From Walnut Creek to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, Jewish seniors are discovering new frontiers in cyberspace.
In response to a growing number of requests, Jewish community centers in Walnut Creek, San Francisco and Palo Alto recently started offering basic computer classes and labs for older students. Seniors, many of whom had never before clicked a mouse or hit the enter key, now are e-mailing relatives, searching the Web and feeling comfortable with a previously daunting technology.
“I wanted to be up with everyone else,” explains 75-year-old Edna Eichelbaum of San Francisco. “I wanted to be in this generation.”
That motivation prompted Eichelbaum last year to enroll in a six-week computer class at the Montefiore Senior Center of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.
Using six personal computers at the JCC’s teen center, seniors are taking weekly beginning and intermediate classes in computer literacy. Similar programs have started at the Contra Costa JCC in Walnut Creek and the Albert L. Schultz JCC in Palo Alto.
“We felt this was an important trend and many of the seniors might have an interest in communicating with their children and grandchildren,” says Ellen Meyer, senior adult director at the Contra Costa JCC. Last fall, the JCC teamed up with a company called WorldlySurfers International to provide computer classes for seniors. “We wanted to offer them a real hands-on experience where they could learn.”
The Marin JCC plans to begin an introductory computer class in the fall and the Berkeley Richmond JCC says such a program is “definitely (at) the top of our wish list,” according to Nancy Castle, that center’s director of adult and senior services.
Eichelbaum, a retired office manager, now corresponds comfortably by e-mail with friends on the East Coast. She’s also surfed the Web to do some medical research about arthritis. But most of all, she enjoys playing games of electronic solitaire.
“All of a sudden, I’m addicted to it,” she confesses.
Though she doesn’t have a computer, Eichelbaum recently purchased a Web television with Internet access. She readily admits that she’s “not a machine person.” Still, Eichelbaum found the keyboard and its functions relatively easy to master.
David Havsky, manager of the Montefiore Center, says the idea is to make computers less intimidating for older students, most of whom have never used one. The classes are “geared toward understanding. For most folks, this is an absolutely new skill. We take nothing for granted.”
Once the basics are learned, he has seen seniors light up with joy when they receive their first e-mail.
Because of arthritis and other conditions that might limit dexterity, instruction is tailored to make operations as simple as possible. “Just double clicking can be problematic,” says Havsky, who adds that computers often are adjusted for single-click functions.
At the Contra Costa JCC, WorldlySurfers began offering eight-hour computer classes for up to 10 students last October.
“We get a lot of requests for some specific applications, like genealogy and more detailed e-mail,” says Bill Chamberlain, the company’s executive vice president. “It solves this problem of social isolation for them when everyone in their family has e-mail and they don’t. As soon as they receive an e-mail from a grandson or a granddaughter, they become promoters of the class.”
WorldlySurfers is restructuring its sessions to accommodate different skill levels. This month it plans to start offering an intermediate class in addition to beginning-level instruction.
Chamberlain says 80 percent of the students are beginners. “The barrier is getting past the physical use of equipment and using the terminology,” he says. “It’s not a difficult process, but you can’t overwhelm them.”
In Palo Alto, seniors and Russian emigres have started learning computer basics in a lab recently outfitted with three computers. Gregory Novick, an administrative assistant, says he provides users with a list of simple instructions. The sheet describes what an icon is, how to use a tool bar, how to create files and use the Internet.
“We teach from the very, very beginning,” Novick says.
Manny Schongut, a 64-year-old artist from San Francisco, had some basic familiarity with the Internet when he enrolled in the class at Montefiore. “I felt that I needed more information,” he says, noting that he may start using the computer to scan and send out his illustrations.
Schongut had other reasons for taking the class. “I feel that it’s really important to be contemporary, to be part of contemporary society. You absolutely can’t be without some kind of computer knowledge.”