Presentation

Description

Community library with a digital lab.

Digital activity

The library organizes digital workshops every Wednesday. There are beginners in the morning workshops to teach them how to use digital technology. In the afternoon, it's a junior club to make children aware of digital technology. They learn how to code, create podcasts, etc. There was also a workshop on the stock motion. The library's mission is to make everyone an actor in the digital world.

Good practice targeted

Inclusion

To go further

http://biblioxl.be/

Good practice

Fighting the digital divide

Costs

Grants to pay the library staff + 10 000€ in material from CIRB

Starting date of the good practice

From the pandemic

Time to implement the good practice

3 years

Tools/partners/suppliers of the good practice

CIRB, site 123digit.be (summary sheets, courses).

Digital inclusion for seniors

What are the benefits of the project ?

So the digital divide is divided into three areas: access to the Internet and hardware, knowing how to use it, and web culture.
The first objective is inclusive. It's about making it digitally accessible to seniors, making them understand what digital can bring them as tools, as a source of creativity. For example, one of the seniors discovered Google Earth and that she could almost visit the world from a distance.
The goal of the workshops is to teach them to use their equipment. So the seniors come with their smartphones and tablets etc. Before the device itself, there is also self-awareness and confidence in your actions.

What were the constraints faced by the company ?

The biggest constraint is that since we teach them on their devices, giving them a precise procedure is difficult. Everything has to be done on a case-by-case basis, even within the same brand. So sometimes we have to spend a lot of time looking for the best way to teach them.
Then, one session per week and thus 4 per month is too little. In addition, we lack financial means and time (since we both have part-time jobs) because we must also manage the EPN, which requires a lot of time and administration.
There is also the generational shock: the seniors react very differently and are even afraid to make mistakes with their devices.
The lack of time leads us to a dilemma: either we do learning and therefore we teach topics, or we bring a group to autonomy (small group, always the same, on a long-term basis).

Which advice would give to another company ?

For the facilitators, you have to be very pedagogical and empathetic, put yourself in the place of the public and play the role of guide. You have to dare to experiment with them and, above all, give them much support, mainly visual, so that they do not have to take notes.
You have to tell yourself that it is not severe if the initial objective is not reached, that it is better to listen to your group and follow its rhythm and divide the information, and especially to install a relationship of trust.
It is also a good idea to keep up to date with the evolution of information technology.

What are the next steps?

For the summer, we plan to have practical courses in the mornings, with revision exercises to see if the courses are acquired. Then from September onwards, we would like to do a refresher course and start from scratch, with one lesson per week three times, followed by a debate with a computer specialist.
As for the young people, we want to make them aware of digital citizenship and cyberbullying so that they learn to join the virtual and the real and make a difference between the two.