Click the link to see all responses responses to our pre-meeting survey..

Responses

Most of us on the committee use our technology for a range of purposes including communication, social media, learning, reading, gaming, organization, photos, shopping, financial, medical care/reminders and navigating our lives.  With Tablets for Seniors, we wish to pursue the most narrow slice of attainable functions that will help our population connect and engage.  What are the essentials?

Consider these questions:

• What are functional areas where apps and skills that could tackle the loneliness challenge and help older adults?  For example, communication, social media, games, shopping.  
• Consider the apps that you use frequently, what are the functions that you would consider essential for our mission?
• What community information sources, e.g. news, community announcement, weather, would be important to deliver to and engage this community?
• How frequently are caregivers or family members involved in these situations? 
• What security concerns do we need to consider?

(4) GFS Digital Connection Committee Meeting #2 – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WTFIgid6Y4

Transcript:
(00:00) I just want to put our agenda in in front of you um and and once again uh just a reminder that we are recording this Zoom meeting um and uh if you do need to come back and revisit any of our our conversations or questions and so forth you you’ll be able to do that and um we have some um um you know we we also you know want to remind you that you know your questions and comments are really an important part you know of this process so please don’t hesitate to share so so with that I’m gonna let Patsy kind of kick off the
(00:36) this introduction process and Patsy we were thinking that um maybe only the first timers okay well we certainly can do that but the first timers won’t know who anybody else is so that would be the one question oh okay all right well let’s go let’s go around and we’ll just you know we can we can make it fairly brief so I like I like your your thought okay so with that being the case um John just to start it out so that everybody is tracking okay we’ll ask you to do it your first intro okay but again
(01:13) everyone with the name your name your organization your interest in tech for seniors what has brought you to this committee and what your favorite technology is that would be terrific so done um I’m Don Frederickson and I have the privilege of of actually working with the gifts for seniors in Carolyn of gifts for seniors and in helping to to drive some of these conversations um I I’m a retired guy who’s looking at doing some good and along the way I have done a fair amount of training and have published a website um seniorchclub.com
(01:50) that is intended to help older adults primarily with their iPhone and iPad technology um I’ve been doing that for about five years and it’s been fun watching people respond to this technology so that’s kind of my interest um what is your favorite technology do I have to say the same thing I said last week passing um I don’t think so I think you can say whatever it is changes right yeah it changes um I think that um you know this week it’s it’s been fun I’ve been up at our cabin and I said
(02:26) I’ve really enjoyed my Apple watch um and it has been you know it’s it’s been great to have my pockets free of of any phones and still get my you know notifications and being connected so that’s kind of where I’m at this week thank you wonderful uh Jamie you want to go ahead hi everybody I’m Jamie Andrews I’m the executive director of the American choral Directors Association of Minnesota um and I have uh a lot of long experience or history and interest with uh creative aging which is the
(03:04) um a growing movement of art making with older adults it’s a movement around the pedagogy methodology about uh art making with uh with that population and um uh and a favorite technology I guess maybe after this this great weekend um like uh shovels and Spades and a lawnmower so I was we we did also my wife and I did all sorts of uh yard work and the yarn finally looks much better good for you good for you alrighty Joan what about you um I’m Joan green I’m out in the Washington DC area and I uh have a
(03:47) business called Innovative speech therapy for about 30 years um and I’m I work I work with people of all ages and all abilities but I’m really particularly interested in helping adults I I started my career working in hospitals with stroke and head injury survivors and people with neurological impairments and I’ve always just been very interested in Tech the whole time through so now I’ve be I call myself an elder Tech advisor and Don was in one of my groups and I’m really trying to gather together lots of like-minded
(04:22) professionals so that we can join forces and help seniors my parents are 89 and 90. and my they’re really into using their Echo Show and their smartphones they really have a lot of tech and they’re pretty good and they’re pretty much the only ones in their entire Assisted Living location and there’s no one really there to help them or to teach them and I think that we need to change that so and in terms of my favorite tech oh gosh I don’t know with so many I guess I would say that um right now I’m
(04:52) really enamored with chat GPT and figuring out all the ways that it can help me do my job better wonderful thank you so much Joan Johnny seniors um in the recent months I I’ve I’ve had tasks in actually helping some isolated seniors in what you know with their technology and and doing some some things around their around their home so I just kind of worked out that I started working here like seven months ago and kind of getting involved in this and I’ve already kind of been doing it without even really realizing it
(05:40) and what do you have as your particular technology that I would say I would change mine to uh to Wi-Fi and specifically mesh Wi-Fi because without that technology I wouldn’t be able to do all the things that I actually utilize in the house excellent that thank you so much Johnny you’re welcome Paul hi I’m Paul fulles um I’m helping advise uh gifts for seniors also I’m an advisor to teen Tech tutors in Alexandria which is high school students Helping Seniors Thrive with tech and I’ve been helping
(06:26) to narrow the digital divide for about 25 years I initiated the first PC Recycling directory recycling repurposing PCS to non-profits I helped start a class at a community college which was 99 immigrants how to use the internet this was back in 2000 early 2000s when people didn’t know how to turn a computer on didn’t know what a mouse was um I started with helping my mother who sworn ever ever to touch a computer so I broke my teeth on her because my someone went to McAllister came to from Washington DC area and she
(07:09) said how are we going to keep in touch and he said email so my mother got hooked up to the Internet and I never had peace from that point on if you didn’t get her email that day she obviously had a virus and I had to go 27 miles to show Mom you don’t have a virus you just didn’t get email today my favorite tech this week uh is earbuds uh bluetooth earbuds that my son gifted me uh because I’m able to listen to quiet um waves and screams to block out noise and also to use for communicating and my
(07:50) favorite tech is zoom uh in November 2020 I got zoomed to suspend their 40 minute limit on free accounts so everybody could commune over the holidays so that’s my story and I’ll stick to it that’s great Paul thank you so much Joel foreign happy to be here my name is Joel parivo of uh my own company privo Partners along with my business partner and wife we do a bunch of stuff um public relations and Communications and strategic help with companies looking to especially my sweet spot uh integrate technology and Healthcare especially
(08:32) long-term care I’m a long time Senior Care operator so I’m a licensed nurse go administrator and I’ve overseen a region of assisted livings uh and before breaking away to work independently so it’s kind of my quick background I’m passionate about technology on a personal level I love it uh in so many different parts of my life and I love bridging that Gap to help seniors wherever I can um naturally I’m the tech support my family for my mom but uh with my career I was able to I continue to be able to
(09:04) help seniors um uh leverage the use of Technology hopefully to make life easier or better so that’s just a personal passion I’m really happy that I could connect with Carolyn and be here uh personal favorite it’s really tough I think I talked about my automatic Shades last time but I heard the Apple watch and I’m going to say that’s been one that’s really uh been a big deal for our family lately because I have two kids and I they’re they’re on the cusp you know they’re young for
(09:36) needing a phone by any means but there’s a lot of stuff that starts to happen even at 11 and 9 where they’re maybe at the play date or at a friend’s house and having a piece of a device they can connect uh without having a phone to be responsible for has been really awesome and it’s helped them learn Independence and learn responsibility to take good care of it it’s been a really good tool for us and um and it’s fun we have the little walkie-talkie functions so we’ll walking them and uh check on them
(10:06) whether we’re all at home somewhere or if we’re out and about uh but you know with running a baseball and soccer practices and all these things it’s like a nice uh little safety net for them to know they can check their own schedule they can connect with us anytime they need it um so really a remarkable device in that regard as far as uh ease of use and just an elegant solution for that before someone or when someone doesn’t need or want a phone so I would agree with that one that’s great thank you so much Joel
(10:36) Christina hi everybody my name is Christina Kwan I own Phoenix Hall I’m I’m sorry Phoenix Cove I do oh okay I do own both I own Phoenix uh Cove Adult Day Care we are located in my venue which is Phoenix Hall Event Center so um that’s where I get the two names mixed up but um anyway my seniors are the Asian Elders specifically the Cambodian Elders um although we do have a few that’s Vietnamese and Chinese as well I’ve had that business since 2015.
