Other discussion topics

Hi again,
Our next hotseat is now open and Steve Walker invites your participation
with "Evaluation is often seen as a necessary evil: a requirement for
financial support. It can often feel like that, certainly. When we're trying
to understand how to use novel technologies, though, evaluation can be an
important part of the learning process. After all, it's the opportunity for
us to understand technologies 'in the wild': and our 'wild' is often very
different from that of business or government whence many technologies
originate.

How then, can we organise evaluation as a learning process, in
this case, about technology?"

For the next fortnight, Clodagh Miskelly and Steve Walker will explore how
we can use evaluation to enhance our effectiveness. Steve's work in
evaluating large scale projects has required that he take a more structured
and formal approach, whereas Clodagh has worked with small groups using in
depth dialogue. By bringing them together we aim to engage our diverse range
of social activist colleagues in dialogue.
http://hs.technologyandsocialaction.org/hotseat-3

I shot these two videos a few weeks ago and it's taken me until now to upload them. They relate to This session here that I was about to deliver. The first video has me deciding to run the session in a different way and the second traces my journey from that decision to the session.

A Short Break
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir65nkDn6R4

I know I said there was no plan but the session didn't even go as NOT planned. Small numbers again but at least different people. The're still dead keen to add stories to their website.

I had been downloading a widget to resize images and they jumped on the idea of "what's this downloading malarkey".

so they went thought the process of

1) downloading a Microsoft powertoy
2) Downloading Picasa
3) Installing both

The saying goes that the best websites start with a piece of paper. This is just that the core team (below, minus one missing person) have been doing to design their new Digital Village website.

The saying goes that the best websites start with a piece of paper. This is just that the core team (below, minus one missing person) have been doing to design their new Digital Village website.

Leading on from the MyWeb2 project Margrove Park have been successful in a funding bid to develop their "Digital Village" and will sustain the Village Hall Internet connection beyond the current project and provide them with their own bank of laptops. We're quite excited at the prospect of developing the Digital Village concept further and in the bid we spoke of creating a virtual Post Office, Corner Shop, School and Job Shop as the village has none of these things.

I'm sure we could replicate it elsewhere. One thing to take into account, if a Village has a real post office then such a thing (Virtial PO ) would be counter productive. Margrove Park do not have this.

Virtual Post Office - All the things you can do online such as apply for a TV License, RE-tax your car. Taxing your car online for instance is far more efficient than going to a post office.

Virtual, Job Shop - job search online, pointers and advice, CV's etc - closely connected to ..............

Virtual School - The Digital Skills Network currently in development. Online support and learning on a range of subjects including how to run your virtual post office.

Virtual Corner Shop particularly useful to older residents, they club together to form a consorteum to be able to place an order sufficiently large to warrant a Tescos/Iceland - whoever Groceries delivery

Physically how this works is there will be a bank or laptops available at regular times in the Village Hall for people to come in to use these facilities. They're operated by the core group who are not absolute experts but have just enough expertise and local knowledge to make it work.

Leading on from the MyWeb2 project Margrove Park have been successful in a funding bid to develop their "Digital Village" and will sustain the Village Hall Internet connection beyond the current project and provide them with their own bank of laptops. We're quite excited at the prospect of developing the Digital Village concept further and in the bid we spoke of creating a virtual Post Office, Corner Shop, School and Job Shop as the village has none of these things.

I'm sure we could replicate it elsewhere. One thing to take into account, if a Village has a real post office then such a thing (Virtial PO ) would be counter productive. Margrove Park do not have this.

Virtual Post Office - All the things you can do online such as apply for a TV License, RE-tax your car. Taxing your car online for instance is far more efficient than going to a post office.

Virtual, Job Shop - job search online, pointers and advice, CV's etc - closely connected to ..............

Virtual School - The Digital Skills Network currently in development. Online support and learning on a range of subjects including how to run your virtual post office.

Virtual Corner Shop particularly useful to older residents, they club together to form a consorteum to be able to place an order sufficiently large to warrant a Tescos/Iceland - whoever Groceries delivery

Physically how this works is there will be a bank or laptops available at regular times in the Village Hall for people to come in to use these facilities. They're operated by the core group who are not absolute experts but have just enough expertise and local knowledge to make it work.

The group started out at Laburnam Road Library but we quickly decided to move elsewhere. We could not access the Community Walk map application - don't know if it was blocked or if the Library's connection was too slow. Anyway we headed to Destinations @ Saltburn where we continued the workshop. We entered 3 graves from the directory into the satelite view. Clicking on these hotspots brings up the info and clicking on the title takes you to the place on the FORCEM website where the information is. We're planning a presentation at the BBC on December 3rd where the group can present their work to invited guests. To view the Digital Cemetery CLICK HERE.

The group started out at Laburnam Road Library but we quickly decided to move elsewhere. We could not access the Community Walk map application - don't know if it was blocked or if the Library's connection was too slow. Anyway we headed to Destinations @ Saltburn where we continued the workshop. We entered 3 graves from the directory into the satelite view. Clicking on these hotspots brings up the info and clicking on the title takes you to the place on the FORCEM website where the information is. We're planning a presentation at the BBC on December 3rd where the group can present their work to invited guests. To view the Digital Cemetery CLICK HERE.

Carry was conducting interviews this evening, so I plan to arrive a little later. Delayed by traffic I arrived even later than expected and when I walked in, clearly, I interrupted, a session to microphone, which was unfortunate, because it appeared to destroy the intimacy of the session. However carry her to leave soon so all was not lost. We proceeded to have a discussion, and there seemed to be no urgency to lay out the laptops. The main topic of the discussion was a funding bid that Marian wanted to put in but around this was woven several other topics as is the usual nature of these sessions. Marrian seemed to be very clean to fill in the bid document electronically rather than filling it in by hand, but all she had was a paper copy and I had forgotten to bring at the software. I had to order about to be able to do this. However, I figured out another way, which was to scan the bid document, and then put the images into a Word document. This seemed to work okay, but there was always a risk of the image becoming displaced whilst over typing. I therefore adopted another method which was to make each image, a watermark in individual documents which could then be over typed.

Here’s some of what we came up with.

The Village Association is in partnership with a UK on Line project, who have funded a BT line and internet connection until 31st March 2008. Who have also provided laptops on loan on a sessional basis.

During training we have created our own Web site www.margrovepark.com. Which to date has had 1970 visitors. Currently the site is very much a Heritage site, includes history and images, and is attractive to visitors.

We would like to continue this kind of work in order to attract visitors to the website but we would also like to extend the site to serve the community. For example, we would like to run a computer club whereby the community could come into the centre and be assisted in using ICT for job search. This is important to Margrove Park because being a rural community. There is no other way that people could find out this information without a visit to Loftus or Guisborough etc. We would also like to extend the usage of the website to include the promotion of local businesses and in this way promote economic growth in the village by encouraging people in the village to use businesses and services that exist in the village and nearby.

Services available online include, Job search, Renew Road Tax, passport or TV License. Contact your Council, NHS Direct, Consumer Direct. Citizens could club together and place grocery orders with one of the supermarkets doing home delivery.

In a village that has no shops or post office by providing services shopping, Training and job search online the village hall could become a virtual post office, corner shop, job shop, and schoolhouse.