Doers VIII: Cambridge OnLine & Library Learning Services

Posted by irislapinski on July 22nd, 2009

Thanks to UK Online Centres, my next trip took me to Cambridgeshire where Kevin Russell, the regional manager for the East of England, treated me like a Brazilian VIP guest (even though I had to disappoint him with the fact that I’m German) and spent the whole day showing me a range of different centres.

Cambridge OnLine

Set-up in 1998 Cambridge OnLine is based in the Hester Adrian Centre of the Papworth Trust, a disability charity, close to Cambridge city centre. Andrew Entecott heads the organisation and talked me through the different projects he manages:

e-learning centre

Based in the Hester Adrian Centre Cambridge Online runs a UK Online learning centre that is primarily focused on disabled and elderly people since over the years demand by other groups has declined:

• 200+ new learners go through the centre per year
• 20 volunteer tutors of whom 70% live with a disability
• 2,000 one-to-one tutorials every year

While at the centre I talked to volunteer tutor Jenny and her 90-year old mentee Jane. Despite her high age Jane enjoys trying out new technologies and her iPod (!) and her computer knowledge are proof of that. Jane is using magnification software since she is visually impaired. I had never thought about this before, but seeing a website massively enlarged you realise how important the structure of a website is to navigating effectively (or mostly not) at that size. It was also interesting to watch the role of Jenny, the tutor who started out as a learner herself: she might not have perfect computer knowledge herself, but she clearly knows the challenge of other people giving quick advice that is difficult to follow by a learner lacking confidence and experience.

Community Access Points Cambridge

In 2009 Cambridge Online obtained again the contract to run 20 community access points (CAP) on behalf of Cambridge City Council. While access at all these points are free users need to call the access points to find out about opening hours and in same cases have to book places. According to Andrew usage of the different access points varies quite dramatically. (more info below)

Website

A volunteer of Cambridge OnLine maintains and updates the Cambridge OnLine news website which serves as the homepage for all community access points in Cambridge, but is also used heavily by learners at home. Andrew told me that the real value of the website might not be obvious to search-engine expert users, but that many of their learners really appreciate an easy-to navigate and up-to-date local website that includes relevant information.

Accessibility

Based on its experience in working with disabled computer and Internet users Cambridge OnLine has been running the Switched On Communities project that distributed accessible computer equipment amongst voluntary sector organisations. It also functions as the Accessibility Champion for voluntary and community sector organisations in the East.

Mobile outreach

From summer 2009 onwards Cambridge OnLine will be operating a mobile UK Online Centre taking laptops, tutors and taster sessions to sheltered homes.

Cambridgeshire Library Services

Next we met Steve Capes, Library Learning Services Manager for Cambridgeshire County Council. He is responsible for the running of 8 Learning Centres based in public libraries and the management of 50 Community Access Points (CAP) outside the city of Cambridge. Set-up in 2004 CAPs are located in isolated rural locations often in unusual locations like pubs, post offices, village halls, churches. Equipped with typically 1-3 up-to-date computers (equipment is replaced every 3 years) the CAPs are free to use for everyone.

Interestingly most CAPs are run by volunteers tutors who provide IT support to learners and regularly organise community events including local history evenings like the one pictured in Meldreth in April 2009. (see also Cambridgeshire Community Archives Network). In order to support these volunteers better and to allow for more knowledge exchange the Community Access Volunteer Exchange (CAVE) was set-up in 2009. CAVE recently received further support from the Nominet Trust.

Equipped with all this knowledge about learning centres and CAPs we hit the road to have a look ourselves at the new public library/ learning centre in Huntingdon and the CAP based in the Ramsey Community Information Centre.

Huntingdon library & learning centre

Built on the site of the old library, the spacious new library building in Huntingdon, North-West of Cambridge,only opened in June 2009. For the first time, both archive and library services operate together under one roof, but the building also hosts a cafe where people can take books to read as well as a Learning Centre. osts a cafe where people can

As in other libraries in the UK Internet access is free to the public, but users need to do 2 things:

• be a registered user and have a library card
• only use the Internet 1 hour (I was told this can be extended if few people are around).re a

The Learning Centre is based on the first floor of the library and runs learndirect courses. The centre manager explained to us that learners were only allowed to take once course once and  otherwise had to register with a different course. Learndirect sets strict targets in terms of learners registered and passing courses, but for Huntingdon these had been pooled between different organisations which allowed at least for some level of flexibility.

