WAS2

Class 1, 4th August, 2009:

We started a new course at the Emerton WASH house today. This is an initiative with a new partner organisation and the first class went very well. We covered the usual first class material and worked on the notepad and paint excercises (opening and saving files). The participants were from diverse backgrounds and it was a pleasure to work with this group.

Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 7( Helen Brennan, Viole Taleni, Noelene Chapman, Rihad El Sayed, Sonia Precilla, Denise White, Helen Vebosz)
Course Handouts: 6 pp

Computers Used: 7

Class 2, 11th August, 2009:

We worked on programs and files during this class and looked at how to use edit and format functions. We also discussed files and folders and how things are arranged and saved on a computer. This has been a tricky topic to teach most students. While a lot of them pick up the nuances of a single program quite easily most never really figure out how to navigate around a computer with ease. Hopefully today's explanation will help.

Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 8( Helen Brennan, Viole Taleni, Noelene Chapman, Rihad El Sayed, Sonia Precilla, Jaclyn Mitchell, Denise White, Helen Vebosz)
Course Handouts: 6 pp

Computers Used: 8

Class 3, 18th August, 2009:
A very interesting class that yielded completely different results from the earlier one. We now have an excercise called "Things to try" which is a document with a jumbled list of days that needs to be ordered, copied and listed with numbers and bullets - and formatted a bit too. The class struggled a bit with this excercise. Although we had a brief presentation with snapshots explaining what needed to be done - most of them found it confusing once we went back to the document and started to do the excercise. Often, the interest/enjoyment or the struggle becomes collective - a group activity if you will. A nice class, and hopefully, they came out realising that the struggle was crucial to the learning process.

Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 7( Helen Brennan, Viole Taleni, Noelene Chapman, Rihad El Sayed, Sonia Precilla, Denise White, Helen Vebosz)
Course Handouts: 2 pp

Computers Used: 7

Class 4, 26th August, 2009:

The internet related sections of the class are always a little bit more cumbersome. Todays class focussed on email and we tried to set up all the students on email. It was an interesting class but one that is always a little fragmented since each person has to set up their own email account. A possible solution may be to use pre-configured email accounts for the purpose of teaching e-mail - thus reducing the time taken to set up individual e-mail accounts which may never be used again. To the point though, we did an excercise on openoffice impress to createa a presentation and also worked on sending and receiving emails.

Class Hours: 2 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 8( Helen Brennan, Viole Taleni, Noelene Chapman, Rihad El Sayed, Sonia Precilla, Jaclyn Mitchell, Denise White, Helen Vebosz) Course Handouts: 6 pp
Computers Used: 8

Class 5, 1st September August, 2009:
We did a few different excercises today. The first was to log into email and look up a picture that was sent to everyone's email addresses. Once this was done, the women were introduced to the wonderful world wide web. Although some of them have browsed the net before, this class really ser ved to give them a flavour of the sheer variety of things that they may encounter online. After quite a bit of preparation, the laptops and internet connection were all in good order today and the excercises went rather well. The ladies had a brief look at 131500.com and cityrai.com. Apart from this they also took a look at some different websites - including this blog so that they could see how the course content could be accessed online and a space tennis game on an origami website. It was such a hit and that they wanted me to email the link: Mission accomplished. That sentence says it all. They wanted me to EMAIL them the LINK. sigh. If all this excitement wasn't enough - we did a little bit of work as well. We worked on the Calc excercise to type a list on a spreadsheet.

Class Hours: 2 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 6( Helen Brennan, Viole Taleni, Noelene Chapman, Sonia Precilla, Denise White, Helen Vebosz) Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 6

Class 6, 8th September, 2009:
Our final class today. It was a real eye opener. The women whizzed through an excercise to type out a recipe in OpenOffice Writer. They also read and responded to an email asking for feedback. They sent some e-cards and we did a quick brush up of things done in past classes. The feedback was very positive overall. The women have enjoyed this course a lot and felt that the content was useful. Many were surprised that they were actually able to use the computer with some confidence. They never thought they would get this far. I did however warn them that any skills learnt wont last forever unless they use them!

Class Hours: 2 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 6( Helen Brennan, Rihab El Sayed, Noelene Chapman, Sonia Precilla, Denise White, Helen Vebosz) Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 6

TBC4

Class 1, 4th August, 2009:

A new course kicked off at the Toongabbie Community Centre. We had a few students who had attended the shorter holiday classes come back for the basic course. Our first class was quite interesting. Most of the people in this class have access to a computer at home and we were able to discuss various topics as we went through computer parts, keyboard layout and mouse usage. We also did two excercises. one to open and save a notepad file and another to do the same in paint.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 6 (Marion Rignor, Judy Richardson, Maree, Millie, Christine Nichols, Anne Woodley)
Course Handouts: N/A, Computers Used: 6

Class 2, 11th August, 2009:

We worked on edit and format functions. We also discussed topics related to folders, files and how to use windows explorer to find and locate folders and files.

