At 4:30 p.m. class began, and Robert Sheffey sat down, about 10 years late. Instructor Melissa McKenna introduced herself to the seven people in the room, Mr. Sheffey included, and pointed to a white board, where she'd marked her name in green letters. "And if you have questions ... " she began.

Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Frank Rizzo, 58, focuses on the screen in an introductory computer class at the Carnegie Library branch in East Liberty. Click photo for larger image. To learn more For more information about the computer classes, call Carnegie Library at 412-622-3116 or CareerLink at 412-552-7100. Some classes are free, others have a minimal fee.

And she knew they would: Questions about the mouse, and questions about the desktop icons. Then there would be the questions they would never ask, silenced by the expectation that they should already know.

Those in attendance this particular afternoon at the Carnegie Library branch in East Liberty began their mission to catch up on at least a decade of lost computer knowledge. Staring at flat-screen monitors, and carefully gripping the mouses as instructed, they listened and took notes.

Most had already attended one earlier two-hour class, a basic primer that taught them how to turn on a computer and make sense of what awaited. This following class introduced students to the Windows operating system. And such introductions, for sometimes-rigid adult students, arrive with potential problems.

But everyone in the classroom already knew the most pervasive problem: the infiltration of technology into everyday lives. There are computerized check-in kiosks in airports, card catalogs have disappeared from libraries and "Mapquest.com" -- a synonym for finding directions -- has slipped into the English vernacular.

A Pew Internet & American Life Project study, released last month, concluded that 73 percent of Americans now use the Internet. Meanwhile, those who don't -- those separated, either by unwillingness or inability, from the better side of the technological divide -- sometimes feel like society's new caste of illiterates.

"Right now, I don't know what a virus is unless I've got pneumonia," said Ashanti A. Gwynn, who attended the East Liberty class. "I can't be stuck on stupid."

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Students learn the fundamentals of computing in a class at the Carnegie Library branch in East Liberty. Click photo for larger image.

This group of computer novices defied generalization. Some approached computers with trepidation, others with excitement. Some quickly grasped the concepts, others soon surrendered to frustration.

"I tend to see everybody," said Arlene Kasenic, who teaches beginning computer classes for CareerLink, a Pennsylvania service for job-seekers. "I could see a small-business owner sitting next to somebody who spent last night in a homeless shelter."

In East Liberty -- the Carnegie Library offers computer classes there and in Oakland -- Ms. Gwynn wrote on a legal pad almost all of Ms. McKenna's lessons, including how the taskbar forms a permanent beam at the bottom, and how the "Start" button serves as the point of entry for almost any program available.

"I know it doesn't make sense," Ms. McKenna said, "but you even use the 'Start' button to turn the computer off."

Later, Ms. Gwynn, 51, admitted she struggled with most of the information. Before leaving, she signed up to repeat the class rather than advance to the next level.

Sitting in the next row, Frank Rizzo, 58, wanted to know why one could use both the Start button and the desktop icons to launch programs. He'd already bought a home computer, a low-level Dell, for $399, and when he learned he could use it to play CDs and DVDs, he began spending several hours every day at the computer. So he raised his hand, wanting to know more.

In response, Ms. McKenna compared opening programs with driving a car to a restaurant: you can travel there via many different routes.

Adult learners often absorb information best when it's compared to something familiar. Thus, on this particular afternoon, she described the computer screen like an office desk: some programs are visible on the surface, and others are tucked into drawers. She compared minimizing a program -- sending it to the bottom of the screen -- with placing a phone call on hold. She told the class to think of the gray scroll bar on the right as an elevator, a car riding within a shaft.

Mr. Sheffey, 56, laughed at the comparison. Earlier in the class, when he'd been asked to hone his mouse skills with solitaire -- a drill used almost universally in beginning computer sessions -- he struggled to launch the program, unable to double-click on the icon.

"That's where the pride came in," he said. "I didn't want to ask anybody for help."

In the category of adult learning, need acts as the best motivator, experts say. After childhood, most seek knowledge for the practical benefits -- in this case, either communicating with relatives or building career skills. Technology's omnipresence explains why, within the last decade, the mind-set of those in computer classes has flip-flopped, with telltale significance. They no longer pursue a luxury. They pursue a necessity.

"Think about it," said John Fleischman, an expert in both technology and adult literacy who works at the Sacramento County, Calif., Office of Education. "What is literacy? Why do we read and write? To pass along and [gather] ideas. It's a way to communicate, at its fundamental level. And we use Google almost like a brain these days."

At the Downtown CareerLink center, job seekers cannot search for opportunities on bulletin boards. All paper postings vanished several years ago. Instead, those hoping to find employment first create an online profile, listing their past experience, preferences and minimum salary. They can sort through lists of job openings. Potential employers can sort through lists of applicants. The online forum plays matchmaker.

"Everything is completely based online," Ms. Kasenic said. She doubles as the computer trainer at CareerLink and the technology coordinator for the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. "You cannot be a job seeker in Pennsylvania unless you have some understanding of computers. People without those skills are really at a loss."

Even the teaching methods themselves stir a mild debate; there's no perfect scientific method, oddly enough, for teaching computer science. Throughout Pittsburgh, for-beginners classes appear in several churches, community centers and libraries -- often conducted by volunteers.

The Carnegie Library program features two prerequisite beginners' courses, both two hours long, and then a flowchart of secondary options: classes for word processing and Web navigation, even online shopping. CareerLink offers a series of two-hour classes, moving at about the same pace.

Only four years ago, Jacqueline Vaux of Bellefonte, Centre County, then 31, attended a CareerLink computer session. The speed of the class overwhelmed her. Same with the task she faced. She'd just enrolled at Penn State -- a goal from years earlier delayed by her pregnancy during high school and the electronics job she found soon after. She began college, as an adult, "like a foreigner in another country," she said. "There was a whole computer language I didn't know."

More familiar with typewriters, she didn't know how to use the backspace button. When she encountered an ad pop-up while surfing online, she screamed with excitement, thinking she'd won a prize. Even a year into her college career, while typing a paper, she accidentally deleted seven pages and could not retrieve them.

"I started yelling profanities," Ms. Vaux recalled. "Like, 'I can't do it! I hate this computer!' I was in the fetal position. I wanted to quit," she recalled.

Instead, she used a computer book from Barnes & Noble and guided herself through obstacles. She graduated this month.

That's why Ms. McKenna, at the East Liberty library, tried recently to narrow the task. When those in the classroom expressed curiosity about how the computer worked, she put the question on hold. When you were taught to drive, she explained, nobody opened the hood and taught you every piece underneath it.

By the end of the intro-to-Windows class, Ms. McKenna reviewed the basics: She had helped students double-click by reminding them to use "Pizza! Pizza!" as a cadence guide. She explored the tricks to handle programs and menus.

Then the final step: She asked students to open a primitive word processing program, WordPad. The seven in the class were asked to change the font and enlarge the font size. Together, the adults wrote their first on-computer sentences. "It looks like it is going to rain," Mr. Rizzo wrote in 28-point type.

When enough words filled the first line, the next line automatically began -- no manual adjustment necessary.

"Oh, I see!" Mr. Sheffey said. "It took the whole word down."

"That's exactly the revelation I want everybody to have," Ms. McKenna said.

And with that, Mr. Sheffey learned to save his document and dump it into his recycle bin. He promised to return for the next class.

"You know, man, here's one of the things I like about this country -- the right to the pursuit of happiness," he said after leaving.

"So here I am in this computer class, and even if there are some things in the system against you, there isn't that much people can do to stop you if you have the desire. The desire for happiness. For prosperity. And that computer opens up such a big window."