R661

Class 1, June 30, 2009:

We launched a completely new class today. We ran what was called a "Mobile Phone Help Centre". All the women who came were in the previous basic computer course as well. The overall verdict: It was great. The students left with smiling, thankful faces. We talked about mobile phone basics: How it works, what are some of the different terms (GSM, CDMA, 3G, Bluetooth) and finally got down to doing some messaging. The group learnt how to use predictive text. They all enjoyed and appreciated the considerably less effort in using this feature once it has been learnt. There was also a lot of group discussion between the participants on what each one knew about phones/plans etc. - it was a great forum for swapping information as well as learning some really "cool stuff". After some apprehension about how such a course could be run, we finally got it off the ground successfully and its a class that could be useful to many others. Many of them were happy that what we learnt will be useful for their daily lives. Next week will see us look at settings, alarms and reminders.

Students: Barbara, Emily, Li xiai, Linda, Rose, Amirthavalli
Instructor: Geetha

Class 2, July 7, 2009

Another interesting class. I have unlocked my

iPhone so its now operational. The class passed it around and tried to play around with it a little. It was interesting to talk to them about the convergence of devices. They were genuinely interested and enjoyed having the forum to discuss

this.

One lady decided that it might be better for her to get the iPhone rather than invest in a laptop/camera and music player so that she can travel with a single device. In terms of content, we worked on tone settings (silent mode), display settings, calender/reminders/alarms and photos. One pair was able to set up a bluetooth connection and send and receive photos.

The photos to the left were taken by the students on their phones.

Students: Barbara, Emily, Li xiai, Linda, Rose
Instructor: Geetha

SMS8

Class 1, 14 May, 2009:
Another new class at Sydwest Multicultural Services Inc. This class was only for women. We had a big turnout today and did the basic first class material.

Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 9(Hussna Adam, Fouzia Asif Abbas, Maria Barkley, Feronika Awein, Kausar Parkar, Nazima Parkar, Khadiga Bakhit, Safia, Lily Joseph )
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 9

Class 2, 21 May, 2009:

It was a huge class today and we had some help from Leticia who will be coming in regularly to help with this class. The class learnt about edit functions and tried this out in a document.

Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 12(Hussna Adam, Fouzia Asif Abbas, Maria Barkley, Feronika Awein, Kausar Parkar, Nazima Parkar, Khadiga Bakhit, Safia, Lily Joseph, Hakima Kur, Feriba Rahimi, Finda Gbanda )
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 12
Class 3, 28 May, 2009: This class multiplies with each week. We covered fonts and formatting and I tried to introduce some online quizzes to the class as a way to use links and buttons as well as helping them improve english vocabulary. Some students had no clue all this stuff is out there and it was a significant discovery for them.
Class Hours: 2
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 12(Hussna Adam, Fouzia Asif Abbas, Maria Barkley, Feronika Awein, Khadiga Bakhit, Safia, Lily Joseph, Feriba Rahimi, Finda Gbanda , Najeeba, Anusha, Nooria Latif ) Course Handouts: 4 pp

Class 4, 5th June, 2009: The ladies worked on Powerpoint and Excel today. Many of them found it quite interesting. It was a day that involved a steep learning curve but some of them probably appreciated the fact that although they used two new programs, a lot of the basics we have learnt were useful. Leticia was there to help out today and she did a really good job!
Class Hours: 2 Instructors: 2 (Leticia + Geetha) Participants: 10(Hussna Adam, Fouzia Asif Abbas, Maria Barkley, Feronika Awein, Khadiga Bakhit, Safia, Feriba Rahimi, Finda Gbanda , Najeeba, Nazima Parkar, ) Course Handouts: 6 pp

Class 5, 11th June, 2009: In todays class the ladies used google to search for information on their country. They then copied this information into a file for saving. They also did the excercise on bullets and numbering which required them to type up a recipe.

Class Hours: 2 Instructors: 2 (Leticia + Geetha) Participants: 10(Hussna Adam, Fouzia Asif Abbas, Feronika Awein, Khadiga Bakhit, Safia, Feriba Rahimi, Najeeba, Nazima Parkar, Kausar, Apiu ) Course Handouts: 6 pp

Class 6, 18th June, 2009: There were people looking up trip planning websites, flight tickets, train timetables, duty free shopping and a few who just looked lost. Overall, an interesting class. The internet related classes are always a completely different experience for each person depending on what they choose to click on.