(11:17) um prior to covid we were at close to wow um maybe 40 uh 45 Elders in our adult day like on a daily basis in the center um after covid we hardly get you know I would say I don’t think we’ve had 20 over uh on any given day yet but we do serve a lot of Elders who are at home so through covid we started home delivery of uh meals of grocery bags and meals and we still continue to do that now um through covet I when people were talking about um virtual programming I said there’s no way I’m gonna teach my elders how to how
(12:08) to do that because one they don’t speak English two they don’t read and write and um they proved me wrong and I’m so happy they proved me wrong because um up even today they are still on zoom and they still log online uh some of them who cannot come physically are still doing Zoom with us each day and my favorite technology I’m always on my phone so I guess that’s my favorite technology wonderful all right thank you so much Christina and I still remember the Bingo story from last time love that love that
(12:45) Carolyn how about you early I think you took your headset off Maybe no oh Carolyn any luck if not why don’t we move along because I want to make sure we don’t run out of time and you all know Carolyn so um we’ll go with that and and I talked last time and if you all of you looked at uh the video from last time Etc we should be good done with that are you okay going ahead yes absolutely I’m going to share again our slide deck I wanted to do a recap on
(13:51) um on meeting one and and so this is like that section you know if you’re if you’re watching um you know if you’re watching succession on HBO you know this is where they say previously on and except the one option that I’m not going to give you you know I know a lot of you are are sitting there with your remote ready to hit that lower right hand corner of the screen so that you don’t have to watch the highlights from the from the the previous foreign sorry I slipped back um what we did last week was was we
(14:32) spent some time um starting out by focusing on the gifts for seniors Mission we reviewed the tablets for seniors program and and highlighted some of the challenges uh we’ve already mentioned that we had one of our presentation highlights are sharing how relates was that if you want something to be successful um with our population you associated with Bingo right Christina um and uh and so that was the highlight um we presented some homework last week and and most of you completed the homework and and shared a story about
(15:13) the impact of technology uh we had uh on you know we had a number of you that also completed our general digital inclusion survey which we are going to be sharing um sharing with the um the office of broadband development in the state of Minnesota um and then I also want to remind you that uh back on the engaged that is you know you think on the screen and it is Media one that you will be able to get back to the that we talked about uh you’ll be able to just you’ll be able to get to the recording if you so desire
(16:00) um second item you know it was I thought it was interesting in the last couple of weeks where um our Surgeon General the U.S should you know announced is um publication and announced a new priority for his office around social connection and loneliness and and you know one of the takeaways from that is that loneliness and social isolation represents significant threats to individual and societal health and well-being um this kind of made me feel good in regards to the of this community of this Committee in that our our work is On
(16:52) Target you know if those of you who who you know who do work or volunteer work because you want to you you want to serve the greater good um you know this you know this seems to be on target um so when you have you know when you have that happy hour conversation or if you if you have a conversation and and it ever comes around to asking so what do you do in your spare time and and you would be able to then say well I’m I’m I’m dealing with a significant Public Health crisis I’m I’m trying to
(17:32) alleviate loneliness and social isolation um if you are so interested um you will find the link to the surgeon Generals Report and um and um also the framework right his framework for how to deal with this crisis uh you’ll find that on the meeting one page so go down there’s a section that talks about links and resources um so if you are so interested it’s about an 81-page report so it’s it’s fairly heavy reading um you know the best thing about this type of report is that um you know you have links to all of the
(18:14) research that that was cited and so there’s there’s some interesting um you know research articles that that you might also be able to find so with that uh I’d like to get into today’s question um and so so if you recall you know we have tried to frame the the work of this committee around three questions and so for this particular meeting we are here to collaborate and share insights around how technology can help us with this Public Health crisis and to also spend some time collaborating around the apps
(19:02) or the functions that that might be most critical to alleviating social isolation and loneliness um before we jump into this discussion I I do want to remind people that you know and we talked about this last week how the focus of this effort is is really pretty narrow in that we are talking about a about serving a population that is not only socially isolated but they have restricted resources so in other words without our help they probably would not be able to afford this technology and then thirdly um we find that this population
(20:00) will tend to be technology novices they may not have experience with this space so with that you know we’re really starting to ask this fairly narrow and essential question what are the essential apps that might be most useful to help these older adults say connected and engaged that’s really the question of the day now before we get into that I read a a wonderful piece of work from Joan who happens to be on our committee and um it was five tips and and I thought it might be appropriate for us to hear just
(20:58) a little bit from Joan on these five tips and so John would you um I I have these spread on on two different uh slides would would you walk us through um some of your thinking sure I mean I was just um I just sort of did this one afternoon pretty quickly actually and I was thinking of what do I do the most often with people actually of all ages with the widest range of challenges I I feel that I often do the same things over and over again and I always go for that lowest hanging fruit like what’s the easiest I can thing that what are the
(21:40) easiest things that I can offer to have the biggest impact for the greatest number of people and I just tried to make it easy so so many people have reading challenges for different reasons and all of all of our tablets and phones and computers can read text aloud and can get rid of you know can make it easy get rid of the ads and change the font just make things easier um so that was tip number one and then actually how you do that depends on what device you have so it might get a little bit complicated but and I don’t know if
(22:16) we want to limit this to the tablets that they’re having but you know it’s amazing what’s included on our devices that people don’t realize the second thing just to think about is if writing is hard explore other avenues to get your message across and so I you know so the speech to text all all of our devices have a microphone that you can just talk and have the words type or talk and have an audio recording um the third one is um what was it oh looking for ways to reduce distractions and you know so do
(22:52) not disturb is on the Mac and you know just looking for anything you can do to get rid of all the noise and focus on what you’re doing and then from productivity using the built-in calendars and the built-in reminders and the built-in timers these are really a lot of things but I I sort of grouped them together and then on the next slide um oh there’s a lot that you can do to help with communication so while I’m a speech pathologist and there are a lot of augmentative and alternative apps and devices like really expensive things
(23:25) there are so many basic ways we can help people that might have Dementia or Aphasia or different problems with communication just using the maps app or the photos app or the contacts you know just using those different um apps that are part of all of our devices and then the last thing is to embrace the smart assistance and the AI so there’s a lot of word prediction going on now you know there are all kinds of tools that help you with your writing or if it’s if you um I really like the smart assistance the Siri the
