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.
Glad to hear that your training session went well. I bet it really was interesting to see the similarities and differences between teaching adults and seniors!
ReplyDeleteSounds like your workshop worked out like my groups did. We went in there with a solid plan for a lecture, but we soon realized that was not going to work for them. Hands-on was what they wanted to do, so we gave it to them. Glad it worked out well for you and your group, and YouTube is the greatest website ever.
ReplyDeleteI am so jealous that you got to get onto Youtube! Showing the seniors stuff some of the more dynamic aspects of the internet is a really amazing experience. Hopefully they will be able to find videos of old movies,TV, and music that fits their liking!
ReplyDeleteOur group's experience was very similar. We did not really plan for a lecture and instead jumped straight into the training. We did this because we thought our topic (Photo Management) would take too long for the allotted 1 hour. We ended up going through it much faster than expected though and to make up for the rest of the time we took questions one on one. I showed the ladies I was helping how to email photos, something not in the original plan, but it fit in well with the email lab.
ReplyDeleteYeah I thought it was great to volunteer for this one because we got to show them some interesting things on YouTube and they were blown away by it when they found out they could watch movies about cars, music, etc. I thought this was a great experience.
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