Ms Susan Tan, 61, always wanted to learn how to use the computer but she was nervous even at the thought trying. “I didn’t even know how to turn it on,” she said.

But thanks to a workshop organised as part of the Inter-generational IT Bootcamp series, she has gotten over her initial fears and now navigates quite comfortably to different web sites with the help of her granddaughter Chanel Soh, a primary six student at CHIJ Our Lady of Good Counsel.

Organised by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) in partnership with schools, the bootcamps help to foster closer inter-generational ties between students and their grandparents through hands-on IT workshops on themes such as Getting Started on Facebook, Chinese Text Input with Handwriting Tablet and Infocomm Tools for Health Management.

By appealing to senior citizens’ desire to build closer ties with their grandchildren, and spurring their learning interest at these bootcamps, IDA hopes to encourage continued learning and infocomm usage by the elderly.

The inaugural Inter-generational IT Bootcamp was held at CHIJ Our Lady of Good Counsel on 6 March 2010. “This is an excellent programme for our elderly grandparents to learn IT in a ‘safe’ environment – safe because they are handheld by their own granddaughters who they know well. It’s also different from going out there to learn IT from trainers in an unfamiliar environment,” said Mr Ng Boon Yang, the school’s Subject Head for ICT.

The result is a win-win situation. The grandparents can learn together with their grandchildren and bond with them, and the students get to build up their leadership skills as they learn how to be responsible for facilitating their grandparents’ learning.

Ms Susan Tan (left) getting some IT guidance from her granddaughter Chanel Soh.

Mr Ng feels that there is a “wealth of information” available on the Internet that is useful for the elderly, hence it is important that they learn to access the Internet, so that “the world comes to them virtually, instead of them having to go out to the world physically”.

With the world rapidly moving towards e-transactions for greater convenience, and with the plethora of information about health and entertainment available online, it is easy to see how the lives of the elderly can be much enriched by having the Internet at their fingertips.

Furthermore, with email for easy communication, they have yet another way to keep in touch with friends and family across the globe, said Mr Ng.

Agreeing, Mrs Mabel Boudeville, 71, said the bootcamp has been very useful in teaching her about the things she could do on the Internet.

“The latest thing I’ve learnt about is the Google search engine, which I’ve heard about, but haven’t gone into before. They’re teaching it now, and it’s quite interesting,” said Mrs Boudeville, who attended the CHIJ bootcamp with her granddaughter Faith Chong.

Ironically, Mrs Boudeville never quite had the time to take classes on the Internet before – she was too busy taking care of Faith. Now, after the workshop, it will be Faith who will be helping her to get online, she said.

The graduating cohort from the first Inter-generational IT Bootcamp.