BIMA

We are sending in our entry this week for the BIMA challenge - which is exciting but doesn't mean we are stopping - we have lots of final planning to do for the course which commences after half term. Still it is like a milestone, so we are pleased to have a chance to submit the details of our project and hope that this might get other schools involved too.

Full survey results

We had similar results and conclusions from our full survey but felt it was worthwhile taking a larger group, so that we knew what older users felt in general rather than just our small focus group. This process has helped us improve our course development.

The majority of the survey were positive about computer technology.
The net and communication by email were still the most popular choices, so they will definitely be a big part of our training course.
The majority were positive about training in a school setting.
The majority preferred to have one to one training.
The majority wanted further training on normal computers, those with no experience opted for the Simplicity option.
The majority of older people were positive about using computers.

focus group survey results

These are our conclusions:-

We had assumed older users might be more negative due to fear of the technology but the majority had a positive view and wanted to learn more.
The net and email were the most desired applications, which will help us to plan our course to fit with the wants of our customer base.
Only one person felt that they would not like to learn about computers in a school setting, so the majority were happy to be taught in the way we were demonstrating at the focus group.
All but one preferred individual teaching, so we need to be sure that we have one student for every older person who attends the training.
Those who had some computer experience already wanted to train on normal computers but the person with no experience preferred Simplicity, so we ought to have a choice available.
The majority were positive about computing, the net and email had been used but as Q2 showed they wanted to find out how to use more of the facilities than they already knew.