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Children's Day
Children's Day is celebrated on the last Sunday of October. This year Children's Day is on 27 October 2002. Key objectives are: To heighten awareness of the importance and needs of children in society, and ways of promoting their development; To promote a national focus on children and motivate adults towards positive appreciation and support of children. http://www.childrensday.org.nz/
Disability Mentoring Day
The first New Zealand Disability Mentoring Day: Career Development for the 21st Century will be celebrated in Wellington on 12 November 2002. (page not longer available: http://www.ssc.govt.nz/display/document.asp?DocID=2353)
Natural World Summit for Indigenous Women
The Natural World Summit for young indigenous women will discuss decolonisation for indigenous peoples and guardianship of the environment. 24 November - 1 December 2002. tuwaiirc@hotmail.com
Pay Equity Consultation
The Next Steps Toward Pay Equity Discussion Document provides information on the gender pay gap. Submissions are due to the Ministry of Women's Affairs by 30 November 2002. (Was at http://www.mwa.govt.nz/new.html)
New Links:
See the Recently Added page for new additions.
Virtual Waltham Cottage
The Waltham Web Project is for celebrating the Waltham community, promoting Waltham Cottage on the Internet, and empowering our people by offering free Internet lessons and putting their webpages on our site. http://walthamcottage.com/
Shoreyouth.co.nz
gives young people new opportunities to share news, air their views and show off their talents. http://www.shoreyouth.co.nz
Legislation Online
The full text of all the laws of New Zealand can now be viewed online. A more comprehensive site will be launched in 2003. http://www.legislation.govt.nz/
Tip: Save It
Sometimes you find some excellent information on a web page. You'd like to keep it for later so you don't always have to go online to refer to it. There are many ways to save the text from a web page but one of the easiest and most reliable is to copy and paste the whole page to your word processor.
Click somewhere on the page (but not in the Address Bar or on a link). Go to the Edit Menu and choose Select All. Go to the Edit menu and choose Copy. Now have some trust.
Start up your word processing program. This might be Microsoft Word, AppleWorks or another piece of software. Make a new blank document then go to the Edit Menu and choose Paste. If you're using Microsoft Word you might be better to choose Paste Special as Word sometimes does surprising things with pasted web pages.
Now you should see the web page text. You can remove items you don't want, such as navigation bars or paragraphs you're not interested in. Now save to your hard drive, and maybe print.
Note: Web pages are copyright to their creators. Just because you can copy information doesn't mean you can steal it. Making a copy for your own personal use is usually OK, but ask before you use it in a newsletter or on your own website. Most of the information on the CommunityNet Aotearoa website is freely available for community groups to share with others, but we would like you to acknowledge where you got it from.
Site: Envirofunz
Envirofunz is a database which covers funding for environmental and conservation projects in Aotearoa / New Zealand. The Funding Information Service developed this database under contract with the Ministry for the Environment to provide help to groups and individuals looking for funding for environmental and conservation projects.
Envirofunz has a clear, simple layout, a friendly tone and makes good use of plain language. Pages loaded quite quickly. It makes use of frames though which have the danger of pages losing their context and navigation, especially if you choose to open a linked page into a new window.
The Home Page has news items with a handy list of closing dates coming up soon. Useful Links offers links to a dozen different related websites, all within New Zealand. The Feedback page has a short easy questionnaire form about the site but doesn't offer any contact addresses. The About Us page however does have clear contact information along with some background about the Envirofunz database.
"Other Stuff" suddenly leaves the site and goes to the Funding Information Service. This is quite a jarring surprise as the link looks as though it will take the visitor to just another page on the same site. This link should really be incorporated into the Useful Links page.
The substance of the site though lies in the links to relevant funding. You can access these by a search from the Search Page or via an alphabetical list (one letter at a time).
Searches are easy to carry out and as you enter criteria from drop-down boxes a "My Search" box appears on the left-hand side of the screen, building up your criteria as you go and finally allowing you to click the Find Funding Now button.
