hello everyone welcome to today's webinar um from me and a a bit of a gloomy Hastings today um it's just gone one o'clock so I'm just going to give everyone a chance to join um do feel free to drop into the Q&A box and say hi uh We've disabled the chat feature as we've discovered it can cause problems for some people using screen readers but the Q&A option is still live I can see the numbers going up hello to Jane glad you can make it today just give it a little bit longer for a few more people
to join all okay uh so I think we'll make a start now um so hi everyone uh Welcome to our webinar digital Discovery at any age um your Guide to the online world with BT group and Amazon uh I'm Annie Manan and I'm digital marketing manager excuse me at ability net and I'll be running you through today's session um so glad you could make it today so just to go through a few bits of housekeeping um we have live captions today provided by Judith at my clear text um you can turn on the captions using
the CC option on the control panel um and we do have additional captions available via stream text.net player question mark event equals ability net uh you can download the slides if you wish and follow along on our websites and you can get them from ability. org.uk digitalis Discovery and then if you have any technical issues don't worry um or if you need to leave early uh you'll receive an email in a couple of days time with recording the transcript and the slides on that um and then dependin
g on how you joined the webinar you'll find a Q&A window so if you want to ask the panel any questions do drop those into the Q&A area uh any that we're we're unable to cover um in the the session today we'll try to answer and then add them to the website ATD digital discovery and then just a quick reminder we've Switched Off the chat feature as we've discovered it can cause problems some people using screen readers but do please use the Q&A field for any comments and then just lastly um we do h
ave a feedback survey you'll be directed to at the end so do complete that if you're able so for those of you who aren't um yet familiar with ability Nets we're now more than 25 years old and we support older people and disabled people living with any disability or impairment um to use technology to use um technology to achieve their goals at home um at work and in education and we do this by providing specialist advice um Services accessibility testing and training and then free information lik
e our fact sheets and this webinar um so today we're going to be discussing digital Discovery at any age and um to discuss the topic today we have joining us um Caroline Martin who is a trainer with ability net on our BT digital skills project and she provides uh digital confidence training to older people um over 65 in the Glasgow and Edinburgh areas um and then also joining us is Carol Deary who is a trainer with AET um on our BT digital skills project in the Manchester area and then uh finall
y we have James O'Brien who is training manager at Amazon and he'll be outlining how you can benefit from um Alexa and Echo products among other things so hopefully by the end of today you all have picked up some useful ideas for getting started with some aspects of the Digital World um that you may find beneficial so I'm just going to start off with a poll to find out a bit more about you all um so let me just launch that so can you um tell us how confident do you feel using technology are you
very confident uh confident okay with some devices not at all confident oh sorry not confident or not at all confident um so depending on how you've joined the webinar you may find that you can't see the poll but um you can respond in the Q&A [Music] panel so I just give give it a few more moments for everybody to resp respond see there's a a strong Contender coming through at the moment so just a little bit longer for everybody to participate few more people coming through okay I'm going to end
the poll now and share the results so from how do you how confident do you feel using technology um we have the the highest um number of responses was 48% okay with some devices and then we're um 25% confident 21% very confident which is great results um then 7% not confident and none of you have said not at all confident which is which is really great um so I'll stop sharing the results now so yeah it's it's really useful um to gauge the experiences of of people joining us and I think today's
speakers will be able to offer some really great advice so just before um I introduced Caroline to share her advice um just to give a bit of context to today's session um as I mentioned at ability net we've been helping older people and disabled people use their technology for more than 25 years now um and many of the common things we hear from people um about technology are things like um I'm scared I'm going to break it um so for example many people receive gifts of mobile phones or tablets an
d um we've heard they they kind of stay in their boxes for a long time um other comments include things like will I be able to understand it I don't really want to use it or um other comments have been things like I'm really excited to see see what it can do for me so that's that's where ability net can really help out and provide some guidance for getting started and ideas about how the tech can be a benefit not a hindrance um so on to the next slide please so equally some of the understandable
reticence to embrace the Digital World um can be down to the new tech the terminology used so just as a quick summary of the common terms that you might encounter uh so the internet um it's a big library of resources that are available online uh search engine is a website that's used to find information on the internet so Google is one example but other things you might have heard are dotgo Yahoo Bing um they're all sites that you can visit to then search for anything that you might be interest
ed in um then browser um so words uh connected to this are things like um Google Chrome Microsoft Edge Safari Firefox and these allow you to view websites on the internet uh another one is cookies which are small files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit um they remember information about your visit such as your preferred language apps is short for application and those are programs that you can you can download them onto your smartphone or your tablet and they help you c
