We have been preparing for our training sessions at the Lowman Home since the beginning of this course, and today was my group’s day. I have to admit, I enjoyed it way more than I was expecting to! For this blog assignment, I want to reflect on our session.
First, I want to give a shout out to my group members: Chris, Obakeng, and Anthony. You guys did great today. Go team! ☺
Our session’s topic was on e-cards… something that I thought the students would really enjoy. In preparation for the class, I put together a step-by-step tutorial handout for the students to follow. It had screenshots and written directions of every step of creating an account on the hallmark website and sending an e-card. I use this format quite a bit at work to create tutorials for our employees and have gotten good response from them, so I thought something similar would benefit the Lowman Home residents. It was time consuming, but something I think was well worth the time spent as it can serve as a reference for the students to use in the future.
The session started with Chris explaining what an e-card was, and kind of veered off when they were asked if they had e-mail accounts. There was a bit of confusion in the room for a bit while everyone logged in to their e-mail or created an account. It was at that point that I realized that our lesson plans would be thrown out the window. We refocused after the e-mail check to direct the students to the hallmark website and from that point on the four of us more or less gave the students hands on help on the process. In hindsight, this approach worked better than using a more lecture-based method.
In the end, all the students were able to send a card – some of them even sent cards to their classmates - and it was really cute to see how excited they were when they received them.
The thing that made this project so rewarding was seeing how eager the senior citizens in the class were to learn about technology. They really are interested, and they yearn to learn about these things… they just need someone to be patient enough to show them. They just need someone to take a moment to break it down for them. It’s hard to describe the feeling I got being there today, but it really was amazing being around these seniors. They were so thankful that we were willing to help them… but to tell the truth, I’m not sure who got more out of the session – me, or them! It showed me a subset of an older generation that refuses to stop learning. I saw a group of people who don’t use age as an excuse for trying new things. I may have helped teach them a new skill, but I feel like the real lesson here was what they taught me. They really are a special group of people - I only wish I had more time with them!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment