U-Blog 6

A couple of weeks ago, my group made our presentation at the Lowman Home. Topic: Compact Discs. Not exactly the most exciting topic, but still something that could be interesting.

Our presentation was scheduled to last no more than 20 minutes, at which point we would give the class some tasks to perform and test their knowledge. Following this, we would have a very brief activity and a homework explanation. We had planned for 1 hour total of lecture/activites.

We ended up having our presentation last about seven minutes. Not that there was anything wrong with that, we just flew through the material at a rapid pace. Moving along into CD-ROM operation was intersting to observe. Opening or closing the drive is second nature to many folks, but to these senior citizens, this was an adventure. Proper placement of the disc in the drive, operating the disc, and many other tasks were now tasks they could perform without assistance.

Even though our CD portion of the class lasted 30 minutes, a YouTube 101 class filled in the remaining time perfectly. The senior citizens were able to properly navigate YouTube and find videos that interested in them.

I have taught a couple of classes to adults before, but teaching senior citizens is a completly different experience. To some degree it seems a bit more rewarding, as the participants acted interested in the topics and genuinely wanted to learn. Hopefully they found the information useful and can apply it towards their computer use in the future.