Digital Inclusion

I’ve received the following request from a colleague at Sheffield Hallam University. If you’re involved in the design and/or development of software applications, they would be really grateful if you could spend 5 minutes completing the survey.

Contact details for the researcher are: SANTOSH PATTLOLA a9040260@my.shu.ac.uk

Hi All,

I have a pile of papers and journals with my scribblings all over them that need cataloguing.

I have set up a spreadsheet for saving the reference details and the specific section of interest, I need someone who works fast to enter them onto the spreadsheet. You’ll need to be comfortable copying chunks of text verbatim and preferably familiar with the Harvard referencing system.

I’d like it doing ASAP and will pay £12 per hour or £150 if you can get it all done in a day.

I don’t need CVs I just need someone who’s willing to switch off their brain and type for a day or two

Applicants must be based in Sheffield because I can’t cover expenses or let you take the papers away from their existing office.

Let me know if you’re interested,

Hannah

I add this not because it sums up my thoughts on illiteracy but because it is a nice poem and I don’t have anywhere else appropriate to put it. That said, the final lines: ‘What would you call his feeling for the words, That keep him rich and orphaned and beloved?’  Make me feel that ‘illiterate’ is too ugly a word to do that experience justice, given that the word in part means ‘ignorant’… However, I do love a semantic chit chat when I have other work pressing on my time so I suspect I am distracting myself!

More information on the author can be found here

The Illiterate

by William Meredith

William Meredith

I received this from a colleague, if it’s of interest please contact the organisation direct:

Get Digital is an exciting Government-funded delivery programme to the Sheltered Housing sector. We are half way through our delivery plan and need to recruit some additional Tutors in certain areas to supplement our own tutor network. If you have experience in empathy-led, guided-learning then we want to hear from you. We are not looking for IT experts – but what we do expect is that you can lead the awareness, learning and fun that the world of the computer and internet affords us.

Digital Inclusion is at the very heart of what we do – and this programme is bringing the wonders of the web to 200 sheltered housing schemes. The first wave of activity is going down a storm and the pace is getting faster. If you think that you can take a group of mixed age people from knowing nothing about computing technology through to providing confidence, competence and creating lasting usage, then please get in touch.

We will select those we feel have that special talent for supportive learning. The benefits to you are an attractive day rate, the knowledge that you are working for the leading company in this learning field and being part of a tight delivery team deploying a Digital Inclusion programme that is building a lasting legacy.

Tutors for this project are sub-contracted for 1 day per week for approximately 13 weeks.  If you are interested, please send an email to info@getdigital.org.uk attaching a current CV.  If you have already expressed an interest, please do not apply again, we will be in touch with you shortly.

Recently, on one of my visits to the case study areas, I sat in on a lesson where Learndirect materials were used. The students were working at their own pace with a tutor nearby if they had any queries, they were for the most part happy with the work they were doing and the materials. However, at one point a student became very upset when having completed a test successfully the response was: ‘Congratulations, you have guessed correctly.’

‘That’s exactly what a dyslexic needs, what do they think I’m going through all this effort for?!’

It seemed a real pity that the materials failed for the student at this point, where before he  and the others had been happy to work through them, a simple word put a barrier in place. I’ll be sending the feedback onto Learndirect and will update here if anything comes of it.

Update 13.07.2010

Following my post I emailed learndirect via their website, I received an email the following day (very good!) to say they would need more details regarding the course the student was doing. I’m following this up with the centre involved and will feedback should anymore come of it.