From 26 March-30 March 2012 UK online centres coordinated the efforts of the European Get Online Week campaign throughout their nationwide network of centres. The network includes libraries, housing associations, community centres and many other types of community hubs.
Six centres were paired up to hold simultaneous Skype sessions during European Get Online Week, demonstrating to learners how technology could help them to maintain human relationships even over long distances. The Intact centre in Preston held such a Skype session. Skyping workshops will continue to run at the centre as there are a lot of learners with family who live at the other end of the country or abroad and its vital to keep connected.
From 26 March-30 March 2012 UK online centres coordinated the efforts of the European Get Online Week campaign throughout their nationwide network of centres. The network includes libraries, housing associations, community centres and many other types of community hubs. The week saw over 2.120 people getting online across the country for the first time, picking up skills that could help them combat social isolation, gain employment or get involved in adult education.
Specific activities throughout the week
- Six centres were paired up to hold simultaneous Skype sessionsduring European Get Online Week, demonstrating to learners how technology could help them to maintain human relationships even over long distances. The Intact centre in Preston held such a Skype session. Skyping workshops will continue to run at the centre as there are a lot of learners with family who live at the other end of the country or abroad and its vital to keep connected. Helen Dixon, Intact’s volunteer manager knows only too well how important Skype is, as she regularly contacts friends in Turkey and Spain, to keep in touch:
“Skyping is great and really simple, I had one tutorial and was off on my own, I couldn’t believe that my friend who I hadn’t seen for 10 years was looking at me and could see me – we just laughed for about 5 mins and since that time she has been over for a visit and we have got closer again, and she said it has been a lifeline for her too…” - UK online centres across the country also took part in our European Internet Hunt with their learners. The hunt was designed to encourage learners to use the internet to find facts, visit landmarks across Europe and even learn some basic German! The idea was to introduce tools such as search, Google maps and Google Translate in a fun way. The questions were available on the activity pages and were also tweeted out daily on Twitter, encouraging participation on social media channels.
- To demonstrate internet video to new learners, UK online centres created a unique Eurovision page where users could watch youtube videos, vote for their favourite or even suggest a new favourite. Votes were counted at the end of the week and the winning video posted to Facebook.
Online dissemination
European Get Online Week had a strong digital presence across all of UK online centres’ websites and online channels.
- www.ukonlinecentres.com
» Front page web banners showing the counter and a link to the counter form. – A separate web banner featuring a UK digital champion avatar, adapted to the European theme. Pre- campaign, this linked to a page designed to encourage centres to get involved, while during the campaign it linked to a separate Get Online Week activity page for centres and their learners.
» The website also featured news stories to attract attention to the campaign at vital times. - learn.go-on.co.uk
» Our learner-facing website had a front page button linking to European-themed activity for beginners to the internet.
» Learners could either have a go at these activities by themselves or complete them with tutors in a local centre. - champions.go-on.co.uk
» Our digital champion-facing website featured a banner for European Get Online Week, to encourage them to sign up their off-line friends and family to be counted in the campaign. - Social Media
Throughout the week UK online centres used social media to promote the campaign with extensive use of the #GOW12 hashtag, as well as daily tweets and Facebook posts.
» Download the complete report of Get Online Week 2012 in the UK
