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Exeter College

I am the outreach worker for Exeter College, based within the adult basic skills unit and I have been the link person for the three projects with laptops via Exeter CVS. Once has been used for adult with learning disabilities as a self advocacy tool. One has been used by a community association to help them develop their project and produce newsletters, publicity materials etc and the third was allocated to a brand new community project - the St Sidwell's Project. When the start date of this last project was delayed I took full advantage of the situation and made use of the laptop in outreach venues. In one venue I took it to a Family Workshop each week on the run up to Christmas and adults used it to make calendars to sell at their Xmas Fayre - they did very well too selling about 15! I also took the laptop to meet its partner in the community association venue where we would use both together. One would be used for work which needed printing while the other was used for CD-ROM based activities. We used it at a time when families were there so that adults and children all had a go - we had interactive stories, encyclopaedias, In Health CD-ROM etc. People who had never touched a computer were drawing using 'paint' or playing solitaire to build mouse skills and generally having fun. One week we had all three laptops in the venue together and we watched the PowerPoint presentation put together by some of the adults with learning disabilities - this inspired one child to produce her own presentation!

The third project is now up and running and so the third laptop is now properly homed. It is being used by the new development worker for publicity materials to develop community links and so forth. The project will open soon with a community cafe and a whole range of activities, projects, services etc for the local community, based on need. The laptop will then be available for members of the community to use. It is a really exciting project, and it is a comfort to me to know the laptop has gone to such a good home.

Mary Turner

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