52 The Lawns, Home of Hackney Silver Surfers.

Agewell in Hackney logo.

About the Agewell Computer Club.

The Agewell Computer Club is for Hackney residents who are between 50 and 65 and have little or no experience of computers or the Internet, but want to find out more. We also welcome other mid-lifers who have had a little experience, but who have been too busy to do much with it.

There is much more information on our main Agewell Computer Club page.

Our current program.

There is more information on our Agewell Workshops page.

Every Monday afternoon.

The Agewell Computer Club meets at The Lawns every Monday afternoon (2.30 - 5  pm). Mid-lifers (people in the 50-65 age range) are welcome to come to any sessions they have time for. As always, the front section of The Lawns is available for general drop-in by agewellers who prefer to do their own thing.

Age Concern Hackney logo.

Are you looking to get back into employment and want to develop your work skills?

• Are you unemployed and looking for work?
• Would you like to update your skills and gain a Level 1 qualification?
• Would you like to have a chance to volunteer during the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012?

Come and join Age Concern Hackney’s Personal Best Programme — a 12 week course (Mondays and Wednesdays) starting soon.

What’s it all about?

The training involves classroom learning, visits to community projects and a volunteer placement where you can put your new skills to practice. All of which can be added to your CV and help in your search for employment.

The course covers …

• Understanding effective customer relations.
• Understanding equality and diversity.
• Developing team and interpersonal skills.
• Emergency and basic fire awareness.
• Public safety awareness.
• Conflict resolution in a public setting.
• Volunteering and the Olympics.
• Preparing for, and reflecting on a volunteer placement.

Be part of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

70,000 volunteers will be involved in the organising of the Games in 2012. All participants that complete the Personal Best program will be guaranteed an interview to become a volunteer at the Games. Be the envy of your friends and family — get a head start at your chance of being part of London’s 2012 Olympic Games!

Dates and times.

• The course began Monday 1 February.
• Then every Monday and Wednesday for 12 weeks.
• Times: Monday 10.30 am - 1.30 pm, Wednesday 10.30 am - 3.30 pm.

What to do next.

For more information about future Personal Best courses, contact Sadia: 0207 241 5902 or by email: sadiahussain@ageconcernhackney.org.uk.

Hackney Learning Trust logo.

City & Guilds Level 1 Certificate for IT users (e-Quals).

This is a new and more advanced course which we offered for the first time in January 2010.

It is a natural progression from our City & Guilds StartIT course — not suitable for absolute beginners, but ideal for learners who are ready to move up to a higher level now. It would be an excellent choice for anyone over 50 who  …

• is looking for a job,
• is interested in volunteering,
• would like a better understanding of new technology.

Like StartIT, the Level 1 Certificate is funded by the Hackney Learning Trust.

Course Content.

The course includes …

• improving productivity using IT (file management, etc),
• sending and receiving emails,
• using the World Wide Web to find and send information.

Dates and times.

• Two days (Tuesday & Wednesday) each week, for 10 weeks.
• Tuesday: 10.30 am - 1.30 pm. Wednesday: 10.30 am - 2.30 pm.
• Began Tuesday 26 January 2010. Ends Wednesday 31 March.
• Tutor: Kim Bennet.

How to contact us about this course.

For more information about future Level 1 courses, contact Sadia: 0207 241 5902 or by email: sadiahussain@ageconcernhackney.org.uk .

Clip art: chicken with a laptop computer.

A  new Monday morning Hackney Zoomers course.

The course is for people who are

• unemployed,
• or working part time up to 15 hours each week,
• or retired.

The main aim of the course is to provide practical help to people who are either actively looking for work now, or who think they might do so in the future (including people who are considering self employment).

• Course title: ‘Internet for job seekers over 50’.
• Date & times: 5 Monday mornings, 16 November to 14 December, 10 am – 1 pm.

Job seekers with little or no Internet knowledge are seriously disadvantaged.  They are often expected to do things they have never been shown how to do, for example …

• Find websites of which they have only partial knowledge or understanding.
• Use a web search engine.
• Navigate a complex website.
• Register with an email address and password.
• Fill in a sequential web form.
• Edit personal statements.
• Download documents they do not know how to open.
• Attach documents of their own to a job application.

If you are in that situation, we would like to hear from you. In 5 sessions we can’t make you an Internet expert – but we might be able to help you get closer to the job you want.

As with all Hackney Silver Surfers activities, there is no charge for this course.

