Looking Back at 2008

So 2008 is not quite over. However, for inherIT, things are winding down as we approach Christmas and the summer holidays. I'd like to thank those who have been involved (directly or indirectly) and wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year. This year, we've embarked on a journey and though the steps we've taken are small, we're headed towards our goals with hope and enthusiasm.

inherIT, was established with the following aims:

• Increasing the participation of women as users and developers of technology
• Providing skills training for women in order to facilitate improved opportunities
• Leveraging technology to foster community development and social integration

We've made some important strides and we hope this post provides you with a brief overview of what we've achieved to date and where we're headed in the future.

Our efforts this year have been channeled towards the development and delivery of a basic computer skills course tailored for women. We've successfully delivered courses to a number of different groups and improved the course content to cater to people with varying literacy levels.

Here are some of the important milestones we passed as 2008 unfolded...

Jul 10 : inherIT was established with the aim of encouraging women to leverage technology to broaden their opportunities.
Jul 31 - Sep 19: We conducted our first computer skills course at the Sydwest Multicultural Services Inc.(SMSI) for a migrant group.
Oct 16 - Dec 4: As a result of continued interest and demand, we conducted our second course at the SMSI for a migrant group.
Oct 24 - Nov 21: We conducted our first outreach course in conjunction with SMSI for a Liberian women's group at Mount Druitt in western Sydney.
Oct 27 - Nov 18: For the first time, inherIT conducted its own 4 week course with 8 classes and 12 contact hours. This class catered exclusively to women and was well attended.
Nov 13: We initiated a course for the Darfuri women's group at SMSI.

And the numbers that go with them...

Courses Delivered: 5
Total Classes: 33
Contact Hours: 60.5
Total Students: 53
Regular Students (>66% attendance): 21

And how it's been facilitated...

Estimated* value of services provided in Australian Dollars
Investments & expenses (Laptops, printing, misc.): $1,941.99
SMSI** contribution (Space, computers, printing): $734.00
inherIT teaching services: $1,712.50
Total: $4388.49

* Refer to our Organisational Statistics page for detailed information
** Sydwest Multicultural Services Inc.

As we roll into the next year, here's our "to do list":

Operations & Service Delivery

• Set up a weekly centre to provide women with the opportunity to attend classes and practise regularly.
• Establish a system/process by which students can be trained to take on teaching responsibilities.
• Explore opportunities to deliver our classes in additional locations in western Sydney.

Organisational Development

• Research and develop industry and government contacts to explore avenues for future partnerships and funding opportunities.
• Establish a set of long term options and put together a strategic plan.
• Set up a non-profit structure and board.
  

Course & Content Development

• Improve our current course material to incorporate the use of visual tools.
• Encourage students to participate in community projects aimed at helping them use newly acquired skills.
  
  

And last but not least, a few acknowledgements...

Sydwest Multicultural Services Inc.: SMSI and the lovely staff who work there have been pivotal to our development, and we are immensely thankful for their continued support.
SAIL (Sudanese Australian Integrated Learning Program): SAIL has been instrumental in helping inherIT reach out to its target audience.
Saritha Manickam & Nirupama Ramachandran: For their support and contribution to course development.
Vivek Nityananda: For his logos and hard work.
James Haggerty: For his time and effort with technical questions and putting together a few neat things.

SMS 3.5

A day of heavy rain proved to lower the class size considerably. We had 2 students today. Gemeila and Amal learnt about the internet today. We opened internet explorer and learnt how to search for things - including jobs, Barack Obama, America and Sudan.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1(Geetha)
Participants: 2( Amal,Gemeila)
Course Handouts: 2 pp
Computers Used: 2

Future Projects

While our primary focus at the current time is to refine and improve our delivery of basic computer classes, in the not too distant future, inherIT hopes to facilitate production projects conceived and executed primarily by the women who attend our classes.

We would like these projects to draw on their current knowledge and combine them with the new skills they have learnt, to produce something that will contribute to their development and benefit the community. Should you have feedback or additional ideas, feel free to email or leave a comment.

A brief outline of potential projects is provided below. Each project also lists some of the individual and community benefits that are anticipated on account of these projects.

Project Recipe Book

This project aims to compile a book of recipes contributed by women from different communities. The aim of the project is to encourage the women to contribute to the production effort by typing up their recipe and helping them put together the appropriate graphic/video material needed.

Individual Component:

* Making a Power Point/video/photo presentation of the recipe they wish to share
* Typing and integrating their recipe into a consolidated Word processor/publishing software
* Providing a list of updates for glossary/index/table of contents.

