Computer training for blind deaf and disabled people in their own home

Tutor Seminar - 21/09/2005

Tutor Seminar held on 21/09/2005 09:51:06 at Abbey Community Centre

Present:
Anthony Wigram, Chris Garbett, Nina Johannessen, Sarika Patel, Doreen Nicholas, Taher Ali, Debbie Brixey, Richard Burton, Steve Collis, Tracey Fawthrop, Sally Fonseca, Chris Frederick, Barry Freedman, Carl Gasgoigne, Gabriella Gatward, Boyko Grigorov, Phi

Apologies:
Lisa Oram, Tracy Pernice, Adefemi Adedapo, Judy Bartholomew, Nelson Bayomy, Jim Benstead, David Brown, Helen Dashwood, Cliff Docherty, Kevin Frost, Daniel Gilson, Lorraine Manning, Gian Montagna, Ademola Olayinka, Margaret Power, Selva Ramesh, Simon Smi

Minutes:
Anthony began with welcoming everybody to the Tutor Seminar. New tutors introduced themselves Steve Collis, Paul Millar and Philip Owusu-Antwi.

1. Minutes of Last Meeting

Anthony asked to read over previous meeting minutes and asked if anyone had any questions.

Nina brought up the Yahoo Group and suggested to tutors to encourage their students to join. Nilesh asked if someone could send the link for this, as he was not aware of this. Boyko is going to email the link.

No other comments were made.

2. Administration – Nina/Sarika

Nina read out Lisa’s Admin notes. She apologized for the time taken to arrange a seminar due to holidays and other commitments of staff and tutors.
Nina welcomed the new tutors. She went over tutorial numbers which are significantly higher than last years.

Nina also mentioned the office has been sending out and receiving a lot more application forms which along with the extra paperwork for funding we’ve received, means the office is very busy.

Nina briefly went over the projects running at the moment LSC North ‘Enabled’ and ALG ‘Blindworks’ and called for any questions.

Anthony raised the topic of ‘Refresher Lessons’ and stressed the importance of them in regards to the student and also for funding. He said it was important that we find out if and how the course has helped the student. Anthony asked tutors to please try and do the refresher lessons as soon as possible and they should be just as important as the course students.

Debbie mentioned that is was hard to get in contact with students after a year because contact details may have changed.

Gabriella said one year after the students graduate was too long to try and contact to give a refresher, she suggested having refreshers 3-5 months after they graduate. Doreen agreed but suggested 6 months might be better as this would keep the student interested.

Anthony asked what tutors thought about the current process of contacting students.

Nilesh said it was good and suggested that all tutors should emphasize refresher lesson at the end of the UCDIT course, maybe include it in the final lesson report.

Phil (Griller) said some of his students computers were broken so they were on hold. Anthony said if this is the case we should be helping students get their computers fixed by giving them the phone number for ITCH.

Gabriella said she encourages students to keep in touch with the office as we have links to various organisations and also to keep us informed if any contact details change.

3. Work of Volunteers – Doreen Nicholas

Doreen said she was very pleased with the work of Volunteers at the moment. There was a bit of a sticky patch where she had technical problems for a couple of months but these problems have been solved and she is back on board.

Doreen said she has 2 very good volunteers working at the moment. She sent Chris (Garbett) an interesting newspaper article from the Volunteers.

Currently Doreen is compiling a newsletter and encouraging UCDIT graduates to write short stories (she has received 4 so far) to try and get them involved with UCDIT.

Doreen and Debbie were updating the graduate CD which is now complete. Doreen stressed that all tutors must teach students how to use a CD and it was very important to incorporate this into the lessons.

Anthony pointed out that UCDIT did have an initiative where on the 5th lesson tutors were to encourage students to send emails to Local MPs and Councillors.

Doreen mentioned the Fun Run that staff participated in on 4th September at Hyde Park where money was raised for UCDIT.

4. Chris Garbett

a) Funding Update

Chris started off by saying 300 applications were sent out in the first 22 weeks and the total will be 800 by the end of the year which is a 30% increase from the previous year.

Chris talked about how current projects were going:

· LSC North ‘Enabled’ – recruitment is going well.
· ALG ‘Blindworks’ – smaller project than Enabled but going very well.
· LSC South – having difficulties with Croydon College, it was supposed to start in July, may start next month.
· Borough funding – Leonard Cheshire Sociability is going very well.

Chris informed us of a new project running in Tower Hamlets – Peabody, which will fund 30 students a year for 2 years. This is an equal programme, we must match fund.

Chris also mentioned that we sent out 2 very important applications:

1. Big Lottery Fund – applied for a large sum of money to cover computers and training for 3 years in west London.
2. Bridgehouse Estates – applied for funding for 3 years for east London.

Chris said we were looking to see if we could sell our service to companies but this is still work in progress.

Sally asked if the Sociability computers could be loaded with Webbie. Nina said it was a free program so it could be installed by the tutor. Sally said they are installed with Lookout already but it would be helpful to have Webbie.

Nilesh mentioned he went to a student who purchased a recycled computer and said the mouse wasn’t working which was a waste of the journey as they couldn’t do anything.

