Reaching Out Over Technology to Share

     However, the primary project for the Servite Center was ROOTS: Reaching Out Over Technology to Share. Late in 1999, fourteen senior centers and school districts were invited to take part in the project where young people would teach seniors to use computers and the Internet, to be followed by electronic communications between the two age groups in order to discuss values. Students at Flambeau High School operate a school-based business, the Technology Learning Center. They provided small group training to retired nuns in The Servants of Mary order. Other schools carried out their own version of intergenerational training. After the training the final phase was an ongoing electronic discussion about values, but this did not work out. Wheeler said they underestimated the difficulties in doing such a large and ambitious project, though she was pleased that the initial reluctance of the senior center directors was overcome and that most wanted to keep the Internet connections even after the project ended. She described some of their difficulties where some seniors thought the computers did not work because they did not double click on a connection icon, and the school class maintained contact with that group by physically going to the school. Wheeler recommends working with fewer sites and more training at each one plus an extended period for the whole project.

One of the more successful ROOTS sites was in Chetek, a center for sportsfishermen about an hour from Ladysmith. That morning the fishing season opened and the town was jammed with pickups towing boats, and when I arrived the nearby lakes and fishing spots were already crowded. I was scheduled to meet Gary Mohr, an instructional media specialist from the local high school, at the home of Nevin Taylor, an 80-year-old retired cooperative manager. Taylor had the flu but wanted to talk with me, and though he seemed frail I went inside to visit in the kitchen where his wife was sitting. When I inquired about her use of computers, she replied, "I can't use it. I have to sit far way. It's too bright. But I do watch Nevin play with it." Mr. Taylor certainly used it. We talked about the history of coops in Wisconsin. I wondered if there was still a lot of interest. It seemed that an Internet coop might be a good model that would be stronger than a non-profit community network but less expensive and more responsive to customers than a for-profit enterprise. He said that although he had been retired for twenty years, he found people less responsive to the model than when he started in the 1940s.

Just before he retired they wanted to teach him about computers, but what did not interest him in 1980 caught his attention in 2000. "The whole world is changing, and I thought I ought to learn something about it." Young people from the high school began working with him to teach him email and the use of the Web. At first, a group of five kids came and it did not work well. "Too many people trying to show me too much stuff" and then Gary Mohr brought over Melissa Dalen, whose grandmother had been hired by Taylor years before. They hit it off well and she has kept in contact with him, even though he has another tutor, a foster child who surprised both Mohr and Taylor by volunteering to work with seniors. Taylor lucid memories of the past plus his interest in the present and his use of ICT really brought home the meaning of the phrase, "eighty years young."

Mohr drove me around town. We visited a fishing hole where dozens of fishing enthusiasts were catching and releasing and saving a few to take home to eat. Mohr was taking a photograph, and one fisherman jumped to look at his camera. He put down the pole and fetched his own digital camera and the two began discussing memory cards, zoom ratios, and interfaces. I never thought I would see a technical conversation take precedence over the opening day of fishing season. From the first few sentences I heard Mohr speak it seemed he was the consummate volunteer, though he did build houses when he was not teaching. As a lay minister he was also interested in the spiritual aspect of community service, and he had a wide range of interests and skills. Some of his students were interested in community radio, and by chance they happened to have driven that morning to be on a nearby program entitled "Rebel Radio" where listeners were supposed to call in. I called them and told them about the Texas MIRA teams KBUZZ radio in the high school in Elsa.

We ended up at the senior center in Chetek. Though it was closed, we were able to enter to see the computer facility. The director of this center had been reluctant to have a computer initially, but after the positive reaction by the seniors they began planning, and in May 2000, they designated a back room at a lab into which the placed twelve donated computers, only one of which was connected to a dialup Internet account. Wheeler hopes that cable modem access will be available soon to provide a fast connection for the popular lab.