RESEARCH General Education

ELDERLY & COMPUTERS
Nursing home residents surfing Web, thanks to high school students

Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor
(217) 333-0568; melissa@uiuc.edu

2/1/2001

Photo by Bill Wiegand Jie Wang, a junior at the University of Illinois Laboratory High School, volunteers four days a week at ManorCare Health Services helping the nursing home residents surf the Web.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- At some nursing homes across the country, bingo, craft-hour and popcorn-making parties are rapidly becoming passé. Instead, today's residents are getting with the program and engaging in much hipper activities: surfing the Web and sending and receiving e-mail.

In Champaign, Ill., residents of ManorCare Health Services are booting up and logging on with assistance from Jie Wang, a junior at the University of Illinois Laboratory High School.

Wang volunteered to keep the program going after its co-founders, Crystal Yates-White and Jenn Iversen, graduated from Uni High last year. While searching for a project to satisfy requirements of a social advocacy course they were enrolled in during their senior year at Uni, Yates-White and Iversen came up with the idea of teaching ManorCare residents to use computers and the Internet.

"It amazes me that young kids -- high-school-aged children -- even cared enough to get this idea," said Audrey Wells, head of Uni’s English department, who launched the course with history department head Barbara Wysocki.

Even more amazing, perhaps, is the fact that Wang was willing to jump in and keep the program alive after its founders graduated and left town. Unlike her predecessors, Wang isn't receiving course credit for involvement. For her, it's a labor of love, pure and simple.

"I just wanted someone to continue the program," Wang said, adding that she was inspired by the energy Yates-White devoted to it. "She was so dedicated. I really looked up to her."

Four days a week, after school, Wang hikes over to the nursing home, where she works one-on-one with five residents. Some days, Uni High student Susan Sefranek also pitches in to help. The students and residents work together on a computer donated by Prairienet, a community information network administered by the UI's Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

The computer and monitor have been adapted to meet the residents' special needs: Text appears in large, clear type; function speeds have been slowed down; and the mouse has been replaced with a Microsoft EasyBall, which is easier for residents with arthritis or tremors to control.

Wang said two of the residents now are fairly computer savvy and can work independently. "Others need a bit more help," she said.

In addition to assisting them with e-mail and Web surfing, Wang said she often just takes time out to talk to them. "It has really been a learning experience to go there and see how these people live," she said. Before her involvement with them, "it never dawned on me how seniors live in nursing homes. It really opened my eyes to what their world is like."

The Uni High program has been an eye-opener for residents' family members as well. "The families are just stunned that we even have this," said Tasha Mehne, the facility's activity director and volunteer coordinator.