Class Hours: 2 Instructors: 2 (Leticia + Geetha) Participants: 8(Finda, Latifa, Hussna Adam, Fouzia Asif Abbas, Khadiga Bakhit, Feriba Rahimi, Nazima Parkar, Kausar) Course Handouts: N/A

Class 7, 25 June, 2009:
We opened email accounts for the ladies today and did some activities with e-mail. Those who had email accounts already worked on sending emails with attatchments. The others went about setting one up and doing some emailing. Setting up email accounts and teaching emailing is a hard task. It seems to be an activity that should be avoided for the classes unless the ladies specifically request it - which was the case here. Overall though, I hope most of them walked away knowing a little more about email.
Class Hours: 2 Instructors: 2 (Leticia + Geetha) Participants: 10(Feronika,Finda, Latifa, Hussna Adam, Fouzia Asif Abbas, Khadiga Bakhit, Feriba Rahimi, Nazima Parkar, Kausar, Safia) Course Handouts: N/A

Class 8, 2 July, 2009:
Our last class was exceptional. The positive feedback was overwhelming. The challenge is trying to get the women to give constructive criticism. Most of them were just thankful for the classes. We did a few new things today - all of which were conceived and put together about 10 minutes before the class (walking the tightrope as usual). We were meant to continue with email related activities today and I had not printed out the feedback forms. All the women in this class have email accounts now so, instead, I emailed and asked them a few questions about the classes and how they felt. The students read and responded to their emails. It felt tremendously satisifying to get class feedback in email. The other thing we did was send e-cards. They really enjoyed this as well. Again, I got a few thank you cards which was nice.

Class Hours: 2 Instructors: 2 (Leticia + Geetha) Participants: 9(Finda, Latifa, Hussna Adam, Fouzia Asif Abbas, Khadiga Bakhit, Feriba Rahimi, Nazima Parkar, Kausar, Safia) Course Handouts: N/A

SMS7

Class 1, May 14, 2009:
In the first class of this new series, the students worked on the basic parts/mouse operations, typing in a notepad and working on paint.

Instructor: Geetha
Class Hours: 2
Class Handouts: 4pp
Participants: 3( Rasha Monsour, Jackline, S. Poopalaretnam )
Computers Used: 3
Class 2, May 21, 2009:
In our second class, the students worked on cut,copy and paste excercises. It was a good class and the students grasped the concepts reasonably well.


Instructor: Geetha
Class Hours: 2
Class Handouts: 4pp
Participants: 6 (Rasha Monsour, Nooria latif, S. Poopalaretnam, Nagla Komi, David Olere, Saira Nauman)
Computers Used: 6

Class 3, May 28, 2009:
The class today was very small. We worked on fonts and formatting. We also looked at a few different websites focussed on learning english skills and mouse clicking and navigation. Its a quiet class and we're trying to encourage more students from the afternoon class at the same venue to move into the morning class. Its productive however, since the students tend to get a lot more individual attention and guidance.

Instructor: Geetha ,Class Hours: 2 ,Class Handouts: 4pp ,Participants: 3 (Mabinty, S. Poopalaretnam, Saira Nauman) ,Computers Used: 3

Class 4, 4 June, 2009:

We worked on Powerpoint and excel in this class. As a result of the small numbers, the students were able to look into quite a few additional functions in these programs. In powerpoint, they looked at custom animation and insertion of pictures. In Excel, we looked at generating series of numbers as well as using dollar amounts and summing up rows and columns.

Instructor: Geetha ,Class Hours: 2 ,Class Handouts: 6pp ,Participants: 4 (Nagla, Anusha, S. Poopalaretnam, Saira Nauman) ,Computers Used: 4

Class 5, 11 June, 2009:

The class worked on bullets and numbering. Saira and Anusha went on to create expense sheets in Excel. I think they enjoyed doing this since it was a lot of new things to learn! Finda was in the morning class because she could not make it for the afternoon one.

Instructor: Geetha ,Class Hours: 2 ,Class Handouts: 6pp ,Participants: 4 (Finda, Anusha, S. Poopalaretnam, Saira Nauman) ,Computers Used: 4

Class 6, 11 June, 2009:

Internet Browsing was the watchword for this class. it was short but productive. The students worked through activities requiring them to use cityrail, 131500 and jetstar websites. Saira also worked on editing and reformatting her resume. We may take a look at cover letters next week.

