6/10/2015 Workshop Lake City Branch Library Willa

Lake City Branch Library
June 10th, 2015
5:00 - 7:30

This week I was the lead with the adult digital literacy group at Lake City. We were working with a small group at first of only two participants. However, towards the end two more women joined. I had planned a session of working on phones especially on applications. The theme was resources for adults and youth. Since it was finals week and I was finishing other finals, I had limited time to construct a formal lesson plan like the ones we will use in reporting for the grant. Instead, I experimented with different applications and how to find them on my own phone.

Here is the rough outline I created:

Library Calendar of Events (kid and adults)
Homework Help (for kids)
Summer of Learning (activities for kids: in english)
Utilizando el catalogo (para adultos)
Literacy, ESL, citizenship (para adultos)

Applications:
Alguien tiene usted su telefono en ingles? Quieres in español?
App store for Apple esta en ingles
Lo mismo para la tienda de android?

How to Explore (como explorar en apps)
hay muchas categorias como en "educación" hay:  aprendiendo ingles, gramática, matemáticas, como responder a bullying (niños)
ejemplo: Mango
otra categoria es "kids/ niños" y tienes millons de apps. sobre juguetes, números (matemáticas), alfabetismo, ortografia,
ejemplo: 3rd grade Splash Math (an app we have on the kids iPads)

Also, instead of creating a powerpoint presentation, I decide to connect my phone directly to the projector so that I could demonstrate the above outline as well as respond more easily to questions.

At the beginning of the workshop, I displayed the above outline so that the participants would have a good idea of what I intended to teach and what I prepared.

We managed to cover some of the stuff in my outline - we went through how to explore applications and I did let them know that there were categories and lots of different types of applications. However, most of the workshop was devoted to asking questions. We talked about the differences between the King County Library System and the Seattle Public library system. We also talked about the Seattle Public Library's Facebook page in Spanish and how to find it (actually kind of difficult cause you have to put in the whole name to get the right one). We also discussed mobile hotspots and googleamericalatinablog.blogspot.com, which has articles about technology in Spanish that Ana found.

4/22/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina
April 22nd, 2015
4:30 - 8:00 PM

The planned activity with the children today was centered around Earth Day. Klarissa had printed out a paired sheets of paper - the top paper was a drawing of the earth for coloring and another sheet underneath that you glue the earth to. On the the second sheet of paper, the kids are supposed to write down four things that they like about the earth or that they want to improve. The earth that is glue over this sheet of paper is cut so that you can reveal the words underneath.

It was a lot of fun. All the of kids started to color in their earth - mostly blue for the water and green for the land. The kids mentioned that they like trees and want to recycle more. One of the girls didn't want to cut their earth out and glue it because that would be too mean to the earth.

Implicit Basis Test Reflection

I took Harvard's Implicit Basis Test for Skin Tone, Gender: Career, and Gender: Science.

My results:

Skin Tone - Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for Dark Skin compared to Light Skin.
Gender: Career - Your data suggest little or no association between Female and Male with Career and Family.
Gender: Science - Your data suggest little or no association between Male and Female with Science and Liberal Arts.

I took the tests in the order displayed above. I'm not sure the test shows anything. It reminded me of a test I took before (kind of like a brain teaser) where it shows you word (a color) and then display a different color than the word itself. You have to choose the actual color rather than the word. Like if it shows "Green," but the word is colored red. You would need to choose the "red" over "green." You are supposed to do it as fast as you can. 

The point is - the brain teaser is not a question of whether or not you prefer one color over another and is not a question of whether you prefer text over color. It is just something that is difficult to do because you are forcing your brain to think in a different way.

Also, the more I preformed the same function the faster I became.

4/1/15 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina
April 1st, 2015
4:00 - 8:00 PM

I worked both with the women and the children. I started with working with the women. I'm not sure I contributed very much though I did help connect to the Internet on a couple of the tablets. Half way through I switched to helping with the children because a couple of them wanted to make origami. After I helped with the origami making, I helped Brad and Klarissa supervise the kids looking at the children's book section.

I really liked that the space is big enough for both the children and the adults. I like having both groups in the same space. It seemed easier for us to help back and forth with both the adults and the children. I also think that it did not disturb the learning process for the adults too.

Where I'm From Willa

I am from books
from penny candies and tootsie roll pops. 
I am from the islands of green 
(surrounded by glistening blue, floating on the waves
It tasted of salt and safety.)

I am from the Madrone trees,
the Magnolia flowers
Their peace instills my own 
as their petals and bark fall with me.

I’m from the warm after dinner pie and the desire to create 
from Marsha and Walter
and Roy.
I’m from the misunderstood senses of humor and
mispronouncing large vocabularies learned from reading.

From one, two, three and oh, well. 
I’m from working to be a force of good, bettering my understanding of myself.
I’m from Seattle and places defined by arbitrary political guidelines, bread and cake. 
From the mother who paints when she feels safe,
the father who helps people to walk. 

Trapped in a picture album on my mother's bookshelf,
on my father's wall,
on my computer, 
we look young and happy.

I am from those I love,
from those I have loved,
from those I will love.

Final Reflection Willa

Final Reflection
Willa

I have greatly enjoyed the last quarter working with this project not just because it is my area of academic interest, but also because of the experiences I have had working with the women and the children. Originally, I expected to work with the adults more than the children, but this quarter I only helped out with the adult digital literacy once or twice. Understanding the needs of children is much more complex than I thought I would be assisting with. I know what it is to be influenced by the adults in one's life when young. When I am working with the kids, I want to purposeful in what language I use and how I express myself especially because the children are mostly female and of an ethnic minority. In being careful with what I say, I also wanted to make sure that the applications that we downloaded for the iPads would reflect the same type of conscientiousness. Empowering female leaders and the use of technology in child development are my two themes that I will address here. 

Teaching women from childhood that they are valuable on their own without the right things, clothing, appearance, etc is an important part of the feminist construct that we have been employing in our project. I realized the first time that I work with the girls that I would need to be careful. I was using a brown marker on the whiteboard and one of the girls told me that she didn't want me using that color because it was the color of poop, which of course is also the color of her skin. I spent some time to explain that brown is not a bad color and there are plenty of things that are brown that are good (chocolate being the main one) and explaining that other colors also can be gross too (like red is the color of blood or that zits are white, etc). I have previously done a lot of thinking about how my words can influence others, but working the children has reminded me to think of it more and be even more aware of my words. Furthermore, I need to be conscious of how I speak  to myself. When things are rough at school I have a tendency to call myself stupid and attribute any academic success to luck or privilege rather than granting myself and owning my intelligence. 

I was in part in charge of deciding what applications to download on the iPads, which was mostly simple in choosing the educational applications for math and science because these are usually divorced from any social context. However, I have been increasingly cautious with what applications I would like to download in the realm of history and literature. I am aware that history is written by the dominant culture, which are more often than not, the oppressors and the victors. History can vilify and misconstrue events of the past. The only application that we have downloaded that has a history component was recommend by the children because they used it in class. After watching them use it and seeing the content, I thought it was fairly inclusive in alternative narratives. We also put other restrictions on the iPads. Only we can download applications and there are maturity rating restrictions (as determined by Apple). We do not believe that any of the children would purposefully seek out inappropriate materials, but we did not want them to stumbled upon it on accident. In one manner, we are acting as protective censors, which is something that I think a lot of adults do for their children. However, as I recently discovered I am an adult. I no longer have an adult censor and I have been reminded this quarter that it is okay and necessary to censor certain information for your own protection. I use the social media site Tumblr, which has an extension that allows me to censor certain tags. I have started to use these tags to censor disturbing information. I have come to believe that there is line between being informed and being overwhelmed. 

There is a multitude of themes that I got to explore this quarter that I do not have time to address in this format. However, I am looking forward to continue to work with the women and the children next quarter. I want to continue to be a positive influence and working, step by step, to affecting change. Good things can come from women who believe in themselves and have access to a positive narrative about themselves and their cultures. 

3/18/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina
March 18th, 2015
4:30 - 7:30

Klarissa and I worked with the kids. The planned activity was something to do with magazines, but we did not have the proper materials so it turned into an activity on movement. One of the girls knew of an "educational" app from school, which teaches you dance moves to popular videos. It did fall apart towards the end because not everyone was interested and the kids rather liked listening to the songs over actually dancing. There were also two babies, which occupied most of my time. One of the babies likes to dance to music, which was fun to see. Also, when Klarissa asked one of the girls about how listening to All About that Base was educational, one of the girls responded that the song has a positive body message that was teaching her to love the body she's in, which was good, but also kind of snarky. :)

3/11/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina
March 11th, 2015
4:30 PM - 7:30 PM


Brad and I worked with the children literacy child care this Wednesday. Because Ivette had to run the adult digital literacy, she could not be there to do her planned activity, which was taking a photo of a body part that you like, writing what you like about that body part and why, and printing that photo in black and white. We had two babies and two older children to do this activity with. It was a lot of fun. Many of us took photos of our faces because we like certain aspects of our face - our hair, our eyes, or our mouth. We also took photos of the babies and wrote things about how cute they are. Unfortunately, the photos could not be printed in black and white because of the nature of the printer. The digital cameras also were not charged and we didn't have the right cords to charge them. We ended up using the iPad and printing the photos wirelessly. In the end, some of the children gave their photos and writings to their moms.

