1/14/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Klarissa

Location: Casa Latina

Date: 1/14/2015

Time: 5pm

Today Ivette and I were with the kids. We tried and did make maracas out of toilet paper rolls. Sealing the ends was difficult though. I thought perhaps we could use plastic wrap and rubber bands but thought against it. I also thought the glue would hold construction paper to the tubes, but glue sticks are not very strong. Finally, we glued construction paper over the ends of the tubes and but a rubber band around it to hold it until the glue stuck better. That worked.

Ivette and I looked up interactional songs while we were there but the kids were not terribly interested. With a two under 1, we also found out that we need some toys geared towards the younger ones. Craft parts are small, and almost everything wants to go in the mouth. Even things that are not too small, like the balls we roll on the floor, well we roll them on the floor and we don’t clean them. We tried a story time, but the small ones would rather flip the pages or chew- cluing us in that we need more age appropriate books as well. 

1/14/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina

January 14^th, 2014

4:30 PM – 7:15 PM

            Ivette, Brad, Klarissa, and I left for Casa Latina after class. The theme for this week’s workshop was accessing and using emails. This week I worked with the adult digital literacy class. I also worked on setting up the tablets with Brad. I set up the two iPads. When I finished, a man walked in that needed help accessing his email account. I worked one on one with him. The first step was making sure that his computer was connected to the Internet and that it would connect automatically. This way he wouldn’t need to reconnect to the Casa Latina’s network again. Next we worked on figuring out his email password. He had forgotten it. Luckily, when he set up his email, he put in his cell phone number for password recovery. Then we accessed his Skype and Facebook. We made sure that his password is the same for all of these services so that it would be less likely to be forgotten. Then I had him reaccess all of the things we discussed by himself. I hope that by doing this he would be able to access them without help. I was also able to set his Gmail account to Spanish language so that it would make using his email easier.

            It was great to work with him because when we started he did not seem to be able to even open his web browser. He also did not speak much English, but after I showed him Google Translate that would pronounce the words for him, he seemed really thrilled about using that feature in the future.

1/14/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Sarah

Location:     Casa Latina                

Describe Context – Small classroom 303 (ESL room). Table is a bit crowded, room gets warm.

          

Date: 1/14/15

Name: Sarah White

List things that happened today:

Arrived @ 4:15, printed out a few handouts re: dropbox and a lesson plan (which I didn’t really use…), then got keys, snacks and laptops and set up the room.

The new student came a few minutes early and we chatted for a bit. Someone gave her an older laptop, and she told me she only knew how to turn it on. She also recently began using her Windows phone.

After everyone arrived, I asked them what they wanted to know about email.

The new student wanted to know how to check her email on her new phone.

Several were interested in organizing email in folders, while others were interested in attaching photos.

I asked Freddy to help the new student with her phone, and when he left I asked Brad.

While he was doing that I demonstrated creating folders, manually moving email into folders, and creating rules for putting email into folders. We practiced that for a bit. A student who always uses her phone was able to figure out how to translate the directions onto her phone. I offered to give her a laptop, but she preferred her phone.

I also demonstrated attaching photos. While doing that, I showed how to cc and bcc, which students were rather interested in. S.’s practiced that for a bit.

Another new student arrived when we were in the middle of the demonstration. I greeted him, and then asked Willa if she could sit next to him and see where he was at.

It got a bit noisy and disjointed, and the two new students were doing their own thing.

I suggested we practice typing for a bit, because it seemed like something everyone could work on together. But the new students were quite engaged with Brad and Willa in tasks that interested them, and didn’t want to type. I’m never one to force the issue.

Students typed for a bit. The student who usually uses her phone said she would continue to practice (I’m guessing the keyboard is a barrier to using a laptop for her). After a bit they got quite chatty, so I thought the activity had run its course. A couple people said they would practice at home. I wanted to think of something semi-independent that the “regular” students could work on, because I wanted some time to talk to the new students a bit. I felt like I had been ignoring them, and I wanted them to feel welcome for their first class. One student was also taking care of her baby and I thought a semi-independent task would create a more decentralized class that might make her more comfortable focusing on the baby's needs.

