I do want to take a moment and discuss what I have learned about helping older adults use the computer. About two years ago our library started offering computer classes to the community. We were very unprepared for taking this on and we learned as we went. Our classes were always slammed because there was nothing like it offered in this area that were free. We made mistakes, but quickly learned that we needed feedback from the students taking the classes. We handed out anonymous surveys with the class handouts so we could find out what we were doing right or wrong.
We learned that students liked small classes and an instructor that spoke in a loud clear voice. If there were more than a handful of students there needed to be a helper. We also learned that they did not like covering tons of information or covering a variety of tools in one programs. We broke down classes and split some classes like e-mail. We also were able to get outside help for out classes.
We did get a lot of positive feed back. We have numerous patrons tell us that they really learned in these classes. We even have some adult children thank us for helping their parent learn the computer because they couldn't teach them. We did apply some of suggestions that various literature proposed, but it was a learning process that we had to go through.
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