A Letter to My Teeth

Dear Teeth,

I have a dentist appointment today and I would really appreciate it if you did not contain any cavities. As you may know, my beautiful smile is all due to you and to my social class. If my family was not in the correct circumstances to have you cleaned and checked every 6 months or so, you would not look so stunning. The privilege that you, my white teeth, grant me is ever so acknowledged. Not only do you allow me to eat whichever and whatever foods I might desire. You also allow me to be self-confident about smiling. You may be slightly crooked, but that crook would only be noticed by me. The others that may subconsciously judge us would never notice. And you may have a slight overbite, but this will never be considered a fault by others and will never endanger the health of your  fellow teeth. Overall, you are straight, white, perfect little teeth.

Imagine if you were not. Imagine if I or my parents could not afford the dentist. Imagine if you had needed braces when I was younger and there was not enough money to pay for such orthodontists. You would be crooked and perhaps stained. When people would look at you and thus me, they would question my hygiene. They would wonder if I took care of myself properly. They could even be repulsed and tend towards avoiding me. And what if it got worse? What if there was an accident and I lost a tooth? Or had a cavity that caused a tooth to fall out? People's thinking about you would increase tenfold. How could I smile? How would I express happiness? If I can't smile, how do I let someone know that it was a pleasure to meet them without them judging me? How do I get the job I just interviewed for?

So thank you for being you, pretty little teeth. But also thank you to my parent's social standard of good dental hygiene. Thank you for reminding me to brush my teeth and floss. Thank you for taking me to the dentist to get them cleaned.


Sincerely,


The woman who eats all the candies that are bad for you

2/11/2015 Federal Way Branch Library Workshop Willa

Federal Way Branch Library

February 11^th, 2015

3:30 PM – 8:00 PM

            I brought my car to UW in order to make sure that we had enough room for all of the participants who needed a ride to KCLS. Ivette drove the U-car because though Klarissa and I both completed the certification, we were too nervous to drive the car. Not only was the car new and something I had no experience driving, I was also nervous about having children in the car and added confusion from the number of people in the car as well. We left a little late, but we were able to make it to the library on time. We only had one girl and one baby in the early literacy program. I chose to stay and help with the kids during the tour of the library because I want to make Valentine’s cards for my family and do some crafts. After the tour was over and the children’s story time started, I moved my crafts project into the adult digital literacy space. I made paper cranes for all of the participants while Ivette gave the lesson. I’m not sure that I fully engaged with the discussion, but I did notice some distinct differences between Ivette and Sarah’s teaching styles. Ivette, I think, was much more discursive and had the women teach each other more than Ivette teaching them. I think that is was much more open in terms of a class. Ivette’s style let it be an open forum where people could discuss and Ivette was just the discussion leader. Sarah’s teaching style seems to be much more structured. Sarah still has the women contribute, but Sarah is definitely moving with a purpose of teaching x or y. There was also a lengthy discussion in the car on the way back to Seattle about a man who had come into the room towards the end of the class. I was not in the room so I do not have much to say about the matter, but it seemed to me by way of the discussion that it was a very disrupting force.

2/4/2015 Federal Way Library Branch Workshop Willa

Federal Way Branch Library (KCLS)

February 4^th, 2015

3:30 PM – 7:00 PM

            Before Ivette, Klarissa, and I headed to Federal Way, we stopped by Casa Latina in order to pick up Sarah and to pick up some of the materials for the program. From there we left for Federal Way. We hit rush hour traffic, which was annoying and kind of stressful because we were starting to run short on time. The GPS said that we would be a couple minutes late and we had to call Edna at one point in order to let them know that we wouldn’t be on time. In the car, we discussed the plan for the day and talked about Klarissa’s essay briefly.

            When we reached the library, Edna had already gotten started on introducing the online library catalog. She had an interpreter with her because she doesn’t speak Spanish. The children were in the room next door. There were too many babies for just Ivette and Klarissa to take care of so I started helping out. However, the young baby I was taking care of could not stop crying without her mother. I decided that it would be better if the baby stayed with her mother and I would help out by entertaining the baby so the mother could concentrate on the lesson. It worked with moderate success. As time went on the baby could sit on my lap without crying, but she liked knowing where her mother was.

            Ivette and I left early around 6:30 PM so that we could go to a poetry reading by Sherman Alexie at Town Hall.

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.

1/21/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina
January 21st, 2015
4:30 PM  - 7:15 PM

Ivette, Brad, Klarissa, and I left from the University Washington around 4:30. We had previously been working on setting up the tablets for the children. Ivette had purchased three iPad minis for the children along with a couple games such as Osmo Words, Osmo Tangrams, and Tiggly. I set up the iPad minis with no passcodes so that it would be easy for anyone to use them. I think it allows for greater freedom of use: where one does not need to ask to use the technology, but know that s/he can use it as her/his leisure. I also made sure the location services and automatic diagnostic reporting were turned off because it helps put an additional barrier between the children's privacy and big data information. I also set up an Apple ID so that the apps that we download on one iPad would automatically be downloaded onto all of them.  I also set up restrictions so that no one could download music, videos, and podcasts. Also, in restrictions, I made restricted the adult content. I am not particularly worried about the children misusing the technology, but I would rather be on the safe side.

