Does Not Compute

With our Silver Surfers Day Music Maestro page getting refreshed with new resources and links we spoke to one of our Silver Surfers Day event holders about what they were doing to get people involved with digital music. Kerry Morris Service Manager (Information and Digital) from Newcastle Library gave us the following response to how they work to get people into the library to learn about digital music and much more.

Newcastle Library – Adult and Culture Services
Libraries, Information and Lifelong Learning

In addition to 1-2-1 taster sessions and classes on basic Internet Skills and e-mail we also offer sessions on music downloading, online shopping, social networking and will be doing a session on online dating at the end of July and we are planning sessions on eBay, digital photography and file management. We plan new sessions based on public demand and feedback from taster classes – for example we found that by doing the music download sessions that the area that most customers had issues with was basic file management, which is something that most of us take for granted but is essential to both downloading music and moving images from a camera to a pc.

The 1-2-1 sessions are done using handouts that the customer can keep. The taster classes follow the same format using the handout as the basis of a Power Point presentation. We take a show and try approach but this sometimes depends on the skill level of the group.

Taster sessions are aimed at all ages. Although we do not currently gather information on the ages of those taking part a very high proportion are aged over 50. Library customers like the tasters because often they have a specific issue that they want help with and don’t always want to sit through a number of classes on a prescribed course. Our staff are flexible enough to be able to tailor sessions to individual needs and often a taster is a springboard to finding an appropriate course.

From the taster classes we recruited a group of Silver Surfers who meet in the City Library on the first Thursday of the month. After consulting with the group we are working on a monthly programme where we look at a different topic each month. The group wanted to start with basic keyboard skills and we looked at this using My Guides and in the next few months we will be looking at e-mail and file management. So far the Silver Surfers seem to enjoying being in a group setting and are supporting each other and forming friendships as well as engaging with the digital world.

I’ve found the Digital Unite website useful to refer to and really appreciated the link to the ILC-UK report by Simon Roberts on The Fictions, Facts of Older People and Technology as it was thought provoking.

If you would like to share you example of how you or your organisation is helping older people get to grips with digital music get in touch by emailing kate.norman@digitalunite.net

It was a title of a story on the BBC that caught my eye:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10663353

You may have heard the story of the Indian slum children who taught themselves how to use computers when someone embedded a computer in his Delhi office wall for them. It proved so successful that all around the world the same experiment was repeated and each time, children taught themselves complex tasks easily – with little supervision.

But, and here is an even more interesting fact, they did even better when a ‘granny figure’ stood behind them offering encouragement – not teaching them, but just positively encouraging them and engaging with what they are doing.

So an encouraging and positive older person standing behind children who were working out how to do something themselves made them achieve more. Does that sound familiar? It is a pretty good description of good parenting and particularly in parent engagement in education.

The granny figure was not a specialist teacher, or a computer expert but an adult whose job was just to stand and encourage young children in what they were learning – just like a parent or any involved family member would. The man who came up with the original idea for the ‘computer in the wall’ in Delhi is Professor Sugata Mitra and he has taken the concept even further now and added to it with the concept of the ‘Granny Cloud’.

Professor Mitra is proposing an idea for schools called SOLE or Self Organised Learning Environments. These learning environments consist of a computer with a bench big enough to let four children sit around the screen. “It doesn’t work if you give them each a computer individually,” he is quoted as saying.

Professor Mita is now professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK) and has also been a speaker on the TED stage

The children are then backed up by a “granny cloud” – 200 volunteer grandmothers who can be called upon to video chat with the children and provide encouragement. He has tested the spaces successfully in the UK and Italy, and now believes they should be tested more widely. Infact, during an earlier stage of his experiments, Indian children actually asked to be read fairy tales by UK grandmothers via Skype! Professor Mitra, who now lectures at the University of Newcastle in the United Kingdom, told the TED Global (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Oxford in the UK:”I think we have stumbled across a self-organising system with learning as an emergent behaviour.”

And all of those grannies are clearly helping too. Long term research in the UK has proved that the existence of one older person in a child’s life who has a passion for the child and wants them to do well in their education is enough to ensure they make the most of their schooling, regardless of the quality of their school or their economic circumstances.

I get asked allot by students about how to improve their typing and move on from 1 finger jabbing at the keyboard that beginners often start out with. Many years ago I took a word-processing and text processing qualifications which whipped my fingers into good habits.

Improving your typing skills has a lot of benefits. Besides the obvious typing speed, people who type with ten fingers make fewer mistakes, spend less time in front of the monitor and suffer less wrist pain.

Here are some free online typing lessons that you or people your are involved with helping along with their IT can try out. They vary from the very formal to the BBC’s version for children (which is just as fun for adults).

Typing Practice 1
http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/typing/

Typing Practice 2
http://www.sense-lang.org/typing/tutor/lessons.php?lang=EN&lesson=1

Typing Practice 3
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/flash/stage1.shtml

Typing Practice 4
http://www.typeonline.co.uk/copypractice.php

Typing Practice 5
http://keybr.com/

Have you got any others which you can suggest and how to you incorporate them in a session?

