Computers and the Internet Made Easy for Seniors

Welcome to the Computers Made Easy Web site. This site is designed to help the elderly understand how computers work and locate some resources for improving their computing skills. I'm Rick Sheridan, a Butte College instructor who taught a "Computers Made Easy" course for several semesters. I am also working on a Ph.D. thesis where the focus is on teaching Internet skills to the elderly. I began to realize the need for computer instruction for the elderly and applied for a grant from the Butte College Foundation to create this "do-it-yourself" site. I have assembled links to many free Internet tutorials and other instructional sites along with information about organizations, research techniques and other resources. Although the grant ran out several years ago, I have decided to keep the site updated as much as possible (sometimes there are a few dead links on here in-between updates).

Administration on Aging - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC. They provide various information on aging, and resources for older persons and their families.

American Association of Retired Persons AARP's Web site provides a lot of content - information on insurance, travel, housing, benefits, etc. Probably the largest organization for seniors.

Seniors-site.com is dedicated to help senior citizens and their caregivers. The links on this site include a message boards, information about health issues, caregiving, computers and the Internet, housing, grand parenting, a list of pen pals, etc.

SeniorNet Provides retirement-age adults with information and instruction about computer technologies and the Internet. A SeniorNet Roundtables area provides discussions on hundreds of topics. There's also a directory of all the SeniorNet Learning Centers around the United States.

SeniorCom Resources that include health, travel, financial management for the elderly, including a searchable file on housing and retirement communities.

SeniorLaw This site contains links and a searchable database of information and resources on topics such as case law, Medicaid, Medicare, Elderlaw attorneys, social security, wills and trusts, nursing home law, long term care insurance and elder abuse and neglect. You can search for statutes and regulations, articles and other information relevant to the field of elder law.

Third Age This site provides an opportunity for seniors to interact with each other through an online chat forum and access a variety of news about books, technology, health, money, relationships, hobbies, and current events., reviews, columns, etc. A built-in search engine provides easy-access to many of the features.

Spectrum Insurance Group offers unbiased insurance information - life insurance quotes from over 140 companies.

Wedding-Needs.com offers an array of elegant wedding invitations and other wedding cards like bridal shower invitations and save the dates.

Accelerated learning. This site has a review of speed reading, memory skills, etc. click here

Free healthcare resources- here is a page that I designed that has several resources for finding free and inexpensive healthcare in the US click here

Northvalleyroads.com Chico/Paradise's site with a good general listing of area resources.

There are many excellent "do-it-yourself" computer learning sites available on the Internet. By going to these pages, you will find many different tutorials for learning how to effectively use the Internet, word processing, desktop publishing and other computer resources.

Free computer and Internet training Here is a site that I have developed that has several links to free do-it-yourself computer and Internet training resources.

Learn The Net This site has excellent do-it-yourself resources such as tutorials on e-mail, newsgroups, Web publishing, Internet research, etc.

Help-Site.com Here are direct links to dozens of instructional documents and sites for learning Windows, Macintosh, Internet,etc.

Here are links to several different types of multiple search engines. These tools provide an excellent way to quickly examine the results from several search engines.

Dogpile: Another multiple search engine that takes a single query and processes it so that you will get results from major search engines such as About.com, DirectHit, AltaVista, etc. Another nice feature is Dogpile's ability to search newsgroups, online yellow pages, weather information, shareware archives, news headlines and lots more. http://www.dogpile.com/

MetaCrawler: Yet another multiple search engine. MetaCrawler collates results, eliminates duplication, scores the results and provides the user with a comprehensive list of relevant sites. MetaCrawler also offers users to limit their searches to specific parts of the world and other power-search options. http://www.metacrawler.com/

WebRing: These member Web sites have banded together to form their sites into linked circles (rings). This unique structure allows the creation and evolution of thousands of different "Web communities." Each ring was started and is maintained by an individual website owner. Through navigation links at the bottom of member pages, visitors can travel to all or any of the sites in a ring. You can move through a ring in different directions and survey all the sites that make up the ring. You can select a category of rings and then refine your search by searching within those rings. If you can't find a Ring that suits your needs, Webring encourages you to start your own. http://www.webring.org/

Ask Jeeves!: With this natural language processing technology, you type a question for Jeeves just the way you'd phrase it if you were asking a friend. Jeeves has already researched thousands of questions, and has catalogued the answers to them so that you often get your answer quickly. Jeeves will also navigate through millions of Web sites to find questions not already in the archive. Jeeves attempts to answer questions of all types, serious or offbeat, business or personal. Jeeves determines both the meaning of the words in the question (semantic processing) as well as the meaning in the grammar of the question (syntactic processing). The Ask Jeeves knowledgebase contains links to more than 7 million sources of answers, which contain information about the most frequently asked questions on the Internet. http://dir.webring.com/rw

Reference Desk: Here is a huge database of research tools that includes many different search engines, links to major newspapers and magazines, specialized dictionaries and calculators, advice from experts, and much more. http://refdesk.com/

Search Engine Colossus: Here are search engines from around 200 different countries. This site provides an interesting look at search engines from around the world, both general and specific. http://www.searchenginecolossus.com

Bots are software robots that perform a variety of difficult and time-consuming tasks. An example would include: gathering and delivering specific news items gathered from many different sources on the Internet. Bots work in the background so that you can go back to the task you were originally working on. Additional information about bots can be found in the book: BotGuide, the Internet's hottest tools that work the Web for you, by Michael Wolff and Peter Rutten.

Here are some general tips for obtaining the best search results. These tips are are based on my own and other's experiences in making a Web search as fast and efficient as possible. Persistence and common sense are probably the two most valuable characteristics in consistently finding high quality search results.

