A charity that recycles computers is using Twitter to remind people that it is better to re-use their computers before recycling them, as part of its support for Green Britain Day. Computer Aid International is urging companies to consider the re-use of their old PCs and laptops as part of their green initiatives.
Just came across a short but sweet video by Howard Rheingold, an American academic and author who has had his finger on the internet's pulse for a long time and has some interesting answers about whether or not we should be teaching about, or learning about social media. By which he means the new web stuff like Facebook and Myspace.
The two word answer is 'it depends' - on who learns how to use them and what they choose to do with what they learn. The slightly longer answer in his video suggests to me that whilst the technology can be used as a positive tool for change we can't rely on the people who adopt technologies quickest to know how best to put it to that use. For Rheingold that points to 'teachers' or educators. For me it is about supporting community organisations who have built trust in the communities they are part of and who therefore understand their needs.
We have three sets of web design workshops running at the moment, teaching people how to set up and run a website using Wordpress.com. The notes for this course are available for free download from a site we've created to support this training.
Wordpress.com is fairly easy to use and it has some great support pages, but we recommend the Dummies Guide for those who want to buy a book - mainly because this includes info on wordpress.com as well as running your own version of wordpress.
We have also published some of our own notes to help our learners, including:
NCVO has published a series of short guides on a number of topics about what the future will look like for the third sector, including one about how we will use new technologies in five years’ time. It considers a number of drivers for change and how they will affect us, such as access to low cost high quality printing, new ways to engage with people and the ability to work flexibly. I thought it was very useful - it's not a technical review but looks at the implications of how technology will change the work of the third sector.
There are lots of free training resources available through the
Do you find yourself forgetting how incredible this internet thing is? Caught up in the humdrum, always looking things up for work, ordering groceries or failing to keep your email in order? And then sometimes you find yourself transported into a different world, that would have been closed to you before, learning new things and seeing the world in a different way.
Just viewed a fab video about education, what it's for and how schools kill creativity on the wonderful TED site.
Found via Steve Bridger's excellent blog.
‘Social Media’ is something of a buzzword at the moment. Everyone – from huge corporations to governments to community groups – are switching onto the idea that ’social media’ is happening, and that they need to get in on the act. But what is it? And what does it have to do with ice cream?
The editor of MyManchester, a community-based publishing network that’s been around since we started SCIP back in 1997, has provided an answer in plain English that offers a valuable guided tour to the world of blogs, new media, and why people are getting so excited about it. It includes this video that uses ice cream to explain why new technology may be changing the world.
Read the whole article here mymanchestereditor.wordpress.com/social-media-2/
Doing some research about how to set up and run a community newspaper - linked to the training I'm running about how to set up and run a community web site, developing the training I do about using Wordpress.com.
This is like most of the community newspaper meetings I've been to - except they usually have enough money to last two and a half minutes...
I love these remix videos - taking all sorts of stuff from YouTube and making great cutup/hip hoppy stuff. The music reminds me of Money Mark or UNKLE.
M & E Consulting, preponderate.network and Charities Evaluation Services are pleased to announce the first-ever conference on ‘Outcomes monitoring and IT’ which will take place in London on 21st May 2009. The conference will help voluntary and community organisations to:
Tickets are available now for a free ICT event in London in May. Workshops will cover:
• E-learning tools
• Ensuring effective websites
• Delivering an e-campaign
• Technology supporting collaboration
• Managing your supporter base
• Accessible computing
• Innovation in service delivery
Book now on the NCVO website using the link below:
NCVO - Maximising potential through Information and Communications Technology
I've just totted up 30 pieces of software that I use at least weekly which have cost me absolutely nothing. In particular I have my Gmail account open just about every moment of the day, so the recent service problems hit me hard. It made me think about how much we can rely on free stuff, and how much I take for granted what I routinely get for nothing.
Although many of these tools may offer upgrades, add-ons or be linked to things I have paid for, I am using all of the following absolutely free of charge:
Charles Leadbetter is author of We-Think - a fascinating new book that explores how we can use collaboration and community networks to create innovation. He's appearing at a free event in Brighton on 26 March - tickets are available now by booking online using the link below.