This week is National Dementia Awareness Week and we recently Tweeted from @digitalunite to raise awareness of this campaign that could touch anyone of us.

There are more than 750,000 people in the UK affected by dementia with numbers set to rise to 1 million by 2025. More than half of these have Alzheimers disease.

But computers, the internet and learning about digital technology is one way you can keep your brain stimulated and can fight dementia in a few different ways.

Research

A computer training company is releasing the results of a ‘Silver Surfer Survey’  which shows that using a computer can make the older generation feel significantly younger. Tutors 4 Computers recently conducted a survey of its older customers with results showing how surfing the internet can rejuvenate the elderly, putting a spring in their step and giving them a new lease of life.

“a full 80% believed that using a computer had made them feel younger” Ian Mabb

This study builds on information already known about the benefits of the internet highlighted in this article BBC News Article (14 October 2008) Internet use is good for the brain from a University of California Los Angeles team found searching the web stimulated centres in the brain that controlled decision-making and complex reasoning. The researchers say this might even help to counteract the age-related physiological changes that cause the brain to slow down.

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said:

“These fascinating findings add to previous research suggesting that middle-aged and older people can reduce their risk of dementia by taking part in regular mentally stimulating activities”

Connecting Carers

Talking Point is an online support and discussion forum, for anyone affected by dementia. The Alzheimers Sociaty have made this great video Connie on Talking Point about how life changed for Connie in so many many ways when she bacame a carer for her partner  “because your world grows smaller”. This is a similar experience that was recorded in the video about Carers made for Silver Surfers Day 2010 about the Internet being a Window to the World for Carers.

So a computer can be a lifeline for those who look after loved ones with dementia and also can help to fight the affects on the brain of aging – so keep challenging your brain with new things to learn and new experiences.

The first successful schemes in Wave 1 of Get Digital are planning their programmes and starting to get to grips with their new computers.  Have a look at  here to see what some of our partners and learners have to say about the project.

Now we are busy planning Wave 2.  The application packs should be ready to download from our website in the second half of July.  In the meantime, why not book a place at one of 4 free Regional Events being held in London, Bristol, York and Birmingham, to help you to learn more about the project and how to apply?  More information is on the website and please email info@getdigital.org.uk to secure your place.

Judith Taylor who was a Silver Surfer of the Year runner-up in 2008, would never have guessed that she would become a website developer in her 80s!  I asked her to tell us how she had found the experience:

When I was asked to lead a small team to commission a website for my older women’s network, I had no idea how huge a challenge it would be.  We had first to learn enough about websites and designers to pick the right company for us.  Then we had to learn the jargon, understand how websites are constructed, commission a logo, choose a colour scheme, collect photographs, and provide all the necessary information, including bringing much of it up to date!  By launch day I was exhausted! Read the rest of this entry »

Do you work in a library that involves volunteers to give informal 1:1 computer support? Are you a volunteer who would like to share your experiences of how you got involved?

Watch a video about volunteers who have got involved in Kent Libraries ‘Computer Buddies’ programme

As Silver Surfers’ Day is in full swing in libraries all over the UK – we would like to find out about experiences of the day from any volunteers who are supporting their local library’s event by commenting on this blog post. It would be great to know some of your stories from the day and how you got started.

If you are interested in being a computer buddy why not ask at your local library if they run a volunteering scheme. As I am sure you will find out from these people experiences – it’s well worth it.

Bill Thompson, who has been working in the computing industry and as a technology writer for nearly thirty years, highlights the importance of Silver Surfers’ Day in his BBC Technology blog and his support of the scheme since 2001.

“Helping older people get online is vital, and part of a wider transformation” says Bill Thompson

The net is not just for the young gives Bill’s further pearls of wisdom for those who take their digital literacy for granted. It goes on to remind government strategist to ensure that those over 55 who are not online are given these opportunities to gain the skills and confidence to access services on the internet.

This weeks press has not only been filled with news of Silver Surfer Events all over England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales happening all this week and culminating in Silver Surfer Day (21st May) but also a lot of new research of online behaviour.

The BBC has highlighted findings by UK Online Measurement company (UKOM) that Britons spend more than ‘one day a month online’ with social networks or blogs, which accounts for nearly a quarter of users’ time online. Which is great news for blogs like ours!

Ofcom’s latest media literacy report which is updated every six months gives insight into how we use the Internet in the UK and differences between regions. A key finding in this report was about UK internet users becoming more security conscious.

The report also found that the majority of people in the UK agree that the internet makes life easier and that the internet helps save time, and most disagree that the internet is difficult to use.

iPlayer proves invaluable to watch and listen to things you might have missed from not only the BBC’s television programmes but also the national and local radio stations.

So, if you missed our ambassador for Silver Surfers Day Sir Terry Wogan on Friday talking about how you can find a Silver Surfers Day near you on Friday 21st May, you can enjoy it here.

Terry says “This is an attempt to get people of ‘a certain age’ not to be afraid of new technology – fear is the biggest barrier.” He wants older people to think again about seeing the internet as something they should try and says Silver Surfers’ Day is a great way to start.