Superhighways has had a long standing relationship with The Riverside Community Association in Sutton. The organiation has been a Superhighways member for a number of years. Our Tech Team supports the Riverside Community Centre's IT systems including:
- Back office IT services
- Maintenance of the ICT suite (6 laptops) plus 2 desktop computers in the community café (providing general internet access)
All was going well....but....
Dave Lunn, the Centre Manager was struggling to get community partners and residents to use the training suite. We thought the answer would be to encourage more residents to use the suite and centre facilities if we ran basic digital skills training.
One successful partnership bid to Affinity Sutton's Get Connected programme later and our digital inclusion team was setting up tailored digital skills training programme. And our techs were upgrading all the laptops to the latest Windows, installing new licences for MS Office and anti virus software on each.
You Can Never Have Enough Tablets!
True to our passion for purchasing the latest in tablet technology, we used the funding bid to purchase 3 new 9" tablets, styli, cases. (We also threw in 3 Fit Bits - and a MiFi for better wireless coverage)
84 hours of basic skills training over 6 months
Our basic skills training delivery ran over a six-month period starting in January 2016
- Regular sessions with the Forget Me Knots Friendship Group for the over 50s.
- 23 learners trained
- 42 sessions one to one/group sessions
Topics included
- How to manage your health online
- The different steps required to register and use Tescos’ online
- How to stay safe online
- How much you could save using price comparison websites
- Plenty of practice with Skype calls to keep in touch
- How an online survey survey works and possible future uses this to plan future outlines and activities
- Used travel appsl to plan day trips to London and fantasy holidays abroad
- Watched Live TV via BBC and ITV catch-up services
- Spotify to play our version of Radio 4 show Saturday Lives’ inheritance tracks
- Caught up on many skills and hobby using You Tube
- Signed everyone up to our Learnmyway Account with 24/7 access to basic digital skills training
Our memorable moments included
1) Working with the lovely Violet who at 86 and a complete "internet newbie" drained our tutor Philippa with the following work programme in one session
- Swiping vs. using a stylus to get around the tablet
- Searched for local newspaper and reading news online
- Exploring You Tube to watchhow caviar is made and how a Spanish restaurant is using 3D printing to create crazy food Froofroo.
- Catch up with her favourite Call the Midwife episode on the BBC app
- Painted a doodle in a drawing app
- Next week Violet wants to learn how to use the keyboard better to send an email to her son.
2) The role of a Digital Champion has its challenges. in this episode Digital Champion Lola, takes on the over 50s group to convince them that online shopping was easy, efficent and fast. The Forget me Knots fight back with reasoned argument that shopping is one of their pleasures in life and it gets them out of the house and socialising. Faultless logic on both sides - so we declared the match a draw over tea and biscuits.
Quote from the Riverside Partnership Manager
“For us at the Riverside Centre we see a two-fold advantage having the new tablets. Firstly they enable us to provide mobile online access as part of our community outreach. We can turn up with our Gazebo and the tablets offering digital support to local residents, signposting them to local services."
"Additionally Superhighways have left us with instructions on how to sign residents up to their UK Online Centre digital skills online training platform - Learnmyway. Although we cannot provide training to support residents learn new skills we can give them this opportunity. We are hoping to recruit local volunteers to support this initiative”
Dave Lynn, Riverside Centre Partnership Manager
Find out more about our basic online skills projects or get in touch about your own project ideas.