arry out tasks um and they can be used for entertainments they usually look like um small square touchs screen buttons that can access websites like um the NHS YouTube Zoom things like that Wi-Fi is simply um connecting to the internet without wires and then um just on this list AI is is short for artificial intelligence uh Which is less scary and can be more helpful than you might think um and uses computers and machines to mimic the problem solving and decision- making capabilities of the huma
n mind but more on that later from Carol um and just to mention as part of this um uh as part of the BT group and ability net um partnership we've worked with countdown Susie Dent um to create a special digital dictionary that you can download um we shared that link on our webinar page ATD digitalis Discovery and you can find that in the useful resources section so now I'd like to introduce um ability Nets Caroline Martin and Carol Deary and they'll be outlining the most common tasks that older
people generally ask us how to do online and then a brief introduction to Ai and how it can help not hinder your life so over to you Caroline thanks Annie so today I'm going to start off with a brief overview of some of the training that we can offer you um next slide please so so consider when you're choosing a new device consider the things that you need it for so for example a PC or a desktop computer is useful if you're going to be doing a lot of gaming or and you need a powerful computer an
d you want to increase the storage pie it's also useful for writing uh a laptop will serve most people's needs you can plug in a separate computer a separate keyboard mouse and also a large screen if you need to a laptop has a camera and a microphone in it so you can also make video calls using a laptop it's also good for writing documents in more complicated programs the laptop is also portable it's got an advantage over the desktop that you don't need a physical place to put it and leave it ta
blets and phones are ideal because the smaller a phone is ideal because you can put it in your pocket and the technology in phones now is more advanced than the first Apollo Rocket so it's a very powerful machine they work by using touch screens and when you press on the screen in an area that you can type a keyboard appears on the screen they also have cameras and microphones so you can make video calls with them you can take photographs and you can share them with people directly from your tab
let or your phone the tablet has an advantage over the mobile phone because it's got a slightly bigger screen so it's good for watching I player online entertainment and tablets and phones are you can use lots of different apps on them the other thing other thing that I'd like you to knowe that you should consider when buying a device if there is a type of device that you use already for example ex Le Apple use a a system called iOS and it's advisable if you if you're familiar with one already t
o use to buy something the same so if you have an iPad you would get an iPhone or the other one is an Android system and there's lots of different manufacturers make them like Samsung Motorola Hawaii Google pixel there's most of the other ones use Android so if you have a Samsung tablet it might be easier to learn to use the Samsung phone and I'd like you I'd like to direct you to our fat sheets and our fat sheets have lots of useful information in there about getting to know your device next SL
please so I got my first Smartwatch a couple of years ago and I'll I love it I'm addicted I'm hooked it's great for exercise it's great for tracking your steps when you're exercising it can also track your sleep can tell you when you've got light and deep sleep and also when you're dreaming it's really interesting can also track your heart rate your GPS location and it can show notifications from your phone like text messages when you receive a phone call and other notifications that are on you
r phone you use it by connecting to your phone through Bluetooth and all the information comes up on your phone next slide please another powerful tool that you may already have in your home is a is a TV a smart TV and a smart TV can also let you view online catch up TV like I player and STV Player Channel 4 all the popular channels you can also connect phones tablets and laptops to it to display them on the screen to get a bigger screen or if you're sharing maybe a video from your tablet you ca
n also listen to the radio you can browse the internet and you can also buy an Amazon fire stick uh the fire stick enables you if you have an older TV with a an H an HDMI socket in it you can use a fire stick to connect to that and you get a lot of the same advantages of a smart tech TV next slid please so how do you make your device work for you next slide so when you get your when you get your device out the box it's not necessarily tailored to your own needs and there's lots of simple fre adj
ustments that you can make to help it work better for you without buying additional software for example you can make the text bigger you can have things read allowed to you you can choose an option to have captions on videos just like this one today you can also speak to your device and there's some handy tools on your device like um a magnifier and you can use that to magnify you can take a photograph of a document and magnify t t the size of that you can also change settings in your device to
stop the screen timing out so as you get a chance to touch it and you can reverse the the colors on the screen so that you have white writing on a black background some people find that's easier on their eyes next slide please so here are some tips to to help you when you're new to technology so be patient with yourself ask for help at anytime don't let your enthusiasm by be dampened by others go at your own pace don't compare yourself to anyone set yourself small realistic goals practice makes
perfect you're not going to break anything and don't panic it really will all make sense in the end you'll get there next slide please so do you really need an email address yes I'm afraid the answer is yes you can use it for so many things when you're setting up your device you will be asked for an email address it will be used to more for services that you use on your device like downloading apps but you can use it for so many other things like messaging friends if you're using it for online
