Technology Readinesss for Older Workers - New Collaborative

People often ask me how older workers will respond to using technologies like Second Life for learning. I have a variety of answers depending on how the question is phrased but they all boil down to one thing: when people are motivated and given the necessary support in a non-judgmental way, they can learn by using digital delivery methods just like younger people can. The issue isn't age. It is their recognition and employer acceptance that young and old employees will need to collaborate in order to learn and use new skills in the coming years. Today's acmnews announces a collaborative effort between IBM and University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine that should prove very useful since it will be available open source and non-royalty.

IBM/University Collaboration to Develop Open-Source
Accessibility Tools

Campus Technology (11/20/07) Nagel, David
"Assistive technologies that will allow older people to remain productive
members of the rapidly changing workforce are the focus of an IBM Open
Collaborative Research initiative. As part of the project, experts at the
University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine will research technology
work settings, including the development of e-learning tools for older
workers, while researchers from the University of Dundee's School of
Computing in the United Kingdom will develop visualizations and interaction
scenarios. Older people remain a key resource in the workplace, says
Miller School of Medicine professor Sara J. Czaja. "However they need to
have tools available to them to be able to compete in today's technology
driven workplace," Czaja says. As an IBM OCR project, the research will be
made available as open source software code, and the developed intellectual
property will be released to the public or made available royalty-free."

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