remotecontrol

Last night was the "final" session of MyWeb2 at Margrove Park. I say final but next week whilst I am away Neil Harland is going to deliver the laptops so that they can continue the "club". Paul Davies of Destinations is purchasing a steel cabinet from the SID project funds so that the Laptops can stay at Margrove overnight and then Neil will collect the laptops and take to their next destination on the Friday.

When I'm back next week I promised to run another session where we will focus on images for the website. I determined that all sessions should revolve around the website because it gives focus to the activity and does not limit their learning experience in any way. After the next two weeks we propose that they will continue the Laptop Club and I’ll support from a distance and make occasional visits.

Low numbers again last night and then Jean had to leave early leaving just me, Marian and Marget. (A combined age of 198)

Marian (64) has sold her car on ebay but needs to buy a new computer. Margaret (79) is bemoaning the fact that she wishes she had not sold her laptop as her computer is in the bedroom and she’d prefer to use it like a common household gadget around the living room (this is what a lot of people do now I think, almost like the laptop is the new TV)

They really liked the idea of my taking remote control of their PC using a free application called Crossloop http://www.crossloop.com/ - It would allow me to see what’s happening on their home PC screens as it’s frustrating when they learn something in the Village Hall and then try to describe how it looks entirely different at home.

We experimented on two laptops but to no avail. Then computer whiz Margaret said "are you sure that laptop was online". Quite a logical question really and since Neil had only recently added the mac address to the wireless router for that particular Laptop could well be the problem. Margaret was, right the laptop was not connected. When we connected it we were able to hook up the computers quite easily so could control Marians laptop from mine. They saw the possibilities of running distance courses. The host computer could be hooked up to a screen and the controlling laptop could send voice via Skype. We must try this out some time.

Then Magaret wanted to know how to put a "trail" on the mouse for visibility so I showed her. She then set up Mrians laptop with a mouse trail.

Since Jean had to go early it was just me Marian and Margaret. We just set up 3 cosy laptops on a round table. Margaret has put a tail on the mouse of the third laptop for good measure.

My plan for the session was to ask each participant to reflect on the past 8 weeks of workshops by writing to the website but we decided to "play silly sods" as they call it and visit second life. Margaret is Fredster Fouroux and Marian is Urilla Upshaw.

We spent ages in SL and had quite a laugh. See below pic of me Marian and Margaret relaxing in a bar after our SL explorations which were hilarious.

SL was great fun - Margaret and Marian were bang into it but they kept flying off and getting lost. We also bumped into a few other people.

Then we did some “proper” work. They wrote a short piece on the workshops. I created a new page and moved the "about our village" stuff to it. Marian wanted to add a currency conversion widget to her googel apps. Mararet wanted to understand how to develop a story in her google docs and then add it to the Margrove website - quiet sophisticated I think -particularly so for a 79 year old. I said that we ought to make the website the focus of everything they do as it is the tool that produces their learning. Terry called in briefly again.