Many user of the centre learn IT based on the CLAiT (Computer Literacy and Information Technology) curriculum, a nationally recognised course with compulsory and optional modules that lead to different levels of formal qualification.

There were very few people around on the Thursday afternoon I visited, but this might have been caused by the very hot and sunny weather…

Ramsey Community Information Centre

We then went on to Ramsey even further North to see one of the CAPs. Ramsey Community Information Centre is  based on a central shopping street door to door with a fish-and-chips shop and a pub. It is run by Huntingdonshire District Council and brings a range of information and advice agencies to a central site where residents can readily access them.

The centre hosts 3 computers which are used by a wide range of people interested in learning, sharing historical pictures or surfe the Internet. Learndirect computer courses are only offered on Friday afternoons. A room in the back can be rented by local groups for different courses and activities. All three computers were in used when we visited and according to Amanda Elphick there are quite a broad range of people who get involved in learning through the centre. Every year the council then nominates an Adult Learner of the Year. Different from more exotic locations like pubs this CAP is not run by volunteers, but employees of the District Council – if I have understood this correctly.

(left: Kevin; middle: Amanda; right: Steve)

Final thoughts

It was very interesting for me to see these different UK Online Centres and to get a feel for the different learning environments. While Huntingdon library was by far the largest and newest, the community based access point and the e-learning centre of Cambridge OnLine were buzzing much more. As somebody had explained to me before the different UK Online Centres often fulfil different roles in a learning journey: while community based initiatives can provide more support and help – especially at the beginning – libraries are then often used merely as an access point where little support can be offered by staff. My observations in Cambridgeshire support this. The interesting question is then whether there are enough community-based UK Online Centres to help people to start their learning journey. Are there any statistics on this? Anyone?

Another interesting issue is the role of informal vs. formal education. The learning centres in libraries are actualy only a small step away from officially becoming a formal learning institution. As a result more and more people are yet again thinking about how to attract people who are afraid or uninterested in formal education and learning (often they are male and young).

The initial community-based UK Online Centres were often these types of places where people could slowly but surely re-engage with learning in a soft way. Maybe they will be back in fashion soon? Maybe other places will take over their role? The need for them is obvious to everyone I talked to…

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Doers VI: SWEDA

Posted by irislapinski on July 16th, 2009

My next stop visiting IT initiatives was the Black Country where Marilyn Burrill, the ICT Gateway Coordinator of the Black Country Consortium, was very kind and spent the better part of that day showing me around and telling me more about the very interesting work they have been doing in the Black Country.

Black Country ICT Gateway is a strategic partnership between the Black Country Consortium and Microsoft  using ICT to deliver community and economic development in deprived communities in the region. Most recently they have been working on a detailed study to review the success and impact of this program. The briefing for the study can be found here and Marilyn told me that the full report will be available soon as well. (I will update the post then)

Background: Black Country & Sandwell

The Black Country is a loosely defined area north and west of Birmingham. By the late 19th century, this area had become one of the most intensely industrialised in the nation. The South Staffordshire coal mines, the coal coking operations, and the iron foundries and steel mills that used the local coal to fire their furnaces, produced a level of air pollution that had few equals anywhere in the world. It is popularly believed that The Black Country got its name because of pollution from these heavy industries that covered the area in black soot. There is an anecdote about Queen Victoria ordering the blinds lowered on her carriage as the royal train passed through.

The heavy industry which once dominated the Black Country has now largely gone. Mining ceased in the area in the late 1960s, and clean air legislation has meant that the Black Country is no longer black. Much but not all of the area now suffers from high unemployment and is amongst the most economically deprived communities in the UK. This is particularly true in parts of Sandwell and Dudley, and to a lesser extent Wolverhampton. There is a significant ethnic minority population in the region.

Sandwell suffers from significantly higher unemployment than the rest of the West Midlands and Great Britain as the graph from Research Sandwell illustrates (click to enlarge). According to the 2001 census data for Sandwell it ranks worst in all of England & Wales for people without qualifications at 45.6%  (E&W average of 29.1%).

