Changing Literacies, Changing Technologies

This is the title of a collaborative research project I am involved with at Lancaster through the Senior Learners Forum.
We have been meeting since December to document the experiences of older people in relation to changing practices of literacy and technologies across the lifespan - both positive and negative.

It is still possible for people to join the project.
You need to choose two people to interview who are contrasting in some way. For example, they might be:
Older or younger
Use new technologies or don’t use them
Live in an urban or a rural area
Be male or female;
Have different past experiences of education and employment;
Have a positive or negative attitude to new technologies.

Overall we are interested in making a contribution to wider research with older adults that is looking at why and how they use new communications technologies (ICTs), how uses are changing , what ICTS offer people and the choices people make to use new technologies or not. I have circulated some articles by Stephen Gorard that describe the larger-scale research he has been doing and that our research can fit into.

We agreed that our particular theme will be: do new communication technologies increase isolation or do they increase social contact for older people?

If you are interested in joining us or keeping in touch with what we are doing, please let me know!

Mary