Community Component:

* Build a collection of shareable recipes
* Compile information to be distributed to the community
* Create a website with recipes and cooking tips

Learning Outcomes:

* Use Power Point, Excel and Word to type in and integrate contributions
* Use pictures/videos to illustrate recipes
* Learn about other cuisines

Project Language Guide

This project is intended to bring to light the wealth of language skills possessed by the migrant and refugee community. Women will be encouraged to put together a list of words/phrases/sentences in their languages/dialects. The language guide may be a valuable resource for other members of the community who would like to become familiar with different languages.

Individual Component:

* Making a powerpoint presentation describing some simple phrases and words in their language and their usage.
* Typing and integrating input with those from other languages.
* Compile a dictionary of commonly used words.

Community Component:

* Provide opportunities for cross learning.
* Compile information and produce a language guide for multiple languages.
* Create and maintain a database of simple phrases and words across multiple languages.

Learning Outcomes:

* Use Power Point, Excel and Word to type in and integrate contributions.
* Learn how to use native langauge script in these applications.
* Become familiar with other languages.

At a later stage, should the women develop skills to handle and use publishing and graphics software packages, a few more projects could become feasible:

* Producing a website (or book) of traditional stories illustrated and narrated by the women.
* Producing a website (or book) of proverbs/traditional sayings with translations.

SMS3.4

Our class with the women's group in SydWest Multicultural Services was as engaging as ever. I'm unsure what it is about this group - perhaps it is partly because I was told that many of them have minimal literacy and that it would be hard to teach them - but the classes have been really good until now and we have been using a range of resources to enhance their learning.

It is most definitely possible to teach women who have minimal literacy skills to do a number of different things on the computer. It is a matter of working around their skills and using appropriate tools. More importantly, they have the ability to teach you so much. Most of these women are exceptionally smart. Today, we did a simple typing and formatting excercise using the Bold, Italic and Underline functions. We also did some online quizzes, used the typing tutor application and used an application called checky to help them practise and improve their mouse handling.

There were two moments in this class which really made me sit back and realise just how intelligent these women really are. At one point, i was explaining the minimize button on the top of program windows. I asked them what it actually does. Fatma quickly responded with "Go Back". What she meant was that the window goes back to the task bar. This was a phrase that I had repeated many times when i taught them about the minimize button 2 weeks ago. It was such a delight to have her say those words back to me - and to say them in a way that was emphatic and clearly indicated she knew what it did.

The other interesting occurence during the class was when Gemeila clicked on a link on the online quiz we tried and found an entire list of quizzes - some of which were easier and better to use for the class. I had spent a good hour the previous evening looking for suitable quizzes and hadnt quite found what I wanted.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 2 (Geetha & Alice)
Participants: 7( Amal, Finda, Gemeila, Phoebe, Safia, Fatma, Almarina )
Course Handouts: 3 pp
Computers Used: 6

MRC2.8

Our last class at the MRC proved to be a quite subdued as only 2 students turned up for class. As a result, I restructured the class a little and went over a number of different activities including opening, editing and saving files as well as internet and email activities.

Overall, I tried to verbally run through various tasks and ask them to perform them based on my verbal cues. This was good to do as it enabled me to gauge what they had and hadn't learnt.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 2 (Madelina Ary , Mary)
F:M : 2:0
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 2

SMS3.3

Our class today endeavoured to try out a few different applications and tools. The students worked on the typing tutor as well as using an application for mouse clicking. They also worked on an online quiz which helped them move through a test - a skill that many of them need to learn. In addition to this we also did the excercise on edit functions (Cut, copy, paste).

The class turnout today was significantly lower. This was a little disappointing but I'm hoping this was a one off event and that things may return to normal next week. However, with the school holidays fast approaching, we'll have to see how things turn out.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 4 ( Amal, Gamalat, Finda, Gemeila )
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 4

MRC2.7

We've finished all but one class in this series. It's been a productive course with a number of people learning a fair amount and progressing well. Today, the class opened email accounts and tried sending a few emails. Once they overcame the difficulties in logging in and remembering cryptic passwords, things were a lot smoother.

We also revised some of the previously visited concepts and most of them were sent links in their response emails which they then followed to browse the news (most of which was focussed on the unfortunate spate of attacks in Mumbai).

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 5 (Madelina Ary , Tarekgn Russoom, Mohamad Aria, Yordanos, Mary)
F:M : 3:2
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 5

WAS1.4

I had my fourth and final class with the Liberian Womens group at the WASH house in Mt Druitt today. The women worked with the typing application for the first few minutes before we got into discussing fonts & formatting. I asked them to do the excercise that involves typing and formatting the Australian National Anthem.

Although this is a small group, they are very quick learners and I always end up feeling that I should have packed more into each class in order to accelerate their learning.

