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Digital Literacy Workshops demonstrate why email is more important than ever in 2023

Bowling Green, KY – Connected Nation, in partnership with AT&T, is hosting Digital Literacy Workshops across the United States. One of them took place in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in late January at the Warren County Public Library. This workshop was entirely focused on email and best practices while navigating Gmail.


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Email goes much further than casually chatting with friends. It is used to provide directional, important, and timely information for work, school, medical care, insurance, consumer activities, and much more. Today, email is accepted as the primary platform for professional communication, thus making it important to understand how to write, read, and organize email messages.


Many of us take for granted that everyone knows how to navigate email, but that’s simply not the case. Some seniors, immigrants, and others who have relied more on their mobile phones than computers don’t necessarily have experience using email.


Connected Nation’s Director of Community Solutions, Wes Kerr, led the Warren County workshop. During the event, he illustrated the important benefits of email, how email addresses work, and how to sign up for an email account. Kerr also covered how to write, read, send, and organize email messages on the Gmail platform.


He led the participants through everything from signing up for an email account to forwarding and replying, using the search bar and saving drafts to niche features such as CC/BCC and how to flag and label emails. The presentation was designed to help increase participants’ online confidence in just a few hours.


“We spent over three hours with a handful of people each week, who went from next to no basic digital knowledge to feeling comfortable on a computer and on the internet,” said Kerr.


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At the end of his presentation, Kerr emphasized to attendees how big an impact these new skills can have on their quality of life.


“I think the basic skills are vital to go through life,” he said. “Without a baseline of digital literacy, it is becoming increasingly difficult to complete everyday tasks.”


Many workshop participants said they already plan to use their newfound skills to help them in real-world circumstances.


“In order to be successful at work and to work well with teammates, I needed to be able to communicate well online, and knowing these email skills will help me make that happen,” said Randa Abbas.


Connected Nation will continue to offer these digital workshops over the coming months on topics including internet basics, computer basics, cybersecurity, mobile device basics and webconferencing.


For more information on future Digital Literacy Workshops or to find out how to bring one of these FREE workshops to your community, click HERE.