Dave

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!

A bit more on #networkedcllr

This morning’s round table, held by EELGA with the support of Public-i, was an enjoyable couple of hours, hearing about how councillors and others involved in local democracy see the future of the role and the impact the internet and social media will have on it.

One of the best things about the beta Public-i report is that it takes the view of ‘networked’ councillors in the widest possible sense. In other words, not just online networks, but all networks.

So we want our councillors to be available, open, accessible, transparent, collaborative and so on – whatever medium they may use is up to them, as long as it meets the needs of the community they serve.

Go read the report – it’s good stuff.

Following on from the session this morning and in addition to my previous notes, here are a couple of thoughts.

Firstly, there is still a clear need for training for councillors in using the internet and social media. This needs to incorporate hands-on stuff, showing people how to log in, which buttons to press and so on; but also cultural stuff, including the netsmarts that Howard Rheingold talks about. How to write, how to know when to respond, identifying trolls, that sort of thing.

Second, we need to put some thought into what the councillor role should be. I think much of what success looks like for councillors will depend on their original motivation for doing it in the first place. For me, as a parish councillor, I see the role making certain tools – processes and structures and procedures – available to me that wouldn’t be otherwise. So it’s a means to an end to get stuff done for the community.

However, it’s fair to say that the role has barely changed in the last decade or so, despite the radical changes to society, the economy, and how people live their lives. If we were starting from scratch, now, to design how our local elected representatives would perform their role, what would it look like? Nothing like it does now, I’d have thought.

I don’t think it’s possible to make existing councillors change their culture or their worldview. If they haven’t been open and collaborative before now, I don’t see how they can be encouraged to change. The effort should be going into designing a role that will appeal to new councillors, who are net-savvy, time limited, mistrustful of bureaucracy, and so on.

So I am looking forward to where the conversation goes next, and hope to get to play a part!

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