Many thanks to Fergal McGrath for his interesting presentation at our Final Techfast presentation. Fergal spoke about attitudes and motivational factors as critical to encourage take up of Technology. He said the focus should really be on the person rather than the technology. It was critical he said to find a hook, something which people were interested in, as opposed to encouraging Technology for Technology sake. Once people were interested, the nature of the technology as exploratory would encourage and entice to further explore and use. The learning curve with Technology is small, it is the relevance which is critical. The challenge is less how to use the Technology and more why would people want to use the Technology.
Fergal also spoke about the need to foster and rekindle a culture of giving back to the community. He gave examples of places in the USA where he spent considerable time working within communities. He was delighted by the spirit of volunteerism and community spirit which prevails in parts of the USA. He noted that people love to give back especially when it comes to information to share. It was suggested from the floor that volunteerism in Ireland should start in the schools. It is important to learn the idea of community service and involvement at a young age. The culture of volunteerism can be contagious and thus encourage others to get involved. There is never a shortage of opportunities to give back and the key is to match up passions with opportunities. Fergal encouraged the group to experiment and keeping trying new ideas especially with the changing nature of Technology.
Acquiring familiarity with computers and adapting to Technology depends not only on individual attributes, but crucially also on contextual factors. People come in contact with digital technologies via their family and friendship networks as well as at their workplace, colleges and schools. Informal advice and support are crucial to acquiring basic computing skills, and where neighbours and friends use internet, this can facilitate the learning process. Every computer literate individual in a disadvantaged area constitutes a valuable resource for the local community, as he or she can potentially help others to overcome their fears and difficulties in relation to the new digital technologies. Thus creating a critical mass of web users can create an e-community where many opportunites may arise.
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Techfast 4: Challenges of Emerging Digitlal Economy, Fergal McGrath, UL. 30/5/08
Well done on another excellent & thought provoking breakfast. It has been an excellent series. Thanks.
I agree with Fergal that we have to start from where each individual is at. What motivates him or her?, ICT is just a tool that may or may not help meet a person’s needs. We have to begin by making each person aware of the benefits to them in their life as they live it. So that they “want to” go online. This will require one-to-one encouragement and support – Community Networking, Volunteers, and the “Buddy System” is the way to do this.
I liked Fergal’s focus on the talents of each individual and community. I think the Community ICT Strategy needs to proactively focus on self-help and the assets in each community (the ABCD approach). It could be useful to list and document those assets - maybe organise some community events to identify them. Fergal mentioned Social Network Analysis and Mapping – that could be useful way to structure this.
These assets are many and varied. Fergal highlighted the obvious asset for the Internet, we speak English. Assets include each individual’s talents, experience and interests. Such as young people’s idealism, enthusiasm & interests in new things. For instance, many young people are excellent in their use of computer games consoles (such as Wii & PlayStation), social networking (such as Bebo) and texting. While older people have their life’s experience, knowledge & interests.
A key assets of many of our “disadvantaged” communities is their rich social networking – this is an asset that can be built on to encourage people & communities to “do it for themselves” – maybe using a Buddy System, where instead of courses, programmes, etc, individuals help other individuals.
Other assets (as Fergal pointed out) are the15,000+ third level students here in Limerick, and our many more Second Level students, especially those in Transition Year. Maybe work with schools (another asset!) to begin Transition Year projects, encouraging young people to work with individuals in their own community to pursue their interests online. This would also instil in those young people a sense of Community Service & “giving back” to their own community, as well getting to know (perhaps elderly) individuals in their community.
As Fergal mentioned, once people go online to pursue their interests, and see what is possible - many then proceed to do other things there. So this must be the first step – awareness (to know what I can do). Bring people to that first step of using the Internet to pursue their interests. Then once their curiosity is sparked and they see relevance to being online, encourage them then seek out the help and what they need to go further (if they wish).
I agree with the point that emerged in the discussion that a fundamental issue that needs to be addressed is literacy. But people with little reading skills can quite readily use mobile phones, gaming consoles and other technologies. So rather than see this as a barrier that stops people going on-line, I would suggest getting them online doing things that are of immediate interest to them (especially using sound, images and videos), and from that basis encourage each individual to use various online services to improve their own literacy.
Finally, I would like to support Fergal’s comment that rather than wait until the Community ICT Strategy is complete and prescribes everything –the approach should be to continue trying things, to “just do it” and see what works ! (like these Techfasts).
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