This group was hoping that I would be able to come in for a few more weeks. Unfortunately, I don't really think this is going to be possible due to transport and time constraints. This is rather unfortunate and I hope I can work something out so that I can do a few more classes with them early next year.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1
Participants: 6 (Annita, Joyce King, Nanseh, Marie Layweh, Marie, Babygirl)
Course Handouts: 2 pp
Computers Used: 5

SMS3.2

We had our second of eight classes for the Darfuri Womens group between 12.30 and 2.30 at SydWest Multicultural Services Inc. today. This is a truly engaging group and I'm constantly stretching myself so that I can help them progress faster. I tried a different format of class today since a big part of teaching this group is to encourage them to stay focussed on their activity.

I have done a number of different things in our first two classes. During the first class I had emphasised the importance of reading, writing, listening and speaking as paths to learning. I have also structured the class so that each student is expected to do at least some of each. I also write on the whiteboard in order to slow down the tempo and to emphasize certain key words.

Today I explained a concept or idea and then asked them to execute a small activity to back it up. For e.g, we discussed point and click and then clicked the start button to open the Start Menu. We discussed menus and then went back and used the start Menu to open the all programs menu. We discussed program windows and then they were asked to open a program. I did something else that I had not done with earlier classes which was to ask them to open multiple windows and getting them to use the minimize, resize and close buttons. I think we built a good foundation by doing these mini activities and I repeatedly used these words so that by the end, if I said minimize your window - they were quite happy to do so - which was remarkable and heartening.


Once again, Alice stayed around and helped with the class - she is proving to be very competent and capable. Hopefully, she will be helping out with next Thursdays class as well.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 2
Participants: 9 ( Amal, Aisha, Almarina, Safia, Gamalat, Finda, Fatma, Nagwa, Gemeila )
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 7

MRC2.6

In our 9.30 am class the students were introduced to the concept of the internet, browsers and webpages. This is the first time I have really taught this module and had students carry out the activities such as accessing a url and using a search engine. Before class, I also loaded a typing application (Courtesty James). It basically displays different letters and provides students a timed interval where they should try to type in the letters. Some of the students loved it and improved showed significant improvement after playing with it for about half an hour. Some were indifferent.

Alice has been helped out with this class today and did a very good job.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 5 (Madelina Ary , Tarekgn Russoom, Mohamad Aria, Yordanos, Mary)
F:M : 3:2
Course Handouts: 5 pp
Computers Used: 5

TBC1.8

Today was our final class for this course. The classes at Toongabbie Community Centre were independently run by inherIT with all materials and resources being provided by the organisation. Our students did an activity of their choice today in order to consolidate their learning.

As Kumuthini said: Today, I was finally able to open the file on my own and start typing and then save it. I could not do any of this before.

To some of us, this may seem elementary, but the students - especially the ones who need more help, appreciate that a patient and considerate environment is provided for them to learn despite their difficulties. As some of them pointed out, this is not the case in many normal classes.

Since this will be my last post on this set of classes, i'd like to mention how we went about setting up this class. inherIT has rented a room in the Community Centre from Holroyd Council. Some publicity material was distributed through the SydWest MCS as well as at Blacktown library. We also did a few mailouts in the neighbourhoods surrounding the centre. Overall, I would say we did very little pulicity, however our class did fill up. Our aim was to take upto 8 students but certain classes ended up having upto 10 and some only 6. Every Monday and Tuesday, we have taken our own laptops and set these up. Towards the end, the students were able to set up and dismantle laptops on their own. Some of the teachers and participants were picked up and dropped. We did not print materials but provided folders with activities of varying levels that the students were free to use and they were given notebooks and encouraged to take notes. Some of the participants photocopied the notes for their own use.

Overall, this has been what I would consider a good first step and the students are extremely keen to have more classes and progress further. Most of those who attended today were looking forward to Jan/Feb when I have promised to kick off classes once again.

Now that I have made these promises, it is going to be a huge effort to revamp and restructure the material based on the experience with this group. I am especially skeptical about the usefuleness of the material for people who have trouble reading and need to think of how to help these people to progress a little better.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 2 (Genifer + Geetha)
Participants: 6 (Lynne, Kokhila, Rebecca, Kumuthini, Abuk , Madelina)
Course Handouts: None
Computers Used: 5 (+1, Lynne bought her own laptop)

TBC1.7

We had another rather lively class today. Most of the students worked on different activities based on their own interests. The ones who have progressed have done so remarkably well and spent much of today helping out the others in the class. They are comfortable doing various functions and using different applications on the computer. There are a number of them who are still struggling and for whom my current teaching methods were not effective. Veering away from typing intensive activities is probably going to be a key focus area when I concentrate on course development during December/January.


Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1
Participants: 9 (Lynne, Eamon, Kumuthini, Kokhila, Ariet, Rebecca, Hakima, Rawda, Abuk )
Course Handouts: None
Computers Used: 6 (+1, Lynne bought her own laptop)

SMS3.1

We kicked off yet another set of classes at SydWest Multicultural Services Inc (Formerly Blacktown Migrant Resource Centre). These classes will run between 12.30 and 2.30 every Thursday and is primarily for the Darfuri womens group at the centre.

