TCNJ News
For Immediate Release
November 16, 2006
TCNJ Freshmen to Help Greenwood Seniors
“Live in a Virtual World”
EWING, NJ … A group of students from The College of New Jersey will be providing instruction to residents of Greenwood House, a nursing home in Ewing, on how to use the Internet on Monday, November 20 at 10:30 a.m. The event, which will take place at the Greenwood House, is hosted by students from a freshman seminar class titled “Living in a Virtual World.”
The students will show residents how to use the Internet to pay bills, order prescription drugs and, perhaps most importantly, connect with loved ones quicker than traditional mail.
“In exploring the impact of the Internet on our lives, both on a personal and global scale, we concluded that the elderly population could benefit tremendously from Internet access,” said Janet Mazur, the professor of the seminar class and an adjunct faculty member in the School of Education.
The first part of the course addressed the challenges and issues that the class would face in preparing the tutorial program.
“How do you convince a reluctant, even fearful group, that this newfangled technology is relevant for them? Or do you?” questioned Mazur. “How do you take into account the physical limitations of a group that can’t easily grasp a mouse or see the typeface on a laptop screen? That was the challenge my 16 students faced.”
To overcome this challenge, the group has made several visits to Greenwood House to conduct research. Through extensive observations and interviews with staff and residents, the students have designed a lively and innovative program to engage the residents based on their needs and interests. The design of the program considers the music, entertainment, and software that would be most appealing and useful to the residents.
The students also addressed technical difficulties in wiring Greenwood House for the Internet and adjusting computer equipment to accommodate the residents.
“The project has enabled me to work with the class on multiple dimensions. Not only have they researched and written extensively on the digital divide and its implications, but they have experienced firsthand the difficulties of implementing a real-world program aimed at bridging that gap,” says Mazur.
As part of the First-Year Experience program at the College, students are required to engage in such community service activities. The Bonner Center, the College’s community service headquarters, has teamed up with students to help satisfy the requirements through special community engaged learning days.
By mobilizing small communities of students from every floor in the freshmen dorms, 18 different service events have been arranged to allow students to learn, serve, and reflect together. The events focus on a range of themes including environment, homelessness, and diversity issues.
Each event has four main components: learning, hands-on service, reflection, and visions for future service.
“Our whole goal with our community engagement days is to create positive and productive experiences for students, so they’re inspired to continue to volunteer,” said Pat Donohue, the Bonner Center’s director of community-engaged learning.
About The College of New Jersey
TCNJ currently is ranked as one of the 75 "Most Competitive" schools in the nation by Barron's Profiles of American Colleges, is rated the No. 1 public institution in the northern region of the country by U.S. News & World Report, and is one of Kiplinger's Personal Finance's top educational values in the country. In 2006, the College joined an elite group of institutions when it was awarded a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Fewer than 10 percent of the nation's colleges and universities share this honor.
