Giving Up The Smartphone and Gating Technology: Managing Information, Media and Technology

Over the last several years the number of conversations which I have had with people about smartphones and the effects of digital technology in our lives is numerous. In particular, many conversations have oriented around giving up a smartphone and living without technology cemented into every part of your life. After some time I decided to give it a try to see what it felt like not to have a phone with the purpose of discovering whether a phone is as important as it had come to feel to be. Read more…

Podcast: Real Time Document of One to One Teaching in Digital Literacies

This is the first one to one IT teaching session after moving from a group drop in model which proved to be too problematic to work with. The podcast is a real time document of the problems an 82 year old women – Bella Stewart – encountered with using her laptop computer. Alex Dunedin walks through the problems and solutions that were apparent at the time. Read more…

Finding Appropriate Models For Teaching Digital Skills In The Community

Since 2013 I have been thinking about how Ragged University can do digital teaching in the community. The theory goes that computers are common place, that they are accessible and that everyone will gain something from knowing how to use a computer. How hard could it be to help people learn how to do what they need to with the equipment available ? This is a learning journal of the progressive experiments required to find appropriate models of event that address the mysterious ‘digital divides’ that exist.

First stop, the task was to identify computers which everyone could use for free. What sprung to mind was the fact that commonly we find computers in libraries and some community centres. I looked at the local computers and, on the face of things, saw that the machines were good.