Mesa Life Options: Twitter & Facebook

July 10, 2009

Earlier today I did a workshop through Mesa Life Options where I taught Twitter and Facebook to Baby Boomers. This was a nonprofit, two hour “workshop” with limited technology. I was invited through some colleagues at Mesa Community College to run this workshop and I was eager to address this generation, since I was use to working with Gen Xers like myself and Millennials like my students.

As I prepped I was relatively unsure how to proceed, but I knew I had very limited time (I could spend a full day teaching either Facebook or Twitter alone). I also knew this generation had different values, interests, and perspectives than mine. For example, many were retired and/or had community ed volunteerism they did regularly. They also were much more hesitant about publicizing any part of their lives than the Millenials who post EVERYTHING online.

I felt that for this audience, videos that they could access at the leisure would be best, so I made a handout for each application, set up wiki sites for the materials, and then began making and compiling videos.

When I arrived at the session, there was no wifi and the hardwire left much to be desired. Of course, we do what we can as presenters/educators so I improvised. Can you imagine teaching Twitter to a room of 55-80 year olds using a whiteboard? It was relatively ironic for 15 minutes. We were able to have the projector set up in the next room, and we all moved over there.

One man said he didn’t think he’d use this stuff, so I asked him what he does. He said he was a director (?) at Mesa Arts Center. Of course, BOTH of these apps would be perfect for him and his work. I hope he took something home.

I discussed Twitter first, planning to spend more time on Facebook since I did see many of them wanted to connect with out of town family. One woman said “My grand kid won’t pick a phone to call me but he’s always writing on there or putting pictures there.” I good naturedly told her I could teach her to stalk him. (Yes, this is tongue in cheek.) I could tell other people did have side groups, volunteerism, and organizations where they could use these. Facebook would’ve been longer but the start was a little rocky and everyone always needs a break.

With Twitter I discussed the four Is of Instructional, Informative, Inquiry, and Insightful developed by Biray Alsac. Instructional is that information someone can tweet that others can use and learn from (free legal advice from a retired lawyer, etc…); Informative is that information that someone can tweet that is perhaps an online news article or breaking news in their area about something that affects multiple people; Inquiry is that information that someone can tweet that is perhaps a question they have about something local (how long is that special art show running) to something national (when are the elections for XXX); Lastly, insightful, in terms specifically with this group, is that information that someone can tweet that is perhaps a life lessons learned and is now being instilled upon others publicly.

At the break some people needed to leave and I handed out cards, and then we moved into Facebook. With 40 minutes left, I felt that signing in, creating a profile, posting statuses, commenting, uploading photos, finding friends, and searching for alumni were the most important points to learn. Now we all know I cannot teach those all in 40 minutes, but I did over view them all and navigate the Boomers to my online videos teaching them all of those actions in Facebook.

The audience was very receptive to my work and eager to learn. They definitely did have questions about security. I showed them how to protect updates in Twitter and block users, and how to build limited profiles in Facebook.

Afterward they all took my cards, and actually a Mesa city Life Long Learners group has contacted me to repeat the presentation for their group. The Mesa Life Options director has also said she will be in contact for me to work with the local rotary to do some of this work as well.

If you’d like to review the work I’ve done for them, I would love your feedback. http://devoncadams.pbworks.com

Posted in conferences, technology