shopping or banking you can log into your own personal area on your shopping provider or Bank providers website and you will be able to access things like invoices orders state ments um and that part of their system is your personal part you have a username and a password and that's the security for you to get EX access that information if you do any online courses you can log into your provider system and you will see where you are on the course and you'll be able to access any record any of th
e details of any practice exercises or tests that youve sat the next time you log back in You' be able to start to start where you left off similarly with utilities um government websites you you have a personal Lin for your GP you can do things like order prescriptions um make appointments depends on what services your GP orders there's also a whole load of government services out there for example you can go and check your your tax on National Insurance your pens you can access all that inform
ation online without anybody so and the great thing about this is that it's completely free you don't need to send 200 letters in in the post and pay how much is a first class stamp now it's a lot more expensive than it used to be so it's completely free next slide please so we setting up an email address it's it's very easy there are numerous free email suppliers out there the the first one is known as Gmail that's mail.google.com and then we have outlooklive.com you can either search the name
in the browser or type one of the above addesses into the search bar you just click click create account or the relevant option on your screen and it'll ask you to create a username and a password and then your your other details after that it may ask for a another email address or a telephone number to send a confirmation message to so next slide please so once you set your email up the first thing you'll see will be your email box and to create a new email the button to write email might say c
ompose on you if it's Apple maybe a pen with a and a pen inside a square or just just be an icon and you can ask a friend or family member for their email address so that you can practice next slid please so so as I I was saying earlier the mobile phone is very powerful there's lots of things you can do with it other than just take photographs or or call people next slide please so as well as calling an email you can chat you can do video calls there are are numerous apps out there that will all
ow you to do this if you don't have one in your device already um I personally like the map features on telephones they're very useful for getting directions and you'll be given an option of all different ways to travel whether it's walking driving or using public transport you can also download apps from your local bus company or real company and find Journey times and purchase tickets as well as taking photographs with your phone you can share these through social media or directly through ema
il and you can also do video calls there are lots of things you can do with your phone these symbols down here are the App Store and if you have an Apple phone you'll have the App Store and you can download apps onto your device the one next to it is the Google Play Store that will allow you to download apps from Google from Android devices there apps there are apps of for lots of things like shopping Rewards or tracking your steps or sleep probably any hobby you can think of if you ask a f that
's that does that particular hobby there may well be an app out there that's going to make things a little bit easier for you next slide please so so so a we tip when you're using your your phone or your tablet you can zoom in and out of things on the screen so to to use to use the zoom using your fingers you can enlarge part of the display to make to make it bigger or closer so to zoom in place two fingers close together and move them out the way and to zoom out bring your fingers back together
so you can also zoom in your camera to make things bigger in your environment you can either do it before you take the photograph or you can take a photograph and then use the zoom in and out to to do that um I had one gentle one when he went to the supermarket you couldn't see what was on the top shelf and what did was he held his camera up took a picture of the the price and then he could bring it down so he could actually read it um so it's a it's a really handy find to be able to use in mos
t devices um I know certainly Apple devices the new ones have a magnifying program already in them so it's it's a very very useful thing to use I use it for reading cooking instructions because I can't read them anymore so next slide please so using QR codes so you'll see these out and about um maybe in menus parking or posters and they're basically like a barcode uh so how do you use it so if you open up your camera and you point at the QR codes like you're taking a photo however you do not pre
ss the button to take a photo what you do is line up the foure corners with the edges of the this the barcode the QR code itself and when you're once you've got it in the right place there'll be a message pops up in your screen you tap on that message and that will lead you to to the website for that page and have a go with this one here and see if you can get that to work are we ready for the next slid please thank you and another great world of things on the phone you can get is podcasts so po
dcasts are an audio or a radio an audio or a video file that you can listen to or watch on the internet I think of it as a mini radio program it's made by organizations like the BBC or individuals and bloggers if you have a famous celebrity that you follow um they may well have a free podcast and there is a lot of free resources out there podcasts can cover a range of topics including travel news comedy and learning just go into the app and search for a topic that you're interested in and there'
