by Lois Granick (lgranick@potomac.net)
SeniorNet instructor, Washington D.C. Learning Center
Editor's Note: Lois Granick retired from the American Psychological Association in 1992 as Director of PsycINFO, the Association's database of the world's literature in psychology and related disciplines, and Executive Editor of Psychological Abstracts. She is 66 years old, a mother of four and grandmother of nine, who spends some of her retirement leisure teaching older adults to enjoy computing as she does.

A new study by Nielsen Media Research and CommerceNet of Internet use in the U.S. and Canada showed an increase of 50 percent in the number of women over 50 using the Internet during the nine months ending in June 1998, accounting for nearly five million users. The numbers of men under 50 using the Internet grew about half as fast during the same period but the total number of older adults online topped 13 million, representing 17 percent of all the people on the Internet in these countries.

This is a very exciting statistic to those of us at SeniorNet who are teaching the over-50 group to use computers. In the Washington, D.C. area, the majority of students in these classes are women. Realizing that most of them go on to use the new skills we've taught them and actually use computers to access the Internet on their own validates a lot of work. We ask the students on the first day of class what makes them want to learn about computers. The most frequent response is related to interest in e-mail and/or the Internet - often for communication with children or grandchildren.

As a computer professional, and one of the few women working in the field since the 1960s, deciding to use my retirement leisure to volunteer at a SeniorNet Computer Learning Center may seem natural, but I had strong reservations. I am not a trained teacher. I could (and did) rationalize that all those years of instructing my subordinates in new techniques and systems equated to teaching, but I had some inner qualms. The subject matter was very familiar, but the mechanics of teaching were self-derived from watching others and participating in workshops, seminars, instructional forums and conferences. I didn't begin to think about the students very much until I was comfortable with my instructor role.

"Over 50" covers a lot of years. I have had students over 80 years old in my computer classes. I came to realize that, for some of them, just getting up the courage to enroll in the course had been a major venture. Many older adults have memories of failed attempts to master a new skill, a new language, some new appliance or machine and are not eager to repeat the experience. The computer is particularly intimidating to those first approaching it. Many still "know" that it is esoteric, mysterious, prone to do totally unexpected things, etc. Additionally, the physical activity of mouse control can stress the confidence of all but the most stalwart. Most older Americans have watched their children or grandchildren playing games on the computer or TV screen, using the mouse or joystick and making moves almost faster than the eye can follow. It is very discour-aging to try it yourself and find that you can't even keep the arrow on the screen, much less hold it steady on a tiny object and move it around.

This confrontation with the mouse takes place in the first session of a six- or eight-session course in the basics of using computers and can lead to very early discouragement. One of the challenges for the instructor is to balance encouragement for the student to practice and attempt to master the mouse with a realistic assessment of the student's physical capability. It is quite possible to use the keyboard for most actions and resort to the mouse for just a few occasions, but class time can be spent only on one approach. Older students may need to be reassured that the task is not beyond their capabilities, and that different rates of progress in achieving muscular control is normal.

Other than small muscle coordination that makes use of the mouse a challenge, computer usage is available to many persons with physical handicaps that might prevent participation in other activities. One student in a course last year had such poor eyesight that even though she sat at the front desk, she could not clearly see the projected image of the instructor's computer screen. Her own computer screen, however, was clear enough to her impaired vision that she had no difficulty in completing the course. It is inspiring to teach students who are recovering from strokes, walking with difficulty, even traveling in wheelchairs. The life of the mind need not be affected by the infirmities of the body and this has been made very clear to me by my students and fellow instructors. A lively mind is the common characteristic of all those who enroll in SeniorNet classes.

Teaching older adults does sometimes mean convincing them that they can learn. My students need to be convinced that learning new things (this computer) is sometimes difficult and often slow - it is not possible to learn it instantly. Reassurance that using the computer is fun and will lead to the fulfillment of their goals must be frequent. Actually, the fun part of computers is almost always instantly apparent. Students at the end of the first lesson are reluctant to leave the Solitaire game that is scheduled for the last 15 minutes of the session to practice mouse usage. Later on, in lessons about communicating via modems, we dial up the local library to look in its database. The fact that so much information is available, without leaving home, is very exciting. Later, sending email and the brief introduction we give to the Internet opens even more interesting avenues for further exploration.

Teaching older adults is rewarding on several levels. I am an older adult myself and have been surprised how often I have been the main recipient of my own advice to a student. I think I'm turning into a pretty good teacher, not something I had looked for in retirement. I have joined an interesting group of people who are the other SeniorNet instructors and volunteers, and enjoy the time spent in the classes. Reading that so many "over 50s" are continuing to be added to the ranks of computer users and beginning to "surf the net" on their own is probably the best reward of all.