 There we are. Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Commission's weekly webinar series. We cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. We do record the show as we are doing today, and we will be posted to our website for you to watch at your convenience. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch, so please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in any of the topics we have on the show. For those of you not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries in our state, similar to your state library. We provide services to all types of libraries in the state, and so we will have shows on Encompass Live for all types of libraries. Public, academic, K-12, corrections, museums, archives, anything and everything. Really, our only criteria is that something to do with libraries. Something libraries are doing, something we think they could be doing. We have book reviews, interviews, mini training sessions, demos of services and products, all sorts of things. We have Nebraska Library Commission staff that sometimes come on the show to do presentations for us about services and programs we offer here through the Library Commission, but we also bring in guest speakers as we have today. Joining us today is Deirdre Lee. Good morning, Deirdre. And she is, excuse me, from, well, Senior Planet from AARP. I'm not sure exactly what all the title, how that goes, but you can explain that better than I can. But she's going to talk to us about something very big. We've got lots of older patrons and older users of our libraries more and more. It's great resources to bring technology programs and training to them. So I'll just hand it over to you, Deirdre, to explain what you've got for us today. Great. Thanks so much, Kristen. Yeah, I will go into all of the differentiation between the different names and how it all works together in just a minute. But thank you all for having me here today. I'm really excited to share this with you. And I will caveat, despite what my first slide here says, these programs, everything I'm going to talk about is available nationally, not specifically to Nebraskans. So if you're joining us from other states, you know, this will still apply to you. So as Kristen said, my name is Deirdre Lee, and I run the licensing program at Senior Planet. So today, what I'm going to go over, just a quick overview here, I'll talk about that difference between oats, Senior Planet, our mission, you know, the work that we aim to do, and specifically the impact that we seek to have in the lives of older adults. Because I'm on the licensing team, I'll be talking most in depth on our licensing program, which is a really exciting opportunity that we have for, for libraries and other senior serving organizations to take advantage of our free technology programs. So go into details of that. And then if you're interested, talk a little bit about those next steps. And then we'll certainly save some time for Q&A. So Crystal will help me manage that Q&A section as we get towards the end. But feel free to share questions as they come up, we'll just address them towards the end of the presentation. Additionally, I'll be mentioning quite a few times some additional resources that will be shared. And, Kristen, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe those will be posted to the Encompass website where the recording will live. Yes, yep, yep, with the recording we'll have. Yeah, Deirdre already sent me an email with some other documents that we'll have, and we'll post them all up with the archive. Yep. Great, thank you. So yeah, don't stress about taking copious notes, you'll have both the recording and a lot of those referenced documents as we go through. So we do like to start all of our presentations and just different discussions with asking the very open-ended question, what role does technology play in the lives of older adults? So if you just kind of think about that for a moment, the spoiler is that there is really no wrong answer. And I'll talk a little bit about how Oats really views the answer to this question is that we really see it playing an important role in the lives of older adults, but that role will really differ from person to person. We come at our programs from not from a prescriptive standpoint saying this is what you should do, but really saying what do you want to do and how can technology help you get there. It's going to look different for someone maybe who's interested in, you know, connecting with friends and family online, maybe they live very far away from their family, someone who might be living with their family, that might not be of interest. So maybe it's telehealth appointments or being able to order things online, things like that. It really is a wide variety of answers. And if you think about the role that technology plays in the lives of older adults, we really believe that that's the same role that technology plays for older adults. There's just some differences in the learning and then the digital literacy in terms of when you were learning technology, that jargon, all of that fluidity. That's really what changes, but not the ultimate point that of what technology can unlock for someone. So that's really the approach that we take to all of our programming, both when we're creating it and then when we're also delivering it in the classroom. So I'll back up a little bit here and start with you. Who is OATS? I've said OATS a couple of times. It stands for Older Adults Technology Services and we have been around since 2004. So quite a while, you'll hear our name certainly referenced in relation to Senior Planet and I'll talk about that in just a bit on the next slide here. But Older Adults Technology Services is the nonprofit and creator of our flagship program, Senior Planet. And our focus is really to harness technology to change the way we age. So we really see ourselves as more than a technology education organization. We really see us more of a social impact organization. And how can we use technology education to give older adults the voice that they should have, the voice, the control over their own lives? How can we change our view of aging as something that's not associated with frailty or decline or inability, but something that can really be excited and celebrated? And that's where we see our work and we think technology is a really big conduit in one way that we can achieve that. You'll probably see in our logo the little from AARP. So we're very fortunate to have added that about a year and a half ago. So OATS is a charitable affiliate of AARP. So we work closely with the state offices, with the national organization to really support and expand our programs. Back in 2004, we were a small operation in New York City and now we are in six states with staff on the ground, but in 22 states through our licensing program. So we're really looking to expand the access to the programming that we have. So that takes us to Senior Planet. So what is Senior Planet? We created this brand a couple of years, maybe in 2012, I think really to be more focused on the older adult themselves. So all of our senior facing programs, you'll see those are Senior Planet programs. People mix up the two all the time, not a big deal by any means, but we really created the Senior Planet brand to have something that older adults can own, they can identify with, and they're the one shaping that brand. Whereas the larger nonprofit does other work, B2B work, and this is really more focused on the older adult participants. So what falls under that is our centers. So we've got four technology infused senior centers across