Molly Hawk, Resident Services Coordinator at Oakwood Village, helped arrange the visit with CTC cybersecurity instructor Angela Yake and 32 students, who helped 15 seniors.
“I think what it does for the students is it gives them the opportunity to be the professional. They can sit there and take some of the information they’ve used or learned through the classroom and then they get to be the expert,” Yake said.
“It also lets them see that they’re learning cybersecurity for the most part as a career path at CTC but what they’re seeing is that everybody has the need to learn some of the skills that they are learning about in cybersecurity because everybody uses the internet in some way.”
Student Henry Miller said this event gives him experience helping people with their technology and work-based learning hours.
“I think it’s really fun and good for the elderly community,” he said. “I have a grandma at home and I know she has a lot of questions so I’m glad I can help more than just my grandma.”
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
Damewood, who has been a resident at the village for a year, said she’s “computer illiterate.” She said she had a pop up on her screen that said her memory was full, but was not sure what that meant.
“I don’t have a clue about my memory, but I don’t know if that’s a scam or if there’s something wrong with my computer, so I wanted that to be addressed, and (the student) took care of it. Occasionally I’m offline and I don’t know why, (but) he told me what to do to correct that.
Scams can be scary, and Damewood said CTC’s cybersecurity presentation has shown things that she has seen on her screen.
“What I do on my computer, when something’s questionable, I put it on spam to get rid of it. I don’t know if that really takes care of the problem or not, (but) that’s something I do,” she said.
Yake said there are a lot of scams out there and people hear about them in the media, but not everyone sees the same news stories.
“It kind of gets reported after it’s happened, so we’re trying to get ahead of that idea as far as making sure that individuals using these devices know how to stay safe,” she said.
CTC first helped seniors at the Springfield Masonic Home last year, and Yake said they’ve received several calls since then asking if they could provide this service at their facility.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
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