For close to 15 years, the BASIC program at the Portage Lake District Library has helped seniors connect with new technology through a unique partnership with Michigan Technological University. BASIC, or Building Adult Skills in Computing, was started with the goal to make technology less of a hassle for residents living in the Copper Country.
“Certainly we had an enthusiastic response right from the beginning in the community. But then it turns out that students actually really enjoy it too. There’s certain students who just really love this experience of working with people and feeling that sense of accomplishment when you actually help people and demystify the technology,” said Charles Wallace, professor of computer science at Michigan Technological University.
The partnership between the library and university creates one-on-one opportunities for seniors and the less tech-savvy to work out challenges with Michigan Tech students. Wallace, co-director of BASIC with Kelly Steelman, said it’s been great to connect students with seniors while bonding over the common challenges people deal with when working with technology.
“One phenomenon that we see a fair amount is people who, when we’re with them, feel, I understand this, I get this, and then they go home and all of a sudden they’ve lost it. So we want to hopefully send them home with not just the idea that they understand what’s going on here now, but that they have the confidence to do it by themselves when they’re alone,” Wallace said.
Wallace said the program works with seniors by working backward through a challenge. By working backward, students can often figure out what has tripped up a client.
“More broadly speaking, often people will come in and they’ll have a question for us. But as tutors, we have to listen carefully to the question and then also kind of try to get a sense of where the learner is in terms of their expertise in technology. And then kind of assess the question and ask, you know, is this really the question that you want to ask? Because often the questions will be phrased in a way that’s not the way we would phrase the question,” Wallace said.
BASIC tutors help people with more than how to use FaceTime and have helped clients recover passwords for accounts and access files they could not find before.
“Those kinds of things can be kind of anxiety provoking for people. And so talking them through that whole model is another thing. So yeah, we get a lot of, really a lot of different kinds of questions,” Wallace said.
The Building Adult Skills in Computing workshops are held at the Portage Lake District Library on the first Saturday of the month during the school year while students are on campus. More information is available online.
