Philadelphia OIC launches public digital literacy training with LIFT, Comcast

The Philadelphia Opportunity Industrialization Center hosted its first public digital literacy training session last week in partnership with LIFT-Philadelphia and Comcast.

The lessons, which are free and open to the public, are meant to teach citizens how to use the Internet in a safe and effective way. Tuesday’s session on Internet basics and safety is one of five sessions OIC will be holding in the program’s North Broad Street headquarters above Girard Avenue. Classes will also be held in LIFT’s West Philadelphia offices.

“What the workshop is focused on is teaching folks how to safely navigate the Internet and how to learn some of the basics of actually being on the Internet,” said Erich Smith, program manager for the Digital Initiative at OIC.

Participants helped each other learn about the Internet.

The class also explored topics such as online chatting, blogging, social networking and WAN/LAN. Although many participants know about social web tools like Skype and LinkedIn, they may not have any online experience using them, said organizers.

“I came just to brush up on the Internet,” said Larry Rainey, a participant in Tuesday’s class. “I want to learn how to communicate online with my daughter in Florida.”

Step-by-step, instructor Jesse Parker took the class through a basic online training program while ensuring participants knew how to correctly use the mouse, mouse pad and keyboard. Students were able to read aloud and discuss the definitions of servers, clients and streaming.

“What’s great is that we have some of the participants from past computer classes who wanted more practice and more information,” said Joshua Whetstone, resource coordinator for LIFT.

OIC’s other training sessions include success through social networking and getting the most out of Gmail. The program is also hosting mirror sessions in West Philadelphia at LIFT-Philadelphia’s office.

“The best thing I learned today was that they have a free site to teach you. I didn’t even know about it,” Rainey said.