Digital Skills program empowers 68 Oklahoma City seniors at wellness center

Oklahoma City, Okla. (June 10, 2025) - These days, being able to use a computer or smartphone isn’t just a nice skill to have — it’s a necessity. That’s especially true for older adults who want to stay connected and independent. To help bridge that gap, Connected Nation (CN) is bringing its Digital Skills Training program directly to seniors who are looking to build their confidence with technology.

Earlier this year, the Community Health Recreation & Wellness Center in Oklahoma City recognized that their seniors needed help with exactly what CN offers. The center provides programming that improves the physical and emotional wellness of northeast Oklahoma City senior adults.

“We heard about these classes through the Urban League here in Oklahoma City,” said Madison Stockton, Interim Branch Manager at Community Health Recreation & Wellness Center. “They had come around to pass out flyers for a tech class and I asked them, ‘So, how do we get involved and how do we get this to be here?’ They said that CN were the ones putting it on for them. Then we connected from there.”

On April 21 and 22, a total of 68 Community Health Recreation & Wellness Center participants completed six different digital skills classes. Topics included: computer basics, internet basics, mobile device basics, videoconferencing, email basics, and cybersecurity.

“Everyone really enjoyed the classes,” said Stockton. “We serve senior populations, and a lot of them have tech questions that maybe their grandchildren or children can't answer for them.”

The mobile device basics and computer basics classes were the most popular, and according to Stockton, everybody had great things to say about them. A couple of participants have their own business, so learning how to use email properly and communicate with others online is very important.

“They really like the Q&A portion. A lot of them came to the classes with specific questions,” Stockton added. “For example, one of our seniors was trying to send someone a photo, and they were able to learn how to do it on their own with instructions from the CN instructor, Marco Mata.”

Stockton herself saw such a positive impact that she asked CN to come back to lead more classes in June.

“I would highly recommend these classes to other organizations, especially organizations who serve seniors,” she said. “This is a highly sought-after class. We get a lot of requests for tech classes. For us to be able to provide it for them, that was great.”

Thanks to support from AT&T, Connected Nation’s Digital Skills Training program is available at no cost to local organizations and communities. Additionally, groups can receive financial incentives based on the number of individuals they help train.

“We really appreciated having these classes here,” Stockton said. “It was a great resource for us, and we enjoyed having it. It was a free resource for us to use, so especially being a nonprofit, we really, really liked that.”

To learn how to bring the program to your area, fill out this interest form or simply email Tammy Spring at tspring@connectednation.org.

Other Digital Skills Training Program stories:

• Seniors in Morristown gain vital tech skills through free training program
• One community in Texas loved CN so much, they invited us back!
• The senior center asked us back a year later for more Digital Skills Training workshops
• How Digital Skills Training can help end the cycles of addiction and incarceratio