PANEL:
Moderator: Don Samuelson, DSSA Strategies
Andrew Lowenstein, Connected Living
Dr. James Ciesla, Northern Illinois University
Dr. Mary K. Cresci, Wayne State University, College of Nursing and Institute of Gerontology
An expert on telecommunications services, Andrew Lowenstein, President of Connected Living described the work of his organization, saying, “When it comes to seniors, particularly low-income seniors, you have to go where they are.”
This BTOP-funded Sustainable Broadband Adoption demonstration project originally targeted 2,684 residents in 23 low-income senior housing buildings in 10 cities across northern Illinois, and also reached out to 50,000 additional seniors in surrounding neighborhoods.
The goal was to create broadband subscribership for low-income seniors who were not previously subscribers by showing the practical benefits of being online, offering both onsite training in classes or personal tutoring conducted by paid or volunteer trainers.
Connected Living had previously helped seniors in private, top-tier assisted living communities in Boston and Chicago get online by using a customized course and software, along with a trained team of “Ambassadors.”
The Starting Point
To reach the low-income seniors the Connected Living partnership adapted the training programs from Boston and Chicago to meet the very different needs of low-income seniors and people with disabilities in public and HUD Section 8 housing.
Just finding a place where they were welcomed to conduct the training is literally the first obstacle. Seniors living in low-income housing would prefer the computer labs be on site, but Lowenstein said most landlords in section 8/ low-income housing are merely rent collectors, unwilling to take on a new improvement or liability.
Where Connected Living could not operate on site in public housing complexes, they went to nearby senior centers, churches, community centers, libraries, and other public places low-income seniors might gather. The first order of business, Lowenstein said, was to organize and set up a computer lab on the premises.
The Training
Barriers to getting low-income minorities online emerge immediately.
“Each location of a learning lab is a negotiation, and there’s trepidation on the part of the building, wherever we were – and this is true across a variety of demographics – in cities, rural areas, with various ages, and cultural differences,” said Lowenstein. “But you have to know that going in; find ways to mitigate their concerns.” One way to do that is testimonials from previous centers, and hearing from the newly online seniors themselves.
Don Samuelson, DSSA Strategies, suggested that when approaching seniors who are hesitant about computer use, don’t even talk about computers or the Internet in the first conversation. Rather, he said, “Talk about everything else, see what they are interested in … where they are from, where the family is, what the senior is interested in,” flowers, church, continuing education, sports, health care, etc.
Then in the next conversation, Samuelson will take a printed compilation of various websites to illustrate to skeptical seniors how they can pursue their interests online and why digital literacy is relevant in their lives.
“Over the course of our program, we welcomed and absorbed all the criticism we heard,” Lowenstein said. “Our philosophy is that weighing and responding to criticism makes the course stronger and more applicable to the community we are serving.”
While the actual number of low-income seniors online is still unknown, Lowenstein conceded, “Suffice it to say, the number is remarkably low, frequently between 5-10%.”
While most seniors rebuff Internet use for the cost or unfamiliarity with it, it takes very little to get their audience deeply interested in the possibilities of being online.
“We were actually a little surprised that the thing most people wanted to pursue online was getting a GED,” Lowenstein said. “But remember, this group of seniors might have dropped out of school to work during the Great Depression, or went to war, and never finished a high school degree.”
This led, he said, to sometimes needing to tweak the training curriculum to adapt to seniors that not only lack digital literacy, but sometimes lack traditional literacy – another real barrier to training with this particular demographic.
“You just can’t let any of the enormous blocks in the road frustrate you – you have to know they are there and use creative solutions to navigate around or through whatever obstacle presents itself,” Lowenstein said.
It is all worth it in the end, he smiled.
“Things our seniors were most interested in were varied and sometimes a little unpredictable,” he said. “After getting a GED, they were most interested in online job training, producing resumes, researching some component of their health care, social networking, and Skype-ing to video chat with their families who are very often far away.”
At the end of each 12-week program, each participant was tested to determine their proficiency.
The incentives for the senior trainees to complete the 12-week training, pass evaluations, and subscribe to a broadband service are:
(1) a new refurbished personal computer; and
(2) free broadband connectivity through August 2012.
The seniors took their first bill for newly acquired broadband service, at which point Connected Living delivered the new computer and broadband subscribership reimbursement to the newest low-income senior online.
A big test on the ultimate success of the program may be more apparent in September or October 2012, when seniors have to pay for a broadband service after their subsidy has ended.