s apps that you can get podcasts on include Spotify Andora tune in or iHeart radio and some phones have a podcast app built in at the top right there the the purple one with the white micro microphone on it if you have if you have an iPad or an iPhone you can get Podcast there and there are some free ones on Apple the one below that is Google podcasts there's also you can also get podcasts from Amazon music and Spotify as I I was say so next slides please um Facebook so popular social networks i
nclude Facebook connect with friends join interest groups um and buy and sell Twitter now known as X you can keep up to date with what's happening in the world and Instagram you can share photos Pinterest you can discover and share new interests next slide please so is social media for me next slide please so social media includes Facebook Twitter and Instagram you can connect with friends and family and people all over the world organizations and businesses share news events jobs and products y
ou can join groups with common interest from walking to local community groups sometimes if I go to a company's website and I I'm looking for something locally I don't find what I'm looking for there but if you I go to the the Facebook page they may post events that are happening locally um and you can also share your news with your connections so it depends what you're interested in what are you interested in next slide please so some tips for social media the thing to prioritize is how much yo
u share be aware of how much you share um limit who you share information with have a strong password use set your privacy settings and Report or block mises next slide please thank you and that's me for today hello my name is Carol um I'm going to talk about what is AI and what that can do for me or for you so next slide please okay so first of all what is it well a AI means artificial intelligence uh you may well have heard of it in the newspapers um and Al sometimes you hear the uh all the st
ories scare stories because that's what sells newspapers but what is it really it's computer technology that can do things that normally require human intelligence such as learning problem solving and decision making it does have aspects of reasoning but it's not at human level just yet so we will still uh need humans um but yes the idea in the longer term is that we can get them to think and act like humans but we will always be required next slide please so you wear the term gen AI um and that
means generative generative artificial intelligence and this has been in the news because it can create things like um like the painting there on the on the right and side so Tech it can also write books poetry it can write music it can have it can show you ideas it does use the broad range of the internet that's out there and there's a heck of a lot of information and it can bring it together to create new things that are used from those templates of things that are out there already so in a w
ay it's a bit like having a robot writer or an artist or a poet or a composer that can create by itself next next slide please but understandably some people do worry that well if this is going to do all these wonderful things it can lead to job losses and that we've heard these scare stories as well and that robots will take over the world so like the old films you know um I Robot Etc are they going to become sentient and our feelings and take over well I think we're a very very very long way f
rom that at the moment uh but the main concern at the moment is it could be used by criminals uh and we already see that um for example there was a very famous Martin Lewis video that seemed to be advocating some Investments and it turns out that there was a complete and utter fake you can actually tell a little bit by the way somebody looks against their background um however that's get they're getting clever with that it's the same old story if it sounds too good to be true I always think well
it is but what about all the positives out there next slide thank you what can it do now well it's already actually working for us if you're using uh Television services like Netflix Amazon Prime or even YouTube it can make recommendations on your viewing habits in the old days it used to use um algorithms but now it's actually using artificial intelligence to make even better recommendations also it is actually starting to be used in um well for us the NHS but in medicine generally for healthc
care diagnosis monitoring and potential treatment however that is always moderated by professionals so what I mean by that is people like Consultants will always look at it and they will give their opinions and make sure that it is the right for the people it's not that they're taking over but the good thing about this is It's a tool to help those consultants and the doctors and the nurses because it helps to decrease weight in times for people going into hospitals it diagnoses quicker also you
might see um especially in places like China and Japan they're already s serving food in restaurants okay that's quite fun I have actually seen one in action um they are a bit quick Off the Mark though if you haven't got your plate they can run away so you know they're not perfect yet and the other one is finding out information and even having conversations for example if you use Alexa um or Siri which is on um Apple Alexa's Amazon by the way Siri is Apple co-pilot which we're going to look at
very briefly in a moment and Gemini which was it used to be called bad uh which is from Google you can have conversations with it and what I mean by that isn't um I mean it's actually getting better is that you can act actually have conversations and get opinions however um it means that you get tailored um things that to you rather than you to go through the internet and that massive load loads of websites that come up it's some comes up with something like a million save you hav to go through
all that so let's have a closer look so next slide please so we talked about finding information we've already got that there but not only that it's already doing the Dirty Jobs um so if you think about recycling plants there was one in the Northwest recently that saw on local news where in a recycling plant artificial intelligence is used is actually using robot hands to pick out the disgusting things from recycling that sadly people still occasionally put in there such as dirty nappies dog ba