Many of these women have come from rather difficult circumstances and in many cases, have limited literacy and numeracy skills. It will be a challenge to engage these women and provide them a useful learning experience. The first class however, did go rather well.

We covered basic computer parts, keyboard layout and mouse clicks. The students typed in their personal details on the computer and saved their work. Most of them seemed very happy with the class.

It was definitely the largest class I have taken till now but a really good one since the women seemed very enthusiastic and we built up a good rapport. Unfortunately, I failed to take a photograph during this class since I was too engrossed in juggling the 10 women.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 10 (Grace, Amal, Aisha, Almarina, Kadhiga, Safia, Kamalat, Jackline, Finda, )
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 7

MRC2.5

The morning class at the MRC (Future posts will refer to the MRC as SMS or SydWest Multicultural Services) today covered powerpoint. We also had a brief discussion of the concepts we covered in previous classes so that the students could recollect what they had done earlier.

We had one new student and since she was early I ran through some of the material covered in earlier classes and will do so once again in the next class.

The students are gradually getting acclimatized to the idea of opening and using other applications and quite a few of them found it interesting to play around with powerpoint/impress.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 6 (Madelina Ary , Tarekgn Russoom, Mohamad Aria, Nagwa Lino, Nahid, Yordanos)
F:M : 4:2
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 6

TBC1.6

Our third week of classes came to a close today. We have one final week where students will be encouraged to consolidate their learning and do something independently. Overall, it has been a fascinating experience and one that has resulted in a few different learning outcomes. Some of the students have progressed rapidly and have even completed advanced excercises in excel and powerpoint (or OpenOffice Calc and Impress respectively).

A stiff challenge still remains in trying to address students with minimal literacy skills and consequent learning difficulties. It will require a fair amount of thinking to enhance their learning experience. At present, these students tend to stagnate at the point where they keep typing in different pieces of text in notepad/word. However, since they struggle with English, this may not be the best method and an alternative approach using other tools/applications may in fact lead to more improvement for these women.

Lastly, I would like to comment on the teachers/aides that have helped out during these lessons. Madelina has done some basic set up and tear down and helped some students with basic typing skills. Genifer has helped one or two students with their excercises. She is able to grasp new excercises very quickly and makes a good effort to help them as much as possible. Kamili has taught computer applications in the past and has also helped with a few classes. Going forward, we may look into providing training for teachers so that we can build a stronger set of potential teachers who can deliver future classes and are more aware of the raison d'etre of inherIT

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1
Participants: 6 (Lynne, Angela Rashid, Eamon, Kumuthini, Kokhila, Ariet )
Course Handouts: None
Computers Used: 5 (+1, Lynne bought her own laptop)

TBC1.5

Our class today was a lot quieter. A few of them worked on power point presentations. Others on Excel and still others on typing and saving files.

Unfortunately, due to a malfunctioning camera, we don't have photos today. In all, we had 7 students today and some of them are making very good progress. Some of the students have finished all the activities that I covered in 8 classes in under 5 classes. Although it does not lend itself to a structured class, having activity sheets and allowing students to progress at their own speed has resulted on a few of them finishing the course content easily.

This has been a bane and boon. On one side, it has forced us to create new activity sheets on a regular basis. On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cater to the needs of students without getting into things which are rather advanced and should probably not find a place in a basic computer literacy course.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1
Participants: 6 (Lynne, Hakima Kur, Eamon, Kumuthini, Kokhila, Ariet )
Course Handouts: None
Computers Used: 5 (+1, Lynne bought her own laptop)

MRC2.4

Our class today focussed on teaching the group how to use the formatting functions in a document editor. Some of the students used MS Word and others used OpenOffice Writer.

It was good to see that the students wanted me to explain things I had not covered in the notes, including how to align text, how to change the colour or even to highlight text.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 6 (Irma Dure, Madelina Ary , Tarekgn Russoom, Mohamad Aria, Nagwa Lino, Surrya)
F:M : 4:2
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 6

TBC1.4

In today's class, we had a total of 11 students! We had 6 laptops and a large excess of people. Some women were asked to work in groups and others were given their own laptops. For the most part, the women did not mind but it is something that needs to be addressed more clearly for future classes. I may not have said this explicitly in the past, but our classes till now have demonstrated that weak students often benefit a lot more from working in groups - so although this is a concern, not one that diminishes their learning. Also, the solution is to get some of them to do some learning excercises without the computer.

Most of our students worked on the bullets and numbering excercise today as well as trying out power point presentation.

