SMS6

Class 1: March 27, 2009
W00t! What a class. We launched a new course structure for the Sydwest Multicultural Services. This course consists of 3 hour classes instead of the usual 2 hour classes. The change in times made a rather interesting difference. Firstly, we covered the material that is usually covered in the first two classes. Secondly, we tried to do some audio recording today. However, I fear I may have botched it up a little. During the last few classes of this course, the students will work on resume writing, presentation skills and interview skills. This is a significant departure in terms of content, from the standard basic computer skills that we have been running till date.
The students were from diverse backgrounds and we had a male student in todays class. The class learnt a lot of material in 3 hours and overall it was quite a lot of fun.
Class Hours: 3
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 7 ( Adiol Maker kemech, Selekee Sannoh, naseema Naseema, Agnes Amon, Rebecca languaya, Zarghona Kakar, Chin Yueh Lin)
Course Handouts: 8 pp ,
Computers Used: 7

Class 2: 3rd April, 2009

Dwindling numbers defined a very challenging class. Unfortunately, there were more people who did not turn up to todays class. This is rather unfortunate since this course is actually going well. It seems that the people who turn up actually learn a lot and progress quite well. Since the classes are longer, they are more intense and the learning curve is much steeper. The result is that it is hard for people to catch up. The partner organisation may choose to cancel the rest of the classes if we do not have sufficient participants turn up to the next class on the 17th.

Class Hours: 3 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 5 ( Adiol Maker kemech, Agnes Amon, Rebecca languaya, Mary , Chin Yueh Lin) Course Handouts: 8 pp , Computers Used: 5

Class 3: 17th April, 2009, So we hit rock bottom today. We had three students and no computers since the computer room had been booked for another training. It looked like training would have to be cancelled. However, we decided it would be a good opportunity to work on resume writing. This is what we ended up doing. It was an interesting session and the women individually wrote up their resumes. We intend to type them in and format them next week. The women present were really happy with the outcome since they wrote most of it out themselves. We also had each student talking about their strengths and weaknesses depending on what they had written in their resume. A very different class but given the limitations we faced, it was well worth it. What was especially heartening is that the students were concerned that the classes would be cut short due to low attendence and wanted to ensure that we had the scheduled set of 8 classes.

Instructor: 1 (Geetha), Students: 3 (Mary, Chin, Agnes)

Class 4, 24th April, 2009: Our class today worked through the excercise on fonts and formatting as well as the excercise on bullets and numbering. The students progressed slowly but seemed to enjoy the excercises. Hopefully we will get around to typing up the resumes next week.

Instructor:1 (Geetha), Students:3 (Mary, Agnes, Rebecca)

Class 5, 8th May, 2009: The ladies typed in their resumes and tried to format them. The partner organisation has agreed to complete this course despite the minimal attendence numbers since the participants find it quite useful.
Instructor:1 (Geetha), Students:2 (Mary, Rebecca) Computers Used: 2 Course Handouts: 4pp

Class 6: 15 May, 2009: Todays class was super small. Just Mary came along and it was a good class for both of us. We completed her resume and printed it out for her. This was really an achievement for her since she's written it up and then typed it up and formatted it on her own.

Instructor:1 (Geetha), Students:1 (Mary) Computers Used: 1 Course Handouts: 0

Class 7: 15 May, 2009: Our class today concentrated on interview preparation. We talked about what needed to be done before, during and after a resume. Some of the students went over their resume and worked on it a little more. Leticia joined todays class, which was interesting. Although her spoken english is good, she seemed to enjoy the mock interviewing that we did.

Instructor:1 (Geetha), Students:3 (Mary, Agnes Amon, Leticia Antwi) Computers Used: 3 Course Handouts:1pp

Class 8, 30 May, 2009: We had what should have been our final class today (But the ladies want 2 more sessions and we'll be having those!). We worked through a set of interview questions, wrote down answers for each individual and printed this out. Again, I think the students found it really useful. They are both enjoying this experience a lot. It would be very worthwhile to do this with other groups, however, they may benefit from having a real recruitment professional to do this kind of course.