g dog poo bags anyway so it's doing the jobs that none of us really want to do so this is where it's going to come into its own reducing the time to do jobs and so it releases people or humans to become more creative and Innovative instead of doing the slug um that often we have to do in our job in our roles um and you know day-to-day activities okay so next slide please so these are some to try now when I mentioned before about co-pilot these are where you can talk to them uh that is actually i
n Microsoft Chat GP uh it's run by chat GPT but Microsoft have also teamed up with them and you can actually it's already on the search engine Microsoft Edge and if you see that symbol that's on the left there of where it says co-pilot if you see that symbol and click on it you will see that you can actually either type in or press a little microphone uh and you can actually talk to it as well it will talk back to you um you've got to be a bit careful with some of these as well because bias bias
es can exist at the moment in uh artificial intelligence content what I mean by that is the wider internet is of obviously been contributed to by a lot of people with a lot of opinions so occasionally it might pick up some content you think you wouldn't necessarily agree with but the words according to you find has now been added I've noticed it on Alexa and I've noticed it on some of the others uh and it will say according to and it'll tell you what the source is for the response that it's givi
ng you so that gives you a little bit more idea about where these answers are coming from okay so yeah if you can talk to it then it can do so much for you it can write letters it can um provide an image um you can ask anything without having to go through all that searching so next slide please so the other day I said to I clicked on that little symbol in co-pilot and I said write me a poem about artificial intelligence it wrote A Few it wrote A Few stanzas so those chapters within the poem and
I thought no that's too long for what we're doing today so I thought we'd do instead is have what I asked it then to make it smaller and something that I can actually read out today and here's what it gave me and I think it's quite nice in circuits and silence an AI thrives a symphony of data where Insight arrives no breath yet it learns in the digital tide a spark of the future forever hour guide and there you go I thought that was quite cute you might agree or disagree um but it's amazing tha
t it can do that by just asking it to okay so next slide please yes of course in conclusion with about artificial intelligence is that there are ethical political and safety concerns that governments and experts are already looking into you know we're talked before about fake videos we could have fake images Etc because it's not only text it can do images it can do all sorts of things um but this is It's because the technology is running ahead of the people got of the safety concerns but we've h
ad this before don't forget the Industrial Revolution that we had in the past you know the technology ran ahead of how good it was or not for humans so this is something we we're used to so this is another revolution in the digital world so as I say you don't have to type you can have it read out yet and it's fun you know you can ask it anything you can then ask it to change it you can have conversations um so yeah just try it I recommend everybody if you even go into Microsoft Edge or into Goog
le and write either um co-pilot for Microsoft or Gemini for Google try them out I I guarantee you'll love what it does for you you can ask it for recipes anything uh it's just so helpful so thank you uh you're going to be able to listen shortly to uh James who will hear more about how artificial intelligence is already being used in products thank you well thank you thanks Carol and and Caroline um some great ideas that that hopefully um you'll be able to take away and um you know help you with
common tasks that you might want to master um just to flag um if anybody W watching and wants to know more about social media in particular um you can contact our wonderful volunteer service who can set you up with an account and and help you um get the the privacy settings right for you so just uh do give us a call if that's of interest um on 03001 180228 and I'll share um more information about how to contact us later on um so now um over to James O'Brien from Amazon who's going to run you thr
ough some of its Key Products thank you so much Annie um and yeah it's great to be here everyone and uh just a quick intro so I'm James and I I work amton and I look after um really devices that have Electa Incorporated in it so you may see like your echo or your tablets your fire tablets or Kindles and uh your Fri sticks as well um and if we can just go on to the next slide please any so as mentioned in terms of uh our Amazon Echo range when we talk about Alexa a lot of people think maybe it's
just in Amazon Echo so an echo dot or an Echo Show um and kind of give you an example here um when we mention Echo we've got two kind of versions of it we've got one which does not have a screen on it so they will um be smaller like the one you see on the screen there is an echo. with clock or we have devices that are called Echo Show which have um actual screens on them so we range from 5 in 8 in 10 in um up to 15 in screens as well and I'll kind of go through of what you can do um what you can
do on these devices so if I just go to the next slide um awesome thank you a um so in terms of Alexa we we we spoke about uh uh AI on the previous slides with car and Caroline when we look at um Alexa it's AFF with AI it's when you have one of these devices it's what we classify as a wake word So when you say the name um Alexa you'll either have a blue line uh come across your uh Echo Show so one the screen or you'll have a ring go around the ones or that the screen and what that means is that
it's picking up um your voice So when you say Alexa it's a wake word and then you effectively ask it's a command so play music um play the radio turn off my lights and I'll go into um more of this as well so one thing is uh to to bear in mind is when you have these devices it it stores it listens to you and it will effectively store your um what you've asked it and it puts it in uh the app that you have and an Alexa app or it will be on the device as well you can actually go and see your history
