Welcome back to our blog - we've been away for too long! A new semester has started here at C&T, which also means we will be returning to our regular visits to the Ring House every two weeks. We experienced a great turnout today with many eager volunteers from C&T and residents alike. Below, we have posted experiences from several of the volunteers who helped out today:
"Whenever I visit the Ring House, there are always a plethora of excited residents patiently waiting for us with their cellphones, iPads, computers and questions. Usually, I attend to a variety of different students, going through each problem step by step then promptly move on to the next person. Today, however, my first student had me stumped. For the first time, I had been asked a questions I was not able to instantly solve in an area I was so well versed in. Marilyn had pulled out her cellphone, and I immediately began to scroll through the possible questions, mentally preparing to answer any of them.
"I want to put the photos I'd taken with my cellphone onto my iPad," she said while pulling her iPad out of her bag. I can do this, I thought.
"They said I had a thousand pictures on this phone!" she chuckled. Uh oh, this definitely was not going to be as simple as I had first believed.
"This is going to take a while," I sighed, already pressing the buttons on her phone and scrolling through her iPad.
"That's fine," she replied, leaning back in her chair.
Thanks her incredible patience and the magic of technology, I was able to figure the mess out. Using a nifty thing called Bluetooth, I virtually transferred the photos to my smartphone since her flip phone was not able to directly e-mail the photos to her iPad. From my smartphone, I e-mailed the photos to her iPad, successfully transferring the photos from her cellphone to the iPad.
Throughout the whole process, Marilyn patiently listened to my explanations and I even showed her a few new tricks on the iPad; we tried out an application called "Photobooth" in which users can distort their faces into various forms using the built in camera.
I know I had a great time today, and even learned something completely unexpected and new!" ~Grace Chen
A roadmap for the future direction of our Interages program: "In the past, the C&T Tech Helper program has been sort of free-form, simply helping people with whatever technology they had or felt like bringing. However, we've felt that some people are scared off by the idea of technology being too difficult to comprehend, or feeling that since they don’t have technology they need help with, they can’t learn anything. In the future, we plan on using the experience learned in the past few years to incorporate a more efficient way to help spread technology. Ideas include 1-to-1 tutoring similar to what we have in place right now, and setting up a dedicated ‘workshop’ on one topic with pre-prepared materials like PowerPoint presentations that everyone can sit in and listen to. The important part is that as long as seniors have free time, they can always learn about something, as we’re available to help for all kinds of technology at all kinds of levels. Currently, we see many familiar faces in the library every 2 weeks, but we plan on reaching out to others to show them that they can learn too. Not only senior citizens, but other high school students as well, are encouraged to join our program." ~Jerry Yang
"I had a very positive experience at the first Tech Help session of 2013. Today I helped a woman who had issues with the computer. She did not know how to insert a CD and the people at the Ring House were not much help. She said that the staff did it so fast that she did not have a chance to learn it and she was even more confused after the problem was fixed. Luckily, the Tech Help group of C&T Learning Center came to help. I quickly diagnosed help problem, not inserting the CD correctly, and walked her through it, making sure that it was slow and easy to understand. She said she appreciated the help and she fully understood the subject. After the session ended, the woman pulled Mrs. Teng, our group leader, over and said what a wonderful job I had done. She said that I explained it slowly and accurately, in a way that she could understand and fully replicate. After hearing this, I felt that I had a bettered someone’s life and I resolved to help more people so they can pass the information down and help make this place a better environment for them to live in." ~Frank Yang, Jr.
"Today at the Ring House I witnessed all of the new 2013 fall semester CT Technology students develop relationships with the citizens. Seeing the students work so hard from teaching things as easy as how to upload an image from their cell phone to setting up a complex email account. The students tried their hardest and mainly succeeded in teaching the citizens. The students did not only use the computer as a platform to teach on. They also taught them how to use tablets and smart phones. Personally I see a great year for the 2013-2014 school year." ~Bill Wu
"It's Vincent here, and boy did we have fun today at the Ring house. Today, I met a 95 year old man named Max, who was very kind and caring. He asked me to come up to his room to take a look at his computer. When I came into his room, it was very nice. His walls were filled with his wife's paintings, which were so beautiful. His computer was near the entrance next to the door. As I looked through his computer, I saw that his documents were all organized. His computer is already four years old, yet there was no viruses, and everything was in perfect working order. Max had taken care of his computer his son in law had given him and took care of it like it was his own child. After checking out his computer and telling him that it was in great shape. I went down stairs to see if anyone else needed help. Everyone was already hard at work with the elderly and there were no one that needed help. I talked to Debra about a new project for the CT tech helpers, fitness month with the elderly. We talked about how we could show the elderly that age is just a number and is not a factor in living your life. We had a outline of what we wanted to do. First we pair each of our volunteers to a elderly, and they will become a group and work with each other to succeed in what they will be doing. We sketched a outline for what we wanted to do in the next few month. Another day of the Ring house had finished, and I felt satisfied with what I had done today." ~Vincent He
"Whenever I visit the Ring House, there are always a plethora of excited residents patiently waiting for us with their cellphones, iPads, computers and questions. Usually, I attend to a variety of different students, going through each problem step by step then promptly move on to the next person. Today, however, my first student had me stumped. For the first time, I had been asked a questions I was not able to instantly solve in an area I was so well versed in. Marilyn had pulled out her cellphone, and I immediately began to scroll through the possible questions, mentally preparing to answer any of them.