(23:58) Alexa that that can help you do things easier to manage your environment um or answer questions for you so that that’s how I broke down just five basic things it really it’s there’s a lot to all that I’m going to stop to share for a second give us a chance to talk wasn’t that isn’t that a great simple little list of of of strategies that we might be able to employ let’s hear let’s hear some comments some thoughts anything I have something um when we were going through so we actually were able to because of our
(24:40) delivery services we were able to see these Elders on a weekly basis and I think that’s how um at at teaching them because it was every week it was something uh every week it was I couldn’t log on or they lost the the link to the the um what do you call the hot spot or um they didn’t know how to log on to something all these are great ideas but each of these pieces involves like training how to do it and training in multiple like not repetitive and it takes somebody there you know for us when we did it it was every week it was
(25:27) something that they had um lost and every week it was um possibly multiple times teaching the same thing again so all these ideas are great ideas but how do we get there yeah yeah that’s a good point um and and next week you know next week is is part of our question for meeting three we are going to be talking about you know really the learning and the support challenges and and sharing ideas and and so yeah and and uh I I totally agree with with that sentiment any other thoughts I would reiterate what Christina was
(26:09) talking about is really focusing on what are the key things to try to get them comfortable and really tracking with what they need to you so they get more confidence and competence so you can kill keep building on it but trying to focus on just a couple of things not overwhelming them for the shutdown [Music] I like the list thank you very much Joe just so you know this list went out with my marketing stuff and so it was covering the whole range of people that I see so it wasn’t really just for this target
(26:44) market you know what I mean I was trying to be very broad-minded but I totally agree I mean when I’m when I’m working with my parents it’s hard it’s frustrating and I show them something and they forget and I have to show it again and give visual cues and they need peer support they need constant somebody there constantly because things are always going wrong so with this I think I think my list really encompassed too much for what to get started with with this population yeah good it’s very inclusive it’s very
(27:18) important um can I just break in for just um you know something that struck me about Jones list was her number five that that talked about the importance of you know of the assistance like if we’re talking about the fire tablets then that would be Alexa and now I just happen to have Alexa I know this is a smart this is an iPhone I happen to have Alexa on this device and and I just wanted to try a couple things um so let me let me summon Alexa can you tell me about the gifts for seniors digital connection committee
(28:16) I had programmed it to give a custom answer can I try it one more time what can you tell me about the gifts for seniors digital connection committee the gifts for seniors digital connection committee is an awesome collection of individuals who are dedicated to helping alleviate social isolation and loneliness in older adults by providing tablets to seniors who otherwise wouldn’t have been see Alexa might be useful one more question who is that the committee includes Patsy Paul Carolyn Don Christina Sue Joan Jamie
(29:02) Joel John and Julia kind of funny that’s a lot of J names for a small committee these people all have great insight into the challenges addressed see you know I I think this Alexa is pretty darn smart right um so let’s uh let’s let’s continue with our with our discussion by the way you can set up you can you know you can program your own routines um in Alexa and it’s it’s not all that difficult to do um and you know you know one of my thoughts is you know if we have Alexa on these on these Amazon Fire tablets sorry
(29:44) I don’t have an answer for that sorry uh wouldn’t it be nice if we could you know provide some insight maybe some learning you know opportunities you know food for thought as we as we go forward um let let’s go and let’s get back to our question all right so in in preparing for this meeting I I asked you to to complete a survey that I thought would be useful for us to start the conversation about what apps and functions you know are going to serve us well in this particular challenge now we could say you know we could dream
(30:36) that you know in a perfect world uh just for seniors would have unlimited funding we’d have all kinds of resources that we could put in front of people and and we’ve been totally customize you know these tablets in order to meet the needs of specific individuals right but we don’t have that right that’s that’s that’s at least not in the near Horizon from from what we can see and and so so I think we we’re going to have to we’re going to have to look at our our you know presentation of
(31:24) apps and functions and and start to look at what well how do we do this right and so um so I thought a good way to start this conversation would be to share the results of the survey and and if you’re okay with this I’m going to skip down to the your personal technology use and and I actually wanted to start here by the way if you want to get to this full display of graphic you can find this under links and resources um under the meeting to you know online page so so one of the first questions that we
(32:11) posed to the group was right well connect connection seems to be important you know how can we help these older adults stay connected to their their communities and stay connected to the world and and when you look at this result right when you when you see this the blue bar is is I asked if you use this technology yourself and so all of the respondents from the committee said that yes I you use text messaging I use email I use video calling and and across this group it didn’t seem that there was um you know that text messaging maybe
(33:04) would be a nice to have um whereas you know we saw a little more response around the uh the use of email right as a critical resource and then even more response around the use of video calling as in you know FaceTime Zoom Skype WebEx and and so forth now let’s let’s pause for a bit and and see if there’s any you know any thoughts or questions about about you know this thinking you know so if if you were in a situation where you wanted to you know deploy a small number of apps or functions on an Amazon Fire tablet
(33:52) um is is there thinking in the group that email is kind of critical let’s start with that is email critical I’m seeing some nods any comments I think they are critical yeah uh Christina the this the seniors the older adults that you work with did they use email no no so my comment would be it depends on who your target is and um they don’t use email but what they you do use is Facebook and messenger and they This Is How They communicate now through with their relatives in the other country in other countries
(34:35) um that’s that’s good site any other thoughts um and so there there seems to there are broader consensus that that equipping these Amazon Fire tablets with video calling is in Zoom or whatever is pretty critical what’s what’s the thinking there everybody kind of nodding their head it probably it comes with Google meet I guess I mean that’s one-to-one video calling but people probably don’t use it as much as Zoom they’re not as familiar with it um one of the questions that I had around some of these Technologies
(35:20) is is getting these older adults connected to you know the right Zoom meeting all right so if if you have a bingo group Christina that’s you know that or exercise group that that is is being scheduled um how how are you Distributing the you know the zoom link as an example so we don’t change the zoom link so on Zoom you can keep the the ID meeting ID the same or you use your personal meeting ID so we don’t we make sure we don’t change that at all otherwise they will not be able to get on so we give them a number
(36:00) we give them a piece of paper with the number and show them where to put that number in um and then um you know of course showing them how to mute and unmute and now they’re all getting really good at it but um at the beginning we actually had to figure out ourselves how to do that because in Zoom you actually have to tell it when you join a meeting to either mute or unmute or a video or not no video so we actually had to help them set it up where they’re not muting and they’re not um the the video is on because it was
(36:37) hard to teach them how to get on but once they were on um if we programmed it so that they’re they’re not muted and their video is always on we were successful in giving them a number and if they lost that um you know if they it’s it’s just um we we were able to put join or how did I do that well it was just using the same ID you can’t change it and and definitely you cannot put a password on it so that’s so that’s that’s a great idea particularly when you have a sort of a closed group right