and you can delete any recordings um on there if you don't want it to if you don't want to hear the recordings that your that is picked up after you say the white words however the more you utilize these devices the more it learns over time so I know it's been mentioned things about algorithms and learnings and things like that pre on previous slides and it's very much like this so if I uh me and my family when we use this and we asked to play music it starts to learn the music that we kind of
like and it starts to play those kind of um those bands or the music on there as well if I just G to the next slide um please so um with with our kind of uh devices that we have um one thing that was mentioned uh on one of the previous slides when we spoke about email addresses and to have an email address the one thing you need to have when you set up an Amazon device whether that be a Kindle an echo a tablet or a f stick is you do need to have an Amazon account on there you don't need to have
a subscription you need to have an account so by have an account need to have an email address and then once you sign in you're then you're then good to go so to kind of give you an example I utilize these devices um a lot and so do my family and friends and if I look at someone I speak about my my mother and how she utilizes these devices quite a bit and my my mother is uh she's in her 80s um she she doesn't have a smartphone however she uses uh Amazon Echo she uses an Echo Show and one thing s
he has is a uh is an Amazon account so she signs in she has no subscriptions and she uses it for two features she uses it for the radio um she is from Southern Island but she lives in uh in London and she plays a radio station um in southern island every day and that's the main feed you she uses it for she doesn't pay for any subscriptions on there and the other thing about this is most people when we talk about these devices we do talk about mainly about music and radio but there's a lot more y
ou can do on there so in terms of again mentioned previous slide like podcast and audible you can then broadcast them through these devices by just asking Alexa uh can I listen to this book this audible book but that's when you will start to have um kind of subscriptions on there as well again mentioned on previous slides about video so you will be able to get um things like Netflix find video um on these devices too and you can actually stream um movies uh when you're going through there uh as
well so it's not just music and radio and that's kind of what I want to get to um on these slides about how it can benefit um all all demographic um on uh who own these devices if I can just go to the next slide please right so these are kind of main areas I use kind of personal examples of how we use these so in terms of timers on these devices whether it's a screen or not a screen or you have a tablet of Al exibility I use these daily in terms of putting a timer on um at home so when we're doi
ng the cooking we'll put like a 12 minute past the timer one um or if you put something in the other at the same time we can then say put a 15 minute chips timer and it names the timers as well and rather than me having to use my phone or use a clock then the alarm will go off as soon as you say that and you can just say stop timer reminders um is another one how we can kind of utilize these devices so if we look at things like reminders I utilize this once a week and it's basically to put put t
he bins out on a Sunday so I have I'll say Alexa um a reminder every Sunday at 700 p.m. to put the bins out are my bins get collected on Monday morning so this then means I can go um every Sunday I get a reminder to go and put the bins out um on a Sunday evening calendar and emails um and we kind of look at these as hubs you kind of see on the screen there that middle section um is is a calendar so we utilize this at home as well so I actually link my devices up to uh to Google Calendar um and t
oday I will have uh this webinar and then I've got training afterwards so all my devices uh at home um and on my app it will also show me um the the meetings I have and I even if I don't have a screen I can just say Alexa what's in my calendar for today and then it will tell me what's in my calendar on there as well and then the other part of it is like lists and notes so if we look at things like lists um you can download uh an an Alexa app on your phone so when I'm at home for example and I ha
ve one of these devices in my kitchen and I'm going into the fridge and I'm run out of milk or one hour off cheese or anything like that I can say Alexa add milk and cheese to my shopping list and then when I'm coming home from work um so I've added it at home I've then gone to work and on the way home from work I can then check my shopping list on the Alexa app and I can see what I've um done it uh I've added at home and going back to the whole beginning there is Alexa is a weight word it store
s in the cloud so all my devices are paired together using my Amazon account it will then pair it all that way so I can then take everything with me um no matter if I'm at home and then I leave the house it'll be on my Alexa app as well so um it's it's nice and uh straightforward so you go to the next slide uh thank you I just want to kind of touch on two things here which I think are are way again using personal examples dropping as a feet sh if you have one with the screen for example um and t
his is this was with my mom used a lot in the pandemic um she has a quite a large family and I have um two kidss so she's got a few grandchildren the way she communicated with um with her kids and have grandchildren is through was through this device so there's something called drop in you then drop in on um for example myself and then she'll speaking um to the kids uh that way um so my kids that they are the nine and five they don't have to use a phone I don't want them using a phone so they ca
n then use these um use these in the living room and just kind of give you an example of again how this was utilized last year of my mom she actually um she fell down the stairs and she couldn't get to her m mobile phone and she actually said Alexa drop in on James and my daughter picked up at home on her Alexa device and then she answered the call and then came downstairs to tell me that um Granny so my mom had had a fall and I managed to go around there and we took us to the hospital and so on
