NOW CLOSED: Share with BT how you would help (or have helped) your mum, MIL or gran get online this Mother’s Day. You could win an iPad, worth £329!

[AnnMumsnet]

We've been asked by BT as part of their Get IT Together campaign to ask you for your top tips for getting the older generation online.

And BT would love you to help spread the word about their campaign, too. They're aiming to help 100,000 people get online by the end of this year.

If your mum, or somebody else you know, isn't online, why not help them get there this Mother's Day? As the internet is such a brilliant way to keep in touch with family, share photos and shop online for gifts for the grandchildren what better Mother's Day gift could there be?

According to BT, about 8 million people have never used the internet, and, as Gabby Logan, spokesperson for BT's Get IT Together campaign, says it's often just lack of confidence that stops them getting started. "Maybe they feel daunted or worry they are going to do something wrong," says Gabby. "If your mum isn't online, like my mum wasn't, why not spend some time with her and help her take those first steps? Get IT Together BT's Get IT Together website has step by step advice and videos to help you both. I'm sure she won't look back - my mum certainly didn't!?

Please do use this thread to share your tips with other MNers, and with BT, about getting your mum, MIL, grandmother or anyone older get online - whether you've done it already or are just gearing up for it.

Tell us your stories, too! How did you/will you approach it? Will/did you get your children involved? What does/will your mum or MIL most like to do on the net? Will she be/is she already a Gransnetter?

Everyone who adds a tip or story to this thread will be entered into a prize draw, from which one lucky person will win a 16GB iPad 2 worth £329. Please note your comments may be used on the BT pages on Mumsnet. Your MN nickname may be used along with your quote.

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Just show her how much easier life can be - ordering her shopping online, looking uo news items. Get her to play games with the grandchildren to give her more confidence using the computer.

Actually, the first and most significant thing I did was to have a baby. Before then my mother coud do nothing. After dd1 was born she learnt to text specifically so she could see how we were without ringing and waking us up. That was her first step.

My Mother is beyond help. She writes her whole message in the subject line when she emails.

My mums biggest worry is 'what if I get a cold' and it breaks?

She obviously means a virus, and when I try and explain how you can protect yourself from them it all becomes too much!

I think its very overwhelming for her generation, the fact that there is such technology at your fingertips its hard for her to get to grips with it all!

I would love to be able to chat online to her and for her to access all that is available, but like her I find the process of where to start to get her online quite daunting as well!

If I tell you that my mum once called me saying "I've pressed something and I'm worried everyone's Internet in the street has gone off", you get the idea of what a technological Luddite she was....2 years on, I set her up online, showed her how to send and receive emails, attach pictures, and browse websites, and now there's no stopping her. She snaps up cheap holidays, forwards me articles (whether I want them or not...), and keeps up with long-distance family members online.
She has even managed to let me convince her of the ease of online banking -this from a lady who won't use self-service tills as they are 'suspicious' - now she moves money left, right and centre....I'm pretty proud of her, as it goes.

I got my mum her first mobile phone years ago. She still wasn't sure how to use it years later. She then got a laptop. Which was probably the most frustrating year(I do not exaggerate) of my life. Every day there would be a call asking how to do this, that or the other. How she couldn't trust Internet banking or online shopping. I set it all up for her though, then she forgot all the details. She now has an iPhone and an iPad and is very confident using those. They are brilliant for anyone affraid of technology and make FaceTime, skype(I am sure ther is a Skype app now) and the Internet very accessible to those who don't want to "break" a computer!

My grandmother, however is still not online, but would like to be! I think an iPad would help her out too, as it is so easy to get to grips with

I bought my nan a laptop , she can now do basic online searching after attending a free course at the library.
She does need a lot of help though , and tends to ring often for this

I showed my mum how to get online, and set up a facebook account for her so that she could keep in touch with friends and relatives all over the world. She never fails to surprise and confound me with the things she posts on her wall, such as the poster about legalising marijuana and her 'likes' of obscure indie bands I've never heard of. The internet seems to have thrown her back into another adolescence.

My mam started to research the family tree when she retired. I persuaded her how much easier it would be doing it online.
Now she has a better Broadband product than me (BT Infinity) and we Skype each other so she can talk to 2 year old DD. She could even wish my husband a happy 40th when we were continents apart!
My dad however is a whole different matter ....

I helped MIL make her wi-fi network secure... thereby cutting off a whole Cornish village from the cyber world. On the upside I'm sure some of the free loaders then took out their own contracts, maybe even with BT

One day I will add BBC iplayer to MIL's favourites so she can watch stuff online but I don't want to rush her.

I set My MIL up with a Facebook account. She is now in touch with family and friends from all over the world, sharing news and photos at the click of a button. It also gives her more contact with her grandchildren, as she lives abroad and feel she 'talks' to them most days.

My Nan is celebrating her 90th birthday soon. She is housebound and her various children, grandchildren and great grandchild are all going to visit and throw her a party in hers. My sister lives abroad and can't make it so I am going to organise my Nan's first 'Skype date'. Who knows? It may transform her life.