(37:17) um now what if what if if a a person wants to connect with you know family and friends more of an ad hoc group so that’s when they use Facebook that’s where they use Facebook okay because they can see the names they can see the names they have the friends and they’re able to use Messenger to call video call we actually that messenger was one of the first things that we tried because um we thought that would be the easiest but what messenger didn’t have was the ability for us to mute and unmute and so
(37:54) they’re talking all over um they get too excited and they talk and they they talk over themselves and then you can’t hear anything and so so with messenger you know so you know many of us that work you know off of Windows machines or you know laptops and so forth you know we always mess with um so if if one of these people wasn’t interested and or were we encouraging people to get involved in the social media aspect of that um you know I guess on the devices messenger comes across separately right it’s a separate app and and so that that
(38:38) makes it feasible any other thoughts on on this this connection strategy I I would just add uh similar to what uh Christina’s experience running a courses uh art courses for older adults it was sending uh the same Zoom link out uh to emails that was the that was by hands down the most effective way um and it was the same Zoom link but had to be resent every week for the same course um so you know session after session we had experimented with uh learning management system and it was uh too many too many variables
(39:19) um so when partly with our capacity to be able to deliver that it was that was the easiest way um uh to to to make that connection yeah and so in that particular case that that also heightens the need for the email right being able to right to send an email to to people so that they can we can then distribute the connection link great good thank you thank you Jamie any other thoughts Caroline let me know yeah we can hear you okay okay good [Music] um I just had a weird situation with a friend of mine through Facebook this
(39:56) week where like their account was hacked and so I’m just wondering Christina if that’s ever because you know obviously we can you know we’re gonna do a piece on um you know um I guess fraud and scams and things like that and Internet Security but um I’m just curious if that’s ever because it because now it’s happened to me personally and I I barely use Facebook I’m basically on there to run gifts for seniors account um and and you know so you know the system was hacked so I guess I was just
(40:29) curious if it’s happened to any of your participants actually recently too and and so when that happened so we have we’ve taught the new Zoom but there’s a few that still use messenger so when we when they log in it’s web it’s um on two platforms a few of them are using Zoom a few of them are using Messenger so the messenger ones the one um had hacked and so um had to help them create a new profile and then you know refund them again yes okay look any other comments on on this space you know I I think we’ve got some
(41:13) takeaways you know from here um right in terms of um you know of the the fire tablets and and what might be deployed um let’s move on and done we have another party who has just joined us oh yep hi Susan are we going to ask her to do her introductions that would be your problem yep I think so um do we have to tell her what what our requirements are for introductions or should we just surprise her sing my fight song perfect perfect I like it I like it so Susan Minnesota hats off to thee to our colors true we shall ever be firm
(42:00) and strong United are we for the U of M there you go so now any other Gophers right in this group any other U of M grads you know the U of M actually has seven fight songs and and being a four-year member of Minnesota marching band you know we you know we learned all seven of the Minnesota fight signs so how many of you know Susan oh hail Minnesota oh my gosh there’s just for there’s just all of them I had three Minnesota March Minnesota March oh yeah there’s there’s there’s many many many there’s there’s
(42:44) those that are official and there’s those that are not so there’s more questions I put up I put up the um um the introduction request so Susan if you can give us your name the organization you’re interested in tech for seniors and your personal favorite technology okay where did that come up from where did that go I don’t see it but you said that just Don has got it up on the screen or did ah The Brady Bunch right here at a moment I will pull this off my second screen name name is um Susan krautbauer like sauerkraut
(43:36) the organization that I represent for my full-time position is a non-profit called digitunity and we have been working since 1984 taking technology out of its first place of use refurbishing repurposing it and donating it into non-profits all across North America 1500 nonprofits across North America plus more that are using it for digital digital equity for for every you can imagine from Seniors to folks with disabilities to marginalized vulnerable populations Justice involved individuals kids students families you
(44:14) name it so that’s what I do in my day job and my night job I I help people in transition get better jobs open businesses Etc my interest in tech for seniors is obviously if I’m I spent I’m not only in a non-profit that is deeply embedded in in getting computers to where they need to be in digital literacy skills and everything with it but I also know Carolyn and I’ve served on boards with her before absolutely adore her and last but not least spent 20 years in the technology space prior to going into the non-profit space and I
(44:50) forget what the last one was but that’s okay oh your personal favorite technology oh oh anything Apple I’m an apple girl my first Apple was a 2C okay thank you Susan that dates you a little bit Susan that dates you a little bit objects are older than they appear yeah [Music] okay uh so we’re back to our survey results so um thank you for that Susan thanks thanks for the comments on the connection items and then I I put a list of other possible applications in in front of people you know asking people
(45:35) you know of these functions um what would be essential right I’m going to scan across the whole list here kind of slowly and there’s a handful that I think we should talk about all right and see what the thinking is and so I’m going to go back to the um the start of this list we we can see it on the screen the first one was the web browser and so there there’s there seemed to be a fairly significant response that the web browser is is pretty essential and and I I’d like to I’d like to talk about that a little bit
(46:23) what are the key elements um you know for this particular population what would we be expecting them these these um isolated older adults to use on the web browser thoughts Jamie Joel from my population we we don’t um we don’t use it we pre-program it in so like YouTube is very popular you know so we just have those icons on the tablets for them okay and these are 500 Degrees between go ahead yes yeah I would agree between uh having the preset like Christine just said and then um when possible and and the times
(47:30) there’s a bookmark I did that for my mom for example um even through through uh the internet if there’s something that shared through the browser if she’s doing it just anything to make it one click away essentially is ideal so kind of any system like that to me that the less clicks or the less navigating the better yeah okay yeah no I think I think that’s that that’s some good Insight Joe do you have any thoughts about web browsers and no I I really agree because I was thinking well what are people going to want to research the
(48:03) weather maybe they do a televisit but a lot of those things are apps I I don’t you know so I I think um I I do the same thing for my parents well for my dad more than my mom but I any place he wants to go repeatedly I make it look like an app on the front page with you know as a shortcut because he’s just always making mistakes typing in URLs and things so it’s still nice to have the browser though because we need that to make the shortcuts yeah okay um I know that I know that there has been um and I have used in the past there’s
(48:42) several different kinds and I don’t know if you guys have had a discussion about this but if you’ve if you’ve ever heard of the I’m going to call it an overlay app called Oscar senior so if you’ve got and I’ll uh it’s it’s it really when we talk about that it becomes I can pull that up for you really fast if you just look at Oscar senior.