I had two new people walk into the class today - due to their friends telling them of the classes. It was heartening but also an eye opener. Although a large amount of research and strategising has gone into defining inherIT's aims and primary objective - there is a certain energy that one derives when you see confirmation of your views/analysis.

It is slowly becoming evident that these classes are a viable and very much needed service. Our primary concern at this point is trying to get the process and model in place. If the classes can become more streamlined, the next step would be getting additional instructors and establishing a few locations where regular classes or learning centres would be open to the public. Perhaps this is a premature discussion but one that I thought to put down today.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 2
Participants: 11 (Lynne, Angela Rashid, Rebecca Oman, Hakima Kur, Eamon, Kumuthini, Kokhila, Priya, Abuk, Ariet, Rawda )
Course Handouts: None
Computers Used: 6 (+1, Lynne bought her own laptop)

TBC1.3

We had a productive class today. Our students did varied activities. Most of them completed the activity on formatting & fonts. We also did an excercise to use bullets and numbering.

This class is proving to be very challenging. Many of the participants are more advanced and progressing very fast. They tend to complete two activities a day so I will have to look into planning for the week ahead to make sure that everyone has adequete work next week.

Kamili helped out with the classes today and that eased things considerably. I think its good for the students as well since they are able to learn from different people with different styles. I imagine that listening to the same teacher could be boring.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 2
Participants: 8 (Jaqlynne, Lynne, Angela, Rebecca Oman, Hakima Kur, Eamon, Kumuthini, Kokhila, )
Course Handouts: None
Computers Used: 6 (+2, Lynne and Jaqlynne bought their own laptops)

WAS1.2

I had a class today with the Liberian women's group at the Mt Druitt WASH centre. Some of them seeemed quite eager and enthusiastic and some were a little bit more reluctant but I think all of them had fun. The students were asked to use paint to draw a square or circle. Subsequently, most of them went on to do some nice designs and got the hang of colours and brushes. I think this really appealed to a lot of the women and they slowly got lost in making random patterns. More importantly, by the end of it all, they were probably a little bit more adept at using the mouse - which was the real objective.

I enjoy working with this group as I can see the gradual increase in their interest and focus as they become more comfortable around me. One of the interesting things about these classes (and perhaps with most classes) is that it is a matter of building a positive environment. Without their trust and acceptance, it is often hard to teach adults - and their trust and acceptance is often much harder to gain than children.

This class is going to be a challenge since I have promised to give them 5 sessions. The material has been condensed a fair bit and I will only cover basic word processing with this group as a result. In order to make it more interesting, we've planned to make a greeting card during these five classes. Setting a larger objective such as this has helped to determine what to do in each class. Most of them can now draw some kind of pattern. Next class they will type in some content. Hopefully they will get around to formatting it and inserting a picture in the following class.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1
Participants: 5 (Annita, Joyce King, Nanseh, Marie, Nanseh (2))
Course Handouts: 2 pp
Computers Used: 4

MRC2.3

Our class today involved getting the group to type out a greeting card and then use the cut, copy and paste functions to modify the text. Students also saved and reopened their document. Some of the students managed to create a folder and store their work in their folder.

I tried asking the group to use paint and draw circles and rectangles before they went on to using word/writer. Although I am not entirely sure, I think using paint really helped them better understand the concept of clicking and dragging. More importantly, many of the women seemed to love playing with paint and this resulted in a lot of t hem experimenting on their own - something I have not seen them do in the past. I may try to use paint a little more in other classes in order to aid improvement of mouse handling and giving them something more creative to do.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 6 (Irma, Mary, Madelina, Nahid, Tarekgn Russoom, Mohamad Aria)
F:M : 4:2
Course Handouts: 6 pp
Computers Used: 6

TBC1.2

Our second class in this series worked out quite well. Most of the women learnt how to use the cut,copy and paste functions. Others went on to do the excercise on fonts & formatting as well.

Angela, who had done an earlier class at Blacktown MRC has asked to come in on Tuesdays so that she can practice. She said she appreciated the opportunity to be able to come into the classes and hoped that it would become a more regular arrangement.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1
Participants: 9 (Abuk, Lynne, Priya, Angela, Rebecca, Hakima, Eamon, Kumuthini, Kokhila, )
Course Handouts: None
Computers Used: 6 (+1, Lynne bought her own laptop)

TBC1.1

InherIT launched its first independent computer course today. We'll be running a free 4 week basic computer course at the Toongabbie community centre. Classes will be held on Monday and Tuesday mornings until 18th November. Its a great opportunity for the women who attend these classes to learn about computers and learn about other members in their community.

Our class today was relatively simple. Content covered included basic computer parts, keyboard layout and mouse operation. We also discussed important icons and menus on the desktop as well as parts of a program window (Menu, filename, program name etc).