the country in New York City, in upstate New York, where I'm at in Denver, Colorado, and in Palo Alto, California. But the bulk of the work that we've done throughout our history has really been through partner sites. So I mentioned we had six locations, we also have staff in San Antonio, Texas, and in Montgomery County, Maryland. And those partner sites, as well as in those locations with centers that I mentioned, you know, there are many, many organizations doing great work for seniors already. People know them, people trust them, they go there, libraries being a really big one, been consistently a great partner for us throughout the years. And so those partner sites we will partner with in order to bring programming where people already are, where people are already comfortable, where they know folks, and things like that. We also have a wealth of program, virtual programs on seniorplanet.org. So about two years ago, we'd been, you know, thinking about, well, we should start to do some virtual programs soon, that would be nice. And then of course, we were, you know, warp speed into that very quickly, but we now have dozens of free online programs per week. And that really ranges, those programs range from technology topics to discussion groups, affinity groups, there's a lot of different opportunities that folks can look at on seniorplanet.org. I'm actually going to skip licensing for a second here. And then we have the seniorplanet technology hotline. Again, this was created during the pandemic, especially at the beginning, when we started doing programs on zoom, the first challenge, of course, was, well, how do we get people on zoom? How do we get them comfortable with it? How do we let them know these classes are here? So one way that we did that was a significant number of outbound calls from a hotline, but then also we received calls to our hotline, and that's been something that we support. So an older adult can call with questions related to technology, you know, my iCloud is not working, or I've never used Zoom before, I'm getting this weird error message, you know, please help. And there are people who will help them one on one over the phone for free. And so I'm actually going to switch my screen share in just a moment here. So just to give you a little peek, this is seniorplanet.org. And so if you were to share this, these are both resources that can be shared with your patient patrons right now. All of it is completely free. So we have a list of all of our upcoming classes. And if you go to view all classes, you'll see a much longer list. We have programs in English, in Spanish, and in Mandarin. And then we also have, I mentioned, we have the technology programs, discussion groups, things like that. We also have a significant number of fitness programs. Typically, those are, well, I should say typically those are recurring, they're often daily or once a week. So that can be a really exciting way to get people engaged. So we have these and then I go back to that homepage, that technology help hotline is right at the top here. So if you know folks who can benefit from us, from that, feel free to share that, you know, I know, especially librarians, they get so many questions all the time. And sometimes, you know, doing that one-on-one help when you're being pulled in a lot of different directions can be really challenging. And so this is one resource that may be helpful to alleviate some of that when someone is coming, you're coming to the desk asking for help. Switch back to my slides here. The other big way that we've been focusing on for about the last year and a half to increase access to our programming is through our licensing program. So through our centers and our partner sites in those six locations I mentioned, we have in-person and virtual programs. Obviously the virtual programs can be accessed anywhere, but that still leaves a whole very significant part of the country that doesn't have in-person programming opportunities. And especially for someone who is really uncomfortable with technology or who, you know, may be really out of their comfort zone, you know, we're starting at turning on and off the device here. That's something that's completely, you know, we see that all the time and that's nothing to be ashamed of, but it can be a really big barrier and certainly very difficult to do if you're trying to do that over the phone or virtual. Those hands-on programming opportunities really makes a big difference. And so that's where our licensing program comes in and how we're expanded to those 22 states to offer in-person programming across the country. So I'll talk about that more in just a bit here, but I do want to, we like to emphasize here how our Senior Planet training model is designed, specifically that it's designed with and for older adults. So all of the programs that we do start, you know, with focus groups, with surveys, we ask older adults, what are you interested in? What are you hearing about? What's a pain point in your life? Are there things that you want to change? And we start the programs from there as opposed to a prescriptive method saying that, you know, this is what you should be doing or should be learning. Well, what do you want to learn? Let's start there. And the programs are designed using adult learning theories. So they are really focused primarily on the 60 plus, you know, with our work with AARP, we certainly serve the 50 plus community, but the programs are designed for people who have had a lifetime of experience and, you know, who have a lot that they're bringing into the classroom and really focus on making connections that way. So these programs may not be relevant or successful for someone who's in their 30s. They really are designed for those who are 60 and older. We focus on mainstream devices and applications. We often see different devices or programs that are specifically designed for older adults, but we really believe that giving older adults only the access to those can further marginalize them. And so we want them to be able to use and take advantage of, you know, the devices that they're going to see in their local library. You know, if they go to a coffee shop and they're using a pay system that has an iPad, things like that, we want to make sure that the programs are addressing, you know, what they're going to see out there in the world. So we really have a focus on those mainstream devices, applications of things that people of any age would use technology-wise. That's what our programming is focused on. And then as I mentioned earlier, we really have a significant emphasis on partnerships, not just from the, you know, creating a good partnership where we can bring something. And we're, you know, we're bringing these programs where, excuse me, bringing the programs to a new location or to a new group of people, but also really learning from our partners. You know, you all have, are doing this work day in and day out and older adults are different in different places. It's by no means a monolithic group. And so we really seek to learn from our partners so that as we design more programs, we're making sure we're being responsive and, you know, accurately representing the whole wealth of experiences of being an older adult and not just focused on, you know, one specific geographic area or one specific decade or anything like that. So my next slide here, these are the impact areas that our programs focus on. So I mentioned we start with the older adult and all our programming. And we did so when creating our impact areas as well. We did a really large survey and asked older adults, you know, what are