“We try to teach and reinforce continued broadband subscriptions for each client, beyond August 2012,” Lowenstein said. “This will address our central question on the sustainability for our efforts.”
Some seniors were most comfortable in a traditional classroom setting, while others were more comfortable with individual training. The comfort levels of seniors undergoing the training are the key to retention levels and ability to learn.
Connected Living has already planned on how to organize trainers for the senior training groups, past the life of the BTOP grant that has initially funded them. They are moving to volunteer trainers.
“After their training, about 10% of our graduates felt they could teach the basic training for other seniors,” Lowenstein said. “Today – even before our BTOP grant has ended – we are moving toward an entirely volunteer trainer corps. Right now we only have four trainers – and they are largely supporting our volunteer senior trainers.”
Seniors support each other encouraging everyone to join in, offer a more appropriate context for new trainees, generally address questions beforehand or at the point they know the information might confuse -- all things that only a recent senior trainee could know.
There are also things that trainers and outreach organizations simply cannot control or mitigate. Some people will drop out, get sick, be unable to change a doctor appointment – or if classes interfere with other things – there are a variety of reasons they may not come to all 12 weeks of classes to meet the requirement of the grant.
Broadband Access and Cost
On the specific question of getting the cost of broadband access down (both in getting low-income areas connected – and the cost of subscriptions), participants bemoaned the lack of interest on the part of large telecom providers in connecting those areas where no affordable broadband service is offered.
Recently-announced FCC broadband adoption pilot programs require telecom providers to submit pilot project applications. Frustrated that eligible telecommunications carriers may not even apply to conduct the pilot projects, conferees were very concerned about the lack of affordable broadband connectivity. Given that their effectiveness will be measured on broadband subscriptions, without universal and affordable broadband, the gravelly slope these projects climb will be that much harder.
Wireless broadband has been on the market for the last several years; now it is offers stronger networks and several generations of improved technology. It also offers a chance to break the logjam of affordable broadband connectivity among low-income Americans.
A desire by practitioners for an easier, less expensive way to provide broadband coverage is tempered by past experiences with earlier technology that did not deliver what they promised.
A broadband provider not bound by the mandatory laying of expensive cable or fiber to accommodate the present broadband deliveries would be another game-changing moment in bringing down the costs of connecting low-income seniors to broadband service.
A recent report from the Benton Foundation and the Institute for Local Self Reliance looked at the new local nonprofit economic model to successfully designing and implementing public broadband networks.
Bristol (Virginia), Lafayette (Louisiana), and Chattanooga (Tennessee) have designed their own broadband service networks as a public interest (nonprofit) model, with all proceeds re-invested into the infrastructure or maintenance.
Perhaps an alternative to giant telecom companies laying expensive cable, Americans – certainly seniors – would be better served by some combination of wireless broadband and a local nonprofit administering broadband service. At that point, the mega telecoms would be forced to lower prices to compete for subscribers.
One of the unknown challenges to persuading senior graduates to subscribe to a broadband service is that the seniors are reticent to sign 2 year contracts. A pre-paid plan or a month-to-month subscribership is more useful to seniors, especially low-income seniors.
Evaluation: Unexplored Territory
Don Samuelson was charged with managing the program evaluation of Connected Living. Together with independent evaluators from Northern Illinois University, the evaluation tracked the implementation and outcomes of the program. Researcher James Ciesla, Ph.D., from Northern Illinois University, and Don Samuelson worked with Connected Living to evaluate the program.
While the collective benefits of computer and Internet training for people in the group served by the program are difficult to identify and define, Dr. Ciesla will be applying the human capital theoretical economic framework to begin to evaluate the program costs and benefits.
In applied economics, the human capital theory evaluates the benefits of education and skills training to people and society. It treats investments in training as a long-term benefit to the recipient (for employability, efficient daily functioning), and to governments (a larger tax base, and reduced reliance on public programs).
Dr. Ciesla cited a recent journal – the April, 2012 edition of The Journal of Community Informatics (informatics is the study of how humans interact with technology) – which listed a series of values associated with seniors coming online in Australia.
There were universal values such as individual well-being, human dignity, justice, welfare and human rights (such as equality of access). Beyond the universal values, the Journal lists other values compiled from other researchers over the last decade or two: privacy, ownership and property, physical welfare, freedom from bias, universal usability, autonomy, informed consent, accountability, courtesy, identity and identity management, calmness, environmental sustainability, and trust.