Instructor:1 (Geetha), Students:3 (Mary, Agnes Amon, Leticia Antwi) Computers Used: 3 Course Handouts:2pp

Teacher Training

Today, I worked with Eman and went through our first teacher training module.

It was quite interesting. I hope Eman found it useful. We covered basic teaching principles, talked about presentation skills and how to work with groups of students.
We also looked at the course material (slides and activity sheets). I ran through the slides with Eman and then she presented one of the modules for me. She did a good job for her first time.

SMS5

Class 1, 12 March, 2009,

We kicked off yet another class at Sydwest Multicultural Services Inc. Our class today was exclusively for women and the centre had arranged for childcare for this class. It was a tremendously mixed group with people from all kinds of places and backgrounds. I hope the class attendance remains regular as I'd really like to work more with these women. We did the standard first class material: Computer parts, mouse operation, typing in a notepad.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 9 ( Ines, Neomi, Susan, Leticia, Navdeep, Almarina, Jane, Joanne, Susan) Course Handouts: 4 pp , Computers Used: 8

Class 2, 19 March, 2009,

This was a chaotic class. We had a large number of participants and it was difficult to manage the group. However, we worked through the notepad and paint excercise. The group was very diverse and varied but more thought and organisation is needed to facilitate better learning. An extra teacher may be in order. Maybe some better use of hte overhead projector as well so that they can follow what I am doing and then try it on their own.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 11 ( Susan, Leticia, Navdeep, Jane, Joanne, Qudsia, Valeria, Karimeh, Zoya, Bibi, Shamin Akthar)
Course Handouts: 4 pp ,
Computers Used: 10

Class 3, 26 March, 2009
In todays class we learnt how to type up some text in Word and then use the edit functions to cut, copy and paste. The class was very streamlined and progressed a lot easier than last week.

Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 8( Susan, Leticia, Navdeep, Jane, Joanne, Valeria, Shamin Akthar, Abida)
Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 8

Class 4, 2 April 2009: Our class today focussed primarily on formatting functions in word. The class went over edit functions once again and then went on to use the bold, italic, underline formatting functions as well as using the font name and size drop boxes to modify text.
It was a large class but was just about manageable.

Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 10( Mahbuba, Susan, Leticia, Navdeep, Jane, Joanne, Nafisa, Karime, Shamin Akthar, Abida)
Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 10

Class 5, 9 April, 2009: In what turned out to be a very productive class, the students learnt about bullets and numbering and did an excercise based on this. Some of them also went on to try a more advanced excercise with table insertion. An interesting experience. Again, this is an erratic class with a small and regular core.

Class Hours: 2,
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 5 (Navdeep, Leticia, Joanne, Mahbuba, Karime)
Handouts: 4pp
Computers used: 5

Class 6, 16 April, 2009: Another productive class but a very small one (2 women!). We did three excercises today - an introductory and advanced excel activity and an introductory power point activity. SInce both students were quite advanced, the progress was very fast and we finished our work in less than the allocated 2 hours.
Class Hours: 2,
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 2 (Leticia, Navdeep)
Handouts: 4pp
Computers used: 2

Class 7, 23 April, 2009: A fairly small class again. Some of the women who came had not been in class for over 2 weeks so they did some of the activities they had missed out on. Leticia is at a fairly advanced stage so she worked on typing and formatting her own resume as well as h andling attatchments in email.Class Hours: 2,
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 2 (Leticia, Karime, Susan)
Handouts: 4pp
Computers used: 3
Class 8 + 8.5, 7 May, 2009: In todays class, the participants received emails explaining what we were going to do in class today. We did a fair amount of internet research today. We used 131500 to find directions to go from Blacktown to Sydney aquarium and calculated the total ticket charge using cityrail.
We also looked up the price of tickets from sydney to brisbane on jetstar and virgin blue.
The students then sent a response to the class activity email providing the cost of the tickets for the Sydney aquarium and the cheapest return fare for brisbane.
Overall a very interesting class which focussed on trying to use more specific internet related activities.
Class Hours: 2, Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 2 (Leticia, Karime, Susan, Joanne) Handouts:0 Computers used: 4

RSA1

Class 1, 3rd March, 2009
inherIT kicked off its first class in Rooty Hill this week. It is a new location and publicity has been done through a combination of posters at libraries and community organisations as well as mail outs. The response has been moderate and is perhaps a good outcome given the amount of publicity used. The class composition was very interesting. We had our oldest participant till date. Roberta Cacapit is 76 years old and absolutely lovely. It was a priveledge and a delight to have her in our class today. Unfortunately, no photos were taken today!

