Elderly relatives want to stay in touch with family. Family caregivers are frequently caring from a distance. In the social media age, training the elderly how to use Twitter, Skype, & instant messengers would be a great asset. I want to create a training course for senior centers & communities.
Elder InterConnected would be a unique program that would take the social media of today - Twitter, Skype, instant messengers, etc - into senior centers and communities for the purpose of making technology accessible and reconnecting families. Grandparents would be able to communicate with grandkids in college or the soldiers overseas (Skype). They would have a unique way of keeping a living life history (Twitter). Adult children could reconnect with their parents anytime, anywhere. The course would remain dynamic and as new social media / Web 2.0 technologies came out, they would be added to the course.
My goals are to raise funds for the following purposes:
1. Hire a curriculum design expert to help develop the curriculum around my idea. 2. Based around my network online on LinkedIn, Twitter (I'm @gerohelper), and other sites & offline through professional connections, find three test markets for course - one urban, one suburban, and one rural. 3. After I've found a willing senior center and a willing senior community for each test market location (travel to each senior center and senior living community and "train the trainers" myself 4. follow up with the test markets for 3 months before implementing on a broader scale.
