How to Teach Technology to the Elderly

While information technology has become everyday common to current generations, there are those who may have been passed by. There’s enough to fear as we all age but the growing gap of technology illiteracy can add to the worries of our older society. With a little work and time, our elders can start web surfing and emailing.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Be patient. Making your older student feel rushed, foolish or incompetent will end your teaching of this person. No one wants to be yelled at or felt like an annoyance. If they’re learning terms like hard drive, RAM and the Internet, remember these are all new terms and concepts. Take your time and take breaks if you get frustrated.

2. Use analogies. Your elderly students know a lot. They’ve learned many concepts throughout their lives. Use that past learning and liken your new terms and concepts to their other understandings. It will surprise them by easing words and ideas that they’ve heard but probably never understood. It will surprise you by how quickly they grasp new things and how much they’ve learned over time.

3. Spoon-feed terms. World Wide Web. Hard drives. Motherboards. These are just a few of the terms you may be teaching. Go slow since most of these terms seem like a foreign language to younger learners, you can imagine what your elderly student might be feeling. Work on a glossary and possibly sheets of information for them to study and refer to.

4. Practice, practice, practice. Sit with your new student and go over concepts and practice exercises with the computer. Give them tasks and things of their interest to do on the computer. Show them how email can connect them to family. Show them how digital cameras can capture hundreds of photos. Once you find things of interest for them, have them practice these steps as much as possible.

[joycetmann]

on 7/6/2009 Thanks for How to teach technology to the elderly. 5* and rec