1/28/2015_Ivette,_Casa Latina_Workshop

Location:     Casa Latina                 

Describe Context – 

           

Date: 1/28/15

Name: Ivette Bayo Urban

List things that happened today:

The students and I headed to Casa Latina and arrived there a little after 5:00.  
We had other volunteers, Sandra, Elan and Liz with us.  
Emily was working on the report she needed to submit to the City of Seattle.  

Sarah already had the room set up and we had a few women already there, ready to start.  The topic was craiglist. 

Freddy joined the class also.

In the news:

Next week we go to Federal Way Library and take it mobile.

List Action Items from workshop:

Sarah led the craiglist and the women were using the tablets.  
Pick up tablets and see if Emily can charge them charged for next week.

  Things to look up, check out and explore:

• Make sure we have everything logistically ready for carpooling next week.  
• Confirm drivers

Describe an important an evocative social interaction that happened today:

Describe a success.

Everyone was engaged, whether with the adults, the children and even Emily working on the grant adminsitration.  I was thankful to be able to touch base with her and get her the information she needed for the report, even if it was later than what she needed, given her schedule.  Next time we will plan ahead to make it work in a more timely fashion - but for today we got it to work. 

Describe a failure.  What fell through the cracks?

I felt horrible that one of the women was upset that there had been an email lost.  She had spent a lot of time working on it and in the blink of an eye, when Freddy was helping her it was gone.  I wish I would have dealt with the challenge better, but the computer she was using was not one that I was familiar with I felt she was disappointed that we did not have the answers as to where her email went and how it was deleted.

What surprised me the most?

I was not in one place very long.  I didn't feel like I was part of any group since I spent my energies going between the children, the adults and emily for the reports.  What this confirmed it that there are a lot of moving pieces and that I need to set a time to process and delegate so I can BE in the moment. 

Reflections

I did take the opportunity to work discuss the challenges of working with technology and reminded the participants in the room to use the four agreements since, the intent Freddy had in helping her was with good intention, even if the outcome for her was not.  I have been there, deleted something, spent so mcuh time and energy to have it go in the wind and have my hard work disappear.  It is not a good feeling, but I think with these experiences, I learn that the only constant is that things CAN go wrong, and sometimes they do.  But life has shown me that we cannot change what happens to us, but we can control how we react to it.  

1/28/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina

January 28^th, 2014

4:15 PM – 7:30 PM

            This week, we had an extraordinary amount of children (4 babies, 4 older children), but we also had more help. Liz Mills, a PhD candidate, as well as Elan (I don’t remember her last name) helped with the children. One boy, who had attended the program before, has difficulty being away from his mother and those he is emotionally attached to. Thus, one of us had to pay specific attention to him consistently throughout the night to prevent loud crying. I spent the time holding him and after he calmed down, playing games with him. He liked to hold on to various items and usually distracted him. For example, we have soft letters that we showed him that he held onto for most of the night. When I got tired from holding him, we sat on the floor and bowled. We used paper cardboard tubes and a relevantly small ball to knock them over. We also stacked these tubes – standing them up and stacking them on top of each other. He also liked the finger puppets.

            He tended to get most upset when people came in and out of the room. I think this is probably because he thought his mother was returning to pick him up. Also, a smaller baby started crying and her mother came into feed her. He was very upset when the other baby cried and even more upset when she got her mother while he did not.

            I also had an interesting conversation with Liz Mills about the apps that I downloaded onto the iPad for the children. We started to talk about my reasoning and how the apps can aid in the intellectually development of the children. Hopefully, I will be able to talk with her more in the future.

1/28/15 , Casa Latina, Adult Literacy Workshop, Freddy Mora

 

Location: Casa Latina, Seattle

Date: 1/28/15

Time: 5:00-7:00 PM

 

Last week at Casa Latina was an interesting one. The woman seemed eager to get started, and it was interesting to hear about their Craigslist experience. I ended up working with one individual who needed help with her email. She stated that she needed to send out an email, but was offline, so she drafted it and waited later to send it out. She pulled it up for me and stated that she needed to paste it into the body of another email as well. She asked if I could help with this and I agreed. I wanted to pop up this draft in another window to make things easier, and when I went to do so, the original draft disappeared. She got upset immediately, and I felt terrible. I could tell how important that email was to her so I spent the remainder of the workshop trying to figure out what had happened. To this very day, I still don’t know. What was interesting is I never got a “pop up” box stating I was to discard the email, and if I wish to proceed with what I was doing… So I was so confused as to what had happened. Moving forward I will be more cautious as to what I am assisting with.

 

In the past I have enjoyed helping out the women with any side questions they had. In one workshop I spent that time setting up her Kindle for her and showing the woman how it works. It was quite the learning experience for me too, for I have never used a Kindle before. I am looking forward to the next session of Casa Latina, since this time we will be at the library!

1/28/15 Workshop Casa Latina Sarah White

Location: Casa Latina

Date: 1/28/2015

Time: 5 to 7pm

Overview:

Technical difficulties got me down from the get-go. I forgot to print my lesson plan, and it took me quite some time to do that from a Casa Latina computer for this reason and that. Then I couldn't show the videos that I'd planned to show because the laptops didn't have Adobe Flash player, and I wasn't given the password to download programs.

During the lesson, people were coming and going at different times, and adults and children alike were having meltdowns. I was finding it all distracting -- not sure if participants were feeling the same way or not.

The videos were about scams on Craigslist. Luckily, one of the participants had some experience with those and was able to share. (She's such a great person to have in class, and we're lucky to have her.)

I think also Craigslist ended up being a difficult topic to teach. Navigating the website required some foundational skills. Some people had them, some didn't. And though I took copious notes on how to set up language settings and translation in Google Chrome, I managed to overlook the most obvious way to translate the website. 

I was also thinking about how much to assert myself at the front of the class. For the first part of class, I don't think anyone needs to be touching their technology. It's distracting! Let's just have a discussion and then take a look at some demos on the projector before we get lost in handheld tech. Maybe I'll try shutting the lights off in the room? I was just co-teaching an SCC class on using library databases with a librarian, and she said in a strong voice (almost the type of voice a mother uses when she wants you to clean your room), "I know there are computers in front of you, but we're not using them yet, so I need you to look at me!" I don't think I have the benefit of age to get away with that statement in that tone.

Besides, I am trying to break down the power dynamic with teacher-as-expert, and students as passive listeners. But, at the same time, I don't want the class to devolve into chaos. I need to find that place where I can keep everything moving in a positive direction without forcing it....seeking balance.