and all is good but these are the kind of ways that I talk about them quite a lot in terms of how we can utilize these devices um more and more um on there if we uh touch on next slide thank you so again smart home is uh smart home's another uh another area as well so um the what we can uh what we can do is in terms of smart home I utilize smart home a lot and when we say smart home you have to link in other kind of brands with this as well so for example when you go into if you're online um an
d you're maybe on whether it be Amazon John Lewis or curries or you go into these stores as well and sometimes you may see like a light bulb which is uh maybe like £ 30 compared to A5 uh a standard um light bulb it's because they're probably part of a smart family like Philips Hugh for example and what that means is if you when you get these devices you can you can basically pair them together so at home I have some Philips you lights and that basically means if I go into a living room I can jus
t say Alexa um turn lights on um Alexa turn the living room lights off uh turn the office lights on and so on and it's all about kind of control um on there as well how you can kind of control things rather than using a light switch um and potentially leaving the lights on so if I'm at home I can actually go see if I'm away like I am at the moment I can go and see Lex app and see if any lights are on and I can turn them off as well so that's a reason why you may see sometimes when you go into st
ores and you see lights could be a bit more pricey if they're like Philips you and those kind of Lights it's because of um the overall um you can get there and the other ones like doorbells as well so for example ring doorbell blink doorbell you may see them in stores and online if you push the button at home um and someone's outside you link it up that if you have one of these devices in your kitchen with a screen you'll see who's at the door if you don't have a screen it will ring on that devi
ce um as well similar revie talking about the the ecosystem if you have like a f TV stick you can have the exact same thing you can be watching TV the doorbell goes and because you've linked it up it then appears on your TV as well all of these things sound like they can um uh be very confusing to kind of set up and so on but but it is really straightforward through the app and I think over time what I'll do is um I'll I'll speak with Annie and and the guys and see if I can maybe do some if some
tutorial videos would be uh helpful or setting up like a further session uh kind of going forward just because of time if we can just uh push on to the next slide please um again in terms of news and info on on on these products um you can ask it any question basically going back to the slides I presented by like Carol and Caroline uh I can can ask here so what was the score in the football last night um I can ask it for a BBC News update um my daughter uses this for if she's got one the screen
if she gets homework it could be what does what does a narell look like so she can then see on the screen um and then she can then draw that um as well there's some examples there too and then just the next slide please so I just want to kind of finish on this one so we're kind of getting better in terms of pushing the accessibility um part here as well so there's other areas in us um they've developed it more and more and more and it's coming more into into Europe so what you can do if I have
one on the screen and I hold for example my phone up in front of it and I say Alexa what am I holding it will then you hold it straight and it will then uh take a picture and it'll say that you holding a phone for example like it's enough soup and so on in terms of speaking um Alexa has another setting you can ask you can ask it to speak slower and then it will go slower um so you can potentially understand it more you can turn on captions uh on the screen um and going back to back the shopping
list of adding things to your car as well so we're getting better of this I can I can um add more information um on how uh on how we're supporting the accessibility side more and this is kind of one our on for example our fly TV sticks as well there's when you go into it there's accessibility menus which you can then select certain things and now when you set up an Echo Show there'll be bits at the beginning will actually ask you if you want to set up accessibility than going into the settings u
m to do that too uh is there another slide on this perfect so I want to kind of pleas some uh um some time some questions at the end but if anyone wants to um feel free to kind of drop me um my my details on there my email address if anyone wants to drop me an email um then feel free to do so but more than happy to kind of go back come back in the fut and do some uh yeah presenting or do some videos as well um for everyone um and that's it for me I well thanks so much James um yes yes please to
the uh the T tutorial videos you mentioned and yeah thanks for the the valuable advice um and just a quick reminder I think there was a question asked um about the slides so yeah all the slides are available um via our webinar page ATD digitalis Discovery so I just wanted to check in with everyone again to find out about your confidence with tech um having heard the ideas from our guest speakers today so here's just another quick Poll for you one moment so um I think you should be able to see th
at now so are you more confident about delving further into the Digital World um having having heard the the suggestions from today um so the answers are yes I've picked up some ideas to try out no I'd still like to know more um I'm not sure or not applicable uh and just a reminder um you may not be able to respond um on the poll itself but you can reply in the the Q&A panel so just leave this a little bit longer for people to answer just so I'm aware we um we need a bit of time for um as answer