the, what are the areas of interest in your life? Where are things that you, you know, you want to improve or that you're really excited about, things that come up. And this is what came up again and again. And that's how our impact areas were born. So health and wellness, you know, I mentioned those fitness programs, we also have programs on online health resources, telemedicine, social engagement, you see a lot of Zoom, social media programs, things like that. Those discussion groups as well. Creative expression. So we've got programs on things like Canva or smartphone photography and ways people can share their stories or their creativity. Financial security is a big one. We have tons of programming on online banking, shopping online, and then also a lot of it's infused into all of our programming, you know, the safety and security aspect, but that one really shines through in the financial security programs as well. And then lastly, civic engagement and advocacy. So programs, for example, on contacting your lawmakers using social media, that's what you'd see in that category. The kind of six hidden impact area we have here are those foundational programs. So like I mentioned before, someone who's really uncomfortable with a device, maybe doesn't have email, doesn't have connectivity at home. They, you know, they don't know what to do if they have a device or if they use a device. So those really start from the very beginning from step one and can take someone all the way through, you know, using YouTube, using social media, not just sending and receiving emails, but forwarding, replying all using attachments, things like that, so that can kind of unlock programming and these other impact areas. The other key aspect to these is this is the way that we measure the success of our programs. So when we are looking at, you know, was this program successful, we don't say, Oh, here's a test, you know, can you show me how to mute and unmute on Zoom, prove that you can do it? The question that's more important to us is, what has that changed in your life? Have you been able to, you know, see your grandchildren who don't live near you? Or have you been able to feel, you know, safer if you're more immunocompromised and you're able to see your neighbor, see your family on Zoom? We don't really care whether you're able to mute and unmute, we care what that has enabled and bettered in your life. So that's true for all of our impact areas. That's how we measure success. So I will say here, I can talk about our impact areas for a long time, but I think a little bit more valuable to hear directly from participants themselves. So I'm going to show a share, hopefully the audio will work here, just a one minute video of a participant who actually found us during the pandemic. And let me see if I can switch this right here. I see the video. All right, let me make sure everything is turned up. I've been a widow for 11 years. I am very active in the community relative to a senior theater, as well as being a docent at our Laramie Plains Museum. I was a banker for a number of years. We had old time calculators, adding machines, typewriters. Nothing like is in the financial world today. Sometimes in our generation, we're more reluctant to accept and go forth with new challenges. And Senior Planet, it opens doors to all of the virtual tours that are out there for us. So I started using Telehealth after I had a class on the actual function of Telehealth. I'm very fortunate with all of the training that I've had that I'm even able to use my Apple Watch because I can do an EKG and forward that information to my doctor. So there's something good that comes out of everything if we just are resourceful enough and look for it. So I think that Jermaine does a much better job kind of explaining the impact that Senior Planet has had on her life. And you may have noticed in the video she's in Wyoming, a place where we don't have any physical staff on the ground, but she's been I think one of the biggest or the most numerous participants in our virtual programs over the last two years. So you're almost every day in there. So it's been really awesome. I don't even know how to do that for my, I have a smart watch. I don't know how to send it from that to my doctor. You know, I kind of like the dumb watches personally, but again, personal choice. So that here. So next I'll really focus and narrow in a little bit more on our licensing programs. As I mentioned, that's an opportunity for other senior serving organizations to take Senior Planet classes and be able to implement them in person on the ground in their communities. I will mention it multiple times, but this is not a sales pitch. Everything that I'm going to share here is free. There is no licensing fee that's associated with this program. There are a couple of resources that we ask our partners to bring into the partnership, which I'll go into a little bit. But to start, we created this licensing structure, as I mentioned before, to address the need of a lack of in-person technology programs for older adults across the country. There are many organizations who are doing great work and who do have very successful technology programs, but often when we partner with folks, we would find, you know, they were looking for some extra training or they were looking for the curriculum. You know, they might have someone on staff who's spending almost half their time writing that curriculum. And we said, well, we have, we have almost two decades of knowledge, two decades of learning, and we have a really, a really highly valued set of curriculum that has been reviewed and awarded. And so we said, well, how can we share that and really engage and unlock the potential of other organizations to be able to really, to make their lives a little bit easier? So our program starts with a five week train the trainer series. I'll say that's all completely virtual. So no one would have to fly anywhere or anything like that. It's just a couple of hours a week. But that will take an organization who we partner with through all of the ins and outs of getting senior planet programs up and running in their community. So, you know, we start with our attitude and approach to aging. We talk, you know, specifics about marketing. We have, you know, flyer templates. We have program descriptions. Really, we try to make it as easy for our partners as possible. Then of course, we dig into the actual curriculum, you know, how to set up a classroom, what, you know, how to use the training materials and then all the way through reporting, how do you do the attendance and things like that. So that train the trainer series is really comprehensive. And it's supported by an online resource we call the program support center, which has dozens and dozens of materials from our training methodology documents, you know, all the way through those templates and links and, you know, phone numbers and useful things like that, that our licensed partners have access to throughout the entire time they're licensed with us. Of course, another significant component is that curriculum itself. So curriculum across all of those different impact areas, we have three different types of curriculum. So we have one time lectures. So those are more presentation style. They'll say still very engaging, a lot of discussion questions. But those aren't hands on programs. They're really meant to introduce a group of people to a topic, to an application, to an idea, you know, maybe explore the website, do some demoing, you know, have open discussion about what are the benefits you see here? What are the downsides? Is it something that