(49:03) com the screen itself on that tablet has like pictures of avatars of the people that they want to call it has main you can you can create tiles that have a main the things that they need to go to or want to go to and it makes it very very simple for people with vision problems with dexterity problems Etc to be able to get to and navigate those things but you can still have it take you to the regular browser if you need that as well so there’s like almost like an escape button but it creates a really simple thing that you can program and you can
(49:34) also pre-load curriculum if there’s things that you want in there as well right so you can just have an app like Joan said that launches you know a curriculum so what advice does that work that um I believe that is um both Android and Apple compatible I believe okay um I haven’t looked at it in a while but yeah so so one of the limitations of um the Amazon tablets is you know they they don’t give us as many options although I have read that you could sideload you know a new interface like this strategy but then anytime you
(50:17) um you know you you you then lose your ability to do updates you know without without bringing them in but that’s that’s it let’s explore this right let’s you know let’s explore that because you know as much as we like the price point of the Amazon Fire tablets there are some limitations with it and I I like that idea you know the the possibility of Amazon Fire tablets you know if I can use the example of you know make it look like a grand pad you know very simple you know very simple presentation yeah thank you Susan any
(50:53) other thoughts on the web browser so just in summary I have you know you can use um build the shortcut shortcut so it looks like an app on the main page Jones suggestion or um Joel said the bookmark function and what I use in my or personal life is I pin the tabs in in the search okay let’s talk about YouTube um so there was some thought that YouTube was a pretty essential yeah Christina mentioned it um you know I you know in my training I tell people all the time that you know you can learn anything you want to learn on
(51:40) um on YouTube I I converted myself into a an appliance repair person here just last weekend and fixed a clothes dryer something that that I would not have been able to have even taken that sucker apart without without the YouTube insights um uh so Christina you you talked about YouTube is popular what how are they using it is it entertainment is it learning is it music all of the above all of the above and they’re using it for news too which I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing but um and
(52:12) these are in different languages yeah so um whether they’re in their you know we have seniors that use it for Cambodian or Vietnamese um and you can search anything on YouTube yeah I would guess that there’s more International stuff um that’s great um other thoughts in this space that you’ve seen older adults use YouTube my parents use it regularly for exercise okay yeah um huge catalog of exercise and and you could probably go to you know um sites that offer you know meditation um you know I you know I tell people too
(53:13) that um you know it’s it’s not a bad source for music right if you want to bring music into your life you know and that’s without without even subscribing you know just search for a tune and and bring it into your life okay let’s go on um so I’m I’m skipping over the ones that um didn’t get above five um and then here we’re talking about weather now somebody cited that we’d probably get weather using the web [Music] site most of our devices we have weather apps too thoughts thoughts about weather
(53:57) um just that it’s pretty unreliable to make plans and oh yeah yeah you have that too and and not everybody on this committee is from Minnesota but of course from Minnesota uh we are totally obsessed with the weather right you know we’re in the midst of our two weeks of Summer you know right now um but whether I guess a weather app would be pretty easy to deploy um the the only thing you’d have to do is make sure the location is set I noticed that when I fired up a new um uh Fire tablet um you know the you know the the current
(54:43) you know the location was I don’t even recall what it was it was something on California I think another suggestion on the weather is uh there are you know a variety of apps and a variety of options and um you know I tend to lean towards the one that’s just defaulted on my iPhone and my wife says oh no I would never look at that one and again you can’t get into all that Nuance except I started messing with AccuWeather and I like it but if I were to I probably wouldn’t recommend it because I think
(55:18) it’s a little bit clumsier and a little extra detail that’s probably kind of harder to see so I think whatever you can do that’s simple and gives the quick snapshot of like today’s hour by hour and if you want to look at the week like I think the one on the the apple one is actually quite simple in that way it gives you an idea right it’s a basic idea um that that’s good and then depending on uh what people have available you know you can ask your smart device right like you were playing around earlier
(55:50) Dawn it’s like that happens my mom I know will ask that question of hers um she’s also on her tablet doing it on her iPad just because it is Obsession in Montana too um so but just whatever can you know when you look at it think what if uh if there’s any Vision issues or just unnecessary Graphics or you start getting those ad banners it just it’s just clutter yeah advertising yeah the advertising thing my mom gets very I think can be frustrated by that or she’ll she’ll not always pick up on
(56:23) what’s the ad and what’s the app and then she’ll tap on something and I’ll look and she’ll have 15 tabs open on something that has nothing it’s just the ads she’s bumped so something to take into consideration on what is this most simplified version that isn’t pumping them to try to upsell yeah good any other thoughts there I think it’s just going to depend on getting your hands on in Amazon you know I can’t give any advice because I haven’t used an Amazon fire in years and
(56:56) years and years so it’s just comparing whatever the apps are that are available in that store because I think it’s going to be very limited I think there is a native Amazon Fire tablet app for weather and that might be good too though a point that Joel made is is you know you it would be nice it would be responsive to Alexa all right so you could say what’s the weather right um and and then also you would expect a native app to not have advertising built in and I think that’s a key criteria for
(57:29) it because I would agree with Joel is that well you know you you get advertising in front of folks that can be that can be a you know quite challenging okay terrific um we’re gonna we’re gonna scroll um one of the next high response items the red was on games and uh and so you know we you know we you know we could see a couple different categories of games and um just wondering what what people are thinking um uh Christine I’m in this habit of going to you because you have experience do you do your tablets do your tablets
(58:14) come out with with games no we did not um do games just because I don’t think my population and I think we’re talking about um a different audience um but my audience we did not have any games on there for them but in terms of ideas for games I love um games that grandparents can play with their grandchildren I think there are a lot of them out there now yeah one of the thoughts that I had and interested in people’s opinions too is that I thought um you know sometimes this population can relate to sort of the the classic games
(59:00) you know more so that that maybe an older adult would be more likely to engage with Checkers or chests as opposed to Candy Crush or you know or or something something along that space Paul your thoughts yeah uh about three years ago I was talking to an admin at a non-profit that has had online presence for seniors for about 10 years in New York City and they had a lot of Russians and a lot of Chinese and his observation was that the number one use that the seniors made was games so back to the Bingo story last week uh
