If the Shoe Fits, Boot Up
by Mary Bruno
While many older people are taking to the Internet as though they were born with a mouse in their hand, others still find it foreign—and aren't quite sure how to begin learning the language.
Ask Elizabeth Isele. In the past few years her not-for-profit organization, CyberSeniors (www.cyberseniors.org or 888-676-6622), has trained more than 15,000 seniors in 14 states, teaching them how to navigate the Web like computer-savvy teenagers-or at least well enough to research basic health information.
Isele, a former publishing industry executive who lives in Portland, Maine, didn't learn how to use the Internet herself until she was 55. "I was afraid to touch the mouse or the keyboard for fear I'd erase all the information in the Library of Congress," she says, laughing. She became a quick convert: "I thought, who would most benefit from this phenomenal tool? The answer was, those who can no longer get out into the community."
The venture got underway on a Saturday morning in the spring of 1998 with a dozen people sitting around a Portland, Maine, high school computer lab clutching a 12-page handout entitled Very, Very, Very Basic Computers. "It's the third very that gets people," says Isele, who co-authored the handout. "They tell me, ‘If there are three verys, then it's for me.’"
In July 2001, Isele expanded her organization and joined a partnership with 4-H (the youth development program of the federal Cooperative Extension Service) and NRTA to create CyberSeniors/CyberTeens. Hundreds of retired educators now team up with young 4-H assistants to teach CyberSeniors workshops around the country.
Isele is especially proud of CyberHealth, the web-based program launched last January. This fall, Michigan's year-old CyberSeniors/CyberTeens program filled the five workshops it offers in rural Osceola County, Michigan. "We still have people on our waiting list," says workshop leader Marie Wilkerson. "Our hope is to keep the list as short as possible, but word of mouth spreads the news, and calls continue to come in for attending the workshops."
CyberHealth introduces seniors to the many online resources and assessment tools that they can use to evaluate their health and health care. The three-week workshops feature chapters such as "How to Evaluate Online Health Resources" and "How to Use Information Found Online with Your Doctor or Health Care Provider."
Isele even convinced the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund a component of CyberHealth that measures the program's effects on senior health. In November, at the annual conference of the Gerontological Society of America, Isele will present the results: After participating in the program, seniors became more knowledgeable about online health resources. They took a more proactive role in their health care by asking more questions of their health care providers and were better at evaluating their options.
"This is not just another bingo game," says Isele, referring to CyberSeniors. "It's all about bringing seniors out of isolation so they can learn from one another. The whole process of community learning, of keeping brains engaged, is going to keep seniors healthy and independent longer."
CyberSeniors mails manuals to individuals and groups around the country who want to start classes in their own communities. Introductory courses are also available in Spanish, Isele notes. Spinoffs have sprung up in churches and schools, senior housing, and community centers-wherever local sponsors can cobble together two or more computers with Internet connections.
Isele's advice to would-be organizers is to make sure they have a computer lab with high-speed Internet access, a committed board of directors, a community that cares about its seniors, and lots of energy. CyberSeniors also publishes seven 65-page workbooks that explain everything from Internet and computer basics to online travel, finances, genealogy, and a range of tech topics requested by the students themselves.
Most important, Isele says, is providing a comfortable, supportive learning environment, because jumping into the electronic world can be intimidating. Many of her first students had tried to learn the technology before and failed, she says, "but they had the courage to come out and try again."
For Mary Conroy, an 80-something Maine resident who completed all five CyberSeniors classes offered in Portland, mastering the technology let her read the local paper online and e-mail family members scattered around the country. It was "therapeutic," Conroy says. Even better is "being a part of this exciting happening. It is great to be a part of the 21st century. No one likes to be left behind."
Mary Bruno is a freelance writer living in Seattle.
