Chris Donovan EDB 612 Section 50 Fall 2010 Karen Boyle Internet Communication for Retirees Inquiry Project

(This project may be shared)

Abstract This inquiry project focuses on retirees gaining the skills to effectively communicate via the Internet. My motivation in this project comes from my own recently retired parents and my want for them to be proficient Internet communicators. My parents were my students for this project and together we determined what their ideal outcomes of this limited project would look like. This project helped my parents to begin the creation of their online identities based on personal email addresses and membership and participation in an online community of their own unique interests. Inquiry Project Statement Between 1946 and 1964, 75.8 million Baby Boomers were born, my parents included. Last year, those Boomers began to reach the retirement age of 65 and many of them will retire. Extrapolating from the concerns I have for my own parents who are very limited in the ways they communicate through the Internet, I want these Boomers to be confident, capable communicators using the Internet. The Internet provides incredible opportunities to communicate with people from all across the globe and I think retirees should be able to spend some of their time talking with these people around the world and following their passions. Effective Internet communicators can build connections and relationships with others from around the world, sharing similar interests, learning about different cultures, work together to solve important problems, and much more. Retirees have the time, but they dont all have the skills. I can provide those skills by designing curriculum that helps them become competent Internet users. To whom is this inquiry research going to make a difference and why? Retirees have abundant resources of time, money, and knowledge from a lifetime of work and life experiences, being able to share those with others via the Internet benefits everyone. The retirees

benefit by being able to more fully follow their passions after gaining the skills to navigate the Internet, and others get to learn from the experiences and knowledge of the retirees. Older adults are also turning to the Internet to learn more about their health concerns (Cressi, 2012). Friends and family members of the retirees might also be affected by their increased communication abilities; my own parents are interested in starting to use the Internet to video-chat with their grandchildren and my dad is calling all of his siblings to get their email addresses. Connections to this course in curriculum and instruction In this course I learned about foundational curriculum thinkers such as Dewey, Bobbit, and Counts and about their different ideas for the purposes of schooling. I connected this project with Deweys thoughts of education needing to be learner centered. Through my project I tried to focus on my learners individual needs and gave them choices to more fully express their individuality. My project resulted in creations meaningful to my students. List of Questions guiding inquiry What do retirees want to be able to accomplish with their Internet use? What are retirees currently able to accomplish on the Internet? Do retirees know how to find and utilize online message boards and forums dedicated to their personal interests? Which Internet usage skills need to be included? How can we know if the skills are attained? What are the knowledge gaps that need to be addressed?

Procedures I started off explaining to my students what my goals were with this inquiry project and what it might look like for them to accomplish those goals. I told them that success might be an email that they

send to a distant relative, or a back and forth conversation with a stranger on a message board. I asked which of these things appealed more to them or if there were something else they would like to accomplish in our time together. Everyone agreed that it would be meaningful and fun to be able to have discussions with strangers on message boards, so that is where we set our focus. Interacting with an online community with a fun culture is thought to have a positive impact on well-being and successful aging (Nimrod, 2010). First, students set up an email account with Googles email service, gmail, and practiced sending, opening, replying to, and forwarding emails. Second, students searched the Internet to find message boards and forums that related to their personal interests and chose one to participate on. Third, students explore their chosen site, became familiar with its structure and contents, and began to participate in the discussions. Lesson One: Setting up a gmail account. Procedures followed: 1. Open web browser 2. Navigate to gmail.com 3. Set up account 4. Discuss Password choice 5. Write down password offline for safe keeping 6. Provide a secondary email address in case of emergency (this can be a trusted family or friends address) 7. Compose and email and send it to me. I will reply immediately. 8. Receive email. 9. Use the Reply feature to reply to my email.

Research shows that older Internet users vary widely in their preferences for the content that they access online according to demographic characteristics but commonalities occur in email usage, leisure activities, and health information (Yoon, 2011). I gave the students a choice for the message board content they were to focus on, they could either pick a message board that focused on health related issues, a message board that focused on their past careers, or a topic of their choosing that is already of high interest to them. For the second lesson they both chose to pursue their interest in gardening.

Lesson Two: Using the Internet to Explore Interests 1. Brainstorm personal interests to generate a list of possible topics to pursue 2. Narrow choices to one 3. Used Google search engine using keywords linked to their interests, plus the phrases message board and forums 4. We evaluated the search results, looking at the descriptions of the sites on the Google search results page, scanning for phrases or keywords that caught the interest. 5. Four to five sites were opened in other browser tabs so as not to lose the original search, and those sites were evaluated to find out how much recent activity they receive, what kind of information is found on the message board, how relevant message board is to the students interests. 6. Use Google search to find 4-5 message boards and/or forums that focus on the chosen topic. 7. Evaluate websites 8. Pick one site to participate on

Lesson Three:

