My passion these days is showing small business owners how to use the new web based tools to grow their businesses.  And yes, real estate people are small business owners.

I really enjoy showing people how Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter have real world business applications and are not just for wasting time.

Arguably, the only tech skill set that is needed to use these tools is the ability to turn on a computer (or smart phone or tablet device) get it connected to the Internet and then use a browser or dedicated app to access the platform of your choice.

Invariably I find that many of my students are completely flummoxed by how to do anything on their device except use email, basic web browsing and industry specific software.  The MLS comes to mind for agents.

So, even though the tech skill set needed is minimal, many people are stressed by even that small requirement.

I’ve been searching for something that would help, be free, and very easy to understand.  I think I found it in a new site by Google called TeachParentsTech.  It has 48 short videos in the broad categories of “The Basics”, “World Wide Web”, “Communication”, “Media” and “Finding Information”.

The starting point is a form that you can fill out to send selected videos to your parents to help them solve a particular computer/technology issue.  You can find it here: http://www.TeachParentsTech.org.

You can avoid the form and watch the videos yourself if you wish by going to this page: http://www.teachparentstech.org/watch

So, if you’ve got “parents” that could use a little tech help (or maybe YOU are the one who could use the help) go check this out!