Our participants were from varied backgrounds with varying needs and it was interesting to work with the different groups. I think it was also encouraging for the participants to meet so many different people.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 2
Participants: 8 (Abuk, Lynne, Jaqlynne, Rebecca, Hakima, Eamon, Kumudhini, Kokhila)
Course Handouts: None
Computers Used: 6 (+2, Lynne and Jaqlynne bought in their own laptops)

Class WAS1.1

inherIT conducted its first class with our own laptops today. We are doing a series of 5 classes for a Liberian womens group in Mt Druitt at the Womens Self Help and Activity House. I worked with a group of 4 women today.

Nanseh, Joyce, Annita and Marie attended the class today. We discussed various parts of the computer, how to use the mouse and then they used notepad to type in their personal details.

It was an interesting class since the numbers are low. The women had a fairly good grasp of english and seem to be able to pick up things well. They definitely have the ability to learn a fair amount in a short period provided they are able to stay focussed and regular.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1
Participants: 4
Course Handouts: 5 pp
Computers Used: 5

Class MRC2.2

We had a very nice class today. I introduced some overlap between the content we covered last week. We went over different parts of the computer and the use of various keys. I also covered mouse clicks and menus. Essentially, I showed them how to use windows explorer to find documents and then asked them to open a notepad, type a few sentences and save it. Most of them got around to locating their saved file and even practised doing this a few times.

There was also some improvement in my ability to juggle my time between various students. With 7 people in the class, it is hard to ensure that the ones who need the support are handed with patience while also ensuring that the more adept students are guided and given some information in addition to what is laid down in the activity.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 8 (Irma, Mary, Madelina, Surrya, Nahid, Nagwa, Mohamad Aria)
F:M : 6:1
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 7

Class MRC2.1

Classes will henceforth have codes and I've labelled the latest course at the Migrant Centre, MRC2. The .1 .2 will indicate the class in this series.

After a hiatus of almost 3 weeks it is nice to be taking a class again. Since this is the second time I am doing this, It was a little less daunting. Also, I was probably a little more pragmatic and a little less idealistic.

I had a total of 8 participants today. Madelina is back for her second round of classes. Mary too is back as she still feels she would like to spend more time learning. In some ways, it is definitely heartening to see people back.

I had a different activity sheet this time. I got into the material on the first day and we discussed the parts of a computer, the keyboard, the mouse and how to use these things. I had one sheet where I asked them to take notes. I am increasingly leaning towards the view that the students should be writing down things on their own rather than being fed instructions and information with little effort needed on their part to imbibe the provided information.

The class seems like an interesting mix of people and a couple of additional people came in and said they can't stay this week but will attend from next week onwards.

Although not strictly related to this class, I would like to mention that October/November are going to be very interesting and pivotal months in inherIT's development. Apart from the independent course I am running at Toongabbie, I will also be running a class with the Liberian women's group in Mt Druitt for 5 weeks. I hope these classes will provide much greater insight into the operational/functional challenges that will arise as well as helping to improve class content, delivery & follow up.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 8 (Irma, Mary, Madelina, Surrya, Tarakegn Russom, Nahid, Nagwa)
F:M : 7:1
Course Handouts: 2 pp
Computers Used: 7

Incubation Period

Since our last official class, I've met a few of the students on a one off basis to assist them with a few things that they requested.

In the meantime, I have gone ahead with a few new things. I've purchased two laptops (Thanks to Think Notebooks in Illawong) and rented a space and arranged to do a more intensive course of 8 classes in a 4 week period at a local community centre. It will be interesting to see how these classes pan out - first and foremost - whether anyone actually turns up. I have contacted the local library and migrant centres to put out publicity material and I know that there are quite a few people who are interested.

At the moment I have not arranged for any childcare and students would have to make their way to classes on their own. While this is a little cumbersome, I still hope that enough of them will turn up to make the classes worth it. If not, one will need to rethink the strategy and see how it can be done better or differently next time around.

Fingers crossed and time to get cracking with structuring and thinking through the classes. Its been a great learning experience so far and I have no doubt this little sojourn will prove to be equally enlightening irrespective of the outcome.

Class 8

Class today was quite, lets just say dynamic. We did a simple excercise in excel to type up a table of information. After the class finished, we walked to the library where the students logged in and tried using the internet.

Although a little haphazard, it was the best thing that could be arranged given the absence of an internet connection at the MRC.

I also gave the class feedback forms today. Today was, for all practical purposes, our final class. I will be working with a few of the students at the library next thursday. Overall, this clutch of classes has been an interesting experience.

