Helen Macris retired from teaching 12 years ago, which was around about the last time that she seriously used a computer.
And that 12 years, in computer years, feels like a lifetime for Helen.
"Since then, I have really done very, very little with them, and I've pretty much forgotten anything I knew before," Helen confesses.
Luckily for Helen, she lived within the reach of Kogarah Community Services, a local group looking after locals, who put together a scheme in 2020 designed to offer lessons for seniors in operating online.
"We are talking to our families online, we're talking to them on FaceTime, we're emailing, "we are not going to the bank anymore, that's online," says KCS acting CEO Marisa Turcinskis.
The four-year-old scheme was today the focus of a national campaign called Get Online Week, sponsored by digital charity Good Things Foundation, the campaign aimed at retirees and seniors.
But the foundation's research points to a wider gap in net knowledge, one in four of us confessing to being "digitally excluded".
"So that means they don't have the skills and confidence, or the technology that they need," says Good Things Foundation CEO Jess Wilson.
"Or they can't maybe afford to pay for the internet.
"In fact, our recent research says that 63 per cent of Australians don't feel that confident in keeping up with technology today."
"Did you feel disenfranchised when you didn't have that knowledge?" I ask Helen.
"Definitely," she says immediately, "online banking; that's something new that I've done." Classmate Dawn Petersen agrees.
"They're helping me use all the apps on the phone, and to get more benefit out of using the phone."
I have taken Helen and Dawn away from their class, with permission from their teacher Emily, a year six student at Carlton South Public School.
In this school, pupils from local primaries and highs are the teachers. And that was always meant to be the other side of this scheme; a chance for isolated or lonely seniors, to again become involved in the community.
"There is learning for the seniors as well, absolutely, but it's also about building that connection," says the KSC boss.
