We’ll try to collect everything that emerged from the conference on Saturday — thanks again to everyone that came, or contributed from afar.

Here are all the Tweets that were collected around the #diunconf hasttag.

And here is the process of working out the sessions and timetable, speeded up and set to the Benny Hill theme.

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.

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.

A couple of things to update on. Firstly, the whole digital mentoring thing, found some earlier actions and debate on this issue, check out Dave Briggs stuff on this. Secondly, the taster sessions are starting to fill out. Looks likely that we’ll be working with some NEETs linking in to the young offenders, also the Aston Pride project has a number of groups including another NEET project linked into the Salvation Army, also some Parent groups and possibly some Adults for who English is a second language (ESOL). Furthermore, a disability group are keen for a session too. I hope to bring all these projects together with more details as and when we have them. The technical side of things is gaining momentum. The main site is up but no content there just yet, also Kev has completed the logo for the project so we can start branding some stuff. The OCN accreditation is in progress and we have secured some vital 3rd Sector Peer Mentoring alongside some training sessions and conferences booked. Plenty there! and i’ll elaborate on these over the next week or so.

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.