(59:47) I think it’s a critical thing that people do games the other thing is I have had an Amazon tablet and the one thing that I have to say is that my iPad renders AccuWeather differently than my Samsung Android and my Android phone so given that Amazon has its own flavor of Android and given that Android Amazon is sort of a Walled Garden uh one needs to be aware of the rendering of the uh different devices when I first started recycling computers back in the 90s I insisted on trying out all the computers with the different browsers
(1:00:37) and at that time Netscape rendered differently than Microsoft and even today I see this on my iPad I have a five-year-old four-year-old iPad I’m on now and I have a five-year-old Samsung tablet a and I have a pixel 4 4 2 year old phone and then of course I had my trusty five-year-old Windows HP and every one of them renders differently and I am a co-lead of a tech club at a 1200 unit condo mostly 55 plus people well educated they all have smartphones but the problem is that as everything renders differently it confuses the hell
(1:01:26) out of them and so if you’re going to have seniors with no help because as we know we are all tech support for our parents um if you don’t have that if if you’re talking in assisted living or an independent living facility there’s got to be a neighbor that you can call at the 1200 unit condo I moved from Neighbors helping neighbors whether it’s changing cartridges whether it’s plugging it in is it plugged in is it rebooting the Wi-Fi so I think one of the things that we need to be thinking
(1:02:04) about is as much as we understand this will be a primarily homebound population this homebound population I’m assuming will not be necessarily in single family homes they may be in congregate housing and so we ought to be thinking about a a a friendly neighbor who can help uh because I think doing it by yourself I call myself a beta dummy and I am intuitively challenged and I get confused and my son highly has put up with me for so many years but he really got tired of me asking he would say go read the freaking manual then he got to
(1:02:52) Google it then he got to YouTube now he’s kind enough to put up with me sometimes when I tell him that I have tried everything and I can’t figure it out but I really think we need to be humble about the fact that um the fact that everything renders differently on different devices and people have different experiences uh is going to be an obstacle okay all right thank you thank you for that Susan yeah and forgive me I’m kind of catching up because I haven’t haven’t been here all the time just been traveling so much
(1:03:29) but when we’re talking about the Amazon Fire and we’re talking about Google and we’re talking about YouTube and things like that the one thing that I recall is as recently is the 2022 models I don’t know about 2023 models but because it’s an Amazon product you didn’t have the Google apps and you couldn’t have YouTube there were things that were locked out of it as well as when you we were talking about the ads you have to pay extra money to get what they call a remove lock screen ads that lock the
(1:03:57) whole screen until they’re finished and so just raising my hand if that wasn’t already discussions that have been had those are things that we we can’t just assume that because it’s generally available that the amp that they’re that they’re going to be able to get YouTube and other things like that unless you’re paying for the upgraded fire yeah and you are absolutely right um the um you cannot by default install the Google Play Store right onto an Amazon Fire tablet but there are strategies for side loading it
(1:04:27) um and then bringing bringing some of those apps in but then again like a lot of things you then face you know the challenges of updates and you know that app could disappear if there’s a if there’s an update to the Fire tablet software so so you know we’ll we’ll continue to to explore that um there was another question Paul is there another requirements you have yeah I would like to make one other observation uh I am a believer in the cheapest possible and of course fire is cheapest and I like the fact that Amazon gives
(1:05:04) you 724 personal support which I have availed myself but the Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about two three weeks ago about how a lot of iPad prices have come down older iPads and so there might be a thought about how Apple has changed its its strategy and it is gaining market share and rather than go for the lowest price fire Amazon tablet with the Amazon wall Garden and and stuff there might be a thought about perhaps considering another kind of device again standardize on it you know because there is a gray market
(1:05:53) and there’s a lot of trade-ins now for the phone companies and apparently one can get used iPads or use Samsung tablets at a reasonable price they may not be the latest greatest but they do the job on an HTML5 website which acts like an app so the client is lightweight and so you can get a five-year-old four-year-old iPad four or five-year-old Samsung maybe in bulk from the from the recyclers refurbishers and then maybe that eliminates the Amazon Fire issue and also I sideloaded Google App Store on my Amazon
(1:06:39) of course that wasn’t kosher but that’s not the first time I’ve done something like that uh but I think the issue is Google Play Store I’ve uh uh YouTube which is you know Amazon doesn’t like Google Apple doesn’t like Google Google doesn’t like apple they all try to keep you in their wall Gardens and we need to think in terms of you know that poor senior who is bombarded by like the YouTube uh ads you’re you’re required to watch ads and have to skip ad push the button so those for somebody who’s older they
(1:07:24) could really be disturbing uh when those ads come on YouTube YouTube is very helpful but it comes with drawbacks just a thought it’s not free it is not free right so good good point Carolyn and Susan has more insight into this since she’s in I’ve been working in this area specifically but way back when in 2020 I haven’t checked with them again but like places like Tech dump the local refurbishers have no tablets available um and then my own personal experience like my iPad so I have two iPads now
(1:08:02) that I no longer can update you know so like I’ll you know I started at the beginning I purchased the early one and then every time I upgrade I pass it down to my parents and so now like I said I have two So eventually you can’t even update that technology and I guess I’m just curious about Susan’s take on and we’re getting off from the apps subject a little bit done sorry but but I’m super curious to hear her Insight on the different types of tablets so whether it’s a tablet or right now
(1:08:39) the whole industry is especially the schooling systems are dealing with a similar thing where they’re calling the Chromebook cliff and that is where the Googles of the world Etc decide to not support apples Etc decide to not support Hardware that is too old right oftentimes when you’re talking about a laptop versus a tablet or a touch screen you know larger touch screen unit versus a you know a cell phone or something then a lot of times what will happen is they’ll go to a Linux based load which then you can put other
(1:09:13) product in but I mean it is it is a concern right so when you’re thinking about putting something out refurbished is it refurbished units right as as um I would talk to I would I would say to Paul great great but but they should be refurbished and they should come from a provider who will give you some sort of a warranty on them versus going out to eBay or buying them you know off of the gray Market Etc because then it’s kind of a buyer beware and we don’t have a we’re not serving a clientele as as I
