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Doncaster - Supporting the elderly with IT

About

Overview

Ever since this project took off one of the most attended members is Mrs T. This lady is over the age of 60 and wanted to learn IT as unfortunately eight years ago her son passed away while studying at university and giving a lecture on Geology.  The head of the university was kind enough and sent a copy of the last lecture that was recorded before he passed away on DVD however unfortunately due to Mrs T not ever having used a computer and not having access to a computer in the house she felt left behind and hurt as she had never seen her sons last footage and was afraid to ask anyone as she felt she wanted to view this in private and when she was ready. 

 

When Mrs T joined, she attended the regular Community Drop In group and started from the basics attending the ‘Computer for Beginners course’.  Attending regularly and always enthusiastic she was a great influence on other members of the group and had passed that course within 4 weeks.  The next course Mrs T joined was the Microsoft Office course known as ‘Presenting Information’ as she now wanted to learn how to type documents and more importantly wanted to personally type a thank you letter to the head of the university years later as she had managed to get his e-mail address.

 

As time went on Mrs T always bought a recipe book from home and used that book to copy/type out new documents exactly as in the book which challenged her in changing font colours, sizes and also any grammar and punctuation.  Once she became comfortable with coming in switching on a computer, loading Microsoft Word and going straight ahead with her lesson I was then asked if I could organise an ‘E-mail starter course’ for those who had never had an email address but wanted one, a few members of that group were excited about this and I arranged a 3 week ‘E-mail starter course’.  This was a popular course and we used Hotmail to create free e-mail addresses for anyone who wanted an e-mail address and focused on how to send e-mails, attach photos and maintain your inbox.

 

Within 6 months of regular attendance Mrs T had become like family and she opened up to me explaining why she joined the course and her ultimate goal being that she wanted to sit in peace and alone watching her sons last lecture but she wanted to do it all by herself ‘as that’s what her son would have wanted’.

 

Progress

After 9 months of attending regularly and completing various courses Mrs T has purchased a new laptop and began bringing in her laptop so she could start using that and learning any new features or settings the new Windows Vista© had to offer.

Within just a few weeks of the laptop being regularly used, home broadband was installed and Mrs T even felt comfortable enough purchasing her first online ticket to Detroit to see her daughter.

 

After a fortnight there and returning back to the Community Drop In sessions I was asked about any video software which was free and would play any format of videos as Mrs T was unsure of what format the disc was and didn’t want to prepare herself to watch the video and then be disappointed if any problems were to occur.  I recommended ‘VLC’ media player, this is free to all people worldwide and will play any movie regardless of its format or container.

 

Shortly after that Mrs T had already installed this (with minor difficulties) and one day sat down and watched the last lecture of her son.  Mrs T didn’t attend any sessions for almost 2 weeks after that however she did e-mail and kept in touch.

 

After the new year Mrs T came back and was happy that she managed to complete what she set out to do and wrote a thank you letter both to head of the university and to senior members of Fair Share thanking them for funding this project and giving her the opportunity to do something which she never thought she would be able to do.

 

Years later Mrs T regularly attends weekly and keeps in touch and recommends this Project to all the community she feels would benefit from this.

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