I showed students the gcfaprendelibre.org site. I showed them a few tutorials. One student was interested in the Math tutorials because her older daughter needs help with math, and she is confused by how her daughter’s teacher teaches it. I had planned to show another student the online excel course, so that she could share it with her daughter (who had previously expressed interest in Excel), but she didn’t attend. Anyway, I asked students to choose a tutorial to begin. They had 15-20 min. to work on it. Then I said in the last few minutes of class we’d share something we’d learned.

I then went to talk to the new students (a husband and wife). Brad needed me to explain the problem with checking email on her phone. Apparently it wasn’t something that could be fixed in today’s session. I wanted her to be able to walk away with one positive thing that she’d learned, though, so that she wouldn’t leave feeling like technology was frustrating. So I gave her instructions on how to check email on her laptop (I explained it, she did all the actions herself.) She hadn’t been able to read emails for some time, so she was engaged reading emails for the last 15 minutes of class.

There was a brief discussion about cost of wi-fi in the home. After that, everyone shared one thing they’d learned.

It was a fairly noisy and casual classroom – that turns some people off, so in the final feedback, I was trying to get a sense of how the participants felt about it. (While adults tend to be polite, sometimes they’ll couch complaints in the final feedback.) They seemed to enjoy the casual nature and had positive things to say. My guess is that they prefer to chat while working on tasks, and reserve things that require more quiet concentration for when they are home alone.  

List Action Items from workshop:

Since I find myself not using my lesson plans much, I trying to imagine the final “product” that documents our work and will be for handing off to future volunteers. Rather than a packet of lesson plans, perhaps it will be a manual on “how to plan without planning.” Perhaps I’ll try to give people a lesson plan template for planning on the fly along with a resource list.  

Things to look up, check out and explore:

Think about the next women's advisory meeting. 

I somehow didn’t let it enter into my conscious mind that I need to write a 10 to 15 page lit. review for Capstone planning in the next few weeks. Hopefully can touch base with Ivette on that – we can sync up our research/pedagogical vision.

Also thinking of adjusting the scope of Capstone so that it lines up more closely with grant’s timetable – hopefully can chat w/ Ivette about that as well.

Re: Ivette’s comment on need for driver – I don’t drive; long story.  Isn’t the librarian going to lead the session on 2-4? If it’s just a matter of introducing him/her, supporting, and wrapping the session up at the end, that’s no problem for me.

I wanted to share this to brighten up our short winter days: http://youtu.be/lH0p22JVK2o 

1/14/15 Brad reflections

Location:  Casa Latina     

               

Date: January 14^th, 2015  

Name: Brad Holland         

List things that happened today:

I rode with Ivette and the other students to casa, arriving at 5pm.

After quick introductions with Sarah and some of the women, Willa and I went to find the technology supplies in the other room.

Willa and I began to set up the tablets for the women to use; Willa was responsible for the iPads while I took on the Android tablets.

For the first 45 Minutes or so, I worked on setting up the eight android tablets for use. This involved changing the time zone, language settings, and applying software updates to the tablets.

Eventually, Sarah needed my help with assisting one woman figure out how to create new folders on her email application on her smartphone.

After this was finished, I resumed working on the tablets until I had to help Freddy figure out how to use a Gmail address on windows phone. This issue was tricky and took most of the remaining workshop time.

In the news:

N/A

List Action Items from workshop:

The woman who was having trouble figure out her Microsoft account needs to bring her old password from home so we can access the account settings.

Things to look up, check out and explore:

Review common technological terms in Spanish so I have a larger vocabulary.

Describe an important an evocative social interaction that happened today:

The first time I assisted one of the women with a technology question was a very heartwarming experience. She seemed genuinely appreciative of my help, and was understanding of the language barrier. It has been almost a year since I last participated in a volunteer project, and the familiar warm, fuzzy feeling of helping others came back all in a rush during this workshop.

Describe a success.

I completed setting up all 8 tablets and successfully updated their software. The next step is to figure out which 3^rd party apps they need to install.

Describe a failure.  What fell through the cracks?

At one point I needed to explain a complex concept to one of the women, but my Spanish was not developed enough to accurately communicate this across. I had to explain the situation to Sarah in English so that she could translate for me.

What surprised me the most?

How enthusiastic these women are in learning new technology literacy.

Reflections

The language barrier is going to continue being a challenge. However, I enjoy having to stretch myself and learn new things as I go along so this obstacle will only be a positive one in the end.