Instructor: Geetha ,Class Hours: 2 ,Class Handouts: N/A ,Participants: 3 (Nagla, S. Poopalaretnam, Saira Nauman) ,Computers Used: 3

Class 7, 2 July 2009:

We had our last class today. This was a fairly small class with just 2 students. Our star student, Poopalaretnam was back and disappointed that it was our last day together. We worked on a previous excercise (bullets and numbering) and also went through the process of sending e-cards. The students enjoyed this.

Instructor: Geetha ,Class Hours: 2 ,Class Handouts: N/A ,Participants: 2 (Nagla, S. Poopalaretnam) ,Computers Used: 2

KNC1

Class 1, 5th May, 2009:
This new class in Kingswood is being run for the Sydwest Multicultural Services Inc. Today we had 5 students in the class and we covered the usual first class material including computer parts, keyboard layout and mouse operations. We also did an excercise to type out a sentence in the notepad and a short excerse in paint. It was a rather productive class and we covered a lot of material.
Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 5( Yasotha, Abdullah, Spozmai, Shima, Kyung)
Course Handouts: 4 pp
Computers Used: 5

Class 2, 12th May, 2009: In todays class we had a number of new students. Again, it is hard to back track and accomodate new students - especially those who miss the first class. There are two big challenges in running these classes and both of them proved to be the case today: How do you keep those who are more advanced interested and how do you deal with people with real learnign difficulties without hampering other students' progress? We did an exercise with cut copy and paste. The set up of the class is such that it makes it very hard to show students how to do certain things since we don't have a projector. However, the students had the chance to learn how to use edit functions and open and save their files.
Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 8( Yasotha, Abdullah, Shima, Kim, Kathy, Ruth, Vimal, Shinkay)
Course Handouts: 2 pp Computers Used: 8

Class 3, 19th May, 2009:
We covered formatting functions and worked on the excercise to type in the national anthem and format it.
Class Hours: 1.5
Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 5( Abdullah, Spozmai, Shima, Shinkay, Kim)
Course Handouts: 2pp
Computers Used: 5

Class 4, 26th May, 2009:

The course we are conducting at Kingswood is a six class set and this was our fourth class. We talked about the internet and used the dummy internet pages. The students in this class are an interesting group. I was worried that they weren't progressing much but they surprised me by typing up the bullets excercise in about 25 minutes flat.

Class Hours: 1.5 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 5( Abdullah, Spozmai, Shima, Shinkay, Kim) Course Handouts: 2pp Computers Used: 5

Class 5, 2nd June, 2009:

In today's class, the students created presentations using OpenOffice Impress. They also used the internet to try a few english vocabulary quizzes. They seemed to enjoy this experience since it was useful to improve their english. This quiz has mixed results but it is often a big favourite with those who are trying to improve their english.

Class Hours: 1.5 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 6( Abdullah, Spozmai, Shima, Shinkay, Kim, Ruth) Course Handouts: 2pp Computers Used:6

Class 6, 9th June, 2009:

Today was the final class for this course. Although a shorter course, it was quite a worthwhile experience and the students definitely enjoyed themselves. Today, we worked on internet activities. This centre is quite a find since the internet connection works really well. The students used 131500.com, cityrail and jetstar websites. We looked up train timetables and this was really useful for some of them.

They also took some time out to practice some of the older excercises. We had an evaluation session where the general consensus was that the course had been useful and well run.

Class Hours: 1.5 Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 5( Abdullah, Spozmai, Shima, Shinkay, Kim) Course Handouts: 2pp Computers Used:5

TBC3

Class 1, 5th May, 2009: We started a new class at the Toongabbie community centre. We had 9 women in todays class and it progressed quite well. We did a round of introductions and worked through the parts of the computer, mouse usage and keyboard layout. We had a slight shortage of laptops but we are going to have 9 next week.

Class Hours: 1.5

Instructors: 1 (Geetha)

Participants: 9 ( Li Xiai, Barbara, Emily, Amirthavalli, Linda, Thema, Clare, Liberty, Rose)

Course Handouts: 4 pp

Computers Used: 6

Class 2, 12th May, 2009: In our class today, we worked on opening and saving files as well as typing in a notepad and using paint. We had 8 students and 8 working laptops which was good. The students found the class interesting to some extent. However, there is still some thought and work required to see how the classes can be made more collaborative. Although the students interact with the instructor - there is a not much cross learning and it is going to be an ongoing challenge to work out how to foster this. We also had two women walk in today - which was both interesting and worrisome. There is obviously scope to have this as an open centre - and perhaps some thought needs to go into establishing a more permanent walk in centre.

