For many years now, the PCUG has provided volunteers to help senior citizens learn to use the Internet. A dedicated band of PCUG members continue to give their time and expertise to this cause at the Woden Public Library.
The Woden Library staff promote the Seniors Internet program strongly and support it with two PCs dedicated to use by seniors. Each PC is connected to the library’s broadband internet service and is loaded with Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word and Excel. The computers also have CD and floppy drives.
Student and Volunteer Instructor at a Seniors Terminal, Woden Library
The Seniors Internet Training Program is offered three days a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday – with two instructors each giving two hour-long sessions per day between 10am and noon. Each Seniors terminal is manned by one PCUG volunteer instructor who gives personalised instruction to the student. The instructors are currently all of “mature age” themselves and therefore have good empathy with their students.
There is no formal training for the instructors and no curriculum for the students. The library relies on the PCUG to provide volunteers with sufficient technical and personal skills to undertake the task. This may sound a bit daunting, but the expertise required of instructors is really no more than a basic knowledge of the Internet, moderate experience of using a Web browser and some experience of webmail. Although the focus of the program is on use of the Web, occasionally some seniors also seek elementary help with MS Word and Excel.
As for personal skills, probably the most important skill for volunteers is to be able to pace the instruction at a speed appropriate to the individual student’s needs. Many, if not the majority, of students come to the Seniors program because they believe we can teach them at a pace at which they can learn. They often have computers at home, given them by well-meaning children who have neither the time nor patience to effectively demonstrate how to use the computer. We often hear something along the lines of … “The kids try to show me how to do it, but their fingers flash across the keyboard then they say “Got that?”, and I haven’t a clue what they did.” Working one-on-one, our instructors take the time to let the students absorb what they are learning.
The volunteers’ reward is knowing that we have given senior citizens practical help in understanding the Internet and the basic knowledge to use email for communicating with family and friends and the Web for information gathering. Our reward is sometimes knowing that we have helped someone make a decision to forget the old laptop they had been given and instead use the library internet computers for their email and research, letting the library staff take care of viruses, spam and technical problems. Others learn enough about the internet to make the decision that it is something they can do without. Once in a while we come across a senior whose life has been dramatically changed for the better because they have learnt to use the internet to communicate with family who had been geographically and/or technologically distant.
Other rewards come from discovering something new and interesting as a result of helping students find or look-up something that is of particular interest to them. Seniors come from a very wide range of backgrounds and experience and all can teach us something.
At the moment there is no requirement for more volunteers, as we have seven members who regularly provide instruction and a reserve of eight members available to stand-in. However, there will always be a small turnover of the regular instructors and every year or two a call goes out to the PCUG membership for replacement volunteers.
Paul Hooper.