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.

2/18/15, 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

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.

1/21/2015 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.