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Age UK is the new force combining Age Concern England and
Help the Aged in England.
The new force combining &
If you're organising, or thinking about organising, an event for itea and biscuits week, you may find it useful to read our answers to your frequently asked questions below:
Participating organisations have found that itea and biscuits week is a chance to try something new and fun while helping to address issues of social exclusion and encouraging lifelong learning in their local area. The week also offers a great opportunity to launch a new ICT service or to promote your ongoing adult learning courses and activities.
Then why not hold a mobile phone drop in surgery, organise a class on how to use a digital camera, or set up a wii challenge? Digital technology comes in many forms and isn't limited to just computers and the internet. Different things will appeal to different people, so let’s get creative to see how many people we can get to face their technology fears and participate in itea and biscuits week this year.
For many older people, the prospect of learning how to use new technology can feel daunting. But by providing a supportive environment for older people to learn amongst their peers, you can help remove this barrier to participation, and let older people discover how digital technology actually benefit them.
For more information about barriers and enablers to digital participation among older people, please download ‘ Introducing another world: older people and digital inclusion’.
For more information about the success of the 2009 itea and biscuits week, you can read the full evaluation.
Learning to use technology and the internet provides older people with the following benefits:
Digital inclusion also helps to support independence, reduce social isolation, and encourage lifelong learning as a natural part of active ageing.
'Thanks for the assistance, the resources and for our inclusion in the campaign. It really made a difference to our participants and we love the format!' - Becky, Meopham Library
'Given the success of our event, our group, which is particularly concerned about older people being excluded from an IT driven world; intends to explore the idea of informal, intimate Get to Know IT' sessions on a regular basis.' - Kerry, Lewisham Pensioners Forum
'The itea & biscuits event has proved to be very useful and a fun and friendly way to introuduce people to IT. It has taken out some of the fear of technology away and made older people want to try something new'. - Shabana, Littleborough Library
Register a itea and biscuits week 2011 event
Age UK, the new force combining Age Concern England and Help the Aged, helps people to enjoy a better later life. The Charity manages a number of UK-wide digital inclusion programmes, including:
We have helped over 200,000 people in later life to learn about technology to date.
Set your location to see what Age UK offers in your local area.
If you've got an old PC at home, donate it at one of our shops and we can get an older person online for the first time.
A practical guide to getting online.
Invaluable tips about how to stay safe while you're browsing the net.
A simple guide to buying a computer for beginners.
If you're new to the internet, start here.
Downloads
A download is a document (like a research report, a leaflet, or an application form) that can be transferred from our website to your computer. You can download a file, view it on your screen, print it, or save it to your computer.
PDF stands for ‘portable document format’.
Most downloads on this website are PDFs. We use this format to ensure that the document looks the same on everyone’s computer (website pages, by contrast, appear differently depending on how people have set their computer up).
Computers use a program called Adobe Acrobat Reader to download PDFs. If you try clicking on a link to download a PDF and it doesn’t work, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your computer.
The process is quite straightforward and is free.
PDFs cannot be changed. If you need to be able to type into a downloaded document (for example, if we are offering a letter template that you need to put your name on) we will provide it as a Microsoft Word document rather than a PDF. You can then download it, type into it and save it to your computer.
Downloads will open on your computer in a new browser window.
Inside this window (below all your web browser menus), there will be a toolbar with options for you to print or save the document.
Close the browser window to return to the Age UK website.
We have made every effort to make our PDFs accessible to screen readers. Here is an overview of your accessibility options available in Acrobat Reader. Please ensure that you have downloaded the latest version of Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Reader website to ensure that they are included in your version of the programme.
You can use Adobe Reader to read a PDF out loud with the following shortcut keys:
You can also convert a PDF into a web page by following these steps:
You can convert a PDF document into a text file for use with other software and hardware such as Braille printers by opening the PDF and choosing ‘Save as text’ from the File menu.
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