Learning with Laptops

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learning with laptops

The effects of interconnectedness on the potential well-being of senior citizens.

The primary goal of our workshops was to enhance the digital literacy of seniors through collaborative learning. We also aimed to positively improve the perceived well-being of the seniors through their uses of their newly-acquired computer skills. The final report, titled Learning with Laptops: Digital Learning at the Cross Links Senior Community Centre, can be found here. This report describes the various workshops provided to a seniors community in the York Region and is situated within the fields of study of ageing, communication and media.


November 8th 2013: Planning and organization for workshops began on this date.

Communication with research assistants (Arwen Fleming and Kendra Besanger) and project facilitator (Kim Sawchuk) who had worked on a similar project (MemorySpace) at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. MemorySpace organizers provided us with the manual they used during their workshops, which would help guide our workshop planning. This manual included information related to preferable technology (e.g. which scanners would be most effective) and provided detailed instructions on “How to Scan.” It also included as basic information related to the maintenance of the scanners.

Communication with Astral Zeneca Pharmaceuticals IT department started. Laptops were acquired for project.

Communication with Crosslinks Director began. The purpose of the initial meeting was to take a look at facility and rooms for workshops was set.

First workshop session. Included an introduction to the basic uses of the laptops as well as the Internet. This included the layout of programs on the desktop such as the location and uses of the “Start button” and its ability to aid the user to open desired programs.

Second workshop session: scanning tutorials were given. The workshops included: scanning photographs onto the computer, using a USB stick, and using Hotmail (or Outlook, Gmail, etc.).

Third workshop session: recap from last session; the creation of email accounts, which many of the residents did not have before these workshops; time for scanning for those who were unable to do so last week; and an introduction to Skype, using the newly created emails.

Final workshop session: recap of tutorials on surfing between different websites on the Internet; creation of email accounts for those who did not have an opportunity during the last session; a review of YouTube; review of other features of which members were unsure. Interviews of participants were conducted as well.

ACM Project Mentor:
Barbara Crow

Researchers:
Sumeet Farwaha and Erica Melamed


Project updates


Related projects


Un jour ou l'autre

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Abstract

The aim of this documentary film-based research-creation project is to explore the processes of  an elderly couple making the life-altering transition from their home into a retirement residence. This research-creation project poses a series of questions: What does ageing mean for elderly people living in rural Québec? How do they experience the transition from home to residency? Why are they moving?  The film provides a small window into this predicament as a part of what it means to age, what creates a sense of home and how can we grow old together. Using a hybrid method approach, the project presents alternative images and narratives for understanding  changes throughout the life course.“From Home to Residency” connects with specific experiences and lived realities to a larger social context, dominant discourses and perspectives about ageing to offer the audience insight into this particular moment in life. It challenges and situates the performance of reminiscence in the film, as not merely a return to the past, but as a way to move forward into the future from the position of the present.

Résumé

L’objectif de mon projet de recherche-création est d’explorer, via la production d’un film documentaire, le processus de déménagement d’un couple d’aîné-es quittant leur maison pour aller habiter dans une résidence pour personnes âgées, dans la région du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean. Ce projet pose une série de questions générales: Comment ce couple d’aîné-es appréhende-t-il cette transition? Quelles sont les raisons d’un déménagement en résidence? Qu’est-ce que vieillir signifie pour ce couple, à cette étape particulière du parcours de vie? Sans tenter d’offrir une réponse définitive à ce questionnement, Un départ vers la résidence tente d’explorer la manière dont on peut comprendre le vieillissement, le sens du chez-soi ainsi qu’un «vieillir ensemble». Adoptant une méthodologie hybride, le projet tente d’explorer certaines histoires alternatives re/présentées chez ce couple d’aîné-es, à travers leur parcours de vie. Cette recherche-création propose donc une réflexion basée sur les expériences vécues du couple pour mieux comprendre une certaine réalité du vieillissement et savoir s’il est possible de s’éloigner de la perspective réductionniste et pessimiste que cette transition suggère. Finalement, mon intention est de voir comment la production documentaire peut offrir à différents auditoires un regard sur ce moment particulier dans la vie d’un couple d’aîné-es ancré dans le présent et tourné vers le futur.

Mapping Québec on Media Ageing

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Dans la foulée du lancement de la première politique publique sur le vieillissement au Québec en mai 2012, intitulée Vieillir et vivre ensemble. Chez soi, dans sa communauté, au Québec ce projet vise à produire une réflexion critique sur les façons dont le vieillissement est posé comme défi collectif et projet politique.  À partir d’une étude de cette politique, de même que de sa résonance dans les médias et sur le web (à partir des documents publiés à la fois en français, en anglais et en espagnol), Il s’agit de tenter de comprendre le discours social sur le vieillissement tel qu’il est notamment produit par des institutions publiques, des groupes communautaires et des associations parapubliques.

Chronologie du projet

Printemps 2012

Analyses préliminaires descriptives de la politique publique Vieillir et vivre ensemble par Fannie Valois-Nadeau et de sa réception médiatique par Alvaro Herrera.

Participation de Line Grenier et Fannie Valois-Nadeau au premier colloque Vieillir c’est vivre. Le vieillissement comme vous ne l’avez jamais vu  de l’Association québécoise des  établissements de santé et de services sociaux (AQESSS), Montréal, Québec.

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[su_column size=”1/3″ last=”1″]Researchers: Fannie Valois-Nadeau and Alvaro Herrera

 

This project is funded by Partnership Development Grants SSHRC
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Ageing and/as Enduring

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Ageing and/as Enduring: Discussing with “Turtles [that] don’t die of old age”

“Turtles do not die of old age” (Films de la tortue, 2010, www.turtlefilms.com) is a documentary film that examines the everyday life of three elderly men in northern Morocco: Chehma, a former fisherman, Erradi a solitary innkeeper, and Abdesslam, a travelling musician.  The film’s producers, Hind Benchekroun and Sami Mermer give voice to these men as they slowly go about their activities, reflecting on life, death, and ageing.  They don’t do so by simply standing behind the camera to film these subjects  and to record their testimonies. As 24 Images critic Serge Abiaad (2011) argues, they film “with” the participants.

Adopting a similar approach, this paper discusses “with” the film, rather than merely talking about the film and its producers. Entering into dialogue with the film,  I explore some of the issues surrounding ageing and “old age”.  How does the capacity of the film as cultural product and fragment of public discourse,  bring these  to the fore?  More specifically, I explore the performativity of different media, objects and technologies in the life of the film’s three protagonists. The latter, I suggest, are instrumental to the ways in which these men establish, modify, and maintain various forms of connection to their world, their families, their home, and their work.  Through these media and the iterative social relations they make possible these men, and their practices, endure.  Following Isabelle Stengers (2005:48, 44), I consider endurance as the achievement of that which, through its adventures, “goes on mattering,” thereby “succeed[ing] in maintaining some thread of conformity between past and present”.

Chronologie du projet

Printemps 2012

Présentation par Line Grenier, Ageing and/as Enduring: A Discussion with Turtles [that] do not die of old age, Canadian Communication Association (CCA), Laurier University, Waterloo (Ont.).

Été 2012

Rédaction par Line Grenier “Ageing and/as Enduring: A Discussion with Turtles [that] do not die of old age” TEM2012, Online edition of the proceedings of the Technology and Emerging Media division of the Canadian Communication Association.

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[su_column size=”1/3″ last=”1″]Researcher: Line Grenier

This project is funded by Partnership Development Grants SSHRC

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