Does Not Compute

Fiona

Did you see this on ITV1 last night at 7.30? It was a rather nice half hour film on the Tonight programme, showing what a great difference being online can make to peoples’ lives. Rick Crust, our new Silver Surfers’ Day Events Manager, had a starring role as part of the programme was filmed at Hackney Silver Surfers, where he runs computer classes.

If you missed it, you can see it on ITVplayer  here until the beginning of April.

David Sinclair here, Head of Policy and Research at the International Longevity Centre – UK

In debates about the “digital divide”,  older people are often portrayed as ‘clueless’, ‘scared’ and ‘needy’.  The language used is often ageist and underestimates the diversity within the older population. Yes, only 7 in 10 over 65s uses the internet.  But at the same time, the growth in the percentage of older people using social networks is significant.

On 1^st February 2010 the International Longevity Centre – UK (ILC-UK) published ‘The Fictions, Facts and Future of Older People and Technology, the first in a series of think pieces by Simon Roberts, design anthropologist with Intel’s Digital Health Group.  According to the author: “To put excitement and purpose into our technologies for ageing populations we need to talk differently about ourselves, ageing and older people. We need to find ways of continuing to include older people in the process of design and delivery”.
Read the rest of this entry »

Fiona

This story in the Independent online caught my eye this morning. Ivy Bean, who at 104 is Bradford’s oldest resident, is also our oldest Tweeter! (That’s people who use Twitter for the uninitiated). In fact, she’s quite an old hand at social networking, having used Facebook until she reached the maximum of 5000 friends. She then moved on to Twitter where she now has 55,000 followers, including several celebrities!

Ivy lives in a residential home where she doesn’t get many visitors and before she had access to the internet she says all she did was sit and fall asleep. Now, through the wonders of technology, she spends her time chatting to her thousands of new friends from all over the world.

You can read more about Ivy here.

Some good news for those living in, working with and supporting older people in sheltered housing. Following the government’s commitment in Building a Society for All Ages (Dept Work and Pensions, 2009) to promote and support digital inclusion for older residents in sheltered housing, Digital Unite and NIACE are delighted to announce a new, far reaching digital inclusion programme, ‘Get Digital’.

Get Digital will work with residents, scheme staff, RSLs and the wider community to promote, deliver and sustain digital literacy skills for older residents in sheltered housing.

Get Digital will also engage with a range of stakeholders from the wider housing, digital inclusion and older people’s fields to raise awareness of the opportunities to promote and support older people’s digital literacy in housing and other social and community environments.

You can read more about this exciting new project here

Hello – Sophie here from BeGrand.net.  We’ve got another request for internet-active-grandparents…

The Department of Children, Schools & Families are looking for grandparents who use the internet to resolve problems & issues to tell their stories for a short film. Read the rest of this entry »