(1:09:45) think it was um well it might have been I think it was Don it might have been Paul II talking about you you got to have got to have the neighbor to be able to understand the unit right so I do think if it’s possible and the budget or or the grant money you know per unit then then you should fire is just a really really low cost unit um and and is and is you know I think Don said it comes with it comes with its perks and it comes with the strawbacks um it’s I I think more than anything the biggest issue you have is is
(1:10:22) with with the older adult population is the size of the screen the size of the text and the manual dexterity can they can they use an on tablet keyboard or would something like a newer Chromebook because it has an actual keyboard or something that has a physical keyboard or something be a be a potentially a better choice than just a tablet itself but most important is that larger screen versus the smaller screen and I think the fire does does does does you know take care of that um I don’t know enough about the fire
(1:10:56) quite frankly to to give you one way or the other my next question would be though on connectivity are we making a general assumption that each one of these seniors has the ability for connectivity that they have a decent internet connection that they understand how to make that happen you know or do they or do we need to consider ACP assistance so that they can get what they need you know maybe with internet service because if we’re going with a unit that is what in the old days we used to call a dummy terminal where most
(1:11:25) of the stuff to work well has to have a good internet connection then we are ham Hocking them regardless of the fact that we gave them a unit so so you know there’s I I’m I haven’t quite have been able to dig into all of the research that you guys have put in the resources that you put on the web about who’s the covered population other than their older adults but who are we who you know are are they you know 200 below you know poverty level or that you know are they people of color or you know where are
(1:11:55) they at who are the people that were trying to use and connect these things with and and what kind of what kind of redlining or internet access or other things that that might be an additional challenge above just using the unit itself those would be the things that come together yeah good question I’m going to ask Carolyn to address that Jamie we’re not ignoring you your hand is up there you’re you’re going to be after after Carolyn so just just real quick we did Cover a lot of this in our um first session which
(1:12:24) the recording is available on the website and I’m sure you just haven’t had a chance to view it but um so we are serving 6 000 older adults in nine counties of the Twin City metro area um we do that um significantly through our Partnerships of which Christina is one of them with Phoenix Cove and then Julia who’s hopefully joining us what time is it in a in a little bit um is one of our block nurse Partners um and those represent 16 um cultural communities as well so so a variety of folks and um we are familiar with ACP the
(1:13:11) affordable connectivity programs um and we provide so where we’re at in our program Susan is we’ve been providing devices and then that information for connection a lot of the folks we serve already have internet if they’re in senior living facilities but we are still serving people that are living independently and so really what our goal was with this um Grant was about this program expansion to try try to provide more Hands-On Digi digital literacy training for folks uh yeah so uh my comment to kind of jump
(1:13:55) back to the games conversation um just the thought of that and the lens of the social isolate isolation and um the the connectivity piece of it um you know and uh from from the perspective of my work around uh creative aging it’s you know thinking of the the importance of the games is not necessarily the game itself but how it’s constructed in the sense of um if you’re looking at uh using technology to build social cohesion and I you know isolation all those sorts of things um you know playing Solitaire by
(1:14:31) yourself even though you maybe live in a very large complex you may not be interacting with folks or other people but are so are they are they two-way games are they uh you know opportunities to engage in Creative thought uh with um peers with grandchildren things like that um and then also the the the like um thinking of the the benefits of of like doing word puzzles and the the mental um activity that comes from various games that’s more than just playing checkers or something like that which are fine but I think I think there’s a
(1:15:10) an element to consider that is um uh the quality of the game that is that’s being offered that’s available good good point good point okay um Joel also made some good comments about having you know the different types of games that are two people or more and um things like Solitaire Hearts Spades poker Etc and he put a link in there as well so I see that okay you missed that thank you Joel Don I have an unrelated question do you know the difference in cost between a Chromebook like um and an Android and an Amazon
(1:15:59) tablet the Fire tablet because I’m just thinking about you know I think Chromebooks are much more accessible than the Amazon um tablet and I think that if we’re trying to get people to interact with grandchildren and things the schools are all using Chromebooks so it would they’d be using the same devices as the kids in school yeah I I guess I don’t you know I don’t follow it I mean my impression is a a Chromebook could be acquired you know for somewhere between 100 to 150 mm-hmm um what what what what what are other
(1:16:36) people seeing Chad I think um even through the ACP the affordable connections program um at least here um there are about 150 for a new Chromebook and then um the tablets when we first started in 2020 were only fifty dollars but now there’s 60 and as many of you have mentioned that’s the smaller screens I mean I’d really love to use the larger screens which cost even more um but we just have limited resources so that’s why we’ve been focusing on that tablet but the more and more we dig in um you know Paul and I were on a call
(1:17:20) earlier with someone out of California that has the program going and you know they’re not yeah they won’t use the fire tablets either so I see policy I’ve seen that you know I’ve seen lack of really training on the Fire tab that would match in in this space too so and and I’ll make a public service announcement you know Carolyn is talking about lack of funding and she’s not asking any of you to open up your checkbook to oh to help fund the next next two years of of tablets now I’m
(1:17:57) just joking um other other thoughts Paul another question yeah I just want to mention chromeflex Google came up with chromeflex which enables old Macs and old windows PCS to be upgraded to be Chromebooks they’re selected models of Windows machines selected models of Max and I’m not suggesting that as a solution right now but I am suggesting down the line from a recycling point of view a lot of people have laptops hanging around and notebooks flying around and families have no books flying around and and Chromebooks Google has been
(1:18:40) working to get into the schools and getting into the workplace and I’m just thinking and doing covid Chromebooks were given away and I know there is a Chromebook cliff but I’m also suggesting that as a perhaps long-term strategy or as a pedagogical thing um Chromebooks might not be a bad thing to help train on people uh because they could adapt laptops notebooks that the family already has it’s a it’s it’s an issue that’s to be thought about but I don’t recommend it right now it’s not baked yet it just
(1:19:24) came out six months ago and um yeah and if you remember last week we did share that uh gifts for seniors does have a current inventory of fire tablets and um you know and so that’s you know that’s that’s an opportunity first and I mean I think the good news is you know whatever learning that we acquire you know as part of this process and and maybe even the process of of deploying these fire tablets whatever learning we you know we acquire is probably going to serve us well if there is some decision
