Older people challenging isolation and exclusion
See also page: Learning – courses and workshops
NB: this activity has finished.
This is a high-level, very professional research project that we have been invited to join as specialists in helping older people understand, us, or cope with digital technology – as we get older, not just right now.
In their own words …
We are committed to helping to improve things for older people, and give them a chance to contribute and have an impact. One of the ways we do this is through building relationships and partnerships with specialist organisations, such as yours. We strongly advocate the inclusion and accessibility of all individuals, businesses, organisations in user research. By including these valuable voices, we can ensure that our platforms, products and services meet the needs of a diverse group of people and communities and that we do not leave anyone behind.
With informed consent, we would like to invite people to join our community. This community will receive regular invitations to participate in future research sessions. We will offer people who take part in research a small incentive voucher, as a token of our gratitude for their time and participation.
We have stringent privacy, data handling, safeguarding and ethics protocols and policies in place to ensure the rights, welfare and dignity of all research participants.
Three of the researchers (Claire, Marina and Uzma) will be at the next two Wednesday drop-ins to meet you. They are all remarkably young and brilliant. Worth coming for. They will also bring ‘refreshments’.
For creative senior citizens who want to make a difference – at Mildmay Community Centre – Monday afternoons throughout 2023.
A web presence could be a website, a blog, social media, podcast, internet radio, photo gallery, or something else you think would be helpful – or all of those things. And it always starts with content.
Your content could be writing, art work, photos, video, podcast, radio, or whatever you can think of – to promote yourself, a project, or even a business idea. Or perhaps creating an online community of people you know.
We can help you with ideas like that — most Monday afternons at Mildmay Community Centre.
Other people — we are happy to have you there doing your own thing — it’s part of our plan.
Maker Monday afternoon achievements are visible on the 50+ Microbloggers site.
Florence will show you how to do it.
For creative senior citizens who want a result – at Mildmay Community Centre – Monday afternoons in June 2023
NB: this activity has finished.
This is about understanding digital photos (and other images), so that you can use them effectively. We will provide the laptops and the initial photos. Keep reading …
NB: this activity has finished.
Organised by MRS – Independent Living (MRS-IL) – Digital Confidence project – 50pd.uk
NB: this activity has finished.
A sunshiny event with people involved in the Mildmay Food Hub and Community Cook-up projects.
Is that you? Come and talk to us about what you do and how the food projects help local residents.
Everyone else is welcome, especially if you volunteer at any other community food project.
NB: these workshops have finished.
Our plans for the launch of Mildmay Community Radio – from the garden deck of the centre – have been thwarted several times by unusually adverse weather. We can’t do al fresco radio if it’s cold or wet outside.
So we will launch it twice and you are invited to both …
This will be a normal Monday afternoon learning event in the main hall. We will demonstrate the equipment we use for internet radio and podcasts — and hopefully convince you that this is something you could do yourself at home. Everybody can have a go.
It will be live internet radio, not a short podcast episode. The acoustics on the main hall are not good, so professional sound quality will not be on the menu – but we will at least have got something started.
We have also set up all our training phones to pick up the live stream. So you will have an easy way to listen (though not yet to phone in).
We can do this on the garden deck (outside the café area) – provided the weather is on our side. The outdoor acoustics are usually excellent, and our equipment can handle most intrusive noises.
The provisional topic is Mildmay Community Centre itself – and what older people can achieve there.
Everyone who turns up is a part of fluid studio audience. But not all at once. We have 4 microphones, so up to 4 people can be part of the conversation – while the others wait their turn.
The conversation picked up by the microphones is streamed to an online radio server. Anyone who knows the link can listen.
By the way – here is the link: live.radiotogether.uk (when there is no live talk stream, the server just sends a loop of recorded birdsong).
You don’t need any digital skills to participate. The important skills are the skills you have been learning for decades – talking and listening, sharing your life experiences as an older person who remembers life before the internet.
Bring them to the Monday event.
A workshop for senior citizens at Mildmay Community Centre – Monday 24 April, 2 to 4 pm
NB: this workshop has finished.
Learn My Way is a website of free online learning for beginners, helping you develop digital skills to make the most of the online world.
This is a new version of Learn My Way. It’s obviously intended for people who don’t have much internet experience, but it’s not just for total beginners. We think you would like it — and it’s definitely a good drop-in activity.
So here is the link » https://learnmyway.com/ «
Workshop organised by MRS – Independent Living (MRS-IL) – Digital Confidence project – 50pd.uk
A course for adventurous senior citizens at Mildmay Community Centre – Monday afternoons in March 2023
NB: This course has finished.
This is a course about being able to do something useful or essential – apps used by work teams, individual entrepreneurs and creators. You will learn the basics of Google WorkSpace – a package of apps widely used by business and non-profit organisations.
The apps are designed for teams as well as single users – and (like most workplace software now) they all run in the cloud – where you can access them from any location – as well as the computer you are using at home or in an office.
You probably access your personal email in a cloud server. Workplace software extends that kind of access to everything you do at work – vastly increasing productivity – and (a key concept) simplifying immediate collaboration with other people you work with.
This is not new – but if your work experience is not recent, you might not realise how much has changed in the last 10 years. Your tutor has been using this system since 2007, for personal use, community projects, and as a part-time employee of charity MRS – Independent Living (which uses WorkSpace for internal and external processes).
Below is a list of apps that we will look at during the course. If you have email at seniors.org.uk or bold.org.uk, you already have all the apps. If you use Gmail.com, you have limited personal versions of most of them.
Obviously, you won’t become proficient in all of those apps during a short course. But you will know what they are, and how to get started.
Organised by MRS – Independent Living (MRS-IL) – Digital Confidence project – 50pd.uk
A double workshop at Mildmay Community Centre – Monday afternoons in February 2023
NB: this workshop has finished.
We have recently acquired more laptop computers, which will help to double the number of people who can learn effectively at the Wednesday afternoon drop-in.
This workshop will help you understand how to use the laptops (new and previous) …
We will also investigate the best possible use of the space in the main hall — as we did during the last smartphone course (we discovered that we should project onto the large drop-down screen – and that community centre should upgrade the main hall wifi, which they have done).
Organised by MRS – Independent Living (MRS-IL) – Digital Confidence project – 50pd.uk