you'd be interested in? And so that gives a really nice overview of a topic or an application to encourage someone to decide whether or not they would want to learn more. We also have one time programs that are workshops. Those are hands on and they typically pair with a lecture that they don't have to. You know, so for an example, you might have a lecture on P to P payments or person to person payments, and then you might have a workshop on Venmo, where people would actually go through the workshop with a device and get an account, create an account and get it set up. So those workshops will typically, they have that hands on component and typically you're signing up for exploring a website, something along those lines paired well with the lectures. But really what we're known for are our courses. And we have both five and 10 week courses that meet twice a week. And those courses, you really cover a lot. So the foundational programs I've been mentioning, those are typically courses. So you would think something like computer basics, that's going to take start again, that turning on and off computer, you know, looking at the desktop, identifying different icons, how do we even open up the internet? What are different browsers all the way through? You know, at the end, there are classes that touch on each of the impact areas. So let's explore some of those online health resources. Let's try out YouTube. Let's go to Twitter. Let's see what these things are. And then people can take more classes in depth on those topics. And it says a growing selection of curriculum, as I mentioned, where, you know, we work with older adults and with our partners to decide what curriculum we'll be writing next. So it's both growing in the sense that we're releasing more and more to our licensed partners every quarter. We release new curriculum, but we're also seeking the information from them about what, you know, when we're creating things, what are we going to create next? What's new? A big one that's come up recently as the Affordable Connectivity Program. So we'll be releasing that next quarter to our licensed partners with a step-by-step, you know, that lecture. What is the Affordable Connectivity Program? Might it be for me? And then a hands-on workshop on actually going through the application online and applying for that government benefit. With our licensed partners, we seek to create a community with ongoing support and community building. So after that train-the-trainer series, you know, we don't say good luck, you know, talk to you in a year, hope things are all right. We're here for our licensed partners, you know, we get phone calls, emails daily. This thing isn't working or this happened in my classroom where this this picture in the flyer doesn't really reflect my community. Can I switch it out? Do you have another picture that we could use here? You know, we are here to be responsive and to support the partners so that we can make programs as successful as possible. And we also want to create a community for our partners. So we have quarterly meetings where partners will share. You know, we have a couple of partner presentations so that they can learn from each other. You know, we have a lot of knowledge and we have a lot of learning that we want to share, but we certainly don't have it all. And so we want to create a community, especially where like organizations can share what's been successful for them. You know, rural library to rural library might have some more similarities than, you know, urban senior center rural libraries will want to take advantage of, you know, all the knowledge of our partners. And then we do also have additional engagement opportunities for participants. So we do hope that participants who join the senior planet, the senior planet programs through our licensed partners in person, that they also take advantage of those online programs for free. They join that larger community. But we also have a couple of special opportunities that that are shared with those participants. They can become part of our supporter program, which has some special programs and annual technology review for free so that they can, you know, be really take advantage of everything that senior planet has to offer. So just a few specifics on the licensing program. It is an in person experience. I mentioned that train the trainer program is completely virtual, but it that train the trainer series prepares our partners to deliver classes where both the the trainer and the participants are in person. It's a year long commitment at the start. We run that train the trainer series and then partners are licensed for four quarters to deliver the curriculum. But that plus there is really the key we, you know, we certainly hope all our partners stay on with us for many years to come. It is free of charge. You know, we had people say like, really, what are you trying to trick me here? We did originally think we would have to charge for this program. But we have been able to underwrite the cost for our licensed partners. We also understand that many of the organizations that we want to work with would not have the budget to pay for an annual licensing fee. So we work with our partners, you know, to share the successes of their programs so that we can seek outside funding to continue to make that free, you know, forever that that's the goal. So it is currently free of charge. And at this point, we have no intention of charging for the license. Because of that though, there are spots are limited and we only have so so many staff members and you know, she takes a little while to grow teams. So we do have an application process that I'll talk through in just a moment for organizations who are interested in this. That's just to make sure that we are able to provide that really high level of support that part of the program for every partner and that we don't don't let anyone fall by the wayside. So timeline here we are currently accepting applications for the next round of our licensing program. I will mention we will be offering it again and again. But current the current opportunity we're accepting applications for and that would be to start the train the trainer series in mid August. So that train the trainer series would run about mid August to mid September to start program delivery in October. And of course, I mentioned that year license so run through October of 2023, but hopefully beyond that, which takes me to the couple of resources I mentioned earlier. It as I mentioned, the license is free, but there are a couple of things that we ask our partners to kind of bring into the partnership. The first two are personnel. So that program administrator and trainer and I'm actually going to skip those talk a little bit more in detail about them in the next couple of slides. The third bubble there is technology. So that's a big one. Our hands on programs require a classroom set of devices. Our methodology does not do a bring your own device model. We've tried it. We've tried it many different times and it can be very quickly become, well, my update looks a little differently. My device is so old. I can't update to the latest thing, you know, and learning. The learning importance from building a digital literacy and being able to learn, you know, the different symbols, things that can translate from device to device into why is my one device not working? And that can be very difficult for the trainer. So that's why we asked for that classroom set of devices. Between eight and 15 devices, our classes are meant to be group learning. So we really look to have at least eight devices in the classroom, though