(1:20:05) in the future to switch platforms and so you know let’s let’s keep the ideas flowing you know recognizing that mobile you know perhaps in the shortest term you know until until Paul or Susan can open up their checkbook and and fund uh Jamie sorry Joel uh can can find uh you know we’re probably not going to be looking at changing platforms is that is that fair a fair way to to lay out the challenge all right I want to get back to I want to get back to talking about apps uh another app that um was on the recommended side was the
(1:20:51) photo sharing app that might allow friends and family to share photos um I’d like to get thoughts on that um any any good strategies so in in you know we know that the Amazon Fire tablets would have a native photos app that would require um a user to have a an Amazon account right um and so that’s probably not perfect for this but are there other thoughts other apps other strategies that would allow family and friends to share photos um you know in a in a you know in an easy to use straightforward matter
(1:21:39) manner I looking for suggestions Joel Jamie any any ideas Paul do you have any thoughts on photo sharing oh I would just say I I’m happy to hear the suggestions because this is tricky I’m running a running a photography course this was such a barrier to figure out how to work around yeah and what we’re dreaming about is be as simple as you know allowing a a family member to to send a photo from their iPhone that would land on an Amazon Fire tablet app Paul have you seen anything in that space uh I have no uh I I have a different uh
(1:22:33) suggestion and I hate to sound like I’m Shilling for Google um but because Amazon and Apple and Google all try to keep you in their ecosystem my experience has been so far easiest for me because I call myself a beta dummy even though I have an engineering degree I really am not a techie I am intuitively challenged but we use Google photos and that works on all the platforms Amazon because of Andy trust consideration and apple because of antitrust considerations finally has opened up to some of the Google apps and
(1:23:20) to my mind Google photos and I haven’t I I have a Google One account for 1.99 a month which kicks up my my uh data storage from 15 gigs to 100 gigs for two bucks a month I think that’s a very affordable place to park photos and that’s cross-platform so I looked at photos on my Amazon tablet I looked at photos on my iPad and my my humble experiences that I’m I’m sticking with Google photos for my needs and that could be something that cuts across all these platforms yeah you know I’ll jump in and Paul I agree
(1:24:07) so I you know I’m a apple I’m in the Apple cult so that’s uh it doesn’t you know not relevant for this conversation but it makes it easy right but you’re you’re stuck in there um but mice and and our kids at school use iPads as well however uh one of their teachers uses Google photo I’m sorry excuse me for sharing photos when kids want to share stuff at school uh like oh show us about your vacation or whatever so uh I’ve had just enough experience being an apple person you know going into that and it’s fairly
(1:24:43) simple and you know when I’m on my computer I can drag and drop them in um you can share them from an iPhone or whatever into Google photo so yeah I I would say it’s that’s one worth exploring and toying with on these tablets to see if it’s as it’s pretty fluid because the way you framed it up Don I think if you’re talking about families or or people within their orbit who want to just share photos of those that they love their grandkids or whatever it’s most important that they can get it in there and then if it can
(1:25:14) just simply be viewed I know my mom gets a ton of Joy from our shared folder where we just dump kid pictures all the time um and then you know she can go in there and then it’s just that person in the family to Monitor and manage the storage as he you know Paul referenced uh so that you know because that can get huge and maybe that means over time some of those have to be moved out or whatever but I think it’s probably worth a shot Google’s uh um share platform seems okay okay it’s if I can just say it’s it’s not as easy
(1:25:46) as Google or iPhone to iPhone but you can use Amazon photos and you can download those to iPhone and or Android they can be on the fire and you set up what’s called a family account and then you can do that same similar thing so again just keeping the lens of the fact that we’ve got fired so far the fire is what gifts for seniors have been using and that if if we if we use that as a lens of we’ve got that we know that for sure and the other stuff is a conversation it can be done it’s just not quite as intuitive and the people
(1:26:20) who are sending whether their iPhone or Android or whatever they have they also have to get an Amazon um an Amazon um account so I think I think we can end the conversation about about the photo sharing is that yeah it seems like it’s critical it’s a critical function and you know we’d like to be able to bring some joy to to our folks we’re close to running out of time and in fact we are out of time and and so with that um the conversation does not need to stop right on any of these that’s a perfect
(1:26:52) place in fact I will send I will send a message out of our Google Groups and and ask for any additional comments this has been absolutely fabulous that you know that we get this perspective from across the scoop that none of us individually would you know would have exposure to so this this is absolutely fabulous um we have a meeting three coming up and you already have a doodle in your inbox for meeting three and and if you could give that attention this would be this would be one of your homework assignments if you haven’t done it
(1:27:33) already um if you could give that attention so that we could get that meeting on the calendar and and that’ll just in general that’ll that’ll serve us all a little bit better um meeting three all right is really our opportunity to talk about learning um you know in a in a dream world you know the way that I look at it in in a perfect dream world you know we’d be able to do one-on-one work with all of our population all the members of our our population and and the way that we’re currently structured and staffed
(1:28:12) not not possible um but as an example Paul talked about the neighbor or maybe there’s a volunteer group um you know is there some opportunity for us to explore other learning channels you know that that might work for us and so that is really the conversation that we would like to have when we get together on meeting three um uh complete the doodle outrageous part of your homework I will send out a a follow-up email from our Google group asking for continuing discussion on any of these points um expect that a few days before the
(1:28:57) next meeting I will send out another pre-meeting survey I was pleased with how we could take the survey results and and use that to provide some foundation for discussion so I think we’ll continue with that strategy and uh and then keep the keep the discussion going um Carolyn do you have any other final final words as as we wrap up if you haven’t done the doodle poll I think that’s most important because then we can just all have it on our schedule ahead of time because I’m hoping that all 11 of us can be on meeting three and
(1:29:38) um more importantly I just want to extend my gratitude once again I know that um we’re asking for some time of year so super grateful that you’re here to contribute to the conversation as we um you know try to move the program forward so thank you so much all right so with that um stay in touch everybody and uh and we will you know we’ll look forward to seeing you next time bye

U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Loneliness and Social Connection

Framework for National Strategy to Take Action

Social Connection Facts

Download the Report

Survey Responses 

Find your responses to our pre-meeting survey..

Responses