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.

4/29/15 Workshop Douglass-Truth Library Kaylah

Location: Douglass-Truth Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 4/29/15

     Today had a special dedication to Mother’s day, as it is approaching. As a group we all started off with playing a big game of “Loteria,” or “Bingo.” I thought this was a nice activity because normally the adults are separated from the kids, but today we did an activity as a cohesive group.  I don’t speak fluent Spanish, but this activity was especially cool because everyone knew how to play bingo regardless of the language, and I even began to remember Spanish I had learned in high school.

     We played several rounds and everyone was able to get a prize. It was a good activity for people to get engaged in. After, we split into our groups. Mother’s day cards had been a craft we had been talking about all month, and today was the day we finally got to do it. The kids had fun drawing pictures for their moms and writing sweet messages inside like “te quiero mucho.”

     It doesn’t matter if you’re artistic or not, mothers are always going to appreciate hand made cards.  I thought I was going to buy my mom a card, but now we all have something to give our moms that we made. I think making a card vs. buying a card is the better way to go.

      

4/29/15 Workshop Douglass-Truth Library Brad

Location: Douglass-Truth Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 4/29/2015

Today we made mothers’ day the focus of our workshop with the children. The first activity we did was a bingo-style game with the group as a whole (women and children together). I loved doing an activity with everyone together; it is refreshing to have both the families and the facilitators all playing the same game. I really felt like we were bridging the gap between our communities and enjoying a moment together. As an added bonus this game helped me learn some new Spanish vocabulary, which is always positive.

            Once several rounds of the game were played and people collected their prizes, the technology workshop for the women started and our group split like usual. With mothers’ day fast approaching, an obvious craft we could do was make cards for our moms. Some of the children got very creative with their cards, using a variety of colors and drawing techniques (I totally forgot about holding three crayons at once!). One child asked Willa how to memorize the colors of the rainbow- ROYGBIV!

            Making crafts for our moms made me miss my own mother. Sometimes it is difficult going to school so far away from home, but I never forget all of the awesome things my mom has done for me over the years. My parents continued support helps me every step of the way along this new journey at college.

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. 

4/8/15 Workshop Douglass-Truth Library Brad

Location: Douglass-Truth Library

Time: 5-7pm

Date: 4/8/2015

Today the children put on a puppet show using puppets made from paper lunch bags. We encouraged the kids to draw characters on the bags using the art supplies we provided. Some examples of characters included goldilocks, a puppy, and Mike from Monsters, Inc. The kids seemed very excited about putting on a show for us, and we were happy to see them enthusiastic about making up their own story.

            Once everyone had made at least one puppet, the whole group left our indoor space and set up the stage outdoors. I filmed with an iPad while the children discussed behind closed curtains how they wanted to put on the show. Unfortunately, one of the kids was very bossy about how she wanted the story to play out, shutting down the other kids’ ideas in favor of her own. It was obvious that the other kids were not happy about this, but they went along with it anyways.

            Regardless of the child who was bossing the other ones around, everyone had fun putting on the show and the story was definitely original. They even encouraged me to put down the camera and control a puppet of my own, which I did. This helped me remember how important imaginative play is with young children.  It’s unfortunate that we start to use less and less of our imaginations as we grow older; nobody says we have to grow up.

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.

2/25/15 Federal Way Branch Library Workshop Ivette

Describe Context –The youth and adults were all in the same room today.  We had 4 adults and and a total of 8 pre-teens and a one year old.  Library staff were Edna, Jennifer, Teresa and David (translator).  Sonia was there to provide bilingual storytime the last 30 mins (this time instead of the storytime starting at 6:00 - Sonia waited til 6:30 to do the storytime).  Brad, Klarissa and I were there on behalf of the class.

           

Date:2/25/15

Name: Ivette Bayo Urban

List things that happened today:

Sarah and Willa were not going to be joining us today as both had other personal items to tend to.  

The library was planning the full two hours.  First hour as demonstrate e-readers and the final hour as exploring time and 1:1.

In the news:

Today was our last day at the Federal Way Regional Branch.
For March we will be at Casa Latina.

List Action Items from workshop:

• Sarah updating the March Flyers
• Once she does Ivette to print and bring to Casa
• Brad to upload them to latinatech website

  Things to look up, check out and explore:

•  Prepare for Latina Tech to be at Women Who Rock  
• Coordinate Month of April activities at Douglass-Truth
  

Describe an important an evocative social interaction that happened today:

One of the youth, who attends middle school, reached out to me to ask about some math homework.  I felt this was an amazing thing because even though I had only interacted with her briefly in the previous two weeks, she recalled me saying I had taught math.  I felt this was one of those unanticipated wonders that can happen when you get people from different backgrounds together conviviendo.

Describe successes.