there is some flexibility on that depending on the size of your organization. The other key piece to technology is the internet. So our programs will all utilize the internet. And I think we can probably all attest to the frustration of slow internet when there's too many people trying to use the same thing at the same time. And so especially for a class who is maybe newer to the type of program, that frustration can really turn people off. So we do look at a minimum speed internet connection speed. And we have a technology recommendations document that's part of the resources that will be shared after this presentation that goes into detail about the different devices, the internet speed, how you can test it. If you have any specific questions on those, feel free to reach out to me. Actually, Krista, that reminds me, I'll make sure I put my email, send that to you as well. That can be a resource if anyone has any follow up questions after this. But those, if you're like, well, we have this set of devices, don't know if it will work for the program, always happy to chat and see if it will. If it won't, typically we're pretty flexible on it. We just look for a decently up to date operating system. And then the fourth bubble here is a classroom space. So just a place for the classes to take place. Of course, this doesn't have to be what you would envision of a typical classroom with desks and things like that. But the things that we look for, something that's conducive to learning. So a clean, quiet environment can be really nice if there's some flexibility in the seating. So you could do some group work, some individual work. That's certainly a nice to have. The other key component for the classroom space is a clear presentation spot. So either a projector or a TV screen, something where you could, the trainer, it's our best practice to demonstrate, to show on a big screen what participants will be doing so that they can follow along after. And in that presentation spot, you want the trainer to be seen by every participant and then the trainer to also be able to see every participant. So getting towards the end here, I know it's been a lot of me talking. I'm excited to hear some questions here. The other two resources are personnel. And so the administrators and the trainers, firstly the administrators, this person would be really the primary contact, both on the ground and for OATS. Their role would be to coordinate the local programs, choose from the selection of curriculum, which ones they're going to offer. We don't tell our partners which programs to schedule because we don't know your communities as well as you do. So we really say this is the list. Pick what makes sense for you if you want some advice, if you want to talk it out, happy to do that. But it's really up to you to decide where, when, and what because that's going to be most important to driving attendance. We get asked about how much time, and this is really the best estimate we can come up with for a coordinator or excuse me, a program administrator around two to four hours a week. We ask our partners to work schedule programs on our quarterly calendar so that we can provide the most amount of support. The quarter ebbs and flows. So you can imagine when you're planning the quarter, your scheduling programs, your advertising, you're getting people signed up, it's going to be on the high end there. And then certainly as you're winding down the quarter, you know, you're closing things out, doing surveys and putting participant data, things like that, again going to be on that high side. But in the middle of the quarter, things are running smoothly, trainers are running the programs, participants are there, it can certainly be less than two hours per week for sure. When we think about the qualities that our successful administrators have, these are the four that have really stood out the most. The first is that connection to the community. So connection to the older adults in the community. What do they want to learn? What's going to be interesting? What time of day do they want to show up? Things like that. But also something I failed to mention in the previous slide that technology in that classroom space, though we ask our partners to be to find those, they don't necessarily have to provide them themselves. The partner doesn't have to go out and make the purchase. The partner doesn't have to own or rent the space. They could partner with another organization in the community. Maybe there's a community college with a computer lab that's sitting free five hours a week. And as an administrator, we really look for people who have that knowledge or have those connections or willing to hit the ground and say, okay, I need to find this. Where do I start? So both from that technology and classroom space perspective, that can be provided by other organizations. We just look for our partners to be the ones who find that. We say a little bit of a self-starter makes a good administrator, though we seek to provide the maximum amount of support that we can at the end of the day. A classroom floods and you got to figure out what to do with class. Is it possible to run it? Is it not? A real world example that we've had, certainly someone who is really comfortable just making those decisions on the ground, communicating with the trainers, communicating with participants and figuring things out. As you probably gathered throughout this presentation, there's a lot of different moving pieces to this. Someone who's got a high level of organization or who's able to keep different deadlines and different schedules all in one place really goes a long way. And then, of course, someone could have all of these qualities and more, but they simply don't have the time. So that last bullet, the available capacity, someone who is able to dedicate that two to four hours per week to the program. And at the very end here, program administrators attend a selection of the Train the Trainer series. They're welcome to attend all of them, but they're not required to. There's some sessions that focus more on administrative tasks and then some sessions that are for the trainers more specifically, which takes us to trainers. So I'll mention here that for many organizations we work with, the trainer and the administrator are one and the same. And that's a completely fine model, works absolutely well. It really depends on the scale and how many programs and organizations trying to run. So you may have one person that's just kind of the senior planet person and they do everything and that's totally fine. You could also have a situation where there's one administrator and two, three, 10 trainers who are operating and serving different locations and running more programs. So a lot of flexibility there. But those who are on the trainer role, they're really the heart and soul of the programs. People come and they're excited about class and they'll come back if they learn something, but they really, what we see is they'll come back most if they connect with the person who was teaching, if they feel welcomed, if they feel like they could ask questions that someone who is there is excited to teach them, excited to share that knowledge. So trainers, like I said, they're really the heart and soul of senior planet programs. The time estimate here can really vary. If you're looking for someone who could serve as a trainer, you want to look for someone who would be able to dedicate around five hours a week. The way we calculate that is a course that meets twice a week each time is for 75 minutes. So you're looking about an hour and a half of, or excuse me, two and