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 4 ( Melissa Kellett, Roberta Cacapit, Rosario Nuque, Halina Kazar)
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 4

Class 2, 10th March, 2009
The Rooty Hills Class is in stark contrast to the earlier on in Toongabbie. It is extremely subdued an very streamlined. Our class worked on using notepad and paint today. Roberta was back today and I have her on the front right in the photo.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 4 ( Melissa Kellett, Roberta Cacapit, Rosario Nuque, Halina Kazar)
Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used: 4

Class 3, 17th March, 2009

It was another productive class with this group of 4 women. Everyone arrives on the dot and leaves on the dot - and we seem to get so much done. Roberta came despite some eye problems and seemed to try as hard as she could given her limitations. Madelina also joined us for this class and it was an interesting experience for her since it was so much more disciplined than the other classes. THe class worked on edit functions: Cut, Copy & Paste


Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 5 ( Melissa Kellett, Roberta Cacapit, Rosario Nuque, Halina Kazar, Madelina Ary)
Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used: 5

Class 4, 24th March, 2009
Our class today was quite productive. The students worked on OpenOffice Impress (PowerPoint equivalent) and OpenOffice Calc (excel equivalent). It was an interesting class and the students did reasonably well. The excel and powerpoint excercises are normally not clubbed together in one class but with this class, it was fairly straight forward to work through both excercises due to the small group and speed of the class.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 5 ( Madelina Ary, Melissa Kellett, Roberta Cacapit, Rosario Nuque, Halina Kazar)
Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used: 5

Class 5, 31st March, 2009
We had a brief presentation to go over the concepts we had learnt during the first 4 classes. We discussed Windows, Menus, Editing and Formatting functions. This was followed by a bullets and numbering activity where the ladies had to type up a recipe.


Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 5 ( Madelina Ary, Melissa Kellett, Roberta Cacapit, Rosario Nuque, Halina Kazar)
Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used: 5

Class 6, 7th April, 2009: Todays class was quite interesting. We had one internet connection Harlena, a polish lady was absolutely thrilled about the internet. She kept exclaiming, "This is fantastic". She never realised there was such a wealth of information on the internet. Our oldest student, Roberta, practiced one of the old excercises - to type up a greeting card - and wrote a special note to say thank you for the classes. Although small, this class always feels like a good one - and very efficient for the 1.5 hours we spend together.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 5 ( Madelina Ary, Melissa Kellett, Roberta Cacapit, Rosario Nuque, Halina Kazar)
Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used: 5

Class 7, 14th April, 2009: This class is just remarkable. We have perfect attendance until now. Todays class saw the students take up and do activities based on their own interest. Halina loves the internet and spent all her time browsing. Roberta would like to play games and I may show her how to look for some good ones when she comes in next week. Rosario ended up doing some animation with power point and Melissa tried using tables in Word. Again, photo taking has been neglected. Hopefully, next week will be better documented.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 5 ( Madelina Ary, Melissa Kellett, Roberta Cacapit, Rosario Nuque, Halina Kazar)
Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used: 5

Class 8, 28th April, 2009: Our last class at Rooty Hill was a great end to a perfect course. The numbers were perfect, the content covered was satisfactory (although not outstanding) and our students seemed to have progressed considerably. Most of them went over the previous weeks excercises today and they seemed to do remarkably well. They were able to cover about 2-3 excercises from previous weeks. It was good to see that they had improved considerably.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 4 ( Madelina Ary, Melissa Kellett, Roberta Cacapit, Rosario Nuque)
Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used:4

TBC2

Class 1, 3rd March, 2009

A new year and a new class. I had not done a lot of publicity for the classes in toongabbie this time. The result is that it will probably be limited to about 3-4 women. It was a good class though as i was able to ensure that each students needs were focussed on. We did the usual first class material, ,looking at the parts of the computer, keyboard layout and mouse usage.

