Computer trainers help Boston baby boomers reach Internet speed

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2015/11/19/computer-trainers-help-boston-baby-boomers-reach-internet-speed/
Carl Baty (middle, yellow shirt) surveys a class of baby boomers honing in on their computer skills. (Beth Treffeisen, NewBostonPost)

Carl Baty (middle, yellow shirt) surveys a class of baby boomers honing in on their computer skills. (Beth Treffeisen, NewBostonPost)

One chilly Saturday morning, the mostly gray-haired students sat facing their laptops as Carl Baty, 63, stepped behind a lit projector and began to show them a step that may be second-nature to many 10-year-olds: copying and pasting text into a new document on their screens.

“I am not computer savvy and I need to know because of a position I’m holding,” said Kelly Pennington, a Dorchester resident. Laughing about her coursework, she added, “I learned how to Cc and to Bcc.”

A granddaughter helps her grandmother learn how to copy and paste. (Beth Treffeisen, NewBostonPost)

A granddaughter helps her grandmother learn how to copy and paste. (Beth Treffeisen, NewBostonPost)

Baty and his students are participants in a Tech Goes Home program that provides under-served Boston residents the chance to learn how to use 21st century tools and develop needed skills. Each Saturday morning at the Codman Square Library branch in Dorchester, Baty teaches the class for people 55 years of age and older how to use Google Chromebook laptops preloaded with applications for email, word processing and other basic functions. Qualified participants who complete the course can buy the computer at a steeply discounted price of $50.

“For me, it’s fantastic! It’s like taking Computer 101,” said Concetta Johnson, a Dorchester resident who suffered severe memory loss after a car accident. She said Baty made an effective teacher, taking care to make sure nobody lags behind.

“There is a sense of community and everyone is willing to help each other,” Johnson said of her classmates.

Baty’s wife, Arnetta, conceived the course over a decade earlier, when she tired of asking her daughters for help with computers. She met other women stuck in similar situations and soon realized that a general need existed among many people in her baby boom generation who for a whatever reason lacked computer skills and were Internet illiterate.  She took some classes and got her own skills up to snuff. After meeting online in 2010, Arnetta and Carl married, and soon began offering computer classes to baby boomers.

Carl and Arnetta Baty have made it their mission to help the disadvantaged through efforts like teaching computer skills.

Carl and Arnetta Baty have made it their mission to help the disadvantaged through efforts like teaching computer skills.

Together, the Batys run Rounding the Bases, an organization that aims to help disadvantaged communities learn job skills. The computer class is offered through Tech Goes Home, a program started by a nonprofit group called Open Air Boston to help under-served city residents develop technology skills. The estimate that they’re helping 25 to 50 older people at any one time. And they know that it can be a humbling experience for some to seek out their assistance.

“The last thing somebody wants to do is have to ask for help,” Carl said. “By the time they come in, you go to make them as comfortable as you possibly can because they’re at their wit’s end.”

Working together, the couple puts their students at ease as they help them acquire the skills they need to function in the information society of today.

Contact Beth Treffeisen at [email protected].

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