Month: June 2013

Digital innovation at the seaside

Kind of Digital have a team (made up of me, Fraser Henderson and Tim Wilson) working with Lincolnshire County Council on an ERDF funded scheme to bring the latest digital technology to small businesses in rural and coastal locations. This has taken two main forms: firstly the provision of digital business support through conferences and workshops – the latest is on 12 July in Boston, on cloud computing – and secondly the establishment of the Technology Hubs.

These are physical locations, where we have budget to invest in hardware and software to make technology available to businesses, communities and individuals that they might not otherwise know existed, and probably couldn’t afford. Our first hub opened a couple of weeks ago, in the Coastal Centre – a community multi-use building in Mablethorpe, by the seaside. It’s a town that has suffered a certain amount of decline, understandable when you think that it used to be a major tourist destination for the miners from Nottinghamshire and elsewhere.

We have kitted the Coastal Centre out with  a 3D printer, a 3D hand held scanner, and a laser cutter and engraver:

Already we have had people coming into to find out more about the technology. We were taken aback by one visitor, who turned up, USB stick in hand, from which he downloaded a 3D model of a part for his bicycle, printed it out on the 3D printer and then left as abruptly as he had come!

It’s clear that while some of the technology is new to many, there will be people in pretty much every community who will be itching to get their hands on the kit – and often have the zeal and desire to teach and support others. What’s more, it’s fascinating how quickly people can pick up on the potential applications of these tools.

We’re really excited about what we are doing in Mablethorpe, and will be opening new hubs soon in Boston, Louth, Lincoln and Horncastle – each with a slightly different focus. If you’d like to know more about how we made this happen, just get in touch!

New online course – blogging bootcamp

Ever wanted to start blogging but just didn’t have the confidence in the technology or your ability to write lots of juicy content? Our new online course is here to help!

Blogging bootcamp runs over the summer and is a six week course that you can dip in and out of, so no worries if you’re going on holiday in the middle of it!

Click here to find out more and book your place. I’ve pasted the course description in below for your convenience 🙂

This is an in depth course delivered online. It is based on the latest best practice for online learning, which is providing social, asynchronous learning where the learner can access materials and get involved at a time that suits them, within the framework of a weekly lesson format. We do as little synchronised activity as possible, to make things as flexible as we can.

The course consists of six lessons, which last for a week each. Total learner time per lesson is around an hour, which they can do in one chunk or spread throughout the week – it is entirely up to them.

Support is provided both to the group as a whole, with discussion and sharing of experience and knowledge encouraged; and privately through email or telephone discussion between the course facilitator and learners.

Each lesson will include some or all of the following elements:

  • An introductory video introducing the topic and explaining some details
  • Downloadable templates, resources, guides and case studies
  • Links to further reading and case studies
  • Interviews with practitioners
  • Screencast demos of how to perform certain actions
  • Learner discussion areas
  • One to one private email support
  • Additional content in response to queries and requests
  • Assignments to practice learning

The six lessons in this course are:

  1. Introduction to the course and blogging
    1. How does the course work?
    2. What is a blog?
    3. How could blogging help you?
    4. Different types of blogs
  2. Setting up your blog
    1. Choosing a platform
    2. Naming your blog
    3. Design considerations
    4. Choosing a domain
  3. Planning blog content
    1. How often to post
    2. How long should a post be?
    3. Different types of blog posts
  4. Promoting your blog
    1. Using Twitter and Facebook
    2. Joining online communities
    3. Encouraging debate
    4. Other ways of promoting your content
  5. Taking the next steps
    1. Using video and audio
    2. Guest bloggers and guest blogging
  6. Finishing up, answering final questions, time for reflective practice

Course content is fluid and will react to the needs of the learners – so the list above is for information purposes only and the exact content in the course will be more detailed than this.

The course is suitable for people already fairly happy using a computer and the internet, but who have been put off starting a blog in the past, whether because of worries about technology, or what to write about. It is suitable for public servants, community and voluntary workers, artists and creatives and those running small businesses.

The course facilitator is Dave Briggs, Director at Kind of Digital, who has experience of running successful digital engagement campaigns for a number of public sector organisations, including the Prime Minister’s Office at 10 Downing Street.

He has managed digital engagement projects for organisations at all levels of government and is an experienced and well regarded trainer in the tools and techniques used. He has blogged since 2004 and has also worked on developing social media e-learning with Learning Pool.

To find out more about Dave and his experience, check out his LinkedIn profile.

The course costs £100 + VAT per delegate.

Link roundup

I find this stuff so you don’t have to:

Link roundup

I find this stuff so you don’t have to:

Getting online by sharing memories in Lincolnshire

I’m delighted to be helping out Community Lincs, the rural community development charity where I serve as a trustee, with their Summer of Surfing activity during the first week of July.

It’s a neat idea, to encourage people to have a go using the web by contributing a memory to a shared website, where a collection of Lincolnshire memories will be able to build up. As the project describes:

These sessions will show you how to get online and create an entry on our Collecting Memories web site. If you have amusing, profound or even slightly bizarre memories of life in your community then we will help you post them online and it might even start an online conversation with others

Our goal is to show how easy it is to become involved with the Internet and how easy it is to communicate online. Hopefully we will effectively create an online “time capsule” of Lincolnshire memories.

As I said, I’m volunteering some time, and will be at Spalding library from 10am-12pm on Tuesday 2nd July; and from 2pm to 4pm on Thursday 4th July.

The project website – still in development, I believe, is here. This work is part of Community Lincs’ Community Broadband Champions project.

Am looking forward to helping some people take their first steps online!

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