Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Spiralling through change
T2 - older people negotiating new communication technologies, a collaborative research project
AU - Hamilton, Mary
PY - 2012/9
Y1 - 2012/9
N2 - How older adults make use of communication technologies is of wide interest to educators, health professionals and many others. Everyday discourse often presents older people as out of touch with new digital technologies, helpless and resistant to change but research evidence suggests a more complicated picture. This paper reports on a small-scale research collaboration with the Senior Learners Group at Lancaster University which documented everyday encounters with communication technologies and the dynamics of older peoples’ engagement with them. The data were collected by a group of older women through group discussions and interviews. The project focused on what prompts older people to learn and use new communication technologies, how change happens and how people integrate old and new technologies alongside one another in their daily lives. This paper describes the key findings from the project and particularly explores the support systems that older people use and the actual and potential role of formal educational opportunities in the negotiation of new communication technologies.
AB - How older adults make use of communication technologies is of wide interest to educators, health professionals and many others. Everyday discourse often presents older people as out of touch with new digital technologies, helpless and resistant to change but research evidence suggests a more complicated picture. This paper reports on a small-scale research collaboration with the Senior Learners Group at Lancaster University which documented everyday encounters with communication technologies and the dynamics of older peoples’ engagement with them. The data were collected by a group of older women through group discussions and interviews. The project focused on what prompts older people to learn and use new communication technologies, how change happens and how people integrate old and new technologies alongside one another in their daily lives. This paper describes the key findings from the project and particularly explores the support systems that older people use and the actual and potential role of formal educational opportunities in the negotiation of new communication technologies.
KW - ageing
KW - literacy
KW - technologies
KW - learning
KW - collaborative research
M3 - Journal article
VL - 2
SP - 181
EP - 206
JO - International Journal of Education and Ageing
JF - International Journal of Education and Ageing
SN - 2044-5458
IS - 3
ER -