Connect @ Home Archives - Community Tech Network

Learner Spotlight: Bessie Paris

John Stock — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 20:00:56 +0000

Photo: Bessie Paris speaks at the 2019 Digital Inclusion Week Celebration. Community Tech Network partnered with Austin’s Family Eldercare to provide the Connect @ Home program from November 2018 to January 2019. This program, funded by the Consumer Technology Association Foundation, had a cohort of 36 learners in six classes at four Family Eldercare locations. In a follow-up call with CTN staff this month to review the program’s impact, learner Bessie Paris (formerly Bessie Hawkins) shared the following observations. I appreciate being allowed to participate in the program. It has opened a whole new world for me! Looking back, I was surprised how quickly I adapted to using the tablet and how fast I became comfortable and confident exploring with it. That is probably because my teacher was so patient and understanding. She always encouraged me not to be afraid to try something new and to have fun along the way. Seniors get a bad rap from younger folks these days, but we started these generations! And now it’s our job to catch up to them with our computers. That’s what the training at Family Eldercare let me do. To catch up and feel like I am important part of […]

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No Place Like Home: Seniors Get Computer Training

Sabrina Tam — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 13:42:19 +0000

In August, Community Tech Network launched a new training program in San Francisco at the Dr. George W. Davis Senior Residence, managed by Bayview Senior Services. Seventeen residents have graduated so far, and there are over 10 more seniors signed up for November. It promises to be a popular class, and we’re on track to support at least 30 residents by the end of November. CTN‘s Digital Literacy Program manager, Jernee Carter (known as Nay), has already established a rapport with students through her tutoring work at the senior center next door to the residence. This continuity means that residents can feel more confident in learning, knowing there is continuous support available to them from a familiar face. Nay says: “I absolutely adore going to GWD. I have been tutoring in the lab once a week for about 4 months, teaching classes on the resident side, and everyone makes me feel like family. I feel like I now have a dozen grandparents! With all the giggles, smiles and shrieks, I know that what we’re teaching is really useful to them and they’re having fun while they do it.” The program is funded by the California Public Utilities Commission’s Broadband Public Housing […]

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Learner Spotlight: Bessie Hawkins

Jessica Looney — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 16:15:42 +0000

A staple of the North Loop Apartments community, Bessie Hawkins (shown here in the back left-hand corner) brought an unmatched energy to her Connect @ Home tablet class. Each day, Bessie greeted her trainer and her fellow students with cheer. The room would fill with smiles as she strolled in, always wearing an elegant gown or sophisticated pantsuit for class. Her personality was evident in each lesson. Bessie learned how to record a unique voicemail that spread the gospel as well as let dialers know to leave their name and number after the tone. When it came to creating strong passwords, Bessie offered to recite a Langston Hughes poem from heart, just to give everyone a little inspiration. Beyond her magnetic personality, Bessie was also a gifted learner. She took easy to tablet lessons, even with very little prior experience, and spent the end of most classes helping other students catch up. From the very beginning, Bessie was happy to share what the Connect @ Home class meant for her. “We are alive today, and we should make the best of it! If we don’t learn to catch up with technology, we’re dead in the water,” she explained. By far, […]

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Austin Connect @ Home Program’s First Graduates

Calvin Clites — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 17:15:12 +0000

After 12 weeks of everything from the basics to online banking, the 36 members of the very first Connect @ Home class graduated from the program. Community Tech Network, Family Eldercare, and local resident staff came together over coffee and donuts to celebrate the graduates. It was an opportunity for us to reflect on the program and what we each had learned. Most students were eager to share stories about their personal experiences with the program. For some of them, technology had been frightening and foreign before they started learning on their tablets. They had felt ashamed to seem behind the times, and forgotten. In many ways, the digital divide the learners faced was echoed in their social lives, as friends and family moved away or became distant. This group doesn’t like to dwell on problems, however. “Just because we’re here doesn’t mean we aren’t alive,” learner Ruthie Clayton shared with her Oak Springs classmates. “And these tablets are going to keep us up to date.” Each week, learners at every residence worked on something new. They started by getting familiar with the tablet and its controls. Later, they worked on emailing each other, internet safety, and downloading apps from […]

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Learner Spotlight: Stephan Ricks

Calvin Clites — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 15:03:38 +0000

I met Stephan Ricks the first day of the Connect @ Home program in October of this year. He explained to me that he would need some extra help signing the legal information before him, as he has been blind for most of his adult life. As he filled out the paperwork, I started to realize that both he and I had an uphill battle ahead of us. Like most of the students at RBJ, Stephan has always been interested in technology but hadn’t acquired the necessary skills to harness it. He has had a busy life, never quite finding time to sit down with a computer or cellphone in between finishing up a college degree, keeping up with the news via radio, and even taking some Tai Chi classes from time to time. He remembers when there were very few options for the blind to access and use the internet. On the Samsung tablets that are used for the Connect @ Home class, Stephan has made great use of Google Voice Assistant. Voice Assistant quickly reads aloud what is visible on the touchscreen and simplifies some gesture commands so that Stephan can navigate around the tablet with ease. At […]