a half hours of programming. But then you have some setup time, some prep time, some travel time. If their site isn't very close to where they live or where they work, a little bit of data entry time for the surveys, things like that. You're getting around five hours per week. Of course, that can go up. We could certainly have a trainer who's delivering 40 hours a week of programming. It really can vary depending on how many programs the organization is looking to run. The qualities that we look for in a successful trainer, there's another document that will be shared after, kind of our trainer profile when we look for trainers. But these are the keys that we look for, that ability to create a warm and welcoming learning environment, that excitement to work with older adults. And then we often get asked, you know, it's technology programs. Do they need to be an IT expert? Do they need, you know, how much technology do they need to know? So we certainly look for proficiency with common devices. You know, we don't want someone who's learning alongside participants. We want someone who is comfortable navigating devices, navigating the internet. But they don't have to know everything. Our curriculum has a significant amount of support materials for the trainers. So I've taught a program on drones before and I had enough information to know what I needed to teach. I've never used a drone before. So you don't have to be completely, you know, completely well-versed, just comfortable with technology. Because what's much more important to us is that ability to clearly communicate technical information. You know, IT experts can make great trainers, but sometimes they don't because they get really into the weeds. We use the analogy, you know, you don't have to know every bit of how a car works to drive it. So someone who can teach you how to drive the car, how to operate a computer or the internet, that's really what we're looking for to put an analogy there. And then trainers do attend all of those train-the-trainer sessions as well as a practice teaching session and give them a little bit of a chance to try things out before they're thrown into the classroom. And this slide here just goes to underscore the importance of that trainer, you know, the effect that they have when we get feedback about our classes. Yes, we get great feedback on, you know, the content and the handouts and the pacing and things like that. But more often than not, it's about the trainer. So that trainer really is the critical role in what makes the successful class. So if you are interested in the licensing program, a couple next steps here. The first step would be to fill out that application. The link to the application will be in those resources that will be shared or posted after this session. And what we look for in an application is really the, you know, an alignment to our mission, as well as the ability to stand up the program. So you wouldn't have to have everything figured out, you know, right off the bat. It's a good time to, if you're interested, to start thinking about who would serve that trainer role, who would serve that administrator role? You know, where might I source the technology? Is this something I need to figure out? Or do I have a couple of ideas? Do I have it already? Things like that. Once you apply, organization will be notified within two to three weeks. And then accepted organizations will go through the process of signing documents. And then we have a commitment form for administrators and trainers. It's not very extensive, but we do want to make sure they know what they're getting into, you know, what they've signed up for before they formally commit. So it has things, you know, like viewing 20 minutes of a class, things like that. So they have kind of an understanding of what they're, what they're getting themselves into. So I've got a list of FAQs, but I actually might pause here and see if there are some that have come through so far that we want to address. If not, I can kind of run through some of these here. Sure, sure. Yeah. I do have a question. Someone did have a suggestion they want to see about. So I'll read that one. But if anybody does have any questions, yeah, get them into the question section of your GoToWebinar interface so that Deirdre can answer them for you. And actually the first thing, well, the first couple of ones, there was something I was going to mention from the last slide with the licensing that came up. Because I know, in case someone wasn't here at the very beginning, that your licensing to us, you know, to libraries, they sometimes think, oh, okay, how much, what is it cost to licensing licenses? And the key to this is it's an agreement you sign, but there is no cost. Correct. So be very clear about that. You don't have to worry about that at all. It's more just more like an agreement of how you're going to use the resources. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, since we're sharing our intellectual property, that kind of, you know, making sure all those i's are dotted and t's are crossed. But if any organization has specific questions on what might be in the agreement or anything like that, I'm happy to share. Krista, I'll share this with you again after. But the best way to reach me is through licensing at seniorplanet.org. That email is kind of our catch all email for anything about the licensing program. Happy to set up a one on one call, ask questions, answer questions over email, anything like that. So it's licensing at seniorplanet.org. And again, that will be available in the, in the follow up resources. Great. All right. All right. We have one person. What's, I just wanted to know, they would love to see, or maybe you do have this, programming for older adults with disabilities or vision impairments, such as sessions about magnification, screeners, et cetera, maybe even with a tech trainer who is blind themselves. That's a, that's a great question and one that does come up for us. So seniorplanet does not specialize in programming for those with disabilities, though we are as accommodating as possible. What we actually recommend, especially for our licensed partners, is to use another organization who is really specialized in that kind of teaching to do that groundwork for, right? The screen readers, the magnification, the contrasting. And once someone learns that, it really unlocks the seniorplanet opportunities and the seniorplanet classes. I will say we do have licensed trainers who are visually impaired and we're, you know, we're working with a couple of organizations to see how we may be able to do more formal of a partnership in terms of what I just mentioned, where really they're, they're bringing that knowledge and that expertise on training for visually impaired. And then the seniorplanet curriculum, you know, will come after that. So now that you know how to use, you know, a screen reader, what websites are you interested in? You know, what, what are the pros and cons of those things like that? So I appreciate that you bring it up and recommend because we don't have an immense amount of expertise there, really leaning on the organizations that do, but we do in the train, the trainer series, we touch on it a little bit, you know, you're likely going to have folks in your class who might have some vision impairment or some hearing impairment, you know, or perhaps, you know, shaky hands could be any number of reasons. So we have resources there, you know, how to change a mouse sensitivity, how to change the contrast on the screen, things like that, that can be helpful for a trainer who's, you know, kind of just