From an objective point of view, I would rate the effectiveness of the classes as being average. I do hope that future classes are:

a) More streamlined in terms of venue and availability of laptops
b) Have more regular attendance
c) Are better taught and more collaborative in their nature (collaboration or rather, encouraging it is definitely a major challenge)

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 6 (Irma, Genifer, Bing, Mary, Madelina, Angela)
F:M : 5:2
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 6

Class 7

In Today's Class, the group typed up a recipe in word. They seemed to enjoy it and I got them using bullets & numbering and even showed them how to insert a picture. Most of them finished the activity in under 1 hour, which was impressive. Towards the end I introduced the concept of websites and webpages and we talked about how we would access the internet. In talking to them I realised that most traditional mediums of information are delivered in a linear fashion. All the information is in a sequential order. In a webpage, your start and end point and your path through the information can and often will be completely random. From a learning perspective, this may be hard to acclimatize to, especially because a lot of the time you will have to sift through useless information.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 8 (Irma, Genifer, David, Bing, Mary, Madelina, Malar)
F:M : 5:2
Course Handouts: 3 pp
Computers Used: 7

It was good to see Malar back again. I plan to have 2 more classes and wind things up for this group. In future I will be offering 8 classes from the word go rather than gradually expanding.

Genifer and I talked to a group of Sudanese women on Thursday and some of them were very interested in doing some classes. I'm planning to set something up for them at the library if all goes well. I'm mulling over a few things and will probably launch into something very soon.

Next Week: I'm thinking of getting wireless connections so that they can try to open a webpage and look at a few things.

Class 6

Todays class focussed on going further in MS Word, and using some format functions and changing font style etc. According to our original plan, we should have wound up our classes today. However, we are still working on files and programs. The students typed the Australian national anthem up today. It was interesting for many of them since they may not otherwise ever see this in writing.

Many of them are now comfortable opening a file and typing and this is good to see.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 1
Participants: 8 (Angela, Irma, Genifer, David, Bing, Mary, Madelina, Esther)
F:M : 7:1
Course Handouts: 2 pp (pages/person)
Computers Used: 8

Next Week: Presenting to a Sudanese womens group about the classes. Also, looking into formulating more in terms of operational processes and procedures including data collection/reporting etc. Laptops... as always.

Class 5

Classes are becoming more streamlined and participants are slowly but surely making progress.
Today, we worked on creating a simple Powerpoint presentation and saving the document. To add a touch of colour, we also played around with slide design. Some of them asked how to type in columns and I showed them how to do this as well.

As much as the class dislikes the lectures, I think I may get them to listen to one next week so that they can learn about the internet.


I had some great feedback from students today: David: "I really value the classes, thank you for your time"
Irma: "These classes are really useful. My children don't have the time or patience . This is perfect"
Genifer: "Today's class was better. I learnt a lot"

As I mentioned earlier, Class 3 had not gone too well. I was especially happy that Genifer had returned and enjoyed her class today.

Other News: Thinking of Laptops, Rooms and holiday classes. My helper arrived today and was indeed helpful. However, she was unhappy with the job conditions and said she would rather not.

Class Hours: 2.0
Instructors: 2
Participants: 8 (Angela, Irma, Genifer, David, Bing, Mary, Madelina, Nancy)
F:M : 7:1
Course Handouts: 2 pp (pages/person)
Computers Used: 6

Class 4.5

On 26th August, I had a practical session with Bing (Severino) and Madelina.
I spent an hour teaching bing about folders and how he could create/delete and put his files in folders. Madelina had something a little simpler to take care of. She worked on Paint and created a few circles and squares and coloured these in.

Overall, an uneventful and productive session for those involved.

Other News: I have a person coming in to help me on thursdays class which should be interesting.

Class 4

Class today started at 9.00 am and I had a single activity for the class to work on. The activity focussed on opening a file, typing and editing text, saving and reopening the file. For those who were more advanced, I demonstrated once and let them try it out. They did very well. For those who need more help, I had them sit through 2 or even 3 demos.

In terms of outcomes, the more advanced students really appreciated the change in the class today with the demonstration being more thorough. The others too benefited more (based on my own observation).

A few things I learnt: I should keep copies of all the material of classes leading upto the present class to distribute to new students (we had 3 walk in today).

I need to improve at deferring students and asking them to wait while I deal with whoever I am working with presently.

Additional Note: Despite the difficulty of having new students walk in, I think I can structure it so that they can join us and still learn something beneficial

Our participants today:

Madelina Ary, Bing (Severino), Angela, Irma, David Bagura, (New Students) Nancy, Mary, Esther

Class Hours: 2.5
Instructors: 1
Participants: 8
F:M : 6:2
Course Handouts: 2 pp (pages/person)
Laptops Used: 6

Week Ahead:
Laptops (I obtained 3 last week after some arm twisting). Course Content for Inet & Email.

Class 3.5+

On Tuesday, I took individual sessions for Madelina and Bing. I spent an hour with each. Madelina progressed slowly, struggling with her reading and comprehension of concepts. Bing on the other hand did well and we took a look at Excel files.

