Vist to Outlook, Pakenham

Finally managed to connect up with Alison  from Outlook. She had arranged for the manager Di to be present and this was a good move as I could see she was solidly behind the project and also about extending the "e" in their organisation. They did not appear to have much idea about a project, however, after going through all the paperwork with them I was able to get them to think through what would be an achievable project.

Their two main client groups are seniors and clients with disabilities. The seniors do Intro and Next Step level computers including internet and email and the other group are divided into those with severe disabilities and those with higher order skills. The idea that came through from the conversation was that they would like a way for the seniors to communicate with each other outside of class time, a place for them (the centre) to post up links and other information and for them to share ideas. Of course a wiki was my immediate thought as it does all of those things easily and is relatively user-friendly.

The clients with disabilities (the higher level group) also do intro level computers and some are at the stage of wanting to communicate with each other during the class - but online. For instance, some kind of text messaging across the room would be exciting and engaging for them and may lead to communicating outside class time in the future. I also reminded Alison about my online session on Voki coming up and suggested she invite Alex (computer tutor)  to attend as vokis could be a great thing for the students with disabilities to have a go at as they are very engaging.

I felt that both of these mini projects were achieveable in the time-frame left to us particularly as the tutor for both groups was the same person - a young computer-savvy male with a lifetime of community development skills behind him as his mother was and still is a House Co-ordinator and has instilled in him a wonderful sense of community service and engagement. It appears Alex will probably pick up the wiki skills and the online chat very quickly and be enthusiastic about the ideas. He has already been approached and appeared to be open to it.

My homework is to find a safe online chat facility and Alison will set up a wikispaces account with the $60.00 PA single wiki option. She will get back to me with a date and time when she and Alex  will be available for wiki training and to discuss the project together. The timeline is for the wiki to be set up by the end of this year ready for new classes in Feb 2013. This will give the tutor time to introduce the idea of online communication gradually this year so they will all be primed and ready to start in 2013. I am happy that their project is small and achievable and I feel confident that it will definitely get off the ground.

Alison gave some good feedback about the online sessions - said they were really useful and will definitely attend as many as possible. She will also attend the PD day and Di hopes to get there for the afternoon sessions if possible.