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
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 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
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 typ
e 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.
e 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
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
No comments:
Post a Comment