The Organisation: SWEDA

SWEDA or Sandwell Women’s Enterprise Development Agency was founded in 1989 and became a charity in 1998. SWEDA  has moved away from a sole focus on women and today its services serve men and women with a strong focus on young people.  SWEDA offers a range of enterprise, employment, education and IT learning support and closely works with the local public youth service, Connexions.  t

Davinder Kaur is the driving force behind SWEDA today after initially getting involved as a trustee. With a background in business she  runs SWEDA with a mixture of  toughness,  passion, empathy and humour. (Picture: Davinder left; Marilyn right) on the left and Marilyn on the right)

Activities

SWEDA offers a long list of different services around business advice, employment and training which can all be looked up on their website so I’m only focusing on the IT side here:

IT Hub

Funded by the New Deal for Communitities program, SWEDA installed an IT suite in 2003. After some initial teething problems it quickly became one of the most popular and best performing IT suites in the area. Today the IT suite is at the core of what Sweda does with most clients using IT for CV writing, business plan writing, market research, IT training courses and a range of other activities.

Even during the hot afternoon I was visiting and although it was boiling in the IT suite, the small room was in heavy use.

Microsoft Digital Literacy Curriculum

One of the specific courses that SWEDA runs is Microsoft’s Dugital Literacy Curriculum as part of the Black Country ICT Gateway program. SWEDA has an astonishingly high success rate – when I asked for the secret of SWEDA’s success I was presented with Emma and Neil – two of SWEDA’s IT tutors.

Both of them had initially got in touch with SWEDA as clients:

Emma: As a young mother of two children Emma had not worked for many years and wanted to get employment advice. Davinder encouraged her to get involved with SWEDA as a volunteer and within 6 months Emma has moved from having basic computer skills to being a self-declared Excel lover (I never imagined people could be that passionate about Excel!) and a paid IT tutor.

Neil: A local bloke from the area with a typical Black County dialect, Neil had been advised at school that he would be a good administrator and therefore got qualifications in office administration, after a short stint as a temporary employee he was unemployed and approached SWEDA for advice and CV writing support for admin jobs. He also started volunteering with SWEDA and has recently become a paid IT tutor. While his mates work in the construction sector or other manufacturing industries Neil is teaching IT skills, something he would not have imagined a few months ago.

When asked why the Microsoft Digital Curriculum worked so well at SWEDA, both made it quite clear that it had little to do with the reliability and technical aspects of the program, but that they had taken four steps to make it work:

1. Plain language. Neil re-wrote significant parts of the curriculum into Black Country dialect and or plain English so that terms like “authentication” do not create unnecessary confusion for learners.
2. Ability-based selective learning. Emma and Neil are using the exam which was designed by Microsoft to be completed at the end of the course right at the beginning. This allows them to identify the areas for improvement for each individual learner. At the same time this also recognises the areas of the course where learners already have a decent amount of knowledge. As a result, the time spent on the course is only focused on gaps in knowledge giving each learner more time to excel in those areas.
3. Real-life examples. Since the curriculum makes nearly no use of real-life examples, this key element of making learning relevant to their lives was added through a range of examples and case studies.
4. Creating a challenge. And finally, Emma and Neil use their secret weapon in order to motivate learners-  psychological warfare: both of them smiled when they explained that while the curriculum was normally sold to learners as an easy course, they are doing the reverse. They tell everybody that the course is very difficult and hard to pass, but that they will support them as much as they possibly can. As a result learners do not feel stupid when they are struggling with certain elements of the course, but also feel a real sense of achievement when they pass it.

So basically Microsoft’s Digital Literacy Curriculum was adapted in various ways – and now it works! To say that I was impressed by this degree of ingenuity and passion by Emma and Neil is an understatement.

UK Online Centre

Very recently SWEDA received funding and support from UK Online Centres and has now started to offer learning support based on MyGuide.

Users/ customers

In 2008 SWEDA had 1,089 clients using the different services with most of them being young and unemployed.

Enterprise

Since SWEDA started out with enterprise support services for women in order to regenerate the area, entrepreneurship continues to play a significant role in a range of different activities of the organisation.

Volunteers

As illustrated by the examples of Emma and Neil, clients often become volunteers and sometimes then even become employed staff. SWEDA as an organisation and Davider in particular spends time identifying the potential of individuals.

