4/1/2015 Workshop Douglass-Truth Library Klarissa

Location: Douglass-Truth Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 4/1/2015

For the crafts with the kids we did a photography through literacy project, which Ivette lead, called My Favorite Place. We all thought of our favorite place and drew it with oil pastels. Then, we had our pictures taken from behind so we could glue ourselves, cut out, into our favorite place. But one thing, we forgot to have them write anything about their favorite place, so I’m not sure about the literacy goal there. A few kids drew libraries as their favorite place, which is exciting. After that, since some of the girls had wanted to do origami last week, we did a little bit of origami. Willa and I had prepped by practicing a few different shapes. However, they were not as interested in doing the origami now. Instead they were excited to be in the library this month, and so we spent an hour in the kids section. We asked the kids about what they liked to read, but for the most part they browsed through the books on their own. I noticed the younger girls picked up some princess books, and I wonder how much that is because gender stereotypes are marketed to children.

I did not look too much at the books in terms of content or messages, as I was surprised at how nostalgic I felt looking at all the books I had read in elementary and middle school. Thinking back, the books I read, such as the Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie series, privilege the story of white American settlers. But it seemed like there were some more books that showed other perspectives. One of the girls showed me her favorite book which seemed to deal with modern indigeneity. 

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.

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.

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. :)

2/25/2015 Workshop Federal Way Library Klarissa

Location: Federal Way Public Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 2/25/2015

We were all in the same room again, and the kids were mostly doing homework and reading. We couldn’t do a craft anyway. Brad and I played with the infant and her older sister since wifi was down. Other kids left to play in the children’s area.

At storytime the boys from last week were there and  ready to listen, but the girl was not. Instead, she was quietly reading out loud to herself from a book. When we moved to a different area to read, I asked if she just didn’t like the story. She said she didn’t want to listen, because she didn’t understand Spanish. And yet, she replied to the librarian,“sí, comprendo español.” I’ve also seen her interact with her mother almost exclusively in Spanish. Questioning her on this, she said that she didn’t fully understand it and it was dumb. I only said Spanish isn’t dumb, and dropped it.

This is an interesting moment for me, because I didn’t know how to respond. How do I create a space where I only speak English, but support and emphasize the children’s Spanish and Latino identities, as a wonderful part of them, not anything to be ashamed of? 

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.

2/18/2015 Federal Way Library Workshop Klarissa

Location: Federal Way Public Library

Time 5-7

Date: 2/18/2015

We were all in one room today, kids and adults. The planned theme was “Using Technology with Kids” as a family workshop, but the women had specific things they wanted to work on.

There were four boys around 6-8 years old present, which was a bit of a pickle as we had only three iPad minis. We tried to encourage them to share, to play games together, such as the word guessing game on the Osmo. The played the word game for a little bit, but then one broke off to play the chef game with the Tiggly, then another wanted to play that game and soon everyone wanted to play that game on their own tablet. It was not as easy to make that a work together game, and so one boy was left out, upset. Although Brad tried for a while, for some reason he was unable to get the other tablets to download games. So I let the other boy use my Surface tablet, though the only game I have is Jetpack Joyride. That started a commotion over everyone now wanting to play that game. It’s never fair with children, is it? I could probably say the same with adults though, we want what they have, not what we have.

Anyway, that didn’t last long as it was then storytime. I sat and listened, amazed with the librarian’s ability to keep the attention of the boys, who were not wanting to stay still. I talked to the storytime librarian for a bit afterwards about children’s programs, the ones she runs and the research she’s done with education. Meanwhile, Brad was playing with the boys in the children’s section, running around on all fours, which was funny to see.

2/11/2015 Federal Way Library Workshop Klarissa

Location: Federal Way Public Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 2/11/2015

Today, there were only two children, one older kid and an infant. Another kid, middle-school age, was doing homework in the back of the adult room. We had planned to make Valentine’s cards, and started to make a few after some negotiation with our one attendee, who wanted to read.

Again we had to move into the adult room at 6, time for storytime. There were a few kids in the children’s section of the library who gathered for storytime, which is good because I had felt bad that the librarian had shown up and there were no kids with us who would sit through storytime. The infant was not feeling well and fussy, the other was reading on her own. Since there was not much for Willa and I to do, we made cards in the back of the adult room. 

3/4/2015 Workshop Casa Latina Klarissa

Location: Casa Latina

Time: 5-630

Date: 3/4/2015

Casa Latina was very quiet today.  Two older girls and two infants. Stephanie helped me with the kids. Since we had to leave early we didn’t bring any crafts, only the ipads which were almost dead. I have been a little hectic this quarter, and did not plan very well ahead. Again, planning. How many times do I need to learn this?  Since I have very little experience with children, it’s important, because I don’t have a “bag of tricks” to fall back on yet. Still, kids are very good at entertaining themselves and they found amusement in the bag of jelly beans that Ivette brought- doing blind tastings, trying to trick each other into not being able to guess the flavors in various combinations.

Ivette, Stephanie and I left early to be able to attend a lecture by Anne Balsamo on campus, one of the founders of FemTechNet. FemTechNet’s manifesto is at the core of our mission as Ivette laid it out(rewrite this sentence). The lecture was quite interesting, but not what I had thought it would be. The title of her newest book, “Designing Culture” to me, as an anthropology student seemed as if this would be theoretical and broader- a discussion on social construction through the ways we design informational technology perhaps. And I haven’t read the book, so maybe it is about that. But the lecture was about a project to digitally archive the AIDS memorial quilt- which is interesting in itself.

There is the idea of resisting the silencing of historical narratives, queer history and the still active creation of the quilt.

She talked about technological obsolence and the quickly shifting paradigms- how long will our informational technologies be useful as holders of history, artifacts, words, ideas and knowledge? 

2/18/15, Federal Way Library, Freddy Mora

Location: Federal Way Public Library
Date: Feb. 18th, 2015
Time: 5: 00 PM-7:00 PM

 

Reflection:

It was nice to be back at the Federal Way Public Library. As always, the staff members were very welcoming. Edna goes out of her way to make everyone feel at home there, and I notice how this branch is a community of its own.  It was great talking to Edna and hearing more about her background. Also nice to hear she is a UW alumni, and from the I-School! She sounds like she identifies well with the work that Casa Latina is doing, and I am sure she is one who would love to keep on partnering with this project.

 Throughout the work shop, I walked around and observed how people were interacting with one another, and with the resources that were available. Edna was working with a mom and daughter in ensuring she was knowledgeable of the free resources available to her, form scholarships to academic tutoring. The mom was very excited to hear all of that, especially. It was nice to see the kids playing on the tablets and interacting with the games. They really enjoyed a counting game that had you count the ingredients you needed (mushrooms, carrots, etc.) and upon getting a math problem right, you completed the recipe. Then they headed over to story time, which they were hesitant at first, for they were having too much fun with the tablets! It was a good chill day where people got to do their thing and ask any questions they had, and have us come in and help them find an answer J

2/11/2015 Federal Way Branch Library Workshop Klarissa

Location: Federal Way Public Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 2/11/2015

Today, there were only two children, one older kid and an infant. Another kid, middle-school age, was doing homework in the back of the adult room. We had planned to make Valentine’s cards, and started to make a few after some negotiation with our one attendee, who wanted to read.

Again we had to move into the adult room at 6, time for storytime. There were a few kids in the children’s section of the library who gathered for storytime, which is good because I had felt bad that the librarian had shown up and there were no kids with us who would sit through storytime. The infant was not feeling well and fussy, the other was reading on her own. Since there was not much for Willa and I to do, we made cards in the back of the adult room. 

At the end there was an interesting scenario, as we were packing to leave. A gentleman walked into the room, towards the back without saying anything, grabbed coffee, then asked what the event was as he left the room. I heightened my awareness when he walked in, but thought little of it until Ivette engaged a conversation in the car on this with all of us and asked me what my thoughts were. Mostly since he hadn't said anything when he entered, I was watching him, trying to figure out what he wanted. But I was on guard, as this was a man entering into a space filled with women and children. 

We want this to be a space welcoming to everyone, so this is an interesting thing to think about, how we judge those who enter as belonging or not. 

