1) UK online centres provide digital skills training and informal learning opportunities to over 1 million people annually through community partners like libraries, churches, and social clubs. 2) A survey found that 50% of participants who gained digital skills through the centres progressed to further learning, 46% took up new hobbies, and 65% saw improvements to their employment prospects. 3) The Online Centres Foundation coordinates the network of over 5,000 community learning partners. It helps seed innovations, amplify effective practices across the network, and multiply the impact of local learning initiatives.

1. Section Divider: Heading intro here.
Local + Digital + Scale:
Innovation in Community Learning
Helen Milner, Chief Executive, Online Centres
Foundation (OCF)
OCF is the mutual and social enterprise that leads
the UK online centres network
12 March 2013

2. • Learning in community places about how
to use technology and the internet
• Learning in community places about
anything via the internet
• Including via “eReading Rooms”

3. UK online centres: 5,000 Community Partners

4. Not owned, managed or funded by OCF
Centre search and free phone number search
(one database for UK)

6. No such thing as a typical centre.
All centres do something else (and support digital skills).
Most centre partners run outreach sessions in care homes, pubs,
clubs, village halls, mosques, churches, social housing, et al

7. 1m people learning & getting online
* UK online centres: April 2010 – July 2012
1 million people
Leadership, learning
products,
services &
support
Local from OCF
community
organisations

8. Measuring impact? One way we did it
£156,864,800
1.634m saved in a year based
on £8 saved per contact
contacts shifted
shifted/mth
430,000 (3.8 average per
shift at least person per
one contact month)
with Gov
1m from f2f or
people phone to
get online online (43%)

9. Joining up …
From April OCF is funded by BIS/Skills
Funding Agency and DWP and NHS
Commissioning Board
Plus 25% more income from Foundations,
Corporate Partners, and commercial/trade
income
(including our City & Guilds E3 Online
Basics award – possible partnership for
your “Pound Plus”)

10. Increasing participation: UK online
centres
Survey results January 2013
Socially Excluded 83% Receiving any 57%
benefits
Unemployed 47% Below level 2 50%
Income<£9,999 28% Disabled 29%
Aged 65+ 16% BAME 16%

11. What do they do with their new skills?
Survey results January 2013
Any positive outcomes 96%
Progression to employment/employment 65%
activities
Voluntary work 11%
Move from unemployed to employed 5%
Did further learning 50%
Did more hobbies 46%
Used Government websites 73%
Feel more confident going online 93%
Learner satisfaction 99%

12. Measures and evaluation
• Online data – across UK online centres
• Surveys – online and phone
• Impact measures – local evaluation and
nationally assessed/replicated

13. Top down: Can we help drive
more general informal learning?
Bottom up: Our learners want to
learn more, can you help us?

14. eReading Rooms Pilot
September 2012 – February 2013
• To bring informal learning to those who
wouldn’t normally access it
• Making learning available in friendly, familiar
locations in communities
• Using new technology to open up the whole
world of learning both in community venues
and beyond
• Not a good name, and only a little bit about
‘reading’

15. 20 Pilot Partners

17. Findings
• Learner-led approaches
• Hyper-local community partners and places
• Role of volunteers
• Technology is important
• The Networked Effect

18. Learner-led Approaches
• All pilot partners used learner-led approaches to
make learning relevant to non-traditional learners
• For some, learners led the creation of the whole
curriculum
– “How to pack a suitcase”
• For others, tutors designed the curriculum around
learner interests:
– Internet classes based on exploring the local area
– Reading via a Newspaper Club
• Ablended learningmix of practical demonstrations,
one-to-one tuition, online resources and group
sessions to ensure learning was exciting and
relevant

19. Hyper-local community partners/places
• Friendly, hyper-local and welcoming places
was vital to the success of all the projects
• Places where people already are: day service
centres, mosques, cafes, Children Centres,
village halls
• Places where the learning topic is more
relevant: kitchen, gardens, parks, local streets

20. Volunteers are important, inc peer learning
77 staff + 134 volunteers = 1337 learners
OR 1 staff + 2 volunteers = 17 learners

21. Technology is important
• Technology is still motivating as a subject to learn:
– 16m lack basic internet skills, 72% from C2DE
– Makes learning attractive for some who have resisted all
adult learning in the past
• Mobile devices take relevant learning resources into
the learning location: kitchen (soup), allotment
(gardening), Children’s Centre (family literacy learning),
Traveler’s Homes
• Mobile devices disguise more frightening subjects:
Reading ‘by stealth’ at newspaper club, family learning
• Curated web content brings the world of learning into
the learning location: MyLearningZone, as well as
YouTube, VideoJug, partners’ own content

22. The OCF Networked Effect
Services Products

23. National Co-ordination:
the OCF Networked Effect
• Beyond just sharing good practice, we:
– discoverinnovation happening at a local level
– seed it, by helping local partners to evolve, share
and shape their ideas
– and scale it, by amplifying it across the network of
partners to deliver more, with faster adoption of
new methods, and deeper impact.
• A three times multiplier on what would have
happened without the OCF Support
• It’s a way of working

24. We began by helping:
• Learning in community places about how
to use technology and the internet
We piloted:
• Learning in community places about
anything via the internet

25. LOCAL
+
TECHNOLOGY
+
SCALE

26. It’s all about people

27. Thank You
helen@ukonlinecentres.com
@helenmilner on twitter
www.ukonlinecentres.com
www.learnmyway.com
www.mylearningzone.co.uk