dad often completes one a day. Occasionally, though, he gets irritated when he has completed most of a puzzle but has trouble with a couple of words. So during our time together we concentrated on Dictionary.com. While this application came installed on my iPhone, it was not on his iPad. We clicked on the App Store icon, downloaded the application to his iPad, and began exploring. The program opens on the dictionary page, but there are links to the thesaurus and the crossword puzzle solver.
Becoming A Grown-up Child
One day in April 2007 my husband and I were the adult kids in our families — we are the only adult children
— and the next day we became what we laughingly call “real grown-ups,” helping first one, then two, and increasingly all three of our parents. It’s time to give back, and we do so willingly and happily. However the process is not easy, and it is not free from anxiety and tension. Check out the As Our Parents Age About page to learn more about the mission of this blog.
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As Our Parents Age by Marti Weston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on work at AsOurParentsAge.wordpress.com and AsOurParentsAge.net
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