Class Hours: 1.5, Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 8 ( Li Xiai, Barbara, Emily, Amirthavalli, Linda, Clare, Liberty, Rose)
Course Handouts: 0 Computers Used: 8

Class 3, 19th May, 2009: We had a special guest in todays class. Antonina is doing some research on how computer literacy classes can be made more effective and accessible for migrant communities. She talked to the group briefly towards the end. During class, we worked on cut copy and paste. We briefly discussed the formatting functions although we have yet to do the excercise related to this.
Class Hours: 1.5, Instructors: 1 (Geetha)
Participants: 8 ( Li Xiai, Barbara, Emily, Amirthavalli, Linda, Clare, Liberty, Rose)
Course Handouts: 0 Computers Used: 8

Class 4, 26th May, 2009: We had a really good class today. So mumuch so that one student lost track of time and was surprised when i said we would have to wind down. We used a new resource today - a dummmy internet page with links to show people how to navigate their way through webpages. This was reasonably effective. Students also went through the excercise on fonts and formatting. Overall an effective class and all eight regulars turned up. They all really like the class and thats quite heartening.

Class Hours: 1.5, Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 8 ( Li Xiai, Barbara, Emily, Amirthavalli, Linda, Clare, Liberty, Rose) Course Handouts: 0 Computers Used: 8

Class 5, 2 June, 2009: What can I say? This class just gets better everyday. The students are learning a lot and enjoying themselves tremendously. I tend to go off on a tangent and teach them all kinds of things. We even discussed the space that different files occupy and how we could check if our computer had enough space or not. They used OpenOffice Impress to create presentations. They also started on a few internet related activities. Jacksonpollock.org was a firm favourite as was origami space tennis.

Class Hours: 1.5, Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 8 ( Li Xiai, Barbara, Emily, Amirthavalli, Linda, Clare, Liberty, Rose) Course Handouts: 0 Computers Used: 8

Class 6, 9 June, 2009: Unfortunately the internet connection refused to work today. As a result, we ended up doing more word processing and spreadsheet activities. The students enjoyed the experience overall and we also did a recap of the things learnt to date. In the absence of the internet connection, we may have a look at photos and downloading photos from cameras next week.
Class Hours: 1.5, Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 8 ( Li Xiai, Barbara, Emily, Amirthavalli, Linda, Clare, Liberty, Rose) Course Handouts: 0 Computers Used: 8

Class 7, 16 June, 2009: We had a sketchy internet connection today so the students managed to try out a few of the activities online. Many of them also typed up a recipe to share with the group. We're trying to put together a recipe book to be published towards the end of the year. It might be a nice activity to encourage the students since there would be a definite outcome for their work. Many of the students are quite interested in the mobile phone and photo editing courses coming up and seem to be quite interested in continuing on with different classes.

Class Hours: 1.5, Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 8 ( Li Xiai, Barbara, Emily, Amirthavalli, Linda, Liberty, Rose) Course Handouts: 0 Computers Used: 8

Class 8, 23 June, 2009: Our group here has become like a ladies club. The ladies come. They learn. They enjoy learning. And they are all coming back for more. We have two short classes coming up in the next few weeks - one for mobile phone help and another for photo editing. A lot of these ladies would like to come back. We are slowly reaching the stage where these ladies see this is a regular Tuesday morning commitment and would like to see it continue. This is an interesting trend - one that was anticipated but now that its happening - is food for thought.

Back to todays class. As a finale, we ran through what we have learnt over the last few weeks. There was a simple excercise that got the students to practice multiple functions in a simple excercise. We also had a small raffle where students were asked to make their own tickets by writing down as many computer related word that they could. It seemed to be a nice way to get the students to put down their thoughts - some of them - although very quiet - really surprised me with rather accurate and detailed explanations.

Class Hours: 1.5, Instructors: 1 (Geetha) Participants: 6 ( Li Xiai, Barbara, Amirthavalli, Linda, Rose, Clare) Course Handouts: 0 Computers Used: 6

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.