ing your questions at the end so just a couple more moments uh and I'm going to end the poll now and share the results oh that's great great um responses so the top respon is 78% is uh yes I've picked up some ideas to try out uh we've got 14% who are no I'd still like to know more um so yeah there's there's lots more to learn so um we can definitely help um with lots of ideas for that um 6% not applicable and 2% are not sure um about the confidence with with delving further into the digital worl
d but do get in touch with us um if you'd like some more help with any of that um so just going to stop sharing and um so just uh moving on to the next slides You' you've met Carol and Caroline from the the BT digital skills team um and we also have opportunities uh for free in-person digital skills support as part of this project um so that's available to older people over 65 in London Birmingham Manchester Glasgow Edinburgh Cardiff and the surrounding areas um and you can find out more about t
hat atbt digital skills um you can ask for training on the selection of topics uh including staying safer online using social media accessing Public Services banking shopping online and and more so please do get in touch um and uh we just have a little video to show about um how ability net can support you in those areas um and if you are in in any other part of the UK please do get in contact and our our Tech volunteers will be able to help so and Louise is just going to share the video now BT
group has partnered with ability net to boost the digital skills of 5,000 over 65s helping them make the most of Life online through onetoone and small group digital skills training we'll help people achieve their goals boost their confidence and stay safe online so it was great having Muhammad because he's very patient so coming here on a Wednesday Muhammad's out where's a lot of my family haven't got the time they working I didn't know anything he done everything for me set it up for me put me
on Facebook put me on WhatsApp so you know it's really opened a new world to me in that way [Music] so um just just to highlight um the captions weren't quite showing up on everybody's screen for that but um the video is is captioned and it's available um linked to from our um web page so if you just uh if you would like to watch that back again it's um digital Discovery so we've just got a few moments to um cover some of the questions that come through to our um Q&A panels I'm just going to um
highlight those uh Caroline if you're there if you're able to to Jo rejoin us for the the panel that would be great but um just going to highlight a couple of questions um so a question from Joanna um to use a Smart TV or Amazon Fire stick uh do you need an internet connection so maybe James if it's one you're happy to answer sorry I mute so to get the best experience yes um for connection Wi-Fi connection so a f TV stick you'll have to to log into the main thing about F TV stick is you would y
ou wouldn't need an aial so it's connected by Wi-Fi so You' then go on to Netflix uh Prime video and so on and so on um and then really for a smart TV it's it's very similar uh experience for that so your your user your user experience and interface updates through Wi-Fi and things so uh yeah to get the best experience you would need a Wi-Fi connection these okay um then a question for for Carol um talking about the AI examples um how up to dat uh the results from the AI examples given for co-pi
lot Gemini and and chat GPT you're able to share a bit more of that that's a good question um when chat GPT was first launch uh first launch which wasn't that you know that we know about I mean a couple years ago then yes it would only go it the last four years of the internet weren't taken into account however with um collaboration with Microsoft as far as I'm aware it's now up to date um oh and the the free version of chat GPT because you can buy you can access it Standalone um I believe the n
onfree version is now a year behind uh sorry the free version is a year behind and the paid version is up to date so yeah it's that's that's my understanding if anyone knows any different then please let me know okay um I'm just very conscious of time we just got um chance for one question now but um we will gather up a lot of the questions that have come through and um answer them online on our webinar page so um do check back in in the next few days for your responses but just one more questio
n and for James while you're here it's uh which apps are compatible with Alexa for shopping for groceries online yes so I saw that one um I think the person mentioned they were in Canada so it's I'll have to it's it's so it's region specific so whether they're based in Canada um or they're on holiday in Canada or coming over here it's dependent on region um so then I can I can come back on that in more detail yeah region specific okay great well um just to say thank thank you all so much for you
r um questions and yes we will respond to um the the questions that have come through so just uh just to cover our last few bits in in the end of the webinar moment um so just as mentioned we do offer free it support at home and online um alongside webinars and and fact sheets but you can call our helpline on 03001 18028 um you can also contact us at-home and um if you would like to share your Tech um skills as a volunteer then we'd love to hear from you um and you can contact us ATV volunteer a
nd then we run um on online training sessions um at Fort trining um so there's lots of uh courses coming up um and we also run courses on neurodiversity hearing loss sight loss and physical disabilities so do have a look at that at Fort trining and then um you can also sign up to our newsletter um for the latest advice about um inclusion um and various accessibility issues so uh you can also um keep keep up to date with um other webinars that we have which are all free webinars uh so coming up w
e've got um a session that goes into a lot more detail about Ai and how it can help disabled people and that's on on Wednesday the 17th of April um you can sign up for that now and also uh dementia and simple Tech tweaks that can help and that's on Wednesday the 10th of July so do sign up for those if that's of interest uh so just thank you very much again to everyone who's joined us um and do complete the feedback form you'll be directed to at the end and we'll be in touch with you soon with al
l the resources to share so thanks everyone and see you at the next session
Comments