Challenges

Funding and space are currently the biggest challenges for SWEDA. Despite the popularity of its services apparently funding had been cut and SWEDA had to readjust to this while the computer room could easily expand if the space was available for it. Getting young people – male or female – through the door is clearly not an issue.

Final thoughts

Spending time at SWEDA was inspiring for me. Davinder, Emma, Neil as well as Shirley Wright from Connexions and all the other people I met were very passionate and proud about their work, but also authentic in giving enterprise advice with being entrepreneurial themselves.

[One interesting afterthought: Shirley mentioned in our conversation that she had to contribute £400 to a wireless PDA her son is using at this primary school. Apparently, mobile wireless devices are being tested in education contexts... I need to find out more about this.]

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Doers V: People's Voice Media

Posted by irislapinski on July 13th, 2009

My next stop during my exploratory journey was Manchester, where People’s Voice Media (PVM) is based.

Background

Initially set up in 1993 PVM was only recently re-named that way from MCIN or Manchester Community Information Network. It’s probably the oldest surviving community-based digital inclusion initiative in England (and the UK?) and has gone through different cycles of transformation of which PVM is the latest re-incarnation. Thus as a small and flexible organisation is has adapted successfully to changing market conditions to achieve its aim of “Increasing social inclusion through ICT”.

• From limited company -> registered charity -> not-for profit social enterprise: move away from third-sector thinking into a much more entrepreneurial thinking and focus on financial sustainability

• From basic ICT skills training & information sources for community organisations -> ICT procurement & technical support -> social media & community reporters:  clear shift as the nature of the digital divide has changed from basic skills & access more towards content and confidence (while ICT support has become increasingly commoditised)

It terms of activities it is interesting to note, however, that even basic skills training is still offered by PVM depending on the local circumstances and needs by local people – so there is nothing ideological about the service offering, but just a very pragmatic focus on what customers want and are interested in engaging with.

Organisation & services

Currently PVM has 12 staff, 8 freelance tutors and 10 staff community reporters. The last annual accounts are only available for March 2008 on the Charity Commission website which show that annual turnover was about £500,000.

Services

After the renaming exercise PVM offers the following range of services:

• Consultations for local authorities and Primary Care Trusts (health authorities) using social media
• Adverting and affiliation to community websites as targeted media channels
• 2 Social Media Centres inside 2 UK Online Centres thus significantly extending the scope of ICT training
• ICT and digital media training services
• Technical support

Community Reporters

The core of PVM’s activities today is the Community Reporter Program:

• 150 community reporters from deprived communities trained to date, objective of 300 by the end of 2009 and 1,000 by the end of 2011
• community reporters shadow a BBC journalist and receive a community report accreditation badge
• beyond reporting about their local communities community reporters attend conferences and events thus changing the profile (and coverage) of events.

In March 2009 David Wilcox interviewed Gary Coptich PVM’s CEO about the community reporter program which gives a more lively account of what it is all about:

[blip.tv ?posts_id=1872496&dest=-1]

Civic engagement

The objective of the program is to give people a voice about any issue they are interested in from growing their own food to covering local music and sport events. Every now and then civic issues are addressed in the work of community reporters, for example a deaf reporter who highlighted the fact that changes of platforms at Manchester train station are only announced via the speakers thus leaving him unaware of the changes.

Entrepreneurship & employment

While I have not come across an example of community reporters setting up their own companies (Gary, I forgot to ask you about this), quite a few community reporters have moved into further education in order to become media professionals. PVM has built up links to further and higher education institutions like Salford College, The Manchester College, University Of Salford and Manchester Metropolitan University.

Future focus

Going forward PVM is currently working on its plan to become a content provider for local community content or as Gary puts it: “Reuters for the Community”. This would mean than PVM could provide this content to existing or new media partners and might charge a fee for that content.

Final thoughts

From my point of view PVM is one of the most interesting organisations around digital inclusion and social media in the UK precisely because it has been around for such a long time and is more thriving than ever. Different from many other organisations PVM has managed to balance the agenda of public funders with its own vision for social inclusion through ICT – by serving different agendas at the same time. It is now in the process of de facto turning itself into a media organisation in the broadest sense.

While Gary acknowledges that informal and unaccredited learning is the most difficult part of PVM’s service portfolio fund it is a crucial and important part of its work to engage with deprived communities.

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