At the moment I am trying to aim my coursework in the middle so that the people who are more advanced have it fairly easy and I tend to verbally describe some activities to teach them new things. The ones who are struggling seem to need a lot more hand holding but hopefully they will soon progress.

Class 3

In todays class we covered the concept of files and programs. The class did some activities to learn how to open one and close a file. We encountered some technical difficulties and some of the students felt the activities were a little perplexing.

In the next class, we will slow things down and the class will do 1 activity to learn how to open, edit and save files, focusing on demonstrating the activity, and then asking them to do it in groups and then individually. I would like to see how effective this gradual introduction to individual work is. Today, they all had their own computer – which, it seems, may not always be a good thing with a group like this. They don't always seem happy with a dedicated resource they are still not comfortable with. Instead, I hope they will benefit more by being able to see the correct usage – even if they are in group. Or this is my theory. We will see how it holds up during the following week.

Our participants today:
Ann Sankoh, Murrallee Malar ,Genifer, Madelina Ary, Angela, Aggrey Ater, Bing, Irma

Class Hours: 2.5
Instructors: 1
Participants: 8
F:M : 6:2
Course Handouts: 4 pp (pages/person)
Computers/Laptops Used: 7

8 people and 6 women. Not a bad stat. Genifer felt it would be better to have additional help. I hope she will be back next week to see how things work. It sounds better in theory but we’ll see what happens.

Week Ahead:
Laptops. I asked for a quote from the Advocate for a 10 word classified ad and promptly got a $175.00 estimate. Ouch. Trying to get a group of 8-10 laptops from a source that will give me a receipt.

Class 2.5+

Ann Sankoh missed the last class, so I spent an hour today explaining the concepts covered and working through the activities. It was a delight working with her as she's extremely quick. I also covered some material I hope to cover in the next class and talking to her made me realise that I may have missed out on explaining some crucial things, so some rework of the slides for Thursday are in order.

In the regular class on Thursday, I plan to offer to do one on one practical sessions every tuesday. This is a fairly big commitment and I may choose to manage this by dealing with half the class on any given week.

I also found some interesting statistics today: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Those of us who use the internet and computers assume that penetration is high. However, only 1/5th of the world currently uses the internet. Perhaps computer usage is higher but this still means that the saturation point is far away - at least in Asia and Africa. The biggest contradiction is that Asia has one of the lowest penetration rates (in %) and yet the highest overall usage (in terms of headcount) . Many people feel that we NEED to teach people how to use computers - but I like to take the view that we need to teach them if there is a desire/need to learn. A subtle distinction that is often overlooked in our zealous attempts to get everyone on the digital highway.

What may be interesting is to check out the age split across users and a projected age split in 10 years (Yes, a line graph with # of people on y-axis and time on the x-axis and different lines for different age ranges. )

Week Ahead:
Looking into purchasing laptops

The nice stuff:
Nandu has agreed to look at doing a logo. I was thinking maybe he can write us a song too. How many organisations have songs?

Class 2

Our second class was held on August 7th from 9.30-11.30 am. The students were introduced to the basics of operating and navigating a computer. We covered the keyboard and special keys, mouse usage, menus, navigating menus and launching files and programs.

Our class was a bit larger today with some new participants. It is going to be an ongoing challenge to have more regular class attendance.

Our participants were:
Genifer from Sudan
Nancy from Sudan
David Bagura from Sierra Leone
Bing (Severino Provido) - from Phillipines
Angela from Afghanistan
Irma from Argentina
Aggrey Ater from Sudan
Madelina Ary from Sudan
Malar Murallee from Sri Lanka

Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 1
Participants: 9
F:M : 6:3
Course Handouts: 4 pp (pages/person)
Laptops Used: 6

Class 1

inherIT held the first of a series of 5 classes on July 31st, 2008 at the migrant resource centre in Blacktown, a suburb of Sydney. Our intention is to provide an introduction to computers for women.

Students introduced themselves and we discussed their understanding of what a computer is. Everyone typed in their personal details, thus reducing my diary work and helping me gauge what their current comfort level is.



The participants were:
Nagwa Lino from Sudan
Aggrey Ater from Sudan
Ann Sankoh from Sierra Leone
Madelina Ary fron Sudan
Angela from Afghanistan
Malar Murallee from Sri Lanka
Severino Provido from Phillipines

Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 1
Participants: 7
F:M : 5:2
Course Handouts: 4 pp (pages/person)
Laptops Used: 1

Ground Zero

Our first series of classes are intended to introduce students to computers. This is the planned agenda:

Class 1: Operating and Navigating on a Computer
Class 2: Files & Programs
Class 3: Files & Programs Revisited
Class 4: Internet & Email
Class 5: Student Requested topics/excercises