NEWS: IT class for senior citizens

HE senior citizens of Sri Damansara are passionate about connecting with the Information Generation.

Despite their age, they enjoyed the Information Technology exploration class taught by a trainer, Elaine Chong — even Leong Jo Hoong, who was the oldest at 73 years,

Leong said he had enjoyed the class and learnt some very useful things about the Internet.

“Now, we can at least turn on the computer to communicate with the younger generation.

“I am learning this because I want to connect with my children and grandchildren.”

Meanwhile, Bopo Wong, 58, said a number of the participants did not even know what a digital mouse was when they attnded the class.

“Now, some of them are seriously thinking of buying a laptop, and we will be setting up our Facebook account where we can learn to communicate with each other, like our young people,” she said.

Chong, a software engineer, taught the senior citizens on the usage of the Internet for communication.

Explaining mainly in Cantonese, she taught them how to switch on the computer, and showed them how to create an account for themselves and use the Facebook, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, Gtalk and Skype.

“Don’t be afraid of the computer; it is just a machine,” she said.

At the end of the training, the participants were each presented a flash-animated digital certificate by MBPJ (Zone 1) councillor Chan Chee Kong, who sponsored the training session at Our Learning Hub in Desa Aman Puri.

“We realised that the senior citizens in Sri Damansara are losing touch with the more IT-savvy younger generation,” he said.

“Many of the senior citizens want to learn IT, but not many of their children or grandchildren have the time or the patience to teach them.

“We hope they have learnt enough to start exploring further what the Internet can do.”

The digital certificate, a brainchild of centre manager Stephen Ng and developed by Chong, is probably the first of its kind in the country, which allows the participant to email it to their friends.

Ng said the idea of a digital certificate was much better than a certificate of attendance printed on paper.

“We have to stop cutting down trees,” he said.

“Besides, the digital certificates can be emailed to our participants.”