Teens usher seniors into computer know-how

Naomi Zimbalist (left) chats with fellow Mather Place of Wilmette resident Gloria Dobkin while they wait for a reunion with their summer computer tutors John Satter of Glencoe and Connor Trapp of Wilmette. The two teens worked with about 20 Mather residents. | Sun-Times MediaNaomi Zimbalist (left) chats with fellow Mather Place of Wilmette resident Gloria Dobkin while they wait for a reunion with their summer computer tutors John Satter of Glencoe and Connor Trapp of Wilmette. The two teens worked with about 20 Mather residents. | Sun-Times MediaNaomi Zimbalist (left) chats with fellow Mather Place of Wilmette resident Gloria Dobkin while they wait for a reunion with their summer computer tutors John Satter of Glencoe and Connor Trapp of Wilmette. The two teens worked with about 20 Mather residents. | Sun-Times Media

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Updated: November 12, 2012 10:48AM

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If you’ve grown up with computers, you probably have a good handle on them.

If, however, you grew up with rotary phones, put your mail in a postbox and found your facts on library shelves, you could be forgiven for eyeing computers a little warily.

It doesn’t mean you can’t learn your way around them, as a group of Wilmette senior citizens learned this summer, thanks to teen cousins John Satter, of Glencoe, and Connor Trapp, of Wilmette.

During their summer vacations, Satter and Trapp individually tutored about 20 residents at Mather Place of Wilmette, finding out what each wanted most to learn about computers.

“I wanted to learn, but I had to learn a whole new language to do it,” resident Naomi Zimbalist said last week. “Connor helped me do that.”

“I realized how much I didn’t know, but John helped so much. He helped me with email, and how to put things in files,” resident Fay Saltzman added, as the two sat with fellow students Gloria Dobkin and Bonnie Becbach during a brief reunion with Trapp and Satter.

Satter, a junior at the Illinois Math and Science Academy, in Aurora, started the project to fulfill a community service requirement for school. He decided to create a computer tutoring program for seniors after hearing of a similar program.

Drew Kowalski, experience director at Mather Place of Wilmette, is a family friend. He liked the idea, so Satter surveyed Mather residents, asking if they wanted to learn more about computers, and what they wanted to know. When he got the forms back, he was surprised to see he had 17 potential students – and more soon signed up.

“I knew I needed help. So I asked Connor,” he said last week.

“I didn’t have anything going on this summer, and I like helping people,” Connor agreed. “This was a nice thing to do.”

Satter’s mother, Ann Satter, said last week that she wasn’t surprised. The two are friends and see each other regularly, despite going different ways after freshman year at New Trier High School (where Trapp still attends.) They are also technology geeks, she joked, with the kind of know-how their new students could use.

Before they started giving one-on-one weekly lessons, the boys met with Mather staff, who filled them in on some of their students’ unique challenges; issues like hearing or vision loss, or arthritic hands that might not take to regular keyboards.

Based on feedback, Mather personnel bought “easy read” keyboards and webcams. The latter came in handy after Trapp and Satter taught some of their students, including Dobkin, how to use Skype to video chat with relatives across the globe.

Some students learned the basics of Internet research; Bechbach learned about Ancestry.com to do family geneology projects, for instance.

“I was really surprised at how ambitious they were to learn,” Satter said. “It was like they had a blindfold on and they took it off.”

Trapp said he received as much out of teaching – listening to stories of his pupils’ lives – as they did from his lessons: “I got the sense that they really accepted us and liked having us around.”

Kowalski hopes to set up a similar project next summer. If he does, Some of Satter’s and Trapp’s old students might be in line for refresher courses.

“I would definitely learn more, instead of asking for help with problems,” Zimbalist said. ~,.

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