EricHarlan.com - Maryland Elder Technology Outreach

By Eric
Published: March 29, 2008
Updated: April 19, 2008

I have for a long time considered doing a computer/internet class for senior citizens willing to learn. I have done a good bit of teaching and instructing in the past, but mostly with youth. I came to the conclusion one day that youth already have a leg up, they are being raised in a time where technology is very prevalent, I won’t go as far as saying that that kids today have more opportunity to learn technology than any generation before.. but that’s almost the case.

So I started to gear my attention to seniors. The idea came when my own grandmother wanted a pc, and wanted to learn how to use it. Her main desires were 1) email 2) pictures 3) safely surfing the web. My wife and I decided to buy her a dell. Once we got it all installed and running, we realized how massive the knowledge gap really was. So long story short, she enrolled in a computer class for seniors where they taught the basics of emailing, uploading and downloading pictures of family. I started to see the trend with the people in the class that most wanted to learn to do just that.

I have been looking for a wireless carrier to provide a wireless card for a laptop I would control for the class, then share out that connection to the users in the class to provide internet access. Let’s face it, we won’t need blazing speeds. The help needed comes in with the need for hardware. Throwing this idea around for a few years, I have gotten offers of desktop hardware, but because of the nature of the beast and how mobile it will need to be, I wouldn’t really be able to do it unless I had laptops to tote around with me. I reached out to Sogeti US (the consulting firm I work for) for some of the older IBM thinkpad laptops we were selling off. And guess what, they came through, WITH TEN OF THEM!

I have a call with John J Director, Corporate Communications of Verizon wireless on Monday. Hopefully this could be the next best thing for this outreach. I figure fate has to be on my side to get these things in place. There is no way I can turn this into anything other than teaching our communities figure heads how to work a computer.

I'll keep you all informed on how its working out, when and where the class would start as well as some of the curriculum I’ve been putting together.

Cross your fingers.

Update 3/31/2008: Verizon balked doesn't look like they're going to be able to step up for this one.

As you can imagine, a company like ours is presented with many requests to provide wireless service for many good causes. Unfortunately, we can't accommodate all of those requests[totally understandable, im sure they get pummeled], and have chosen to put our support behind HopeLine, our phone recycling program that benefits domestic violence prevention and awareness agencies around the country.

So, while what you are doing is terrific, we won't be able to help you out.

They did however, offer to loan me a pci card or usb whichever I liked most and see if it was right for the project. After which it was 60 bucks for 5 gigs of transfer a month or 40 bucks for 50 megs [50 megs? who would pay for just 50 megs]. I think I'll pass on this one. Hey at least they heard me out.

Update 4/19/2008 - I think I found the answer to the connectivity issue

A Window Mobile software development company out of the Netherlands put out a very sweet application for Windows Mobile. WMWifiRouter put out by Morose basically turns your phone into a hotspot. I've been using it for a few days now specifically on travel in and areas with no wireless connectivity to see how she works. The hotspot shows up on my wireless manager as a ad-hoc network. But I'm sure this has something to do with setting it up, easy enough to figure out. I don’t really know what else to say except the product does exactly what it says, and I get great speeds. Love it.

Update 5/13/2008 - The M.E.T.O story was picked up on Cap Gemini's "Talent"

A pretty cool article and screen shot

The Other Face of Capgemini

Maryland Elder Technology Outreach

Published on May 13, 2008

One of our US Sogetians, Eric Harlan, Sogeti Principal Consultant, shares his story on the Maryland Elderly Technlogy Outreach initiative he has set up to help seniors become familiar with laptops and the internet. Read on and see how you can contribute to this initiatve.

"The idea came to me the moment I realized my generosity might have backfired a bit. You see, as a Christmas present, my wife and I decided to purchase a computer for my grandmother. We didn’t give it much thought because we had given her an older laptop to get used to “computing”. We didn’t expect that applying the new medium of the internet to the mix that things would complicate.

I went over her house, set the computer up and realized I was in trouble when her first question was, “ok, what number do I dial to get into the matrix?” No kidding. So I began to show her the ways of the web, how to get online, how to sign up and check email and even how to shop. She starting getting quite good but with her experience came more questions.

A generation in need of help

I started to realize that with every generation born after the dot com’s, they’ve gotten more and more familiar with computers at a younger age. With that, I also realized that the real group in need of pc education was the seniors of our society. I joined my grandmother at one of her senior center computer classes and found that the real desires of our seniors today are quite simple in the grand scheme of things. Email, Pictures of family, Senior Events and News and surfing/shopping online. These things come almost second nature to 99 percent of Gen X’ers and even Baby boomers are getting more acquainted with the techno box. But seniors didn’t have a clue for the most part.

I decided there that I would tailor a volunteer class specifically to seniors and specifically to those areas of interest. I assumed that with a little confidence and some knowledge, those seniors would be just like my grandmother and start to desire more skills for navigating the W.W.W.

Biggest challenges

The hardest challenge in my quest to help out was acquiring hardware, and honestly still is. I had quite a few offers to donate desktops and some older macs. But let’s face it, Macs aren’t mainstream enough for seniors and desktops aren’t mobile enough for me to pack up and roll away after each class. The idea was to not focus specifically on one center, but try to hit at least two per month.

During one of our sessions at the Baltimore SharePoint Users Group a fellow Sogetian suggested maybe I ask corporate to donate some of their older laptops they were offering for sale. I did so and after some help from Brian Sullivan (VP Sogeti Baltimore) and the folks at Sogeti Corporate, we finally acquired 10 laptops. They were PCs with 256 megs of ram and 40 gig hard drives. Perfect for a group of people where literally, speed could hurt matters.

Steady progress

We’ve made a lot of progress in the past few weeks and all we have left are to find 10 USB WI-FI adapters (the older laptops don’t have built in Wi-Fi) and to figure out a way to share out a mobile internet connection. As I said above, speed isn’t the greatest need so there have been some talks of turning a 3G wireless phone into a mobile hot spot. I’ve been talking with Verizon to get a phone or connection donated but to no avail. Hopefully some of the other feelers I have out in the industry will pay off and we can get a solution to a mobile internet connection. Even if we can work out a way connect a master laptop up to a connection and share the connection out through that laptop. The details are still sketchy here (any advice is welcome). Hopefully when we get this all worked out and in place we can start our first round of the curriculum. I’m hoping to have this in place by the end of June.

For a generation, and honestly a wonderful culture our seniors have made countless impacts in our lives and the development of our society as a whole, I think this is a wonderful idea and a great way to give back to just a few of those folks.

There’s only thing I’m afraid of - and I think it’s a good problem - once these seniors learn to share photos with their families, what will they want to learn next? Dot Net anyone?"

Update - 5/14/2008 - Well when the updates come they pour!

Werner van Alphen with Morose Media donated a copy of WMWifi for the METO cause. Very cool, thanks so much. You can read more about WMWifi on their site or in the above update. Thanks again guys every bit helps!

Update - 5/27/2008 - Wireless Adapters!

One of the users in the Baltimore SharePoint Users Group, Buddy Webber acquired 3 PCI slot style wireless adapters from his employer. I think two more and I'll start amp’ing up the project. Thanks to Buddy and Martek for the donation, it won’t go un-noticed!

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