| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 高齡者教育研究所 === 102 === This study aims to discuss the processes of learning of middle-aged and elder adults participating in the courses of Tablet PC. The content of the research includes motivations, the difficulties met during the course and how to respond accordingly, understand what the middle-aged and elder adults benefit from the course, and eventually develop a Tablet PC course suitable for middle-aged and elder adults. The researcher takes the research method of action research, inviting 65 middle-aged and elder adults who are above50 years old living around Da-Lin and Ju-Chi of Chia-Yi county to take course of Tablet PC. 3 sessions are in the course, and each session accounts for totally 24 hours, which are divided evenly into 8 classes, and during the session, 2 classes are given in a week during one month. The research tools are the in-class observation notes and interview contents, which are qualitative collective data. After the end of the whole course, the researcher takes the method of purposive sampling to select 14 participants in total to be interviewed for understanding the learning process and gains. Then, from the execution of the 3 sessions of courses, the researcher continually develops a Tablet PC course which is suitable for middle-aged and elder adults. Through data analysis, the researcher brings out the conclusions as follows:
A. Learning motivation and prior knowledge of middle-aged and elder adults taking Tablet PC courses.
1. Middle-aged and elder adults learning Tablet PC are mainly for needs, interests, enthusiasm for learning and social contact, which we can see the motivations are very diversified.
2. The assistance, encouragement, and urge benefit the elder learners a lot. Meanwhile, how the elder learners perform in the course are relative to their participating motivations and prior knowledge; on the other hand, this observation doesn't apply on the rather young middle-aged learners.
B. Learning obstacles of middle-aged and elder adults taking Tablet PC courses.
1. The fact of attention drops and memory decline affect the learning of middle-aged and elder adults, which brings out the fact that the learners are lack of learning confidence, and rely on the familiar interface and also grow learning obstacles mentally.
2. Affected by physiological obstacles and reading abilities, the learning difficulties of the middle-aged and elder adults vary. The elder learners have more inconveniences to learn with the degeneration of their eyesight and listening.
3. During the process of operation, the elder learners obtain more difficulties for the reasons of degeneration of their eyesight, rather blunt tactile sense as well as literacy difficulties.
C. Adaptive strategies for middle-aged and elder adults taking Tablet PC courses.
1. Listening carefully, keeping notes, dare to ask questions and no class-sipping, the four tips are helpful for middle-aged and elder learners for learning Tablet PC.
2. To practice hard, try hard enable to promote Tablet PC learning and overcome learning obstacles for middle-aged and elder learners.
3. The help of course teaching assistants and volunteers, especially the support of family benefit middle-aged and elder learners, and enable them to know how to operate Tablet PC better.
D. Learning Gains of middle-aged and elder adults who participate in Tablet PC course
1. Generally, taking photos and pressing "like" buttons of facebook are the easiest Tablet PC functions for middle-aged and elder learners. Uploading photos, keying in words and watching Youtube are second easiest.
2. Taking photos, facebook timeline function and communication software are the most often used Tablet PC functions for middle-aged and elder adults.
3. Learning Tablet PC helps middle-aged and elder adults to promote the interactions and relationships with family and friends, and it also allows the daily life of these learners much more convenient, more fun, and less lonely.
E. Tablet PC courses suitable for middle-aged and elder new learners.
1. The course teaching shall focus on practicability and immediate usability to meet the learning needs of middle-aged and elder new learners.
2. The teachers shall pay patience, extra care, love in to the teaching and teach gradually to meet the diversified learning motivation and unique learning characteristics of middle-aged and elder learners.
2. To meet the physiological characteristic of middle-aged and elder learners, people shall pay attention to the arrangement of learning site, so the amount of students shall be less than 15 people, and the rather old elders or elders who have worse physiological functions shall sit more in the front.
3. Tablet PC course which are suitable for middle-aged and elder learners shall focus on repetition. Contents of basic level tablet PC course are basic operation, photos taking, video shooting and sites viewing. Contents of advanced level shall be with data search skills to enable the middle-aged and elder learners to gain the ability to retrieve data.
Finally, according to the results of this study, the researcher proposes further suggestions to related executive units, teachers and future researches.
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