What is the literal cost to the seniors that participate in the training, and what is the cost to communities? It is hard to quantify the cost to individual senior trainees; in fact, it is very hard for some of the seniors to come to all the training classes for 12 weeks. The benefit to individuals is enormous: greater control over their lives and healthcare, access to online commerce, and more connections with their family. That leads to less isolation and less depression, and fewer health care issues.
The cost to the larger community is a little easier to quantify – BTOP grants require matching funds, so there is a community investment up front. In Connected Living’s case, they actually got more matching funds than the BTOP grant required, speaking both to the creative management of Connected Living and to the extraordinary success of their computer labs.
Buildings with the computer labs pay for broadband, then offer that to the residents.
The benefit to the community is healthier low-income seniors, new people in the job market, and a host of ripple effects, such as less reliance on families to navigate benefits. In some cases, grandparents raising grandchildren are leveraging their online experience to supplement the child’s education.
For buildings with newly acquired broadband, their investment makes happier seniors, helps with building security, and offers energy conservation.
“Our team assessed what effects Connected Living had in getting seniors to adopt broadband,” Dr. Ciesla said. His team measures uses and learning times of senior trainees.
“The latter part of the evaluation is determining who’s missing, and how to bring them in,” Dr. Ciesla said.
See Northern Illinois University’s detailed study of the successes of Connected Living’s efforts to get low-income seniors in the national online community.
After longer initial evaluations at the beginning with trainees, Dr. Ciesla said his surveys then narrowed down to detail more comprehensive skills as the program continued, both to see what was effective, and how many low-income seniors continued using computers and the Internet.
Gerontology expert Dr. Mary K. Cresci, at Detroit’s Wayne State University College of Nursing and Institute of Gerontology, encouraged organizations training low-income seniors to ensure they include a gerontologist or a senior on their team to have an effective understanding of how seniors best learn and how to address physical aging issues in the marriage of seniors and technology.
“While 28.9% of low-income seniors in Detroit in 2001 had access to the Internet, there were 40% who wanted access,” said Dr. Cresci. “For seniors to be involved in this outreach, for us to succeed in reaching them, they simply have to be involved in the planning. And we have to respect that some seniors don’t want to do this. Our mantra should be “we do with, but not for, seniors.”
“Let seniors set up what they do first,” said Dr. Cresci. “A little confidence that they can do this goes a long way. There are age-related and disability challenges, of course, but we can work around them.”
All courses from the partnerships around the country should have special considerations for disabilities among seniors. These include social disconnection or general physical conditions -- reduced vision, dementia, deafness, and/or difficulty manipulating the computer mouse. Various panelists noted that the difficulty of technology can also be helped by technology. Touchscreen computers, different mice, and an assortment of new tablets are on the market now at lower prices.
Conference participant Ralph Sklarew, with Silverlearners, has focused on tablets, as their capabilities soar and prices fall. To assist seniors with getting online through tablets, he developed an “AppTutor” that will “Interactively teach seniors how to use both the tablet it's installed on and the major apps installed on that tablet,” he said. “It will have simulations where the senior can interact with app screens and get constructive feedback.”
Additional real-time help will be available from other seniors. The remote helper could see the user's tablet screen (with permission), which will help reduce barriers and frustration for seniors.
Cherie Lejeune, with Digiboom, said post-conference, “The rapid shift of all consumer ages to mobile, underscores the direction digital use is going.” Lejeune advocates eliminating the word “divide” and substituting “leap” because it illustrates what seniors can do online. “Every day digital users either can leap all over the world even if their legs no longer can get them physically there and their voice can still be heard. Digital use is an important freedom, so it is time for us to encourage the leap!”
Dr. Cresci pointed to a good summary from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration on Aging, which lists technology gadgets to help those seniors who have particular needs to adapt to getting online.
For this project, sustainability of the labs, classes and courses depend entirely on public buildings; it depends on the administrators in those buildings understanding the associated benefits of the investment. It is very important for the groups and organizations which train low-income seniors to address seniors’ concerns for safety on the Internet, both during the training and especially at the end of the training.
Hoit, the CEO and Co-Founder of Connected Living, spoke to the uniqueness of the
BTOP grants. The grant rewarded creativity, and the ability to nimbly respond to changing circumstances or flawed assumptions. “Remember we want every single low-income senior to take charge of their lives online,” Hoit said. “It is not necessarily our goal for every single senior to own their own computer, but to have them have access to a computer and the online community.
