Internet Access Households and Individuals – General Information and updates

The lastest research carried out between January and April 2010 covers tables of statistics covering: When adults last used the Internet (‘Adults’ being those over 16 years of age), Households with Internet access by county and region, When adults last used the Internet, by sex and age group, 2008 to 2010 and many many more.

Internet Access Households and Individuals 2010 – Report (PDF)

The tables  covers not only differences by gender and age but also shows the changes over the last 3 years.

It also highlights the activities which those actively using the internet enjoy which are split into age groups and gender.

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

Can technology be more inclusive for the elderly?

So it should come as no supprise that the queen has a great website and uses a wide variety of social media to keep her subjects up to date with the goings on of the royal household.

The latest addition to this is a superb collection of images which many have not been in the public domain before and are now hosted on Flickr. Why not take a look and see and have a listen to the Royal Twitter and the countless videos on You Tube. I can’t wait for HRH to be uploading photographs of her morning walks with the Corgis from her Android phone and Blogging about her latest holiday on The Hebridean Princess around Scotland.

Official website of The British Monarchy

The Queen’s Twitter Account

The Royal Channel on You Tube

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.

Digital Inclusion is at the very heart of what we do – and this programme is bringing the wonders of the web to 200 sheltered housing schemes. The first wave of activity is going down a storm and the pace is getting faster. If you think that you can take a group of mixed age people from knowing nothing about computing technology through to providing confidence, competence and creating lasting usage, then please get in touch.

We will select those we feel have that special talent for supportive learning. The benefits to you are an attractive day rate, the knowledge that you are working for the leading company in this learning field and being part of a tight delivery team deploying a Digital Inclusion programme that is building a lasting legacy.

Tutors for this project are sub-contracted for 1 day per week for approximately 13 weeks.  If you are interested, please send an email to info@getdigital.org.uk  attaching a current CV.  If you have already expressed an interest, please do not apply again, we will be in touch with you shortly.

More infomation can be found at the main website: http://tutors.letsgetdigital.org.uk/tutors-wanted/

“The incremental cost to maintain the BBC iPlayer is approximately £4 million per annum and includes transferring programmes into web formats, providing metadata about the programmes, as well as editorial oversight, support costs etc.”

The BBC’s technology chief Erik Huggers recently expressed concern that some viewers are getting ‘a free ride’ by watching its shows on the internet rather than on television.

• Scrabble Club.
• Dominoes.
• Card games.
• Build a city or farm.
• Command your own army.

Third Age Entrepreneurs Win NESTA’s Age Unlimited Challenge

Third Age Fun and Games will enable older people to: Learn computer games while at the same time having fun. This will lessen any sense of isolation while extending their knowledge of computing at home or in a group; and encourage families to pass on their “old” computer to an elderly relative so that they may also learn the advantages of being online.

The club have two venues near Edinburgh in Leith and Fountainbridge. You can find out more about the developing pilot project at their website:

The Fun and Games Club

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?

Here are a couple of examples from scotland of how buddies are becoming a part of many digital inclusion schemes in different types of digital inclusion projects. We would love to hear about any examples which you are involved with or know of that can be shared (please ad a comment on this post).

Laptop loans in Sheltered Housing

James Rose of Meridian Mature Citizens Fourm explains how a new project starting in 6 sheltered housing centres this year will loan a computer to someone new to computing. The pilot scheme allow them to learn with a buddy about how a computer can be a part of their lives and have someone they feel comfortable asking about what they can use a computer for and how to maintain one for themselves. It is intended to encourage the confidence and experience to allow those with no prior computing experience to get a .

Watch the YouTube Video: How can buddies help with digital inclusion

Libraries in East Lothian buddy volunteers

In December 2002, 57 new public access computers were installed in East Lothian libraries, with free fast access to the internet, email and scanning. The computers are intended for recreational, educational and information needs of the public. A range of free introductory courses in computing are being offered to adults in many libraries to help them benefit from this new technology. These new users and others with little experience of IT will appreciate the help of a buddy.

The buddy will sit with the beginner at the library computer and help her or him to practive skills and sort out basic mistakes. The buddy is not a computer expert. Anyone with familiarity is using word email, the internet or a scanner will have all the technical qualifications required.

The important qualities required are the capacity to listen, patience and friendliness.

East Lothian Council Website

PDF Further Information (557KB)