Members of the Yellow Ribbon Social Club, a senior’s group at the Yellow Door, returned to the Library this fall and learned more about online photo galleries, photo slide shows and other photographic tools for telling personal stories through images on the internet.
The group had participated in other Digital Literacy Project workshops offered on digital photography and photo manipulation. With Digital Literacy Project facilitator Robin Kelly, we focused on digital photography as a communication tool. Online slide shows and videos composed of important pictures or relatives or loved ones. Some used pictures they found inspiring to create artistic videos purely for self expression.
Robin explains:
This has easily been one of my favorite workshops to date. Having worked with the participants before on similar workshops, I’ve witnessed their confidence and enthusiasm towards learning digital tools go through the roof. It’s awesome to see some of the participants go from unsure double-clickers to confident digital storytellers! Other participants, who came to the Library already confident on the basics, launched into projects that really challenged themselves, working on their own and at the Library. I got the sense that having the opportunity learn new digital tools in a supportive and encouraging environment, all while creating and sharing their ideas was a really positive experience. Being a part of this workshop was definitely a positive experience for me; each time I met with the participants from the Yellow Ribbon Social Club I was inspired by the work they created and all the things they had to say!
We hope to continue working with these individuals. At the end of a session, we often have more ideas than time. We will be working with a few of the members of this group on another Digital Literacy Project collaboration with Ressources Ethnoculturelles contre l’Abus Envers les Aînés, this term. As well, Kathryn (who we met through our support of the Yellow Door) will be shifting from student to teacher and will be teaching a few courses for the Atwater Library’s Digital Literacy for Seniors by Seniors Project this winter.
Participant Katherine explains what this type of programming means to her:
Physically, seniors are not what we were at 16 years but the internet enables us to stay attached to our world, solar space and virtual worlds beyond what we could ever have imagined. Atwater’s DLP’s outreach and friendship to Yellow Door clients over time has established a respectful relationship with each client enabling us to expand our horizens while staying connected. Our fall workshop produced some fabulous artistic pieces.
Visit the Yellow Door website for more information about their impressive programs for seniors.
Check out past collaborations with the Yellow Ribbon Social Club and the Digital Literacy Project.
