Don’t ask me, “Do you know about the internet?”

Post date: Dec 8, 2017 10:21:25 PM

(My Devices, above: iPhone 6, IPad Air2, Kindle Paper White, and Kindle Fire)

As a recently retired Community College teacher who taught online for 15 years, helped pioneer computer classrooms for teaching writing, and piloted the class showing education students how to integrate technology into their lesson plans, I consider myself a girl geek. I’m married to a man who managed all of the technology in two public libraries, started using social media almost a decade ago, and manages a blog. When we moved into an “active retirement” community, it was a given that we both needed places to work, so his office is in the front bedroom and mine is in the large four season porch.

However, our “geek” credentials were not apparent when we visited a local store to shop for a new office chair for Mike. We looked at the small group of office chairs and the young man helping us saw that we were not happy. He said, “We have more models online….” Then he hesitated and looked at me somewhat dubiously, “Do you know about the internet?”

I took a breath. “I’m a retired college teacher,“ I said. “I manage four websites and a blog. Mike would have gone to Amazon to pick out a chair, but I thought it would be nice to go into a brick and mortar store instead. So, yes, I DO know about the internet!” My husband sighed and we made an exit; we came home and he ordered a nice chair from Amazon.

I find the major downside of being retired is being seen as “old.” Ageism is not a pretty thing, and businesses would do well to encourage young workers to be respectful and not assume that everyone over 50 is lacking in technology skills.

According to a Pew Internet report issued in May, almost 7 in 10 seniors use the internet and half of older Americans have internet access at home. In addition, 4 in 10 have smartphones. Another 3 in 10 use an iPad or Android tablet and almost 1 in 5 have an e-reader. Overall, younger seniors (ages 65-69) who are college educated and more affluent are more likely to be technology users.

I recently had lunch with a small group of women in my active retirement community: they were friendly, talkative, joked about the challenges of aging and retirement, and shared some of their attitudes about technology. I was the youngest one there; however, they made me feel comfortable. As we chatted, several mentioned that they had smart phones to keep up with their busy families, who preferred text to phone calls. Several talked about how much they liked their iPads or android tablets. Not all of them used Facebook, but several did. Overall, they fit the description painted by the Pew Report.

Technology has evolved greatly over the past three decades: many of the seniors today were the pioneers who first used technology in the workplace. I remember the first email system that I used as a technical writer at a large insurance company in Des Moines in the early 1990s: we used a main frame computer and our email messages were formatted in ALL CAPS. In the classroom, I began typing up my notes and putting them onto overhead transparencies, which saved me the tedium of writing the same information on the chalkboard several times a day and also helped me to record my notes and improve them. Later, I would project those notes from a laptop onto a screen.

I began using a free discussion board called Nicenet.org; it let me post announcements, short text documents, and links to web resources. I wrote a grant for my own Gateway laptop and wheeled it from classroom to classroom in a two wheeled cart. I had to hook up cables to a device to switch the image on my laptop to the television in the classroom to show my power point presentation, announcements, or class agendas. I also taught on the ICN, Iowa’s innovative distance learning telecommunications system, which connected hundreds of classrooms together using fiber optic cable.

When John Deere decided to get rid of their Mac desktops and laptops in 1997, they donated them to Hawkeye Community College; my Communications Department begged for 25 of those desktops and established the first Computer Lab devoted to Composition classes. Later we would add five PCs with internet access to our computer lab. One of my friends, Lavonne, and I pushed for faculty websites in the early 2000s. Shortly after that, we began using Course Management Systems like WebCT, Blackboard, Angel, and Canvas and I spent 15 years teaching fully online classes, as well as integrating technology into my face to face classes with those class websites.

With the advent of our class websites, more and more of my work as a Community College teacher consisted of adding content to the website, checking work submitted to the website, reading discussion boards, updating the online gradebook, answering messages from students, posting announcements and links to web resources, and monitoring the very sophisticated statistics that let me know who was participating and who had not logged on in ten days. My face to face students met in computer classrooms, where we had time to interact face to face and then work on assignments.

When I got my first digital camera—a gift from the boyfriend I would marry—I began taking pictures of my students the first week to learn their names. I took pictures of activities to post on my faculty web page. Later I would get an IPad and use it the same way I once used my digital camera. I piloted an Education class about integrating technology into the classroom and asked for an IPad cart in 2012; we soon began to explore apps for their lesson plans and found a number that not only engaged students, but helped to teach the curriculum.

At home, I’ve been using a Kindle to read most of my books for more than five years. In retirement, I’ve become an active volunteer and host some committee meetings at our condo where I am able to use our large television to project what is on my laptop using screen sharing. I now manage my own website, plus three for other organizations. So, if you have a young person in your life who works in retail, please remind him that his generation didn’t invent the World Wide Web: please don’t ask “older” customers if they know about the internet!

Side bar

http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/05/17/technology-use-among-seniors/

ANDERSON, MONICA AND ANDREW PERRIN. MAY 17, 2017

LAST UPDATED DEC. 8, 2017

This column appeared in the Waterloo Courier.