After a successful event yesterday, my confidence was running high on being able to deliver a useful session for the Camfed staff - 6 girls who were Camfed beneficiaries and who have now taken up the responsibility of running ICT centers in the north of Ghana.
By now, we were running on auto mode for 'Go!' 'Go!' 'Go!'.This week has been the busiest by far & most busy for Olivia & I. Though we were still reeling from the high intensity event yesterday, we were looking forward to meeting the girls. Most of them had traveled long - all the way from Tamale, a town north of Accra - to attend the training. Both of us wanted to make sure their travel worthwhile.
By 9:00 am we reached the Camfed office to find the girls already up & waiting for us. We got everyone to introduce themselves, their favorite food (it always excites people here), and what they'd like to learn today. It was interesting to notice how excited the girls were about the training and we were glad that most of what they wanted to learn was a part of our agenda for the day! :)
We started by introducing them to the internet & Google search. 15 minutes into the session, we noticed a few blank stares & confused expressions. That's when we got the cue that a lot of what we were telling them were way too advanced for them to grasp. Having made changes to our plan on the fly several times earlier during our women entrepreneur training, we quickly scaled back to start with simple concepts like what was a browser, how to exit, minimize/resize a browser, the functions available on the keyboard etc. By noon, the girls knew how to get to Google.com, search for something & when done to close the browser. This was a big achievement for them and it was very satisfying to see the sparkle in their eyes every time they got it right!
We all went out to have a quick Ghanian lunch right across from Camfed's office. As usual I ordered Jellof rice (yes, I've fallen in love with jellof! ;) ). Olivia, being the brave one, tried Banku this time 'coz we'd heard so much about it, but by the way she was pecking at it - it was evident she didn't particularly like it. :P
Post noon, it was time for us to introduce the BIG one - Gmail! We spent the next hour setting up Gmail accounts for all of them. A concept that seems so obvious & simple to us like what an email address is took us about 30 minutes to make the group understand. We caught ourselves using offline analogies to explain these concepts. For example, email id = their address online just the way their home address was their offline address. We even did a small role play of how an email/letter goes from one computer to the next.It was fun! The most interesting was explaining what a 'Security Question' or a 'Password' is to this group who've possibly just spent only a few hours their entire life on the internet.
By 5:00 pm, they were animatedly sending emails to each other and got excited every time received an email from their friend sitting across the table. By then it was already clear that some of them were quick in learning technology as they were doing all kinds of searches like Image search & playing videos on Youtube etc while a few others were still trying to get their head around how to get to Google search without support. The usual learning gaps in a class began to appear & made it obvious that technology wasn't for everyone - some people just got it and they were a pro at it in no time! while for some others... it takes a while.
We left the office feeling satisfied with our power packed day. The girls had come a long way from not knowing what a browser was to owning email ids & sending emails to each other. One of the my most satisfying days thus far. Wish I could've stayed longer to ensure they knew the concepts well enough to be able to train people coming to the IT centers.
The rest of the Reachers had spent the day teaching at a Liberian refugee camp. I hear their sessions went really well too. :)
By now, we were running on auto mode for 'Go!' 'Go!' 'Go!'.This week has been the busiest by far & most busy for Olivia & I. Though we were still reeling from the high intensity event yesterday, we were looking forward to meeting the girls. Most of them had traveled long - all the way from Tamale, a town north of Accra - to attend the training. Both of us wanted to make sure their travel worthwhile.
By 9:00 am we reached the Camfed office to find the girls already up & waiting for us. We got everyone to introduce themselves, their favorite food (it always excites people here), and what they'd like to learn today. It was interesting to notice how excited the girls were about the training and we were glad that most of what they wanted to learn was a part of our agenda for the day! :)
We started by introducing them to the internet & Google search. 15 minutes into the session, we noticed a few blank stares & confused expressions. That's when we got the cue that a lot of what we were telling them were way too advanced for them to grasp. Having made changes to our plan on the fly several times earlier during our women entrepreneur training, we quickly scaled back to start with simple concepts like what was a browser, how to exit, minimize/resize a browser, the functions available on the keyboard etc. By noon, the girls knew how to get to Google.com, search for something & when done to close the browser. This was a big achievement for them and it was very satisfying to see the sparkle in their eyes every time they got it right!
We all went out to have a quick Ghanian lunch right across from Camfed's office. As usual I ordered Jellof rice (yes, I've fallen in love with jellof! ;) ). Olivia, being the brave one, tried Banku this time 'coz we'd heard so much about it, but by the way she was pecking at it - it was evident she didn't particularly like it. :P
Post noon, it was time for us to introduce the BIG one - Gmail! We spent the next hour setting up Gmail accounts for all of them. A concept that seems so obvious & simple to us like what an email address is took us about 30 minutes to make the group understand. We caught ourselves using offline analogies to explain these concepts. For example, email id = their address online just the way their home address was their offline address. We even did a small role play of how an email/letter goes from one computer to the next.It was fun! The most interesting was explaining what a 'Security Question' or a 'Password' is to this group who've possibly just spent only a few hours their entire life on the internet.
By 5:00 pm, they were animatedly sending emails to each other and got excited every time received an email from their friend sitting across the table. By then it was already clear that some of them were quick in learning technology as they were doing all kinds of searches like Image search & playing videos on Youtube etc while a few others were still trying to get their head around how to get to Google search without support. The usual learning gaps in a class began to appear & made it obvious that technology wasn't for everyone - some people just got it and they were a pro at it in no time! while for some others... it takes a while.
We left the office feeling satisfied with our power packed day. The girls had come a long way from not knowing what a browser was to owning email ids & sending emails to each other. One of the my most satisfying days thus far. Wish I could've stayed longer to ensure they knew the concepts well enough to be able to train people coming to the IT centers.
The rest of the Reachers had spent the day teaching at a Liberian refugee camp. I hear their sessions went really well too. :)
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