Connecting Innovation | 26 march 09 | the old market | hove
Community gatherings and conferences offer an opportunity for collaboration and interaction, As well as the learning that takes place on the day they can also signal the start of new relationships and activities. A recent post from David Wilcox shows how Social Reporting can help event organisers use video, blogs and other technologies to create a high value virtual wrapper to augment real world activities. As well as the practical benefits this approach also underlines the need for not for profit organisations to think about how the widespread use of new social media tools amongst its supporters may change their role.
David [a co-founder of SCIP back in the mid-90s] has experimented with a variety of highly accessible techniques and a wide range of events - from video interview booths to handing out video cameras and building event-specific blogs.
Not surprisingly the secret to success lies in careful preparation, thinking about the community of people attending the event and what they could gain from the use of such tools. It could be a way of simply recording proceedings for people who cannot attend or a way of building a new online community that continue to function well beyond the event itself.
David links this to the proposal by Prof Clay Shirky that not for profit organisations need to think about their role as a focus for or convener of supporters. An interview with Professor Shirky can be found here
Read more about social reporting here: How social reporters can help turn old-style conferences into the new convening spaces
A tool to make Facebook more accessible to visually impaired users has been created by Project:Possibility, a group of not-for-profit software developers in the US. The application, which can be found at http://fastlink.headstar.com/pp2 allows visually impaired users to log in, navigate and use the site by combining screen reader technology with other coding techniques.
Brian D’Souza, a team member who worked on the project, explained:“We leveraged an existing technology developed by Google which combines use of screen readers and java script and navigation methods to make navigation and modification of content of webpages easier. It provides a lot of value for a blind person.”
Facebook’s popularity has risen dramatically in recent years, with more than 150 million users worldwide. However some users claim it does not fully support assistive tools, with several groups active on the site itself pressing for a more accessible service, such as The Official Petition for a More Accessible Facebook which contains almost 1,500 members. Some measures have already been taken by Facebook to accommodate the needs of disabled users, such as releasing screen reader-friendly versions of some of its applications.
The Facebook tool was one of a series of projects created at the recent UCLA SS12, an annual ‘code-a-thon’ held at the University of California, Los Angeles. Software developers spend a weekend working on projects for disabled people.
Story taken from e-access bulletin, a free monthly email newsletter’ available for subscription at http://www.headstar.com/eab
Ever wanted to collect sign up information for your event through a website? Want to have a spreadsheet with all the delegate's details at your fingertips? Want to be able to download that information and use it again in the future? Sounds like you could use a Google Form, a great new tool that lets you quickly easily set up an online form, and even embed it in another website.
Google Docs is a set of online tools that includes a word processor, presentation software and spreadsheets. It can be used to keep your documents online so you can access them anywhere and it includes lots of features to help you share documents and collaborate with other people.
Now it has a neat new tool that you can set up a form to gather information and enter it into a spreadsheet through a web page. I came across it when someone who's running a conference I'm going to used it me to ask me which workshop I'm going to and whether I have any dietary requirements.
If you already have a Google account then it's very simple to set up, and if you don't then it may worth thinking about. It will beuseful for anyone with any sort of administration role, whether it's booking places at a traing workshop, collecting personal contact details as people register for feedback collecting feedback after it.
Official Google Docs Blog: Stop sharing spreadsheets, start collecting information
Had a great day teaching museum staff and volunteers in Henley on Tuesday. The course included how to brief a web deisgner, a review of everyone's existing site and lots of chat about how any museum can update, improve and make more of the web. Lots of people are already switched on to what it offers, including video podcasts and blogs, but there is always something for people to do to help generate visitors to their museum and share their collection with the world.
This video shows some of the participants talking about what they learned:
And here's the presentation I made.
The work with Coldean Residents Association is going really well. I'm working with Libby Davy to help them build a new Wordpress-based community website, through a series of short early evening workshops in Coldean Library. We did two sessions in November and are now planning to return to deliver more. They are planning the launch of their site and going great guns in putting together a test site which will then morph into the real thing.
To see what they've achieved take a look at the test site at www.douglascoldean.wordpress.com and watch a video I've posted which features interviews with three of the four protagonists.
This is pretty impressive for a small team of three volunteers and a part-time community worker. A key factor in this success is that the three volunteers have a complementary set of skills and interests and fit neatly into the roles we have suggested are needed to manage the site:
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