"I want to put the photos I'd taken with my cellphone onto my iPad," she said while pulling her iPad out of her bag. I can do this, I thought.
"They said I had a thousand pictures on this phone!" she chuckled. Uh oh, this definitely was not going to be as simple as I had first believed.
"This is going to take a while," I sighed, already pressing the buttons on her phone and scrolling through her iPad.
"That's fine," she replied, leaning back in her chair.
Thanks her incredible patience and the magic of technology, I was able to figure the mess out. Using a nifty thing called Bluetooth, I virtually transferred the photos to my smartphone since her flip phone was not able to directly e-mail the photos to her iPad. From my smartphone, I e-mailed the photos to her iPad, successfully transferring the photos from her cellphone to the iPad.
Throughout the whole process, Marilyn patiently listened to my explanations and I even showed her a few new tricks on the iPad; we tried out an application called "Photobooth" in which users can distort their faces into various forms using the built in camera.
I know I had a great time today, and even learned something completely unexpected and new!" ~Grace Chen
A roadmap for the future direction of our Interages program: "In the past, the C&T Tech Helper program has been sort of free-form, simply helping people with whatever technology they had or felt like bringing. However, we've felt that some people are scared off by the idea of technology being too difficult to comprehend, or feeling that since they don’t have technology they need help with, they can’t learn anything. In the future, we plan on using the experience learned in the past few years to incorporate a more efficient way to help spread technology. Ideas include 1-to-1 tutoring similar to what we have in place right now, and setting up a dedicated ‘workshop’ on one topic with pre-prepared materials like PowerPoint presentations that everyone can sit in and listen to. The important part is that as long as seniors have free time, they can always learn about something, as we’re available to help for all kinds of technology at all kinds of levels. Currently, we see many familiar faces in the library every 2 weeks, but we plan on reaching out to others to show them that they can learn too. Not only senior citizens, but other high school students as well, are encouraged to join our program." ~Jerry Yang
"I had a very positive experience at the first Tech Help session of 2013. Today I helped a woman who had issues with the computer. She did not know how to insert a CD and the people at the Ring House were not much help. She said that the staff did it so fast that she did not have a chance to learn it and she was even more confused after the problem was fixed. Luckily, the Tech Help group of C&T Learning Center came to help. I quickly diagnosed help problem, not inserting the CD correctly, and walked her through it, making sure that it was slow and easy to understand. She said she appreciated the help and she fully understood the subject. After the session ended, the woman pulled Mrs. Teng, our group leader, over and said what a wonderful job I had done. She said that I explained it slowly and accurately, in a way that she could understand and fully replicate. After hearing this, I felt that I had a bettered someone’s life and I resolved to help more people so they can pass the information down and help make this place a better environment for them to live in." ~Frank Yang, Jr.
"Today at the Ring House I witnessed all of the new 2013 fall semester CT Technology students develop relationships with the citizens. Seeing the students work so hard from teaching things as easy as how to upload an image from their cell phone to setting up a complex email account. The students tried their hardest and mainly succeeded in teaching the citizens. The students did not only use the computer as a platform to teach on. They also taught them how to use tablets and smart phones. Personally I see a great year for the 2013-2014 school year." ~Bill Wu
"It's Vincent here, and boy did we have fun today at the Ring house. Today, I met a 95 year old man named Max, who was very kind and caring. He asked me to come up to his room to take a look at his computer. When I came into his room, it was very nice. His walls were filled with his wife's paintings, which were so beautiful. His computer was near the entrance next to the door. As I looked through his computer, I saw that his documents were all organized. His computer is already four years old, yet there was no viruses, and everything was in perfect working order. Max had taken care of his computer his son in law had given him and took care of it like it was his own child. After checking out his computer and telling him that it was in great shape. I went down stairs to see if anyone else needed help. Everyone was already hard at work with the elderly and there were no one that needed help. I talked to Debra about a new project for the CT tech helpers, fitness month with the elderly. We talked about how we could show the elderly that age is just a number and is not a factor in living your life. We had a outline of what we wanted to do. First we pair each of our volunteers to a elderly, and they will become a group and work with each other to succeed in what they will be doing. We sketched a outline for what we wanted to do in the next few month. Another day of the Ring house had finished, and I felt satisfied with what I had done today." ~Vincent He
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