Class Hours: 1.5

Instructors: 1 (Geetha)

Participants: 3( Tokarial Dul, Josefin Lokeji, Hawa yousif)

Course Handouts: 4 pp

Computers Used: 3

Class 2:10th March, 2009

Todays class was an interesting learning experience. Very little in terms of productive work was done. Lots of women landed up for the class and were probably disappointed at the lack of organisation. Totally, we had 9 women, 6 laptops and 1 instructor. The fact that they arrived at various times staggered from 10 until 11 also compounded problems. I tried to impress upon them the need to be on time for the next class but I too need to prepare a little better for their staggered entry and structure the class more appropriately.

Most of the women typed up a sentence on the notepad and then saved the file. However, this too was quite an effort since quite a few of them had reading difficulties. Unfortunately, we did not do the paint activity with this group since there was a lack of laptops and time.

Class Hours: 1.5

Instructors: 1 (Geetha)

Participants: 9( Tokarial Dul, Josefin Lokeji, Hawa yousif, Eman, Tomane,Esther, Jane, Madelina, Susanne, )
Computers Used: 6

Class 3: 17th March, 2009

We had 7 students today, and 2 were completely new. This class is proving to be an odd one since new people seem to flow into the class on an almost weekly basis just as the old ones seem to miss a class or two. Todays class was much better organized. We had a new teacher on board - Eman. She handled a group of 4 students while handled another group of 3. It was the first time we have really had anything resembling the "Block System" in place. The idea is to organise the classes in blocks of 3-4 studnets with a teacher helping each block. My block needed more assitance and we went back to doing the notepad and paint activities. Eman's block worked with Openoffice Writer and learnt how to use cut, copy and paste functions.

Class Hours: 1.5

Instructors: 2 (Eman + Geetha)

Participants: 7( Josefin Lokeji, Tomane , Esther, Jane, Suzan, Fawzia, Amau )
Computers Used: 6

Class 4: 24th March, 2009

The class today focussed on formatting functions. The class tried an activity which required them to type in the Australian national anthem and format the text. Most of the class seemed to progress well and they were able to finish the activities well in time. The class did, however, stretch to almost two hours. Eman did most of the teaching with me helping out occasionally in between.

Class Hours: 2

Instructors: 2 (Eman + Geetha)

Participants: 5( Josefin Lokeji, Esther, Jane, Fawzia, Amau )
Computers Used: 5

Class 5: 31st march, 2009,

Despite the awful weather today, we had 4 ladies tough it out and make it to the class. It was quite an impressive turnout given the conditions. Most of the class worked on creating presentations and using spreadsheets.

Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 2 (Eman + Geetha)

Participants: 4( Josefin Lokeji, Fawzia, Amau, Tamone )

Computers Used:4

Class 6: 7th April, 2009

Today, the class worked on the excerci

se related to bullets and numbering. We also covered internet concepts and discussed what the internet is and how it works. We tried out the internet connection today and it works!... thats a pretty nice step up for future classes and it feels like things are slowly growing wider.

Class Hours: 2 Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 4( Josefin Lokeji, Jane, Amau, Tamone )
Computers Used:4

Class 7: 14th April, 2009

The class shrunk further today - we only had two students but both have been quite consistent and Josefin has made it to every class until now. I tried to show them how to use the internet to browse for information. Oddly enough, both of them seem to be a lot happier just using the computer to type up harmless documents instead of browsing.

Class hours: 2 Instructors: 1 (geetha)

Participants: 2 (Josephin, Tamone)

Laptops: 2

Class 8: 28th April, 2009

This course went to its all time low today with just one student turning up. We opened an email account for her and practiced sending a number of emails. Overall, this course was disappointing due to the erratic class turnout. The latter half of the course has been dismal due to school holidays but in general, only Josephine has attended all the classes. She found the classes useful but the others still have a long way to go.

Class hours: 2: Instructors: 1 (geetha)

Participants: 1 (Josephine) Laptops: 1