I have developed a site on accelerated learning. It has some basic techniques that can help computer students master new software more quickly and easily. These methods come from my own classroom experiences along with ideas gathered from the science of Neuro Linguistic Programming and other techniques. Some of the topics will include: adapting the different learning styles, engaging both hemispheres of the brain, prioritizing materials, partnering new & experienced students, putting students into a resourceful state with anchors, metaphors and transformational vocabulary and much more. Some of the typical problems that computer students have include: frustration, overwhelm and the inability to consistently perform a skill. For more information, please click here.

A large number of content-rich databases from universities, libraries, associations, businesses and government agencies are almost invisible to average search engines such as Google, Lycos and Yahoo. One reason is because these search engines are not able to actually run the databases on these sites and often will simply overlook them. Sometimes these huge databases will make no attempt to advertise themselves (with meta tags, etc) and are never catalogued by the search engines. Click here to see a site that I have developed on this topic.

Many students ask me which Internet service provider I recommend for local Internet access. The following sites allow you to search and compare all of the local providers simply type in the telephone area code for the area that you want.

These sites provide links to dozens of health-related categories along with direct access to many medical and general search engines.

California Association of Health Facilities A comprehensive directory of licensed nursing homes in California. 1400+ long term care facilities are listed by region and name of facility.

ElderConnect Information on over 30,000 acute rehabilitation facilities, retirement communities, and facilities associated with long-term nursing care for the elderly. Searchable by keyword.

Browsers: A program that you install on your computer to access the Web The browser reads Web pages and interprets the commands they include to produce a visually appealing page on your screen. Netscape is the most popular of the graphic browser programs. The two main Web browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Both are currently available for free.

E-mail: Short for electronic mail. A way to correspond with someone else on the Internet who also has an e-mail connection. You can communicate locally, within the United States or throughout the world, all without paying for stamps or a telephone bill. Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer have a built-in e-mail program or you can use commercial programs such as Eudora or Pine.

FAQ (frequently asked questions): There are many FAQ files available for almost every subject that you might find on the Internet. Going to the site's FAQ files is the best place to start to find answers to your questions.

FTP (file transfer protocol): A fast way of uploading or downloading files on the Internet. Web browsers can perform basic FTP downloads, but dedicated FTP programs do it better.

Home pages: A location (or page) on the Web that contains information and/or links that take you to other related sites. The home page tells you what is available at that Web site. A well&endash;designed home page gives you attractive graphics and easy&endash;to&endash;read information about their project while often supplying you with links to other interesting sites on the Internet.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language): The programming language or code in which every page on the Internet is written. Originally, home pages had to be created by programmers who knew how to use HTML. Now easy-to-use software programs, such as Claris HomePage and Microsoft FrontPage, help users design Internet Web sites and automatically create the HTML tags for the sites.

Internet: A global network of computer networks that contains a huge collection of information from various universities, governments, businesses, libraries, museums, private individuals, etc. All of these sites are linked together by an international network of computers that speak the same language (HTML), and are able to communicate with each other. When you connect to the Internet, your computer becomes part of this world&endash;wide network of computers. On the Internet, you can exchange electronic mail, access and participate in discussion forums, search databases, purchase the latest gadget, share information about your hobby, and so forth. No one owns the Internet and no one controls it. The backbone of the Internet connects supercomputers in major cities all around the world.

ISP (Internet service provider): The company, university or institution that sells or provides you with access to their server so that your computer can access the Internet. ISP's connect to this backbone through their own lines, and provide your computer with a connection through the telephone line.

Java: A powerful Web page programming language that allows programmers to add basic animation and other automated tasks. Java can run on any platform (Mac or PC).

Links (hypertext links): the colored (usually blue) or underlined words or images or graphics that automatically connects you to another Web page when you click on it with your mouse. Links can be made from either text or graphics.

Mailing lists: Subject-based forums where you can communicate with others with a similar interest by e-mail. You send your e-mail to a central point and then you receive all the messages that have been sent to that list.

Modem (modulator/demodulator): the hardware that allows your computer to communicate with another computer through the telephone lines.

Newsgroups: Public discussion groups where people can read messages posted by others and contribute their own. There are thousands of newsgroups on the Internet, covering many different subjects.

Plug-in: Software that enhances the capabilities of your Web browser to enable it to do things like play animations, video clips and/or sound.

Public domain: If something on the Internet is in the public domain, you should be able to use it withoug infringing on the copyright.

Search engines: Tools to search the World Wide Web to find specific information that is needed. Search engines scan the Web, based on keywords that are entered, and provide users with direct hyperlinks to the sites discovered. Some of the more popular search engines are Yahoo, Excite, Lycos and Infoseek. They can be activated by using the Net Search button while in Netscape or the Search button in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Server: A central computer which provides information to other computers. Web sites are stored on Web servers.

Shareware/Freeware: Many software programs are available on the Internet as shareware (try before you buy), or freeware (free use by anyone). Later we will discuss several excellent health&endash;related shareware and freeware programs.

Subject trees: An alphabetically&endash;organized list of Web resources, categorized under major headings such as Arts, Business, Government, etc. They provide a Web version of a library subject card catalog. You can click several categories of subject trees until you find the desired sites.

URL (uniform resource locator): This is the generic term for the addresses on the World Wide Web or Internet. All Web site addresses start with http:// The rest of the URL will include the DNS or Domain Name System which is the unique identification of that site.

World Wide Web (WWW or "The Web"): The Web is an easy-to-use-program that runs on top of the Internet, making many of the sites accessible through hyperlinks and other tools. Many of the sites on the Internet are organized so that they can be easily found on the Web by the search engines mentioned below.

Please donate $25 if you can. This will keep the site active for a month, and we will be happy to list you as a key donor. We can link to your site, or do a link exchange, etc. Please click the button below: