Tom, who currently attends Secondary School in Wokingham, has a solid background in technology training: he’s been showing his parents how to use their Smart TV since he was three. He is now the family’s first line of support on all IT issues, from how to upload photographs to the Cloud, through to more challenging jobs, like setting the clock on the oven. Tom also handles his mother’s online banking. (She will probably regret that decision, if she ever remembers how to view her statements.)
Tom says [with translation, for older readers]:
“When SiteBites asked me to be Head of Training, I was bare lit [chuffed]. My coding is on fleek [perfect] and it’s dench [nice] to earn dollah [money], blates [obviously]. Most adults’ ICT knowledge is basic [terrible] so I’m down for [excited about] helping out. Don’t worry though, I’m going to keep the atmosphere casual because I’m pure jokes [amusing].”
Tom’s father is delighted at Tom’s success. But his mother, Rebecca Taylor (45) admits she was concerned:
“I was horrified when I heard Tom would be training on Monday evenings. Mondays are usually when he navigates me through 19 Sky menus to get to BBC iPlayer. If we have to print something out when he’s not here, I honestly don’t know how we’ll cope. Our hopes are now pinned on Tom’s two-year-old sister Amber. She recently brought down the CBeebies website with a DDoS attack after ‘Mister Maker’ was cancelled, so we’re cautiously optimistic we’ll get through the hard stuff, like adding a new book to my Kindle.”
Working to Tom’s express guidelines, here are the courses SiteBites will hold in 2017:
• How to export content from Facebook (“well dead”) to Instagram (“dope”)
• The real meaning of every emoji, including why people over 30 are too old to use the aubergine
• How to set parental controls that actually work