Introducing the One Digital Community of Practice
An introduction to the Community of Practice by Kate Gallant, Learning Facilitator.
I joined the One Digital programme in August last year as the Learning Facilitator for the Community of Practice. My experience is in community investment and digital inclusion work most recently in a social housing setting. My direct experience of working with Digital Champions in a wide variety of locations has given me a strong motivation to share good practice in this area.
Yes many people are now online, but we need to work with those who have low or no digital skills to ensure they are fully part of the digital journey. I’m also keen to develop approaches to digital involvement which are accessible and sustainable with maximum impact for both the individual learner and for organisations moving services online.
The Community of Practice is a fantastic opportunity for a diverse group of partners -who are working across the whole of the UK – to develop collective insights. We are interested in what works best in building digital participation and in how we can most effectively link this with developing digital maturity within organisations.
Staff within the projects are full participants in the Community of Practice, and my role as Learning Facilitator will be to develop an environment which is reflective, open, honest and dynamic – facilitating learning between and within the projects and sharing learning as widely as possible. We have done some initial thinking about the learning areas we want to look at and you will find more information on this here.
Our first learning set started in November and is focusing on the role of Digital Champions in different organisational settings. We will be sharing some of the learning through the One Digital website at the end of January. We are also inviting partners to attend a One Digital event – Delivering Sustainable Skills Support at the end of February.
The Community of Practice welcomes wider perspectives and involvement – you can follow activity through the website and through Twitter or email me directly at kate.gallant@scvo.org.uk – if you have questions or learning you would like to contribute. I’ll also be sharing some of my more personal reflections through regular blogs.
One Digital is a UK wide partnership which promotes the use of Digital Champions to support people to learn digital skills. For organisations interested in setting up their own digital inclusion project we have developed a free Knowledge Hub of useful information and resources.