At the end of our time Edna did an oral assessment.  Her question was on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 being least comfortable/knowledgeable and 5 being the most) - how would you rate what you knew about the library before these workshops.  On average  (including the students, youth and adults in the room) the pre workshops rating was like 2.  She then asked the question again now that we have gone through the LatinaTech workshops at Federal Way branch and all the people rated they had increased in knowledge of information resources the library offers.  I would say on average they went up 2 points in feeling they had a better idea of what libraries and libraries could assist with. 

A few things to note.  The UW students that present today were not in the MLIS program.  Two of the women attended all 4 workshops at the federal way library.  One woman attended 3 of the 4 workshops at federal way and serves as our Casa Latina mentor/leader.  The other woman was new but had participated in the women's advisory at the start of this project.  

I feel additionally that I feel the program was successful because outreach was more than bi-directional.  Students engaging with community and libraries, libraries engaging with community partner and UW, UW engaging with youth/pre-teens.  The space was full of talking, laughing, questions, trouble shooting, movement, food and in a word comfort.  I feel that very quickly we all felt welcomed and at home at the federal way library with the resources, space and people. 

Describe a failure.  What fell through the cracks?

Failure to follow up with the women from Casa Latina in a consistent manner.  I had not emailed or phoned the women from Casa Latina - the forms of outreach I have been using (because of time constraints) has been promoting it on the Latina Tech facebook and the CL fb site.  While Casa Latina members have been promoting it with members.  Library also did promoting to their outreach sources. 

What surprised me the most?

How having a dying phone (that needs to be recharged) really impacts our abilities to explore in an environment that is comfortable to us. 

Reflections

“Because there is more information on any given topic that anyone can store in their head, there is added incentive for us to talk among ourselves about the media we consume…consumption has become a collective process…. None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources and combine our skills (2006a: 3-4)  
(Jenkins, H. as cited in Balsamo, 2011)".    ------> I added emphasis.

Despite the logistical challenges (and granted opportunity - thanks Pipeline for offering the vehicle) of driving to Federal Way and coordinating people - I am going to miss going there.  Edna (and all the staff, translators, and volunteers that attended the Fed Way sessions form KCLS were enthusiastic, welcoming and greeted all of us with love and humility while sharing an understanding of additional resources.  

Anne Balsamo in her book designing culture writes:

“knowledge creation happens across diverse settings including formal institutions,  and through informal social and technological practices.” (p. 154)

“A successful project of transformative research (....I would add of community/convivencia...)  involves creating the conditions whereby participants explicitly understand and commit to the goal of creating shared rules, beliefs, and norms.”

I feel that for our time at Federal Way regional branch, we were successful in creating shared rules, beliefs and norms and ensuring that everyone brought something to the table.  We made learning a collective process.  Additionally, each of the partners pooled our resources together to combine our skills to make this experience worthy of the investment.  

 

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

2/18/15 Federal Way Branch Library Workshop Sarah

Federal Way Branch Library
February 18th, 2015
3:30 to 8:00pm

We had a group of about six kids and two adults. At the beginning, we were all kind of milling around. Since this sort of makes me nervous, I started suggesting to other volunteers that they take out this technology or that, or show this or that, which I hope wasn't too bossy. Sometimes it's hard to know what role to take in a project where there is a communal/decentralized structure.

I used the laptop from KCLS to work with an adult student on MS Word, while the other adult student was using tablets with the kids. After kids went to story time, the other adult came over. The lack of ability to download anything to the training laptop was difficult, but my laptop didn't recognize the mouse, which was more difficult. I'll be sure to bring a couple of laptops from Casa Latina next week, just in case they want to work on MS Word more. I'll also try to figure out how to change the language settings on MS Word.

I made a flyer with their input. Then I asked one of the women, who'd been working with me the longest, to make a flyer. She did it seamlessly. She took careful notes and was a quick study. Her daughter warned her that their version of Word at home was different, so hopefully she'll be able to translate the skills she learned to her computer at home.

Next week is our last week in Federal Way. These two women have been attending consistently. I will be interested to hear from them what worked for them and what didn't. It will be good feedback for our process at Douglass-Truth and Lake City.

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.

2/11/2015 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. 

2/4/15, Federal Way Library, Freddy Mora

Location: Federal Way Public Library
Date: Feb. 4th, 2015
Time: 5: 00 PM-7:00 PM

Reflection:

It was interesting to check out another Seattle Public Library (or in this case, a Federal One). I have only been to the downtown and University District Locations. Every staff member was welcoming. The place was quite large, and very well maintained and organized.

The presentation that Edna and the interpreter gave was very informative. The women seemed to enjoy it. I even learned some new things myself, like how you can request a book to be transferred to a different branch for you! I liked looking around the rooms and seeing how eager the women were to learn. Sarah gave a great presentation, and allowed for time to have the women interact with tables and follow alongside with her. I was curious to know from what areas the other women (who didn’t drive down with us) were from. What topics were they hoping to have covered? Are they interested in future workshops?

 

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.