TAO/Working with Volunteer Instructors: Best Practices

TAO & Volunteers: Practice oriented expertise

In the project TAO, we closely work together with voluntary instructors who teach older persons about online communities. Many of these instructors are of senior age themselves. Over time, we gathered a great experience in preparing these instructors for their courses, and facilitating them in the course creating process. Together with the broader academic support and feedback, this experience forms a strong expertise. Several of the activities presented in this chapter involved volunteers. We hope you will find the experiences of our partners useful for your own projects.

This module leads to practical experiences with volunteers. For a general overview on working with volunteers, see our module on Volunteers in Online Communities.

Examples of projects involving volunteers

Following practical experiences described in this Handbook involved volunteers and may be interesting for people wishing to work with volunteers themselves:

• Free Cruise on the Internet (Switzerland)
• Silver Knowledge (Germany)
• E-Learning Activities of Seniorweb.ch (Switzerland)
• Intergenerational Reading Project "Cold Times" (Germany)

'Do you have experience with working with volunteers? You are very welcome to add tips, feedback and remarks from your own experience with courses for older people ("this worked for me, this did not …”).

Find out how to add new modules here.

For whom?

A Seniorweb volunteer instructs seniors on how to make a photo book

Presentation of Wikipedia for potential third age contributors

The information in the project descriptions could be interesting for (senior) voluntary instructors who teach older people about new media in general, and about the use of online communities more specifically. Such instructors could for instance belong to:

• TAO community partners (Wikimedia CH, Wikimedia DE, Seniorweb NL, Seniorweb CH)
• Other senior communities (e.g. Pro Senectute, ...)
• Other (senior) communities (e.g. hobby clubs, ...)

Material for working with volunteer instructors

Within the TAO project, many (older) persons work as an instructors to show their peers how to participate in online community sites. For these volunteer instructors, TAO has accumulated practice oriented information to help them with the preparation and organization of the courses.

Available theoretical documentation:

• Do's & Don't's (practical scenario for workshops)
• Methods for Seminars and Workshops
• Relevant background knowledge for working with volunteers