The search results seemed clear and actually helpful, offering grouped results according to how closely the potential funding source matched the criteria.
There is also an alphabetical list of links, which is easily accessible. The alphabetical list also offers a "fuzzy" set of categories with a star system indicating how narrowly targeted the funding is. It would be useful though to see some alternate text for the star graphics …quot; an * might be suitable.
While I have some suspicions about accessibility, and while it needs alternate text for the images, this is overall a very useful site with an excellent search facility.
If you're looking for funding for projects this is well worth a visit.
http://www.envirofunz.org.nz/
SeniorNet Members and their e-Xperiences
by Margaret Richardson, Waikato University
SeniorNet is a voluntary, not-for-profit organisation introduced to New Zealand, from the United States, in 1992. There are currently 100 clubs and more than 26,000 current members in this country. The purpose of the organisation is to provide opportunities for older people, over the age of 55 years of age, to learn how to use personal computers and computer applications such as email, and word processing, in an age-friendly and supportive learning environment. In addition to classroom tuition, many clubs organise regular get-togethers for members to socialise with each other, to exchange tips about their computing experiences, and to learn from, and be informed by a wide range of interesting guest speakers.
During the last 12 months, I, along with colleagues from the Waikato Management School, have conducted focus group interviews with members from several SeniorNet clubs in the Waikato-Bay of Plenty area asking them about their experiences with the barriers and benefits of using personal computers, and the ways in which SeniorNet has facilitated their learning. A brief review of some of the findings from this research project is outlined below.
Focus group participants identified some of the barriers to computing for older people, as lack of previous exposure to computers, particularly "the newness of the thing", computer jargon, and unfamiliarity with interface devices such as the keyboard and the mouse. Many also struggled with learning again after many years away from the classroom, with having to concentrate, and with the frustration of not remembering what they had just been taught. Many were intimidated by the technology and frightened of making a mistake and blowing the computer up. Many people lacked confidence in their own ability to learn something so apparently complex. However, in the age-friendly and 'safe' learning environment at SeniorNet many graduated to become not only competent users of personal computers but also staunch advocates of the benefits pc's can offer. For focus group members, there were three major benefits of learning to use computers: intellectual stimulation, greater connectedness, and a sense of renewed self-confidence, energy and excitement.
For some, retirement from the world of paid work meant being "at the bottom of the heap". For others, the ageing process itself was frustrating in that they could no longer do what they had always been able to do physically or mentally. However, joining SeniorNet, seemed to rejuvenate them. Through being 'switched-on' to the challenge of learning how to use computers in general, and the internet in particular, they developed new ways to keep themselves mentally active and alert, and interested in the modern world of new technologies.
Acquiring new computer skills gave them new ways to connect to family and friends, to read overseas newspapers and access different points of view on topics of interest, to broaden their horizons, and develop new friends and acquaintances in their own local communities.
The benefits of computers and computing were however, inextricably linked with membership of SeniorNet. SeniorNet fostered their enthusiasm for computers and facilitated their learning in several ways. For example, they felt comfortable being tutored by other older people who could relate to how they felt, who didn't go too fast and didn't use too much jargon; learning in small groups with other older people; working with simplified manuals; and being supported emotionally and practically in their learning.
Emotional support tended to focus on helping people feel good about themselves. Humour was often used to decrease stress and increase learning potential. Practical support tended to concentrate on ensuring there were enough tutors available to assist everyone in the class to use the keyboard and mouse, to understand the language and the instructions, and to find their way comfortably around the screen and the programmes.
While some may see SeniorNet as an example of older people segregating themselves into seniors only learning organisations, separate from the rest of society, others see SeniorNet as a good example of communities working together to support each other. What I saw were groups of enthusiastic and energetic people, enriched and empowered by their SeniorNet e-xperiences. Margaret Richardson
Doctoral-Assistant, Department of Management Communication, Waikato University, Email: margie@waikato.ac.nz
Website: http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ict
The research on which this article was based was supported by a grant from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, (contract number UOW X0016, Programme Title: The Socio-Economic Impacts of ICTs).
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