DATE Casa Latina Workshop Sarah

So I facilitated two workshops this week, one that went very smoothly and one that went somewhat un-smoothly. I've been thinking about these few workshops as the dress rehearsals for the workshops that will start in earnest in January. I think that by reflecting on the un-smooth workshop, a lot can be learned from that experience that I can channel into future workshops.

I would say the main takeaways are this:

• Start out with a print agenda and discuss it with the students. Make changes to it based on group feedback. Formalize it a bit -- make it a real 'activity'
• Spend some time explaining the student-led nature of the workshops.
• Dealing with language issues: Make a glossary of tech words in Spanish (I'm really going to do this...); don't be afraid to ask people to repeat themselves or explain terms they've used; practice some of the classroom spiels ahead of time (I love practicing a foreign language, i.e. talking to myself, when I ride my bike! I get the weirdest looks!) 
• Create a "box of tricks" (i.e. alternative activities to do if the class is a lower level or a higher level than expected)
• Triple-check technology to make sure it works
• When working with true beginners, it's really great to have helpers
• Always eat (Hungry workshop facilitators are the worst)

I think the workshop on Wednesday went so well because we have a good level of group cohesion and we have a student-volunteer who helps facilitate. I think the intro to the philosophy and rationale of the classes led by Ivette a couple weeks before really put people in a active-participant mindset. We also had a happy surprise -- a new student who was both knowledgeable about cell phones as well as a great peer teacher of how to use cell phones. (I also ate two tacos at Rancho Bravo as well as half a chocolate bar before going to Casa Latina! My blood sugar was in a good place.)

After the workshop on Wednesday, Silvia was looking for someone to teach a workshop on Facebook on Friday. I thought, "why not?" and said I'd give it a shot.

The idea behind this workshop was that the adult students would be able to find Casa Latina and MSF and "like" them on Facebook. Veronique mentioned that most of them use Facebook on their phones. I actually didn't have hardly any time between Wed. night and Fri. night to think about a lesson plan. I tried to download the handouts from the Dropbox of previous workshops, but my computer told me the files were corrupted. I had a vague idea in my head that we would have a discussion about privacy -- I found a Spanish language comic strip featuring a young woman talking about how she was going to post and tag pictures of her and her friends at the nudist beach on Facebook -- it seemed funny at 11pm on Thursday night.  Then I would demonstrate on the overhead how to adjust your privacy settings on Facebook. Then we'd look up the different pages and people who wanted to could "like" them. I also copied and pasted the slides from Wednesday that had embedded hyperlinks to youtube videos about how to download apps in the GooglePlay store.

It turned out the students were much less familiar with technology that I had expected. (I wished I had a box of tricks!) I believe they were also from two different "groups," so there didn't seem to be a high level of group cohesion. I don't know that they all felt that Facebook was relevant to them, and I didn't want to encourage anyone to use Facebook who isn't that interested in it or who didn't have a lot of knowledge about how to protect their privacy online.  I myself have very mixed attitudes about Facebook. (There was also a young child and two elderly people in the room, so I suddenly had second thoughts about the comic strip about the nudist beach and had to skip it!) I also turned out that my embedded hyperlinks weren't working (triple-check technology!). This workshop also allowed students to receive "points." As was mentioned at the Women's Advisory Meeting, points are a double-edged sword because people may be more interested in the points than the topics.

I also believe that facilitators should not set up accounts or install things for adult students. Adult students need to make independent decisions about what does and doesn't go on their phones. This may mean the process of signing up for things doesn't happen right in the class, but I think that's okay. No one is going to suffer for lack of a Facebook page.

Anyway, enough dwelling on things that didn't work well. The workshop was okay (people got some nice chatting in and they got their points!). A few women seemed interested in attending the technology workshops, so hopefully we'll meet them again. I got my nice list of takeaways, or life's lessons learned.