encountering that out of the blue. All right, great. Thank you. See, this person is asking about how many people would need. The library I am at has a very small staff, but this program would fit as well. Is there a minimum of how many people we need to run this at our end? Great question. That kind of maybe hits one of my FAQs here in terms of how the licensed trainers are staffed and how many are needed. So really the minimum is one. It's one person and you can certainly have it, you know, that doesn't necessarily need to be one full-time person. We work with especially a lot of rural libraries where, you know, there's maybe two or three people who wear every hat under the sun and so part of the job is the senior planet programming and that's, you know, maybe they do that Tuesdays and Thursdays in the week, but Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays are, you know, young adult programming or children program, things like that. Definitely, that works within our model. Another thing I like to call out here in terms of how licensed trainers are staffed, that we do look for the administrator to be someone who is, you know, tied to the organization, someone who can coordinate on behalf of the official licensed organization. Trainers can certainly be volunteers. We have a lot of successful trainers who are volunteers it's definitely more of a larger volunteer commitment than some, you know, it's not a one-time thing, the training's a little bit longer and on your end, you know, you would want a volunteer who's really intends to stay for a while with you, you know, you don't want someone to come in, do it for a month or two and then leave. We do offer additional trainer opportunities throughout the license term, typically about once a quarter so you can bring new people in, you know, throughout your license. We often see that someone will start with, let's just try one trainer, you know, we'll see how it goes, we'll see what demand is and more often than not, they're like, oh, we need more trainers, we need people are asking for these programs left and right and that so they'll bring on other people as well. So, could be someone who's already on staff become some part of their responsibility, could be someone who is volunteer or some organizations do have, you know, some funding for a part-time hire, all three we've seen and at this point we don't have any recommendation for one working better than the other, it really depends on what the organization, what makes the most sense for them. So that's nice, you don't have any requirement, it's just going to be see what you can do with who you've got. Yeah, and that maybe I'll hit one of these other FAQs on here, the minimum number of programs we look to have offered under this program, you know, we typically like for partners to offer at least 10 programs in a quarter, our quarters create, have 10 weeks of active programming, so looking about one 75 to 90 minute program per week, you know, certainly there is no limit, sometimes you'll say like, how many can I do as many as you want, no issues there, you know, but we also understand for some organizations, you know, things happen or they say like, hey, you know, we really don't have programming in the month of December because, you know, it's completely snowed in, no one comes to the library, we do only fully virtual then something like that. So there's definitely flexibility in the application, it will ask if your organization could commit to five hours or more of programming per month, so that's again about one program per week, but if they're, you know, if you're like that seems doable, but you know, maybe not every single month or something like that, reach out, let us know, write it in the application, happy to have a conversation and see if, because it very well still could be a good fit. So you mentioned you have worked with libraries before on this, you've got other libraries doing this and how have they done it, just whatever works, I mean, all sorts of different ways. Yeah, I will say that's, I mean, that's kind of the fun thing about the question. You have the who is eligible to apply, obviously libraries. Yes, really, is that any work with or is it other organizations or is there any sort of like grill? Libraries are a good chunk of who we work with, but certainly not the only organization. So we really will work with any senior serving organization in the United States. So currently the program is only open to those in the 50 States plus Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands. An organization does have to apply. We've gotten some very excited individuals apply, but legally we can only license an organization. So if you know an excited or if you are an excited individual, encourage you to seek an organization in your community who could become the partner. But typically in, I'd say, typically we work with nonprofits or government entities. We don't say a hard no on for profits, but the first question there are the programs free to seniors. The answer to that is yes. We want our programs to be as equitable as possible and that's a big way that we can do that. So having that free programming, we do, yeah, so typically nonprofits or government entities, but happy to have the conversation if that's not your organization. A lot of libraries, a lot of senior centers, area agencies on aging, county governments, those have been kind of our primary partners to date. All right, and then actually someone does want to make sure that you do cover they're very interested in the technology and classroom requirements. Yes. So I will, it's a, I don't mean to give a non-answer here, but I would encourage you to take a look at those resources that will be posted after because those will go into a lot more specific details. And again, I have those open here. I actually was looking at them. Yeah, there is this, the technology recommendations is one of the documents that I see here. Yeah. Yeah. Right now the program supports PCs, iPads, Chromebooks, and we're adding Android tablets to that as well. PCs is a huge category. So likely things can fit, you know, desktops, laptops, windows surfaces, all of that would be totally doable. If you have questions like this is the technology we have, would this work? Typically the answer is yes, but you know, reach out, happy to chat about different specifics. And same with those classroom requirements, you know, really like a clean, quiet classroom space with that clear presentation spot and the ability to mirror the screen of the trainer. That's the key requirement that we're looking for there. All right. Thank you. All right. I don't see any other questions waiting. Does anybody have any questions you want to ask? We're almost at 11 o'clock, but that's okay. We started a little after 10 this morning, making sure everybody was here and connected. If you have any questions, type them into the question section and get there to answer them right now. Is there any of these items here on the FAQs that we want to still cover? I think we've... I can really quickly hit a couple of them. The list of curriculum again will be included in those follow-up resources. And we are adding, I should say, you know, that's being added to every day or every quarter. Currently, the program is supporting English, though for our next Train the Trainer series, we'll be adding Spanish as well, and then Mandarin the quarter after that. So those are the languages that are planned in terms of the curriculum. If there's other languages your community is interested in, please reach out. We do actually use that information as we're planning for what languages to