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KIDTECH is the nonprofit initiative of Hampton-based Zel
Technologies. Scores of Hampton Roads children have received free computer
and Internet training in its brightly lit lab on West Queens Way.
But the lab is for more than children. Free instruction
is also open to senior citizens. Elderly residents have found out about the
opportunity. Eagerly, they went back to school.
No kidding. In fact, two weeks ago ZelTech had a graduation.
Ten elderly residents completed a 10-week intermediate
computer class. These students attended Tuesday and Thursday morning classes.
They are now able to create databases and spreadsheets.
Before advancing to the intermediate class, these students
learned computer terminology, how to find their way around a keyboard, how
to manipulate the toolbar at the top of the monitor, how to cut and paste
text and how to use an electronic Spellchecker. Beginners also learned to
make computer labels and envelopes, send e-mail, and surf the Internet.
The class received guidance from two former students who
were volunteer senior instructor trainees: Hampton residents Gladys Billups
and Spivey Bradshaw.
Billups is a 1954 Pheonix High School alumna. She retired
in 1989 as a hospital secretary. She found out about the ZelTech computer
training late in 1997 after reading a business story in the Daily Press.
"I was not into computers," she said. "But
I was interested in learning.
"When I read that it was free, I said to myself, 'Let
me jump on this.' "
Billups did in February 1998.
The training, she said, "was absolutely priceless.
We send e-mails and I do my household inventory on the computer."
Billups couldn't tell me the brand of her computer system
at home, or whether its chip is a Pentium or something else. But she knows
that it has a modem. With that, she is able to talk to people across town
or around the world. "I e-mail family and friends, even my neighbor's
son who works in Saudi Arabia," she said. "That's my farthest."
When ZelTech leaders approached Billups about becoming
a volunteer instructor, she said, "I can't do that." But Joan Dooling,
a retired Navy captain and the intermediate class instructor, insisted, "Yes,
you can."
Billups followed orders. She worked one-on-one with the
other seniors or jumped around when students yelled, "Hey, I need you
here."
Texas native Spivey Bradshaw was based at Langley Air Force
Base when he retired in 1980 at the rank of senior master sergeant. "At
that time I wanted to know something about computers," he said. "I
didn't know how I was going to adjust to retired life. I knew computers were
going to be the coming thing."
"It was different then. There was no such thing as
'Windows.' Writing computer programs was not for me."
Time passed. In 1997, Bradshaw took his 5-year-old great
nephew to participate in the KIDTECH program. There he found out that senior
citizens could take classes, too. Bradshaw, 69, called learning Windows 95
and Microsoft Works "getting your hands dirty and learning how a computer
really works. It makes things so simple."
Bradshaw says he corresponds frequently by e-mail with
a nephew who is in the Army and is based in San Antonio.
Bradshaw said that sending e-mail "is better than
using the telephone. You can send graphics or a picture by e-mail and do it
right away."
Bradshaw said that before the classes many elderly people
could not talk about computers with their grandchildren and ended up sitting
at the dinner table or in the living room feeling left out. Now, they join
in the conversation.
Indeed, participation by senior citizens everywhere is
soaring. In the last year, Americans over age 55 who are online doubled to
9 percent, according to the March 22 US News & World Report.
The computer classes at Zel Technologies prove that e-mail
and the Internet are not simply for the young, but for a broader base -- the
young at heart.
For more information about Zel Technologies, please contact
us as follows:
Zel Technologies LLC (ZelTech)
Attention: Corporate Affairs
54 Old Hampton Lane
Hampton, VA 23669
Telephone: (757) 722-5565
Fax: (757) 722-8516
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