Interview with Gary

Addington.net cares for people with disabilities and provides free internet for them. One of our regular clients who visits about twice a week is Gary. Gary is 49 years old and is partially blind and deaf and doesn’t have the internet connection at home.

Gary used to work in engineering and these days he helps people when they have problems with their computers. He helps them with the memory and CPU and sometimes with software problems.

He also used to help the Salvation Army fix computers so they were able to be sold in their shops.

Gary has a lot of experience with computers. He did a business computer course in 1990. However, now most of his knowledge is self attained. When he talks about computers it makes me almost feel like a novice.

Gary knows Addington.net almost from when it opened in 2001. He used to come in to download software, such as Java and virus protectors, from the internet and now gets our staff to check if there are any updates for these. Gary has a USB flash drive which he brings to the Centre and we download any updates onto that. He then takes it home and transfers the updates to his laptop. These days Gary loves to play PS2 games and comes in every week to get some cheats from the internet.

A wish Gary has for Addington.net is to see software on our computers with voice synthesizer and a reader. Such an application is able to enlarge the text and it will read the text for you as well.
Gary really enjoys coming to Addington.net, because he feels welcome here and we hope he will visit us for a long time to come.

Interview with a Picasa student

I spoke to one of the students who attended the Picasa course. Her name is Jennifer. Jennifer has been working in Real Estate for over 8 years now and computers play a big part in her life. She is however only knowledgeable with some programmes like email and Facebook because she never had any training to learn about computers. She doesn’t have a computer at home as she uses the computer at work where she has a PA to do the paperwork “I’ll pay somebody to use the computer for me” she says.

I asked her how she came to do the Picasa course. Jennifer said:”My son bought a digital camera. I wanted to learn how to get the photos on the computer “I heard about the course and it was on a convenient time for me and it was only 3 sessions. That was easy for me to fit in. I was very excited about the course I loved to make collages and it was great how you just could drag the pictures around and how easy it was to remove red eyes from your photo. I am now looking at buying a computer and want to learn more."

I told her that Addington.net is running some new community courses which are being held in the School holidays at daytime but that she could always come in at lunchtime between 12.00 and 12.50 and I would help her with the things she wanted to know more about, like how to find things on the internet.

I asked her what other topics she would be interested in as we are planning to set up some new courses. “I would love to know all the details about Facebook, learn more about email as I don’t use all the features and a workshop on Trade Me would be good. I don’t know all the possibilities of my cell phone either. That is something I need to learn. Or maybe a taster courses to get a glimpse of the several things combined. Jennifer left me with plenty of ideas to work with.

If you have ideas or things you like to learn leave us a comment or email us at addington.net@gmail.com

Free After School session for children

Addington.net provides free after School Sessions for children aged seven and over. I talked to Kendra and Talia, two sisters who have been coming to Addington.net now for over two years.

About twice a week they come in after school to use the computers. They have a computer at home, without access to the internet.

Kendra uses the computer a lot for homework. When I asked her what she was doing she said:
“I found a website with information about herbs and how to grow them. I need that for my science project. I want to print it out and then I write the information down in my own words.”

Kendra feels she is getting better in finding the information she needs and she is also getting faster with typing. Both Kendra and Talia use the computer for communication with their friends as well. Usually they do it by email and Kendra also has a page on My Yearbook where her friends can leave messages and she can share pictures with them. Talia likes to play games on the internet.

Kendra and Talia are both happy that they are able to access the computers at Addington.net and what they especially like is that everybody is quiet so they can concentrate and relax.