1. Sign up on the chosen website using new email address 2. Choose a username and password and write them down offline 3. Log in to gmail account and confirm that they have signed up for the site 4. Go back to the message board/forum and begin to explore its structure and contents including: 5. Find the search box 6. Investigate the different subforums 7. Find the archives if possible 8. Toggle the sorting to find the most recent threads and the most active users 9. Find the next page link and begin to explore numerous pages of each subforum 10. Click an interesting thread and skim through it 11. Explore threads until finding one to participate in 12. Click on reply and type out a response. Submit. 13. Explore new threads and repeat Results Both learners accomplished the Internet communication goals they helped set at the beginning of the lessons: they created online identities based on a personal email address and became participating members in an online community of their own choosing. Both students also created offline hardcopies of their usernames and passwords, which they felt was very important for their peace of mind. My dad is actually now interacting on two forums and is enjoying this new community. He has been especially pleased to be interacting with forum members from other countries. My mom plans on continuing to visit the forum and looks forward to thinking about gardening through the winter. Reflection:

This project was a great learning opportunity for me. It was my first time working with adult learners and I learned that my patience and expectations were at very different levels than when I work with younger students. I was happy with how I structured my lessons, though I learned that next time I would require more time to accomplish them. My dads lack of dexterity using his laptop computer prevented him from easily moving the cursor which is something I did not anticipate. The effect was to slow down the lessons while my mom was ready to move on with it. Next time I would have my adult learners practice moving the cursor around and clicking into different text fields, just to build those skills before starting into the content of the lessons.

References Cresci, M. K., Jarosz, P.A., & Templin, T.N. (2012). Are health answers online for older adults?. Educational Gerontology, 38 (1), 10-19. Nimrod, G. (2010). The fun culture in seniors online communities. The Gerontologist, 51 (2), 226-237. Yoon, J., Yoon, T. E., & George, J. F. (2011). Anticipating information needs for senior portal contents. Computers In Human Behavior, 27(2), 1012-1020.

Appendix I: Annotated Bibliography in APA Style:

Burwell, L.A. (2001). Too old to surf? No way! An internet course for seniors. American Libraries, 32(10), 40. This article examines an Internet education course at a Chicago library. It describes the development of the course, the contents of the course, and documents the seniors attitudes towards the course. I will use this article because it will give me insight into the components of a retireecentered Internet curriculum, as well as prepare me for attitudes and concerns that I may come across.

DeGraves, D. J., Denesiuk, R. J. (2000) The seniours Computer Information Program: A Pioneer Website for seniors. Educational Gerontology, 26, 345-355. This article gives a description of the development of the Seniors Computer Information Program, an internet site, which began in 1995 to meet informational needs of older adults. The article is outdated and the contents do not fit well with my inquiry project, I will not use this article.

Jung, Y., Peng, W., Moran, M., Jin, S., McLaughlin, M., Cody, M., & ... Silverstein, M. (2010). Low-Income Minority Seniors' Enrollment in a Cybercafe: Psychological Barriers to Crossing the Digital Divide. Educational Gerontology, 36(3), 193-212.

This study looks at the reasons some low income, mostly immigrant seniors enrolled in free computer training courses and why some did not. Computer anxiety and aging anxiety were two of the psychological variables that were strong predictors of enrollment. I would use this study to help illustrate why retirees may be reluctant to participate in my inquiry project.

Middlemiss, W., & Meyer, B. J. F. (2004). Introducing an intergenerational, internet-based tutoring program: Meeting program challenges. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 2(2), 7-25. This study examines intergenerational tutoring that takes place over the Internet between middle school students and older adult tutors. The program is described along with the challenges that were faced and ideas to face those challenges. This research does give some insight into how older adults use the Internet to communicate with younger people, but overall it does not provide enough pertinent information for my inquiry project.

Natvig, D. (2007). Meeting intergenerational needs through service learning. Educational Gerontology, 33, 573-586. This study examines how computer use can be a tool seniors use to actively engage with life, a component of successful aging. The study further investigates the online interests of participants, as well as discriminating factors such as previous occupation and education level. This study would be helpful in anticipating the needs and interests of participants in my project.

Nimrod, G. (2010). The fun culture in seniors online communities. The Gerontologist, 51 (2), 226-237. This study investigated a years worth of data from six leading seniors online communities and analyzed the contents of the seniors posts. This study gives me insight into what seniors (and retirees) prefer to do when they are online: what websites they visit most often, and what topics they prefer to discuss.

Warner, M., Yardley, J., La Ferla, R., Tedeschi, B., Nagourney, E., Bilyeu, S., & Potts, C. (2005). Connecting seniors to the internet. New York Times Upfront, 138 (5), 6. This article describes benefits of computers for older people and explores the nonprofit organization Senior Connects in Indiana. I would not use this article because it only explores seniors helping seniors in the one organization and does not give me a more comprehensive vision of what seniors are able to accomplish on the Internet.

Wu, J. (2005). Hands in hands, surging the net in the new century intergenerational ties through the net in China. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 3 (1), 85. This article describes a program wherein retirees learn basic computer literacy while educating the youth about the revolutionary past of the nation. I would not use this article in my inquiry project.

Yoon, J., Yoon, T. E., & George, J. F. (2011). Anticipating information needs for senior portal contents. Computers In Human Behavior, 27(2), 1012-1020. This study investigates the kind of content that seniors prefer to interact with on the Internet. The study found that interests and preferences vary according to characteristics of the individual senior, including gender, age, occupation, monthly income, and a host of other factors. This study will help me to plan my inquiry project.

Appendix II Powerpoint: