Don’t Lose the Connection: Virtual Visits for Older Adults

Abstract

Little research is available concerning the use of technology to connect non-mobile senior adults with museums. This paper explores the viability of Interactive Virtual Learning (IVL) programs to gauge the interests, preferences, and needs of the older adults. The authors drew from personal experiences presenting such programs to seniors and held focus groups with past participants to craft a survey. Seniors living in residential retirement communities answered the surveys as did their activity directors who act as coordinators for these IVL programs. Additional input was solicited from educators experienced in facilitating virtual visits (IVL) for seniors. This information was compared with the findings and comments from the returned surveys. Among the three groups, (seniors, activity directors and educators) many common ideas emerged which are offered as recommendations for organizations interested in developing similar IVL programs or conducting further research.