Courtesy of the wonderful (and sometimes rude) webcomic XKCD.

It’s funny and it’s target audience is web-savvy people who get asked for help on “computers” all the time, and who – mostly – will help people (with a World-weary air), but this flowchart is probably one of the best definitions I’ve seen of what I take “digital inclusion” to mean.

If you’re someone  that does the flowchart naturally then you’re able to perform the two things that I consider the activities of the digitally included:

• you’re able to experiment with technology to see if you can make it do what you want, without being scared
• you know where to look for help and when to give up and ask

And that’s it, I’ve never considered the phrase to mean anything more detailed that that – what do you think?

As an aside, think just how much help most digitally included flowchart followers are happy to give out, try pitching up at a Grand Prix and trying to get someone to teach you how to drive.

We’ve just heard some good news. The proposal we put forward to run an accredited training programme with Sandwell Youth Offending Team has been accepted. We start delivering our social media flavoured course from September. The course is designed to give young people a range of resources, skills and a qualification in support to them finding employment, training or going into education.

Once we have the course underway, we will share the hows and whats in more detail right here.

Following on the NIACE digital inclusion conference, we have set up a few ‘guides’ on current Internet usage. It’s really just to see if by providing a simple ‘how-to’ get involved with the social web, we can begin to build adult education related networks, if at all!

The ‘We Share…‘ series will be an ongoing thing and hopefully beneficial in understanding some of the barriers that practitioners / tutors etc face when learning how to the make the most of the social web in an educational context.

take 2453

Time for another quick update on things here at ‘We Share Stuff’. As you can see, we have finally gone live with the website – we had a makeshift photo shoot so you can see who we are – yes real human beings not robots (debatable?) Anyway, the whole web site thing will evolve over time, just like the ‘Net does! While we have the usual web site stuff going on, we also have a nifty blog system set up allowing us to provide blogs to organisations, individuals etc – anyone we work with basically! It’s a really simple system, great to use and was set up by Mr Jon Bounds. Bravo, Sir…

A quick mention on Blog Action Day, Wednesday 15th October. We were planning on attending as one of the social media ’surgeons’ to offer advice but it seems we have been included on the ‘patients’ list! which is cool, because we can quiz some of the ‘experts’ on some of the finer details of blogging! We hope plenty of organisations get involved here, the technology can really help make a difference. Maybe it can be a platform to providing more frequent, similar events too.

Last, but by no means least, Some awesome work being done on the Digital Mentor role, by Dave Briggs – From recent consultation he has already set up a blog and a wiki, encouraging social media types to get involved with the discussion and possible direction of this role.

The Government’s response to tackling the digital divide has them coming up with a new scheme offering “vouchers” to low-income families enabling them to get online at home. This scheme is costing £300 million. Providing these vouchers will not address the problem, let alone overcome it. We’ve said it before and we’ll keep on saying it until somebody with ears in the appropriate places, gets the message.

It’s not about the access….

The ongoing evolution of the Internet..and it will be all about the Internet, means that people who are still to use the technology or have limited experience, are being left behind at an unacceptable rate. There are some small movements to address the real issues here but it’s all too slow and lacking in volume to make a difference.

I chatted with Nick Booth last night about the situation and we drew similar conclusions about what should actually be happening with that money. It should be providing training, guidance, communication, advice etc delivered by the people with the right skills and attitude and in a manner that recognises that the way we learn will need to change to make the most of what the internet is becoming. These “digital mentors” can be the answer to an as yet fully realised situation.

Our project is in the throws of equipping these mentors with the kind of knowledge and skills that will benefit those excluded from the digital community. Hopefully before too long, those who make the decisions will be aware of what’s actually going on and who knows, maybe do something about it.

I met with Sue Barton at OCN in Stoke last Friday to discuss the project and how OCN fits into the whole set up. Again, the project got the thumbs up from Sue and we found ourselves agreeing on many things specifically around the whole Adult Education / IT / Learning areas. Initially, I was keen to explore the potential of new courses / units based on our Web2.0 platform but found myself having a “a-ha!” moment when Sue suggested utilising the existing portfolio. Having looked at the unit requirements and outcomes I am more than confident that we can use their framework to deliver recognised and relevant qualifications. I am still keen to explore the development of a new course(s) but at this stage of the project, I think the OCN route seems feasible.

First thoughts are that the project aims to deliver the NOCN Entry Level Award for Progression (Entry 3). This qualification has a certain flexibility in it’s delivery options and can easily map the projects aims / issues such as engagement, worklessness and confidence. “These quals develop the skills and knowledge that will enable people to progress to further / higher education or employment” (OCN). Without going into too much detail, each participant would undertake a series of sessions totalling approx 30 hours. In these sessions, they would cover areas such as personal learning programmes, job seach skills, interview techniques, internet & email usage (There are many existing units to choose from and as a project, we need to decide which will be most suitable) but with our project twist of everything delivered using social media / web2.0 applications, including all the evidencing and reporting plus anything else we can think to chuck in to the mix.

So while we have that task to work through, we also need the project to become a registered OCN centre. So apart from the usual form filling stuff, this is actually taking us somewhat down the route of a real structure for the project..marvelous! These things obviously don’t happen for free, but we built in the centre recognition costs into our project startup bid through UNLTD, which we’re still awaiting news on.

An audio interview via BBC with Sir Tim Berners-Lee who pretty much invented the World Wide Web. He talks about the ’semantic web’ which in simple terms is kinda like all the information and data available online being available in one language, so it can be shared by everyone. Some of today’s online stuff is starting to hint at this progression and our project by default will keep track of these developments. It’s these developments that our project will use as a platform to deliver on.

Another extremely relevant debate sparked by Nick Booth (Podnosh) this time addressing the issues of the digital divide. This is a subject which is at the very heart of what I believe the NBSE project will look to address. I agree with most of what is being said in that the focus should be on the communities not the technology but I do have some fears that the wrong people will be rushing to throw their weight behind any potential progress.

Nick Booth AKA Podnosh gets some debate going on a recent Charity Commissions report.