I worked with the children literacy program. The theme for the day was origami. However, initially, the children were more interested in playing with the iPads. There were only three children and so each could play with an iPad. We played with the tangrams first, but it was hard to tell whether or not the camera could see the pieces we were playing with. It started to get frustrating before I realized that the camera needed to be repositioned. By that time, the children were uninterested in playing with it. Then we also played with words, which was much more successful. The only issue with the Osmo apps is that you have to take the iPads out of their cases before use. We also played with the Tiggly apps. The tactile counting aids were really hard to work with and I'm still not sure how to use them. This was also frustrating with the kids.

Once they had tried all of the apps we had already downloaded, they had their own ideas of what to play including: Candy Crush, a make up game, and AngryBirds. Initially, I downloaded them, but I will remove them next week because I realized that the apps should be more focused on learning and less on play. After I explained that to the kids, they started to suggest apps and programs that they had encountered at school.

Towards the end of the time, we did do some origami. We made penguins, which was fun but also confusing. The kids were all really patient during the learning and adapting process.

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.

1/13/2015 Casa Latina Meeting Willa

Casa Latina

January 13^th, 2015

8:10 AM – 12:00 PM

            Ivette and I met with Emily Gaggia at Casa Latina to discuss the progress of the workshops. Emily needs all of the information about the volunteer hours, reflections, and materials by the end of January. We also discussed what type of technology to purchase for the children. One of the ideas was buying stop motion cameras and software. However, we thought that it might be too complex and perhaps frustrating for the amount of time we have during each workshops. I think that we should buy digital cameras, printers, and the proposed tablets because we know how to use those. We have a better chance of teaching them to use it. We also discussed gift cards for the staff members who also volunteered. We were thinking of $30 gift cards to Target or Fred Meyer’s. We were able to talk with Araceli over the phone as well as when she arrived later.

            After our meeting with Emily and Araceli, Ivette and I went downstairs to talk with Sierra about advertising the workshops on the Casa Latina’s Facebook. While there, Kasey also walked in. We talked with them for a while about the grant as well as the aims of the workshops. We also talked about our website and adding a link to Facebook. They wanted us to change our wording about Casa Latina on our website. It was great to meet with both of them and get their feedback. It was also really good to meet with them face to face because now we have that connection that we can draw upon.

1/7/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina

January 7^th, 2015

4:15 PM – 7:00 PM

            Ivette, Stephen, Klarissa, and I left for Casa Latina after our class. We discussed the class plan for the day about Dropboxes and backing up information. We also discussed the activities for the children. The theme for the day with the children was playing with the alphabet.

            After we got to Casa, Ivette, Klarissa, and I worked with the children. There were too many children for a truly organized activity. I worked with one girl on her math homework – division. We worked out a lot of the math equations on the white board. I could tell that she had a hard time focusing on her homework, especially with all of the other things that were going on. However, once she started working out the board, she was able to focus more. By the end, she was solving the questions faster.

I also tried to play some word games with another girl. We spelled out the names of our family members on the white board.

I also noticed that with the babies, their older siblings were ready to take care of them and make sure they were happy. The responsibility the older children assumed helped s and also showed one of the ways the babies will learn in the future. They will follow their brothers and sisters.

            

1/6/2015 Federal Way Library Visit Willa

Time and Location:

Federal Way Library Reflection

January 6^th, 2015

8:10 AM to 12:15 PM

            Ivette and I drove to the Federal Way Library in her tiny, but loud, old VW bug. In between the loud vrooms, we talked about the plan for the meeting with Catherine Lord and Edna. Our approach, as it has been throughout the project, is to start where we are, which means that instead of bringing any kind of definite plans to the table, we wanted to have an open discussion about what the library could offer and what we could offer in return in order to create a successful partnership. Our only steadfast requirements are a workspace for the people, childcare for their children, the requisite technology, and volunteers to help.

            The library has a beautiful space with large windows that allow viewers to see the forestry outside. It is also a large space with many computers and books of course. After we arrived, we looked at the meeting rooms where we would be holding the workshops as well as providing educational activities for the children.

I think that the future workshops at the Federal Way Branch library will be incredibly successful because of the enthusiasm of Catherine and Edna. Furthermore, they had a lot of different avenues for spreading the word about the February programs.

            Afterwards, Ivette and I headed back to Seattle and stopped by a coffee shop to discuss the blog and reflection posting for the class. We also talked about a way organize the posts using tagging.