Gabriella suggested there should be a process in which someone needs to find out if the computer is working before the tutor goes to do a lesson. Chris said Real Data provide the Sociability computers and Real Poptel set them up. Chris is going to find out why this is happening.

Nilesh asked what the process was if the computer was not working. Nina said they must inform the office first and then try and help the student. Maybe calling ITCH for them. Nina explained about ITCH and what they do.

Barry asked if ITCH were the people to call as he has used them a few times and sometimes no-one was there so they seemed unreliable at times. Anthony said ITCH is a separate charity which started 15 years ago and is run by volunteers.

Keith said he approached ITCH regarding a modem but it seemed they didn’t have the budget to fix PCs.

Anthony pointed out if hardware or software is needed to let the office know as we might be able to help.

Nilesh asked if hardware could be stored in the office as he has students discarding hardware (eg modems etc) and it could be useful to someone else. Anthony said we don’t have much room but maybe we could store small items.

5. Web Site – Carl Gasgoigne

Carl asked if tutors could email website@ucandoit.org.uk (and CC the office) if anyone is having problems with online lesson reports. He also said everything is going well with the system and to please inform the office of any problems.

Carl explained about the next exciting new venture – Solo Surfing Project. The aim of this is to make homework more interesting and varied, and to increase the desire to do after-lesson work. This will also help tutors assign homework in a structured way and encourage students to use the web more.

Carl said currently there is a section on our website (Tutor Zone/Resources) where tutors can submit homework ideas for other tutors to look at (knowledge-share). The ideas submitted will be sent to the office first to be checked and then uploaded onto the website. Carl encouraged all tutors to submit ideas so we have a cache of homework to use.

An additional incentive to Solo Surfing is ‘Surfing Miles’. This works like air miles – students will earn surfing miles (points) and use them to get some type of reward. The rewards have not been decided yet. Carl is going to collaborate the project with the different level of users/students and the hardware and software used. Each month there could be a gold/silver/bronze prize or certificate.

Carl said the whole project was 40% complete.

Anthony said this project was good because the student would be working with our website and we can see what the student has done, this is a good way to help students retain knowledge.

Carl suggested we set up a Solo Surfing area for the student which will be their first point of contact (if they can’t get in touch with the tutor). An ‘I need help’ button on the desktop would send an email to the tutor. Graduate students could also use this which will encourage them to stay in contact with tutors and the office.

Barry said the project was a good idea because there was a challenge of setting homework for students as it is hard to judge how much to set. He pointed the additional help would be good and said we shouldn’t let the incentive get in the way of setting up shared homework. He asked if the student had to be online the whole time. Carl said yes they would.

Nina informed tutors of My Internet Pass cards. http://www.mipcards.com/. type of prepaid internet access. Steve said this could be one of the rewards for surfing miles.

Keith mentioned that some students thought pay-as-you-go internet was cheaper, Tiscali offer dialup from 8am – 6pm for only £4.99 monthly. The charges for outside these hours are minimal.

Nilesh asked if there could be a place on our website where tutors could submit knowledge like this for everyone to see. Carl said he could set this up.

Anthony asked tutors if they know how many emails were sent by their students weekly. He suggested asking students to send at least 5 emails a day as repetition is good. Doreen pointed out that when students first started using email they may not have many addresses in their address book. Anthony suggested sending emails to tutors, office, themselves, or companies requesting information. Doreen said this may attract spam. Taher said spam is only sent if someone registers with the company not if you are just requesting information. Keith said sending an email to yourself is a good way for students to see how email works.

Carl had an idea about emailing – an email address is created (newstudent@ucandoit.org.uk) and then randomly selects a student who has agreed to join to contact another student by email who has also agreed to join. This encourages contact between students using email.

6. ECDL – Chris Frederick

Chris explained that ECDL was very important because it validates tutor professionalism and allows us to provide e-Citizen qualification.

Chris ran through the exam process. Tutors must tell Chris the modules they will be sitting before coming to the test centre at Chris’s house. Tutors are not getting paid for this but do not need to pay the module fees which are £25 per module. Tutors must purchase a logbook from Chris for £23.50. Chris asked tutors to please bring a cheque for the logbook and two forms of ID on their first visit.

Chris explained that there is no tuition provided and recommended purchasing a textbook (any ECDL syllabus 4) at bookstores or online. Barry said he found information on the Internet which saved him buying the book.

Each module you will be allowed 45 minutes. Module 1 is done on paper and sent to a BCS agency to be marked. Modules 2 – 7 are done on a floppy disk and marked by Chris.

Chris also explained that once we were offering ECDL to students he would be the tester (test the student) as he is a qualified ECDL tester. He said the course needs to be really structured because we will be audited all the time. He said there needs to be 30 hours learning environment. Our course is 20 hours so the rest will be homework.

Anthony said there will be students who don’t want to do it – it is not compulsory but the option is available to them.

Anthony asked if all tutors would complete the ECDL exams before Christmas but definitely before March 2006.

AW thanked all tutors for attending.

End of Minutes

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