HUD - NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORKING FOR SENIORS IN MEMPHIS TENNESSEE

Six areas were identified in which residents have a great deal of concern or spend a good deal of time. These six areas include:

1. COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERING
2. HEALTH
3. SOCIAL ACTIVITY
4. FAMILY ACTIVITY
5. SHOPPING
6. NEWS AND ENTERTAINMENT

1. COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERING:

a. Residents will be able to communicate with volunteer service agencies to offer their services in a more organized manner.

b. Residents will be able to volunteer educational assistance in many forms to both school age children and young adults who might benifit from the vast store of knowledge held by our seniors.

c. Residents with mobility impairments will be able to offer volunteer services in areas which were previously either difficult or impossible.

2. HEALTH:

a. Residents will be able to communicate with health professionals about various problems and receive information about their questions.

b. Residents will be able to shop to determine the best price for prescription drugs and perhaps, over-the-counter medications.

c. Residents will have the ability to get specific information from various associations such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease, Dementia, Arthritis and so forth.

d. Residents will have the ability to be involved with support groups, such as Alzheimer's support groups, Parkinson's' disease support groups, Diabetes support groups and so forth.

e. Residents will have the ability to obtain information about nutrition, diet and recipes from a variety of local as well as outside network resources..

3. SOCIAL ACTIVITY:

a. Residents will have the ability to travel through the computer, see and learn about the world. Life-long learning is an essential function of this new technology.

b. Residents will have the ability to communicate through E-mail and chat rooms with others around the world.

c. Residents will have the ability to develop friendships and penpal with whom they begin to communicate. An intergenerational discourse will be a natural evolution.

d. Residents may well communicate with other residents within the building who are also using the computer to gain information, share experiences, and thus create interactions that might otherwise not take place.

e. Residents will have the ability to develop intergeneration relationships; communicating with individuals of all ages.

4. FAMILY ACTIVITY:

a. Residents will have the ability to communicate with family living in the city as well as those living in other parts of the country.

b. Residents will have the ability to send and receive pictures of family members.

c. Resident's knowledge and use of the computers will give them an ability to speak with family members about the experience and share information.

d. Residents will have the ability to do research about family members, family history and so forth.

5. SHOPPING:

a. Residents will have the ability to shop and compare prices and quality of products.

b. Residents will be able to see what is new in the market place and what is being sold.

c. Residents will be able to use information such as consumer reports to make intelligent shopping decisions.

6. NEWS AND ENTERTAINMENT:

a. Residents will have the ability to get current information such as late-breaking news, entertainment news, or whatever ones interest might be.

b. Residents will have the ability to play games on the computers, either by themselves or with other people.

c. Residents will have the ability to sample museums and tourist sights in the United States, as well as other countries.

d. Residents will have the ability to hear music, news, and art from the United States as well as other countries.

Bringing seniors into the world of computers and network cyberspace will stimulate our seniors both physically and mentally.

By learning to navigate in the stand-alone computer environment, seniors will improve eye-hand coordination by learning to manipulate the "mouse" interface with the computer. Using the mouse seniors will learn to physically manage information on the comp uter hard disk and/or floppy disk. Simple game playing through a variety of computer games will also help to improve eye-hand coordination. Seniors will learn to manipulate CD-ROM disk which contain information resources, i.e. Gollier's Encyclopedia, fu nctional programs and games. Seniors will be stimulated mentally by computer tutorials which accompany many of the programs to be purchased in conjunction with the CLCs.
NOTE: Many of these program information resources and games come packaged with the computer hardware. A video tape library will be developed to provide a time-independent learning resource to be viewed either while using the computers or borrowed from the library for home viewing.

Active OLSC classes will provide mental stimulation along with educational opportunities. Html (hypertext markup language) teaching materials and tutorials are currently being developed by some of the seniors in the MECCA program. This developmental process mentally stimulates the seniors writing scripts for these teaching materials, and it also provides "adjustable" mental and physical stimulation for those seniors receiving one-on-one tutorial instruction from other seniors. Mental and physical stimulation also happens as a result of the "human networking" associated with all of the activities and programs surrounding the CLCs. Mentor-student senior-to-senior interactions can result in personal interactions independent from but evolving from the necessary human interactions in conjunction with the CLC activities. These activities include senior CLC computer committee functions, senior social meetings including monthly dinner outings for the senior trainers which includes both senior locations in this plan and site specific teas sponsored by the trainers at each location.

Learning activities which result in a sense of accomplishment boost individual self-esteem. This sense of satisfaction has been expressed by several seniors currently participating in the MECCA training program. Utilization of current computer technology can be structured to provide a sense of accomplishment for almost all seniors who might wish to participate.

By establishing CLC network connectivity the potential for added learning and remote interactions is increased many fold. Seniors who learn to navigate the Internet will have the opportunity to enroll in a multitude of on-line courses from colleges and universities. Some of these on-line courses and/or tutorials are cost free whereas some are fee based with undergraduate or graduate credit being offered.

Seniors will have the option to volunteer on-line to assist students and teachers in both our local and remote K-12 communities. Current project oriented activities with K-12 communities including the Boy and Girls Club of America (one of the MECCA sponsored K-12 computer instructional activities), Grahamwood Elementary School in Memphis and The Ross School in East Hampton New York will function as models for additional K-12 programmatic interactions. A current criteria for seniors obtaining a free e-mail account from MECCA is that they be willing to participate in the networked based student-senior connection, and the senior must be willing to tutor other seniors at their location as well. This e-mail criteria will be continued with the proposed senior Neighborhood Network Plan. Student resources for the student-senior connection will be expanded to include children at both the multi-family HUD assisted locations currently developing Neighborhood Network Plans. The two proposed locations combined have over 1200 children. The programmatic planning and coordination for this educational initiative will be managed by collaborative efforts between seniors, tutors with the Neighborhood Christian Centers (both multi-family sites) after school and summer enrichment programs, feeder school K-12 teachers and MECCA. Via the computer network seniors will also have the opportunity to volunteer with other non-profit groups needing assistance with network accessible information, i.e., the Delta Area Agency on Aging and SeniorLink. Seniors participating in this NN Plan will be asked to volunteer their training expertise to assist other seniors at the MECCA planned Douglas Senior Citizen Center computer resource being developed during the Summer of '96.