Have you been ‘techie-bumped’ in the street lately by someone on an I-Phone? The current generation (better known as ‘the millenials’) appear so dependent on technology, often oblivious to the world around them. It’s like they’ve sprouted an extra organ. But there’s growing proof that the ‘baby-boomer’ generation, recent retirees, may be unexpectedly taking to technology with gusto and catching up. After all automated teller machines and mobile phones, among other technologies, were developed during the lifetimes of those born between 1946 and 1964, so they have come to expect that technology will improve their lives.
Look no further than Surf Coast U3A for evidence of this enthusiasm by older retirees for new technologies. U3A is an international learning co-operative of older people which encourages healthy ageing by enabling the sharing of educational, creative and leisure activities. Surf Coast U3A has just clocked up one year with one hundred and forty members already, covering a variety of classes from understanding the share market, to learning a language or how to get the best out of IPads. Technology and its advantages is already a big focus for U3A participants.
The IPad users group already has twenty-four participants who meet weekly to exchange information about new and useful apps. The group uses Apple TV to show the iPad on a large smart TV screen. All students connect to the Spring Creek Community House wi-fi network, so that they can ‘show and tell’ directly from their personal iPad to the screen. This system is also used for You Tube demonstrations.
Judy Meagher, a member of the iPad group says the iPad has enriched her retirement enormously. ‘It’s just the fact of mastering something new’, she says ‘that’s so satisfying and I use it for communication, research, travel and photography.’
U3A iPad members are also connected to the regional library network where they not only manage their library loans and order books, but also engage with the e-collections, borrowing e-books, downloading magazines, and accessing a number of apps that allow them to read newspapers from all over the world, take language lessons, download music and pursue special references. U3A ‘techies’ are utilising aspects of technology to add quality to their lives.
Other U3A classes which make use of technology include ‘Exploring the Sharemarket’ where movements in the share market are demonstrated through a computer or iPad link-up to the smart TV, or students’ own laptops in class connected to the Spring Creek Community House wi-fi . John Peck says it has opened his eyes to how information is now instantaneous, thanks to technology. It has also been crucial in classes ‘Five Steps to a Photo Book’ and ‘Family History’ too. The ‘Happy and Healthy Ageing’ course involves speakers from the Geelong Regional Library, Telstra Countrywide and Leading Edge Telcoms to enable participants to get maximum advantage from information technologies.
Toni McCormack, iPad tutor, says ‘each week students learn from each other and I get to meet so many enthusiastic people.’ Overall enrolments, payments, membership records and class management, as well as communication with students, happen online through Geelong’s MyU3A database. A recent tech addition was a mobile broadband device for use in venues that do not have wi-fi access. Given the increasing demand by members for technology-based delivery of courses and information, the current facilities are at maximum usage. In the meantime, Toni McCormack and Judy Meagher both agree that one of the delights of being up to date ‘techies’ is to ‘surprise the grandchildren.’
Good article John! I find it quite exhilarating to master a new technology – and usually cope pretty well, so long as everything is working, as it is supposed to. When a “glitch” occurs, I am usually left floundering. My son, who was born in 1983, had use of a PC, almost from the day he started school, and has grown up with “New Technology”. Consequently he seems to have an intuition towards this type of problem solving, even though it is not his chosen career – extending to mobile phones, sound and audio systems etc. I think it is largely an age thing!
My daughters, who were born a few years earlier, use computers, the latest phones etc. regularly, in work and play, but do not have the same intuition, towards problem solving.