2/4/2015 Federal Way Library Workshop Klarissa

Location: Federal Way Public Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 2/4/2015

Today was the first day at our partner libraries instead of at Casa Latina. It was a bit longer drive to Federal Way than we thought but we got there only a few minutes late. There were a couple older children, and three under-ones, though one would not tolerate being away from mom. Is there a way to be less scary to kids? I’m starting to feel like I must be scary.

I thought the kids might make masks today out of paper plates, and they seemed excited about the idea, but did not get very far, though they did color up some pretty plates. They got distracted and wanted to run around, I guess they do sit all day at school. Although we were not the best planned at getting snacks, and then getting everything moved out of the room, which was otherwise reserved at 6, it did go okay. The story time was wonderful, I sat through it with one of the little ones. The older kids did not want to sit still, and ran off but I was happy to see that they had found another corner of the library to read on their own.

I am always in awe of how kids can make friends so easily, or at least find a way to have fun with people they’ve never met. 

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.  

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 Klarissa

Location: Casa Latina

Date: 1/21/2015

Time: 5pm

Today was an interesting day with the children. Will and I were with them. We just received mini-iPads, along with Tiggly counts and Osmo, some interactive attachments to the tablets. Luckily, there were three iPads and three children. We will have to workout a sharing strategy for times when this is not the case. We did not focus on any VIEWS2 skills. The kids were incredibly, and almost solely, interested in playing on the tablets. We did not have any infants or toddlers this week, which allowed us to be focused on helping them learn the games and engage in conversation with the kids.

Having just received them before the workshop, we didn’t have time to play with them ourselves beforehand and become familiar with Osmo or Tiggly. But its usually my experience that children are very fast at figuring out how things work. I didn’t get to see them play with Tiggly, but my impression is that it didn’t work terribly well. There are magnets which the screen is supposed to respond to, and it seemed like that didn’t happen always. The word game on Osmo was the biggest hit and I’ll have to admit that it was actually a bit difficult as you got further into the game. (a picture of a tree house was supposed to give us a clue to the word ‘door,’ which was not any of our guesses). The word game can be played with a couple people, which is great, because there is only one Osmo device. Still, three people is a bit much, so one is left out. Another complication to the sharing strategy.

At some point they asked about downloading other apps, especially Candy Crush and one that has to do with makeup. Intially we agreed to these, as age-appropriate, but they are not really learning apps. So we told them that next week we would have to stick to apps that are educational. I was a bit surprised that rather than being upset by this or trying to argue that these apps could be educational, they started to show up the apps they use at school. We had some trouble getting them set up on the math app their school uses, as it asks for school IDs but one of the kids figured it out and helped his sister. By the time they were about to leave, they were writing math problems on the white board.

Before next week, we should look up and vet educational apps, to have ready. 

We also did not plan a craft this week, so we tried origami because we had the paper and some instruction books with us. But we didn’t try this out before, either, so we had a few frustrations. I did manage to make a penguin. The kids glued googly eyes to their penguins, so cute! 

So I learned that some planning is important, even with the goal of flexibility.

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. 

1/7/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Klarissa

Location: Casa Latina

Date: 1/7/2015

Time: 5pm 

I was with the children today. I was nervous before hand because Jen and Xochitl were not here, and I realized I would have to take over the children’s program the night before. I have never done professional childcare or storytime, and was unsure of how to go about planning activities. As usual however, worry turned out to be unnecessary. Following Ivette’s advice after our trial runs last month, I picked a VIEWS2 focus (phonetic awareness). I found a few songs that pay attention to vowel sounds or rhyming, and thought about how we can ask questions while playing that focus on phonetics.

 Ivette and Willa were with me in the children’s room. We had quite a few kids this week! With this experience and the last one, it seems we will have a few under 18 months, who require more one on one attention. I realized that the older kids are happy to entertain themselves, but also willing to help with the small ones. Like last time, we did not really get a structure established, there was a lot of free play, and no storytime. But rather than feeling failed because we didn’t get to the planned activities, I felt okay with that. Instead we focused, even in play, on asking about spelling and sounds, or even just asking probing questions about what they’re playing with.

I’m excited to be back this quarter and to see these workshops take off after our planning last quarter!

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.

1/13/2015 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.