Eighty-six St. Croix men and women, mostly seniors but of all ages, are now comfortably emailing family, talking on Skype, sending Farmville requests on Facebook and perhaps balancing checkbooks on Excel – all after recently completing an introductory computer class at the University of the Virgin Islands.
With much pomp and circumstance, UVI held a graduation ceremony for the class Wednesday evening in the St. Croix campus’s Great Hall, where students gave touching thanks to their teachers for guiding them through. The 8-week course covers Microsoft Window, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, using email and internet basics for a small, nominal fee.
"You assuaged our fears of just turning the computer off and on," said student Berenice Ludvig to teacher Marthious Clavier, who works through UVI’s Cooperative Extension Office. "But first, before we turned it on, you had us disconnect and reconnect all the wires on the computer – all those wires we used to look at and think ‘I’m not touching that,’ for fear of tearing up the whole system.”
Ludvig thanked Clavier and student instructor Kevin John, saying, “You have put to rest all of our fears about the computer. Your patience far exceeds that of Job."
Before the ceremony, Clavier said UVI and the Cooperative Extension Office have been offering the introduction to computers training for about seven years now, and demand keeps growing.
"When we had one class, the waiting list was growing so they added a second, then a third and a fourth class," Clavier said. Wednesday’s ceremony was for five classes and was the largest group so far.
UVI President David Hall took to the podium to hand out student certificates. He praised the students for showing the curiosity and eagerness to learn, and for being willing to try new things.
"The university is making it possible for individuals who would not normally be exposed to computer technology to be able to achieve that," Hall said before the ceremony began. "If you look at the people you will see a lot are senior citizens, some of whom may have been a bit intimidated by computers before. And now they are computer literate."
Everyone really has to be computer literate to get by in today’s society, Hall added.
"But along with the skills they have learned, they will have so much more self-confidence, realizing they did this themselves, and they have the ability," he said.
Several students made similar points when speaking about their own experience with the class.
"Yes, I was intimidated a little by the computer," said Paula Dickie, one of the class graduates. "Before the class I was just getting into texting a little on the phone, and I just used the computer a little, for some shopping.” Now Dickie said she can send pictures as email attachments and Skype with her daughter in the states. “It’s really an improvement," she said.
