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