My MIL asked me to help her use the 'internets' because she wanted to find a coat she had seen in a magazine. I showed her how to search for things using Google. Now she surfs the net for things she might want to buy - but gets me or DH to buy for her as she's scared about paying online herself. We're working on this and have suggested that she gets a credit card purely for buying off the internet so she can keep a track of any fraud (seems to be her biggest worry).

Next step is to get her using email. We'll do this by showing her a little bit each time we see her - she doesn't remember if you tell her info in big chunks.

I actually think she's done amazingly well. Mil is in her late 60's and when she worked (years and years ago) she used a typewriter. She hasn't got any previous experience using computers, programmes, but is getting there!

My mum won't go near a computer, she says it's not that she's frightened, she just doesn't like them and doesn't see why she should be pushed into using them at her age. I respect that because she leads a fuller life than I do without being online Occasionally she'll ask me to look up some travel details or order her something online but she'd much rather phone me and have a chat than do it herself.

However, part of my job is one-to-one teaching basic IT for the truly terrified, most with additional needs, and I have to say thankyou for the resources you've produced for this campaign. At a glance, they look excellent!

My top tip: if somebody is having trouble learning to control a mouse, open Windows Paint or another graphics programme and get them drawing and writing their name.

I am going to try and persuade my Granny to use the computer my brother bought her by setting up Buttons www.internetbuttons.org/ for her. The BBC, weather, google maps, some cookery sites. I think she will love the usefulness of it all, but is totally put off by the idea of going online. I'm hoping this way all she'll need to do is open up this one site and it will all be there for her. Unlike my mother who still persists in believing that the internet is a fad, and won't catch on.

Stupid link. Internet Buttons

My Mum has an iPad and is More Internet savvy than I am! my MIL on the other hand is a nightmare, we always have to take her through things several times before she gets them and then we usually get a phone call because she gets stuck. One thing she CAN use though is flickr, as they ive abroad and she loves to see pictures of our dc's. We make sure we put new ones on regularly to keep her going! we're going to teach her how to Skype next time we're over! :o

It's an iGeneration. My parents just couldn't get the hang of a pc, despite lots and lots and lots of explanation. We managed to get them an iPhone each and now they're unstoppable! It's also given them the confidence to use the pc, I think people are scared that they'll break something.

I still have older relatives who just won't even try.

My mum laughs at me and my iPhone but a year ago I persuaded her to buy an iPad on a whim when she had some spare cash and now she can't have a bath without taking it and watching tv at the same time! She also uses it to amuse the grandkids with all the children's apps! She can work things when motivated enough!

My Mum was adamant that she didn't need to be online but she was gradually worn down as she realised that more and more of the things you was interested in - a charity knitting project for example, and the RSPB annual birdwatch thing - were making using of the internet. Plus I think she got fed up with me saying 'why don't you just get it for yourself' every time she asked me to look something up/order something/make a booking for her.

It's been a slow process - things technical don't seem to come naturally to my Mum's generation which is hardly surprising especially with how fast technology moves - but she's getting there and more importantly is getting more and more out of it. She now keeps in touch with her various committees by email, books caravan parks online and last week sent me a link to her choir's website, all of which would have been unheard of a while ago!

I can't claim to have helped much with this process apart from nagging her to do it in the first place. I am a Mac user and Mum's on a PC so we don't really speak the same language, but I try to be supportive and am really pleased that she seems to be getting on so well.

If I win an Ipad I will happily donate my current laptop to my MIL so that she can stop asking me to go on "my internet" and can have a go herself.

I'm sure if we show her internet dating and facebook she will be hooked, it's just getting her past the confusion of the "on" switch.

My mum has just started using email and has learnt how to attach photos over the last few weeks. She finds it easier to have a larger than average screen.

My mum used computers at work quite a bit and wanted to buy a new one when she retired. I managed to persuade her to get a MacBook because it's what I use and I could be her tech support. It took a couple of weeks to get the hang of it but now she' s loving it!

My Mum was oddly reluctant to spend time online even though she had a PC in her study with whizzy broadband. She barely switched it on, in fact.

She's no technophobe so I was puzzled as to why she wasn't making more use of it. After a good chat, it turns out that having just retired from a desk job, she had no desire to sit in a little room and tap away at a desktop keyboard, it seemed too much like what she'd left behind.

So the family clubbed together and got her an iPad 2 for Christmas and she loves the portability and totally different functionality of it. We pre-loaded it up with a range of apps and made sure that it was a completely new experience from the old PC that she associated with word-processing and drudge.

It took me quite a while to get my mum to make the most of her broadband connection. She refused to believe that she wasn't being charged 'by the minute'. She would connect to the internet, open an email, disconnect from the internet while she read the email, then reconnect to go on to her next email .

Anyway, after many demonstrations and attempts to get her to understand what the broadband she was paying for would allow her to do, we showed her what she was missing out on, and now she uses the internet every day for keeping in touch with friends and shopping. The John Lewis website is what swung it .

My MIL is a complete no-hoper. She won't even touch their computer to dust it, thinks it's a precious item that only people in the know should come into contact with, is petrified of breaking it etc etc.