Abstract

The Internet, which connects about 200 million people and millions of pages, voice, sound, image and video files, has become a most powerful tool in the hands of those who know how to navigate it. The opportunity to use this powerful tool exists and is open to most strata of the population, regardless of the limitations of age, education, etc. Though the opportunity exists what actually happens is that the gap between Internet surfers and those who are not knowledgeable in Internet skills, is ever growing. The gap is widening between youngsters, the primary Internet user population, and adults and mostly seniors, who are not skilled at using a computer or the Internet.

In the new Hi-Tech world, where children speak the new language of the Internet as their mother tongue, it would be most fitting to put their mastery to good use and train them to teach this new language to Senior Citizens, those unacquainted with the language of the Internet.

This latter age group might find much interest and relevant, useful information via the net; they can study on-line, meet new people via the Internet, find useful information, participate in on-line interest groups, and contribute from their experience and knowledge and most importantly feel connected.

An experiment was conducted in one elementary school in Israel, the Alon School in 1999, where ten Seniors were tutored by ten children aged 11-14.

* * *

In the l’ouverture school in Wichita, Kansas, Anna is teaching Internet skills to six adults. Anna is 9-years old, she is in 3rd grade. Anna and her classmates taught Internet skills to 60 adults in one year.1

We are now at a unique crossroads in human history. Due to the innovative developments in technology and especially in information technology (IT) young children master very often computer and Internet skills far better than adults do. It’s the adults who are like immigrants in a new country, the country of Hi-Tech. As often is the case in a country absorbing immigrants it’s the children who teach their parents the local language.2

In the L’ouverture school students learn Internet skills in kindergarten. By the time they attend 3rd grade, every child has his/her homepage, which they themselves built and posted on the Internet.

In this Hi-Tech world where children are fluent in the internet language, as if it were their mother tongue, it would be most appropriate to put their knowledge to good use and to have them train others, in this case adults, in the language of IT.

The Knowledge Shift, wherein children master knowledge much needed by adults, is creating new learning and social interactions.
This paper is about intergeneration interactions.

In many schools, in different countries, children teach Internet skills to their parents and to other adults. In the Zippori Center near Jerusalem, a unique summer took place last year.

It was an Internet summer camp for grandparents and their grandchildren. The young ones brought their mastery of technology and the grandparents their knowledge of the English language, which is still the lingua franca of the Internet. In Israel, as you may know, the language spoken is Hebrew.

An experiment of elementary school children training seniors in Internet skills was conducted in the Alon school, in Israel, from May-June 1999.

The Virtual College for the third ages and how it all started

It all started with the Virtual College for Senior Citizens which is an initiative of the College Department in the Ministry of Education in Israel.3 We, (I am using the ‘we’form since I am heading this project), at the College Department felt that the new technologies could revolutionize the existing social system and serve as a powerful tool to give senior citizens an opportunity to obtain asynchronous education regardless of their age, previous education, and location constraints. We felt this program could help make them part of the new order the IT is creating. In light of the above the Virtual College for Senior Citizens was developed.

While working on the development of the Virtual College for the Third Agers, we realized that though the number of seniors using the Internet is on the rise, many are still lacking in Internet skills.

Some Data

There are about 600,000 seniors 65+ in Israel.

About 98% of the population own their own p.c. (figures according to 1997 census.) Israel’s total population is about six million.4

800,000 people are connected to the Internet. A very optimistic, non-official estimate, suggests that about 10% of the surfers are over 65-years of age.

I doubt very much this “rosy” estimation.

However, whatever the exact number, many older citizens are not skilled in using the Internet.

We, at the College Department, decided to use the knowledge of young children in IT in order to train seniors in Internet skills, thus creating new social interactions.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

More articles by Edna Aphek