Tom Kamber's Presentation at the BRICA Conference

 

Friday, November 20th, 2009. OATS Executive Director Tom Kamber pesented at the "Wired up Seniors: Technology and Aging" Conference, sponsored by Bronx Regional Interagency Council on Aging (BRICA).

Tom's talk "Beyond Computer Basics: How Technology Programs for Seniors are Leveraging Social Change" highlights a day of workshops and discussions on various technology topics including Healthy Aging, Managing a Computer Lab, Senior Friendly Design and more.

 

Video presentation

Thanks for posting this event. Thanks also to Tom for his insight into what OATS is trying to acheive. So far so good. I have a feeling that OATS will expand and knowledge of this organization will spread because it is fulfilling a need that Seniors are an important part of society and can be of help to the next generation. Domingo

Liked the presentation

Tom, the presentation became full of static at perhaps 2/3 or so, but it was very interesting. I particularly liked your insisting that the human element will always be needed even when technology is commonplace - caregiving, for example. I have heard it said that many nurses left the field when their work became primarily monitoring the machines at the hospital bedside. I have seen the problem firsthand when home care nurses bring their IT on a laptop to their home visit and are only partially present to the patient during the visit. Etcetera. Even in that very early blog interchange about cell phones, the point can be made. A city full of people walking around with their ears plugged or talking on a cell phone become isolated from others around them. And that way-of-being-in-the-world continues even after the cellphone or ear plug is removed....unfortunately. I was choking on something recently -face turning red-blue- in a public eating location (Whole Foods) and no one noticed. I probably needed the Heimlich maneuver...but nobody looked my way! I am still here - but no thanks to that public environment.

static is temporary

Atomuser, Glad you liked the first 2/3rds! The static only lasts about ten seconds or so, so you may want to just mute your speakers for a bit and then it's OK. I agree this problem of technology making us invisible to one another is a serious thing. I can easily see a time when we all have a "help" button on our phones that calls everyone within a 100ft. radius for emergencies. But that's only a limited solution to the specific kind of scenario you describe. A larger and more important issue is to find ways to promote a humanistic (and I mean this in the classic sense) culture of technology use. Maybe OATS can develop a workshop on this, and we can enlist older adults in promoting some best practices around the issue. I.e, put your caller on hold when you reach the register. No phones in movies or speeches (that presentation I gave was slightly marred by a younger woman, oblivious to the effect, talking on her cell phone for part of the speech!!). That sort of thing. Tom