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