Roll of drums, toots on flutes - it’s Digital Unite’s Spring Online week!
Since 2002 we’ve been running a campaign every spring to encourage older people who aren’t online to explore digital technology. Eleven years later it’s still going strong, and we’ve grown it from a day of activity – Silver Surfers’ Day – to a week of learning and digital festivity.
While millions of older people are online, 8.73m Britons have never used the internet of which 67% are over 65. (ONS Q4 report published in February 2012). The most common barriers to older ‘offliners’ getting online are lack of confidence, lack of context or understanding and trepidation. Spring Online was started, and is still popular, because Spring Online events are especially for older people who are curious, puzzled and perhaps also sceptical about using the internet. They can ask questions, get support and get started exploring the web, email and other really useful and interesting aspects of the internet in an environment that's welcoming and unintimidating.
Spring Online works through hundreds of people and organisations who run local digital taster sessions all over the UK. Thank you to all of them for their time, energy and creativity. There are some tremendous events registered on the Spring Online Event database – we hope they are fun and productive for those who run them as well as those who attend.
We’ll be encouraging all event holders to enter for the Best Event Awards. This year we’re offering a prize worth more than £1,000 to the winner – two free places on our Digital Champion ITQ course and £100 in cash. This new online course is designed to advance and benchmark digital skills while training you to be a Digital Champion who can inspire and engage others to get online.
We’re really looking forward to seeing Spring Online week unfold and hearing from event holders about what they’re up to. Use the #springonline hashtag on Twitter to tell us what's happening, post to our Facebook page or share with the Community on this site.
So whether you’re running an event, encouraging someone to attend one or just watching it all unfold – enjoy!