translate next. And then I... The last one, a question that we get as the COVID protocols, and the short answer is we really leave it up to the organization. As long as an organization is following federal and state guidelines, we don't impose any additional COVID protocols, you know, masking vaccinations with... It's different area to area, so we really leave it up to what the organization's policy is. Oh, someone... Oh, isn't it? Someone wants to know if Russian would be a possibility in the future? That's a good question. We actually have had some Russian programming in the past. It is definitely a little bit out of date, but I'm glad you asked. I'll mention it to our curriculum team as they think about doing those updates that can put that on the sooner side. But yes, Russian would certainly be a possibility. It's one that's been mentioned before. Yeah, awesome. All right. So I see you stopped sharing your screen, so that's... That was the end of your slides there then, the FAQs? Okay. No problem. Because I'm going to show here because I happen to have them up. I'm going to get my screen up here. There it is. Yeah, there's these four PDFs that Dearhead sent to me, the Training Environment Guidelines. Trainer Profile. And then he has whole technology recommendations document here. And we'll have all this available to you afterwards on the archive page for this. And then program selection and descriptions. And there's also... Oh, what's this in here? Licensing application. I hadn't clicked on that one yet. Yes, that'll take you to our main licensing page. So I'll also mention if you're thinking this would be great, but you're not quite sure with the timing. There is a button if you scroll down to sign up for an email list. I promise we don't send out like four emails a week there. It's really the next time that we have opportunities to apply. But you'll see this is an information session. You have attended one. So step one is complete. And so you could... That Apply Here button will take you to the application. Thanks. So that's it. So you look at this here to see what you'll need to provide. I'm not going to go into the whole form, but yes, we will have a link to that on the archive. Tell us about your organization, the impact the programs would have in your area, what area you're applying to serve, that kind of a thing is what you can expect. But the application is all on one page after this introductory page. So you will see, no hidden questions on page two or three. And then here's a box you can check right off the map because you attended today. Back to here. Yes, when we have the recording, we'll have... I will link to that license, but we already linked to the main seniorplanet.org here. We'll add a link to the licensing and then all four of these PDF documents will be included as well. Anybody have any last minute desperate questions they want to ask? Didn't look. Anything came in while we were chatting about the documents yet? So that's fine. And like you said, the best way to reach you to ask questions was the licensing email. Yes, licensing at seniorplanet.org. And of course, if we can put that on this page as well, then folks will have it there for reference. I will definitely do that. I'm writing in org. Cool. All right. Well, then I think we'll wrap it up. We don't have any other questions. You all can reach out to Deirdre if you do. Definitely look through all the resources. I hope we get some more libraries in Nebraska doing this. I don't know that we've... I don't think that we've had any do it that I know of, but I think it's definitely... We do, as I said in the beginning, the older population is growing. And definitely, we have a lot of interest in this session. So people are definitely wanting to do something for them. I know. Yeah. Thank you all very much for this opportunity. Thank you, Christa, and for AARP Nebraska, who's made the connection here for us. So look forward to hopefully getting some partners out in Nebraska and again, reach out to me if there are any questions. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Deirdre. Thank you everybody for being here. So I'm going to pop over to our main Encompass Live page now. If you use your search engine of choice and just type in Encompass Live, you'll get this page. We have our upcoming shows here, but I'll show you right now, right underneath that, is the link to our archives. The most recent one will be at the top of the page here. Today's show should be ready and up by the end of the day tomorrow, with all I get to process it through GoToWebinar and YouTube and have everything added to it. So everyone, it'll be posted here. Everyone who attended today's show and registered for today's show, even if you couldn't make it, you'll get an email from me letting you know that it's ready. We also put that information out to our various social media. We use Twitter, Instagram. Encompass Live does have a Facebook page. You'll see it linked on some of our website pages. We post reminders about shows. Here's a reminder to log in to today's show, meet our speakers. There's the one here, the recording of last week's Encompass Live. So if you'd like to use Facebook, if you are a Facebook user, give us a like over there. If not, you can follow. We use the hashtag and comply with a little abbreviation of our name, anywhere else where we post things out there. We're just keeping it on our webpage. While I'm here in the archives, I'll show you there is a search feature, so if you want to search for any other topics, you want to see if we did a show on a particular topic, you can do that. I will note there's a, you can search the full our show archives are just the most recent 12 months. That is because this is our full show archives. I'm not going to go all the way to the bottom because if you look over here and see the scroll bar, it's pretty huge. This is our full show archives going back to when Encompass Live premiered, which was in January 2009. So we have what we're going to attend, 12 something years worth of archives here. So just pay attention to the original broadcast date of anything you watch. Everything has a date on it. Some of the shows will be still good, have good information, stand the test of time, no problem. But some things will become older outdated. Information may have changed. Links may no longer work anymore. Some products and resources don't exist anymore 10 years later. But we are librarians and one thing we do is keep things for historical purposes. And as long as we have a place to host all of our recordings, which these are all on YouTube right now, we will have them always available for you. So that'll wrap it up today for today's show. I hope you join us next week when our Talking Book and Braille service director Gabe Kramer will be with us to talk about things going on in our TBBS. This is for, you're just asking, someone's just asking about people with visual and disabilities, but our Talking Book and Braille service specifically for anyone with a visual or physical condition that limits their use of using print materials. I'm going to talk about what's happening in that program that we offer. The Talking Book and Braille service is actually part of our one department, an area of our Nebraska library commission. So definitely sign up for that and any of our other shows we have. We've got July filled up, August getting filled up, and even in September down here. So sign up for any of these other shows. So thank you everybody for being here. Thank you, Deirdre. Good to see you. And hopefully we'll see people on a future episode of Encompass Live. Bye-bye. Thanks, everyone. Bye.