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Volunteer Spotlight: Chuck Linton

Calvin Clites — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 21:38:20 +0000

Just after the latest Connect @ Home class came to a close, I sat down with Chuck Linton at Oak Springs Villas in Austin to talk about his volunteer work with Community Tech Network. We ate a few snacks that Chuck had picked up for the class at a nearby bakery as we talked. Chuck has been helping CTN at Oak Springs since October 2018, when he learned about us from a posting on Volunteer Match. Since retiring, Chuck has been looking for ways to put his technical expertise to work helping out the Austin community. His work at IBM had brought him around the world, starting as an electrical engineer, working his way to business development in East Asia, and finally ending up helping IBM make sector-defining decisions in mergers and acquisitions. He’s kept a passion for technology going strong his entire life, and today is no different. In class, Chuck works to find a way to show each student how technology can be useful in their lives. “For Ruthie, it’s definitely cooking,” he explained to me, “and for Chance, it’s music. Lorraine enjoys pretty much anything if it’s on the tablet.” He explains that these points of interest […]

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Thankful for Technology

Calvin Clites — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 04:13:38 +0000

Thanksgiving is about celebrating the wonderful things in life — food, family, and friends. When preparing for Thanksgiving dinner, we reach out to our loved ones to invite them, search for the best recipes for tasty sides, and share photos of our celebration. In this way, technology has become a central aspect to the way we connect and celebrate. As a CTN trainer, I have met many people who rarely celebrated technology. For them, using the internet can be a frustrating and seemingly impossible task. Even using a cellphone to capture photos of an event can lead to embarrassment and annoyance. Worst of all, many of the tasks seem easy to young people and other adults. It leaves many learners feeling like the world has left them behind. But … conquering these issues is not impossible. This year, I’d like to give thanks for the tremendous work my learners have put forth to cross the digital divide. They have gone out of their comfort zones to transform their lives with technology. They have put in the time and effort it takes to learn something entirely new. I will be out of the country this Thanksgiving, but the distance gave me an […]

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Catching Up with Tech in the Connect @ Home Program

Calvin Clites — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 21:24:24 +0000

Jody and Ruthie talked with me after their digital skills class on a rainy afternoon in Austin. Neither of them had owned a tablet before, but both bring their own talents to class each week. Jody describes herself as “completely self-taught” when it comes to technology. For Ruthie, “almost everything is new, but the class is a really fun way to learn” about it all. Ruthie and Jody are two of the five participants in the Connect @ Home program at Oak Springs Villas Apartments. The class works together with me, their instructor, to learn how to harness technology to reconnect them with friends and family, manage their finances and health care, and keep pace with the modern world. On the first day of class, Ruthie made a poignant statement: “Even though we’re here, we’re still living. There is so much about technology that has left us behind, and I’m going to catch up.” Over the first few courses, Judy and Ruthie have fast become friends. They brought recipes and music to share after learning how to search the internet on their new devices. Even after the end of class, the two of them usually remain for some time, sharing […]

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Connect @ Home Cohorts Kick Off in Austin!

Calvin Clites — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 15:20:55 +0000

The new Connect @ Home cohort at several Family Eldercare communities in Austin began last week, getting a feel for their new Samsung tablet devices. Seniors from North Loop Apartments, RBJ, Oak Springs Villas, and Wildflower Terrace have taken their first steps to crossing the digital divide. The majority of them had never owned a tablet device before, and only a few had prior experience with mobile devices. They began their journey by learning about tablet vocabulary and how to maintain their devices. The Connect @ Home Program is designed to give seniors both the material and the experience necessary to harness technology to better their lives. Learners begin with basic tablet controls and work their way to various tasks, including video chats with loved ones and using social media to connect with new communities. Ultimately, the seniors will graduate from the 12-week program and keep their new tablets, with Family Eldercare supplying unlimited data for a further 6 months. Seniors also brought their prior knowledge to share in class. “This keyboard is just like the typewriter I learned in school,” learner Ivy Downden told the instructor and the other learners. For some, though, even the typewriter comparison seemed foreign. […]

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Connecting Older Adults in Austin

Jessica Looney — Fri, 15 Jun 2018 02:20:00 +0000

We are thrilled to announce that through funding from the Consumer Technology Association Foundation, Family Eldercare and CTN will offer our Connect @ Home program. Together we will provide 40 residents located throughout Austin with a tablet, Internet service provided by Sprint, and 12 weeks of digital literacy training in their buildings. This program will expand and strengthen safety net services to address the unmet needs of seniors and will focus on digital literacy training. It is modeled after Tech Allies, a successful partnership with Little Brothers – Friends of the Elderly. Here’s a link to a recent video created about the program by ATTN. This is a new program for Family Eldercare and one that addresses a known need. Program Coordinator Stephanie Glass shares this: “During my time at Family Eldercare, I have seen firsthand the increased barriers to services and social connections the clients I work with face due to their lack of access and training around how to use the Internet. Through this program, we hope to provide older adults with new ways to stay connected with family and friends, and discover the ways that the Internet can bring information, fun, and more into their lives.” We will […]

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