Class Hours: 1.5, Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 7 (Marion Rignor, Judy Richardson, Maree, Millie, Christine Nichols, Anne Woodley, Kerrie), Course Handouts: N/A ,Computers Used: 7

Class 3, 18th August, 2009:
A lovely class with a lot of progress. The ladies worked on close to three excercises. One will have to start to generate new material for the last few classes of this series. They worked on a general excercise to practice edit and formatting functions and then went on to do some work on OpenOffice impress OpenOffice Calc.

Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 7 (Marion Rignor, Judy Richardson, Maree, Millie, Chritine Nichols, Anne Woodley, Kerrie)
Course Handouts: N/A

Computers Used: 7

Class 4, August 25th, 2009:

This was a difficult class since we have zoomed through to the last few activity sheets and we are still in Class 4. I keep wondering where these classes are most lacking and I know deep inside that it is with respect to files and programs. The question constantly arises - how much should a person understand what files and programs are? More importantly, how do you bring about this understanding. The students in this class can now type out beautiful documents, format them and save them quite well. When I asked them to open three files and save them with different names in two different folders - this was a leap into the quantum world - many got lost. We had successfully put a dent in their slowly growing confidence. No harm though, we have another 4 classes to see how we can improve the understanding these ladies have of a computer and how they can go about dealing with them more effectively.

Class Hours: 1.5 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 7 (Marion Rignor, Judy Richardson, Maree, Millie, Chritine Nichols, Anne Woodley, Kerrie) Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used: 7

Class 5, 1st September, 2009:
The class today started off rather slowly. I was really quite apprehensive about this one because I decided that I was going to teach the women about the physical and conceptual layout of computers. Files, Programs, OS and the Hard disk, RAM and CPU. It started with me saying a lot and them just looking. UNtil we started discussing capacities and speeds - and then they were alert.... this is exactly what the electronics store sales guy had been going on about as they tried to nod along as if they understood. Anyway, we discussed a lot of different things but more on the computer science side. They enjoyed it and I was happy to be teaching this to a group. It really is a crucial part of making people TRULY technology aware. They may not become geeks, but a better understanding would probably increase patience and their inclination to keep using a device or to take up a new one. We also did an excercise with folders and files - creating them and moving around. The women just about got the hang of it - but barely.
Class Hours: 1.5 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 6 (Marion Rignor, Judy Richardson, Millie, Chritine Nichols, Anne Woodley, Kerrie) Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used: 7

Class 6, 8th September, 2009:
The ladies in this class are being patient as a I meander about trying to put together new material for them to learn every week. This class has been a ground breaking one in many respects. The normal class content has been completed in the first 5 classes. Since then, we've been going with the flow. This week saw us looking at the control panel. For the first time, I showed the class how to use the control panel to set desktop backgrounds, change clicking options and speed and also set accessibility options (Larger text). It was useful for them to understand that the control panel provides the user a ton of options to configure their system to their taste and convenience. Again, most women tend to try and use technology as its given to them. Its probably about time that more people took time to configure their system. The double click for instance. You can configure your system for single clicks (even when opening items). I wonder why we double click at all. Its not great for the wrist and it might help if we clicked less. Anyway, lots of new things taught - including how to use formulas in a spreadsheet.

Class Hours: 1.5 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 6 (Marion Rignor, Judy Richardson, Millie, Maree, Anne Woodley, Kerrie) Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used: 6

Class 7, 17th September, 2009:
Based on the class request, we covered GIMP today and learnt how to use it to crop, edit and resize photos. We tried to work through creating folders and moving files and photos into different folders. This seems to be something that a lot of new computer users find difficult. I'm still not certain what makes it hard. You need to arrange things and organize them in a logical fashion and then you need to remember where you put something to be able to go back and find it. Apparently though, its not that easy.

Class Hours: 1.5 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 6 (Marion Rignor, Judy Richardson, Millie, Maree, Anne Woodley, Kerrie) Course Handouts: N/A
Computers Used: 6

Class 8, 24th September, 2009: Our final class for this course and it was quite a simple affair. The ladies had a chance to refresh the things we'd learnt in previous classes and have some time going over the excercises we had done before. The class was quite happy with the course overall and would like to know if any advanced calsses are planned.

Class Hours: 1.5 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 4(Marion Rignor, Judy Richardson,Anne Woodley, Kerrie) Course Handouts: N/A Computers Used: 4