Places on the course are limited so if you are interested, please contact us to book a place as soon as possible …

• by writing to Hackney Zoomers (52 The Lawns, Matthias Road, N16 8QD)
• or by email to hss@lawns.org.uk
• or by phoning 020 7254 2183 (speak to Rick Crust, tutor for the course).

By the way — you do not have to be a Hackney resident to join this course. Residents of other London boroughs are welcome.

Here is our general program for the remainder of 2009.

Notes.

• Agewell Computer Club meets on Monday afternoon » more about Agewell Computer Club.
• Internet tasters (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) » more about tasters.
• StartIT — we teach these courses 2 mornings a week for 6 weeks, enrolment in advance is always necessary » more about StartIT.
• ICT for New Learners (Thursday morning) — ICT is ‘Information and Communication Technologies’, which as far as we are concerned means computers, Internet, mobile phones, digital cameras, etc. These informal sessions are intended for people who are new learners at The Lawns, but not absolute beginners.
• Drop-in — there is open drop-in (front section only) Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Please note that there is no open drop-in on Mondays. ‘Agewell drop-in’ Monday afternoons is for Agewell members who are not involved in Agewell Computer Club activities that day.
• Online learning — not in the timetable because it does not belong there. Online courses are becoming more popular with our learners, who like them because there they can work independently, anywhere. Drop-in sessions are the best times to follow online courses at The Lawns » more about online learning.

Exceptions.

• Monday 26 October — 9th OPRG Annual Event (no Agewell Computer Club in the afternoon).
• Thursday 29 October — Get Online Day (priority for new learners all day).
• Monday 16, 23, 30 November, 7 & 14 December — Hackney Zoomers ‘Internet for Job Seekers’ course, 10.15 am - 1.15 pm.
• Tuesday 15 December — End of Term Party, 1.30 - 4.30 pm.

For a more detailed view, please visit the Program main page.

Hackney Learning Trust logo.

City & Guilds StartIT ‘World Wide Web and Email’.

We have offered this popular course many times.

About the course.

This course leads to a City & Guilds ‘StartIT’ certificate, a basic qualification for beginners. It is funded by the Hackney Learning Trust.

• An introduction to the Internet, what you can do with it, and what it can do for you. Perfect for beginners. Designed and taught specifically for older people with little or no previous experience of the Internet.
• Two days (Wednesday & Friday) each week, 10.30 am - 2.30 pm, for 6 weeks.
• Began Wednesday 25 November 2009. Ended Wednesday 20 January 2010.
• Tutor: George Llewellyn.

How to enrol.

We will be offering this course again in 2010.  Please phone 020 7254 2183 if you need more information.

Clip art: chicken with a laptop computer.

About Hackney Zoomers.

Hackney Zoomers is a new program at The Lawns on Monday mornings.

It’s for people who are 50 years old or better — interested and actively engaged with the world you live in and helped to shape — and intending to stay that way.

We are going to start with a new course: ‘Internet for active senior citizens’.

‘Internet for active senior citizens’.

This is a course for beginners — though perhaps not absolute beginners. The entry level is about the same as for our City & Guilds StartIT course. If you join the course, we will assume that you already have some basic computer skills, but not much more than that.

The idea of the course is that you should begin a learning journey to enable you to use the Internet to participate as an active citizen rather than as a passive consumer. We will get you started with email and the World Wide Web (WWW), and if you have already started with those, we will take you a bit further.

We will be paying particular attention to web sites that are used in normal everyday life — for example, government and council services, job search, financial advice, education, health — to make sure that you know how to find them, and know how to use them.

We can’t turn you into an Internet wizard in only four sessions, but we can make you a confident beginner.

At the end of the course, you will be able to …

• Use a web browser.
• Use email.
• Search the World Wide Web for sites that are important to you.
• Find your way around typical web sites.
• Understand how to use web sites that require you to register with a user name and password.

At the end of the course, we will …

• Give you a Certificate of Completion.
• Help you progress to more advanced courses if you want to.
• Help you find further professional advice if you need it (eg: for job search, or understanding benefits).

Course dates and times.

The course will run for four consecutive Monday mornings, 10 am - 1.15 pm, 14 September to 5 October 2009. The Lawns will be open only for Hackney Zoomers at those times. The course tutor is Rick.

How to ‘enrol’.

There is not much paperwork involved in this course, but we do need some way of enrolling people in a sensible manner, especially as we expect to have many more applicants than places. So, if you can commit yourself to those four Monday mornings, please tell us you are interested as soon as possible — tell any staff member or helper, or send an email to hss@lawns.org.uk . Make sure we have your full name, your phone number, your postal address, and your email address (if you have one).

