Thanks to a program that taps into the talents of SLIS volunteers, dozens of Bloomington-area senior citizens are learning to use computers to create their own Web pages, surf the Internet, organize their personal records, and keep in touch with far-flung relatives via e-mail.
And many SLIS students have had an opportunity to apply their information expertise as mentors for participants at SeniorCyberNet, the program founded three years ago by SLIS Senior Fellow Jean Umiker-Sebeok.
"I realized that my primary interest lay in pursuing a mix of action research and community development, rather than in a traditional academic position," saysUmiker-Sebeok, who continues to volunteer as executive director while pursuing research as a SLIS senior fellow. "The work is extremely rewarding in botha personal and a professional sense. We established SCN as a legal entity, set up a computer classroom and cyber cafe at the Bloomington Adult CommunityCenter, established organizational policies, recruited a board and other volunteers, developed a curriculum, and created a Web site."
Along the way, she recruited SLIS students to volunteer and found other mentors as young as high-school age from the community at-large. Older people who had computing expertise, or who had completed SeniorCyberNet courses, also began volunteering.
"I have helped with some special events and will be teaching one class on Beginning Windows and assisting Jean with a Web design class," says Lu Cregar, a retired teacher who joined the SCN board shortly after moving to Bloomington over a year ago. "I responded to the ad because I feel strongly about the use of technology and really enjoy assisting people in learning how to use it."
SLIS student Cynthia Thorn was in one of Umiker-Sebeok's classes when she first visited SCN.
"I enjoyed working with the people at SCN because I admire the people for having the courage to want to learn something that is often very frustrating," says Thorn, who is in the MIS program. "We are lucky at IU because there is so much support available for us, but for most of these new learners there are few avenues for answering their questions."
Today, SCN offers such support through workshops, classes, and a CyberCafe, an open session for people to solve specific problems.
"The cafe got under way in January, as a way to offer Internet and e-mail help in a casual, one-on-one atmosphere," says Umiker-Sebeok. "SeniorCyberNet offers formal classes of several sessions for many areas of computing, such as spreadsheets and working with Windows or other applications. But some people wanted to learn more about e-mail or the Internet on an individual basis to help with their own concerns, and the cafe format seemed to answer that."
The "cafe" idea came from one of Umiker-Sebeok's students, who had observed an Internet cafe for older people while visiting Norway.
"We modeled our cafe on theirs as a low-key and social place for seniors to come for peer mentoring," she explains. "We already had one-on-one classes as part of SeniorCyberNet, but people wanted some further help in specific areas."
Most recently, SCN has expanded to offer more advanced classes as well as workshops on topics such as Internet privacy, Web-based travel planning, online auctions, and genealogical research on the Internet. It also has increased technical help to two sessions per week and offers online help.
"We anticipate that our drop-in help traffic will expand further during this academic year, as people bring us more and more projects such as multimedia family histories and Web design," says Umiker-Sebeok.
SCN depends on its small membership fees, some fees collected for extra workshops, and donations lots of donations. The Bloomington Adult Community Center allows space for a small room with six computers and part-time use of a larger room with a few computers to use for workshops and demonstrations. SCN board members continually seek donations of Windows computers and other equipment, such as scanners and printers, along with soliciting volunteers and teachers.
Though she still is executive director of the organization and is active in the programming and teaching, Umiker-Sebeok has shifted from teaching at SLIS to further exploring the effects of programs like SCN on the communities they serve.
"I'm pursuing qualitative research on computer education as a tool for improving social support for older adults by creating community commitment," she says. "The question I am trying to answer is: How can computer education be designed so as to help older adults maintain and strengthen their sense of belonging and commitment to their community and thereby strengthen their social support networks? How can the nexus of communities to which a senior belongs past and present, real and virtual, local and global be referenced to improve the social support that is so vital to a happy and healthy old age?"
Anyone wishing to donate Windows-platform computers or to learn more about SeniorCyberNet may contact Umiker-Sebeok at umikerse@indiana.edu.
Photo Credit:
Seniors explore SeniorCyberNet, located at Bloomington's Adult Community Center.
Courtesy of Jean Umiker-Sebeok
Posted December 08, 2000