At the unconference I led a session on “defining digital inclusion” — born out of a long held worry that different people and organisations don’t quite mean the same thing when they talk about digital inclusion.

I talked about how I felt that the definition needed to be platform agnostic, and have room being able to find out how to do something rather than explicitly having a particular skillset. We discussed how it was definitely separate from digital engagment, and how it was often closely connected to social inclusion.

We also looked at how it was placed with the issue of access (both in terms of accessibility and physical access) — we thought that maybe the three are looked at in the wrong order.

Traditionally the problem seems to be trying to be solved in the order:

Access -> Inclusion (skills) -> Engagement (motivation)

but motivation and engagement (which is closely tied with social engagement) is such a strong driver to the skills and to the access that it needs more attention. Engagement isn’t transactional, in the same way that inclusion isn’t tool-based skills — so money (savings!) isn’t a motivation to engage. The group felt that more work towards social engagement was the real driver, that digital isn’t as separate as some approaches seem to be.

Certainly We Share Stuff’s idea is that people learn the tools (and to make decisions about which to use and how) because there is a motivational reason for it. Often we hope that the digital engagement is a driver to wider social engagement too.

I was surprised that we were all pretty much agreed on what we meant by “digital inclusion” — that it was (and this is my wording, worked out now):

the confidence to use technology when appropriate, and to know where to get help if needed

How well does that sit with organisational definitions? Or yours?

Stuart was invited to talk at the West Midlands Regional Observatory’s ‘Sharing Information Digitally’ event.

You can listen to it onine here: Stuart Parker on Digital Inclusion

We have a 30 minute slot at this West Midlands Regional Observatory event, Tuesday 7th October. As their site says, “…exploring the whys and hows of making public data more accessible. We’ll also look at using social media to improve sharing data and information.”

I’ll be using the time to explore what digital inclusion actually means and to raise some stuff about how we might look at ensuring everyone benefits from the techno rush, not just those who are interested.

Digital Mentors are people we work with to help to train, advise and inspire our clients in the use of social technology. Our clients are usually defined as “digitally excluded”, but may also be socially excluded too — we focus a lot of our work on NEETs – young people not in employment, education or training.

Digital Mentors need to either be working with social media, or using it personally on a regular basis — doing it as part of the rest of their activities, not something separate. We Share Stuff feels that the use of social technology shouldn’t be seen as different, difficult, or “something else to learn”, but simply another way to connect and create.

Digital Mentors need to be confident in trying new tools and networks, passing that confidence on to others — our aim is to use informal learning, letting clients chose their own reasons for interacting. That means that we don’t prescribe types of content, sites or tools to use, but instead help instil the knowledge to choose the appropriate way for each task and the basic skills and confidence to learn the rules and techniques of the tools.

We are an accredited OCN (Open College Network) provider and are working on our own social media course that will fit into QCF framework. No previous teaching or assessment experience or qualifications are necessary, but there may be opportunities to gain them.

As our work is project based, we need to be able to engage freelancers to help deliver training — work may not be regular, and we will have a team for each project. Some availability in normal working hours is much preferred. We’re based in Birmingham (UK) so most of our work is based in and around the West Midlands.

Our Digital Mentors need to be comfortable with working with young people, and in some instances may require a CRB certificate and/or public liabilities insurance (we will both advise and help on these issues).

Drop us a line in the first instance, and we’ll talk.

Not a huge amount of progress so far on the idea for a Digital Inclusion Unconference, but a great deal of support has been expressed.

So as support meets inaction, I’ve set up a wiki for people to help organise and it should also become useful nearer the time.

We’ve stuck a pin in the calendar and it landed on Saturday 14th November — we’ve also been doing some work securing a venue, but any thoughts you can contribute (which might even change the date etc) are welcome.

Having been inspired by the efforts of all sorts of people and organisations at the National Digital Inclusion Conference this year, we were immediately (on the train back to Birmingham in fact) thinking of how we could meet up with those people again and share more of our ideas and experiences.

More than that, a chance to talk not so much about policy — and money which distracts from the work itself at many turns — but about the methods and techniques of how to best help people.

We’re also aware that these conferences can be very costly to attend, we wouldn’t have been able to afford to go to the NDIC without the support of UK Online Centres — and the cost factor is a big issue for many smaller third-sector organisations. This conference is again very expensive.

So, who would be interested in an unconference-syle event for Digital Inclusion practitioners?

Proposed for late October, somewhere in Birmingham (central for the country, but also where we can organise it most easily), one day – with social event afterwards, barcamp style, as free to attend as we can possibly manage (attempting to attract sponsorship or free venue etc).

Leave a comment here if you’ve any ideas, or just to say that you’d be interested.

A few nights after the Digital Britain report was published, I had one of those niggling doubts rear itself at 2am. Apart from the focus of the report aimed more or less at infrastructure and my concerns regarding the vague understanding (and coverage) of participation (inclusion? engagement?), I see more potential harm than good happening as a result of the recommendations. Now I strongly believe that technology can benefit society in many ways but do we need to be aware of the speedy technology evolution in relation to how we keep up with it? With more and more services going online and moves to make data public to create better services and applications… the entire way stuff seems to happen online these days….do we risk further excluding those with basic digital skills? While there are the 15/16 million or so ‘excluded’, ie: don’t use the technology at all, how many more will become excluded (tiered exclusion?) if we don’t take a long, hard look at how we learn about these technologies and the ways we integrate them into our lives? The ‘learning’ aspect should not be playing constant catch up with the tools. New approaches?

I don’t believe the ‘Digital Life Skills’ as recommended by Estelle Morris, addresses this issue. Sadly, it sticks to old policies that really don’t do much in terms of the ‘digital divide’, in my opinion. Where are the initiatives to instigate meaningful engagement? (many digitally excluded people will not simply ‘ask’ for training or skills or ‘walk in’ to centres offering courses. Confidence is still a major barrier) Where are the initiatives that look beyond the ‘mainstream’ and highlight and support the stuff that’s really working? Why don’t we get the developers / mentors / trainers together with the service providers AND their customers, put them in a room for half a day and see what comes out at the end?

A few further questions I had was regarding the current recession. As people look to improve their skills in support of finding work, how many of them lack the understanding of today’s technology and the importance of online culture? Are current resources adequate enough to deliver this understanding?