By the way — you do not have to be a Hackney resident to join this course. Residents of other London boroughs are equally welcome.

Scanner clip art.

‘Scanner and attachments’ is a new course, starting Friday 19 June.

Learn how to do these, and more …

• Use a scanner to make digital copies of pictures — for example old photographs, small drawings or paintings, postcards, magazine cuttings.
• Use a graphics program to process your scanned images for use in word-processor documents or email.
• Attach images to your email.

This short course (funded by the Hackney Learning Trust) will take place on three consecutive Friday mornings …

• Friday 19 June, 10.30 am - 1.30 pm.
• Friday 26 June, 10.30 am - 1.30 pm.
• Friday 3 July, 10.30 am - 1.30 pm.

The tutor will be Farzaneh Pourani.

We expect demand for this course to be much greater than the number of available places. If you would like to enrol, please come to The Lawns to fill in the enrollment form, or phone us on 020 7254 2183 for more information, or email Farzaneh at FarzanehPourani@ageconcernhackney.org.uk — now!

ALISON logo.

Hackney Silver Surfers management group for online learning.

ALISON (Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online) was our Website of the Week 7 March 2009. Several people have mentioned their interest in these free online courses, so we have picked out what seems to be the most appropriate ALISON course to kick off our online support program.

‘ABC IT’ is a free online course which we think is suitable for older people who have already mastered basic computer skills, and now wish to take their learning to a higher level by working independently at home, or anywhere else they have access to the Internet. It seems to be particularly suitable for people who are still in the job market – either working now, or hoping to get back to work soon.

The ALISON home page URL is http://alison.com and the URL for the ABC-IT course is http://alison.com/full/resource/view.php?id=528 . Read that page carefully, including the sections ‘What is it?’ and ‘Who is it for?’

You don’t need us to do ABC-IT — but if you want to try it, we think we can help you. So we have created an ALISON management group for that course. If you join our management group, we can assist you right through to the end.

The name of this management group is ‘Hackney Silver Surfers’ and the ‘enrolment key’  is hackney123 . Note that …

• The management group is for our benefit as well as yours. It will help us track your progress, and analyse our own effectiveness.
• Anybody may join this group. It is not exclusive.

It is important to understand that Hackney Silver Surfers and Age Concern Hackney have no formal relationship with ALISON. If you register as an ALISON user, you will become an ALISON learner. Our role will be to support people who join our management group.

Most ABC-IT online learners will work independently, perhaps at The Lawns (which has all the software you need). We will not offer classes of our own, though we hope to run occasional workshops if there is enough interest.

If you are interested in taking this further, your next step would be to read our online document  HSS and ALISON Basic Computing.pdf , which contains the ABC-IT course outline and an explanation of how to register using our enrolment key.

By the way — ABC-IT is not suitable for absolute beginners! You should first become confident with using email and web browsers. As a guide to the minimum level required, you should be able to use email on your own (eg: at home) without help from anyone else.

ALISON — free online learning.

Screen shot of ALISON website.

ALISON (’Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online’) is a free online learning resource for basic and essential workplace skills. Course categories include …

• Digital Literacy & IT Skills,
• Enterprise & Business Skills,
• Financial & Economic Literacy,
• Health & Safety & Compliance,
• Health Literacy,
• Language Skills,
• Personal Development & Soft Skills.

They all look worthwhile, and ‘Digital Literacy & IT Skills’  is precisely what we do at Hackney Silver Surfers. We have picked out 3 free courses from this category which seem particularly relevant to our learners …

• ‘ALISON Basic Computing (ABC) IT’ is for anyone who needs to learn basic computing skills, or has a need to demonstrate to an international standard that they are fully competent in the use of a personal computer and common computer applications.
• ‘How to use Gmail’ uses the Web-based e-mail service from Google called Gmail or GoogleMail, to introduce you to the basics of e-mail. Gmail is an e-mail service which is accessed directly via the Web, and is not dependent on your using software loaded on your own personal computer (though it can be used in that way too). Our own seniors.org.uk email is a branded version of Gmail.
• ‘Identity Theft’ is particularly relevant to consumers anxious to protect their confidential information. It is also important to professionals in the insurance, banking, education, law enforcement, retail and healthcare fields who have a legal responsibility to protect their clients personal data.

We are trying to encourage more online learning, and this looks like a good one. Online learners generally work independently, either at home or in a drop-in computer centre like Hackney Silver Surfers. Anyone who would like help in moving to a slightly more advanced level — working mainly online, but with occasional group workshops — should contact Rick at hss@lawns.org.uk .

URL: http://alison.com/ .