Class unveils iPad mysteries

Nine people sat on stools around a wooden table inside the Apple store on Wednesday to learn how to operate their new iPads — including Janice Serote, who got hers for her 70th birthday.

The La Crescenta resident taught keyboarding at Glendale Community College for 38 years before retiring. But the iPad was Serote’s first foray into Macintosh and tablet computers. After buying an “iPad for Dummies” book, she enrolled in Wednesday’s free class at the Apple store in the Galleria.

She said she thought it best to take the class with her husband so he could learn as well. The hands-on workshop is one of several that the store offers weekly.

“I always used to tell my students, ‘If you ever need advice with computers, ask a 12-year-old,” she joked.

Apple store staff members Saro Paparian and Armand Rivers directed the class and referred to a large flat-screen for students to follow along. Rivers began the class by speaking on the anatomy of the iPad.

“This is the home button on the bottom. In the top right corner, this is the sleep/wake button. Press it one time and the iPad goes to sleep,” he said.

He then led the class into their iPad settings.

“It’s like looking under the hood of your car,” he said.

Each student learned how to connect to available wireless networks and view the amount of space they had so they would know how much overall room would be available for songs, videos, photographs and applications.

Before long, each of the nine students was using the Google Maps application to look up eateries blocks away from the Glendale Galleria, as well the driving, walking and bus directions to get there.

The 90-minute class also had them taking still pictures and high-definition video of each other.

Galina Lutes of Tujunga purchased her iPad 2 a week prior to the workshop.

“It’s fascinating,” she said.

As a legal recorder, Lutes spends her days in court referring to a stack of legal dictionaries. She said she purchased the iPad 2 so that she could minimize her heavy load by carrying her iPad filled with the digital dictionaries.

“I can have it right at my fingertips,” she said.