Comments on: Digital Torment

By: Michael Grimes

Michael Grimes — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:35:12 +0000

Thanks for a thought-provoking post Tracey. I share your concern, though I suspect that ‘those that have’ are always likely to identify what they have as being of value and wanting others to share in that. I don’t think we can escape that.

However I do think we need to be very careful not to presume that what ‘we’ have is necessarily better than what ‘they’ have (whoever ‘we’ and ‘they’ may be). The tech is simply a tool, and if people don’t want or need it they shouldn’t feel expected to embrace it.

What’s important to me is that we help everyone – with all their different levels of technical expertise – can live together, and engage effectively, in our ‘multi-tech’ society.

By: Paul Webster

Paul Webster — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:49:14 +0000

Hi, from another person fitting your sterotype, although would argue against the middle-class bit.

I’ve also posted some thoughts over on the Digital Mentor blog that echo your points.

No-one is hard to reach from a VCS perspective, we’ve decades of experience working alongside these communities and groups, meeting them in the places where they are (not taking them into schools and libraries where they feel out of place). If the Digital Mentor initiative is to really reach the final third it has to build face to face trust first using people from within the communities before lauching inot use of FlipCamera-ugimawhotsits to help them grow digitally.

Yes, thse people will meet in damp church halls, yes, they will only be open for 2 hours on a Tuesday evening, yes, they will be 10 miles down a country lane with flakey broadband (or none at all), yes there will be cultural and language to overcome …. these all need to be part of the picture.

DC10plus have piloted a number of very innovative ideas (some being shown at events later this month) working wuth the “high-placed-and-with-a-tough-stalk fruit” groups.

I want to see the ideas these communities have developed adopted wider and Digital Mentors within the Muslim Women, Homeless, Single Parent communities encouraged to play their part.

Loving the debate !

By: Tim Davies

Tim Davies — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:36:18 +0000

Key points. I’ve not really been following the digital mentors discussions so far – but realising I should engage to check we’re not missing out on opportunities to engage excluded young people.

Ultimately introducing the the digital is only one part of engaging excluded groups – any group running the digital mentors will need to focus on community development and people’s social networks (and not at all in a digital sense) as well as helping people develop their confidence and basic skills sets as much as they will need to focus on the digital.

Part of the reason us white middle class university educated blokes are so active in the networks is that universities and middle class communities create pre-existing national networks which have been transferred online.

Working out the balance between introducing the tech, and acting to develop communities and networks is I guess the big challenge for any digital mentors bid.

By: Digital Mentor » Reaching the excluded

Digital Mentor » Reaching the excluded — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:32:25 +0000

[...] Tracey Todhunter has written a passionate post about the need for digital mentors to embrace various community groups and demographics, and not just focus on the already tech-savvy: But, as the conversations continue I begin to feel a little bit uneasy that crucial partners are missing in the debate. Looking at some forums I’d make a guess that the majority of contributors are white middle class males with a university education and a plethora of social media whizzardry (is that a word?) at their disposal. I apologise immediately to Clare White and others who are also joining in – but forgive me for asking – how many of the contributors to this debate are real bona fide grass roots communities who are reaching out and getting these new technologies into their projects and communities? Where are the guys from the Traveller Community, the single women living on benefits in the “rough” parts of town, the wheelchair users, the deaf, the young? Some people might call them the “hard to reach”, but I prefer to think they are just being “easily overlooked”. How will those bidding for the Digital Mentor tender ensure that these grassroots groups (many of whom are volunteers but just as capable of sharing their skills and knowledge as the professionals) are heard and able to participate in the design and develoment of services? [...]