Sheffield College is a national leader in developing online courses and training resources. Students on the college’s three-year iMedia course have become digital outreach trainers, volunteering their computer skills to those who need it in their homes and communities.
Jamie Jackson, right, aged twenty, has shown his father, the owner of a guitar shop, how websites like Ebay can help his business. Thanks to Jamie, his dad is completely at home with trading online, and is now ordering stock for his shop using the internet. “It’s made a difference to his work,” says Jamie, who has also been able to help his neighbours by showing them how to digitally rework images for an art exhibition.
Meanwhile, Amy Gilmartin, pictured left, has been helping her mum get to grips with downloading, setting up and using itunes on her computer, giving her more freedom in using her music. “My mum had seen me do it and wanted to know how she could download them to her mobile phone,” says Amy, aged sixteen, who has also introduced her to buying and selling on ebay.
Sheffield Online College provides a bank of resources for digital outreach trainers like Amy and Jamie to improve their own knowledge as part of their volunteering, including an online forum, resources about online safety and tutorials on soundfiles and videos.
Julie Hooper, Sheffield Online College manager, says: “Digital technology is playing an increasingly crucial part of our personal and working lives. The DOTS project aims to promote digital inclusion among people who have either shied away from or not had access to technology.
“The project is improving confidence and skills by enabling people to take small steps with technology. At the heart of it is the idea that people can be encouraged to engage with technology by informal mentoring through people they know and trust, the digital outreach trainers who include volunteers from all walks of life and continue to sign up in growing numbers.”
