paper-outline.doc I’ve attached a more comprehensive outline as a Word 2003 document because WordPress didn’t save the formatting. I posted it because I thought it might be helpful to other people and also to get some feedback if anyone is still reading these posts.
~Chris
So, what are my final thoughts about this experience? For one, it was definitely a detriment and a source of frustration throughout the semester that I was tied to working with one individual at one location. This meant that if either of us had a schedule conflict, I ended up missing out on service-learning time. I was pretty busy this semester, so I don’t know that I could’ve worked something else in, but I should’ve tried. I may be able to work on the Digital Divide Wikipedia article before the semester ends, so that may help diversify my experience.
This experience also reinforced my conviction that my technology teaching skills (and my teaching skills more generally) need a lot of work. Teaching technology as someone who’s relatively tech-savvy to someone who is less so is very tough. For one thing, it’s a pedagogy requiring a lot of experimentation and failure to learn how to do things, which is different from how we learn to do a lot of other things. This was a big problem with Sharon, who tends to be very task-oriented and isn’t accustomed to making the deviations where learning usually happens.
I also discovered that learning and teaching tech tends to be very idiosyncratic. I was surprised that Sharon had difficulty with some things (such as wikis) but was relatively adept at others (such as PowerPoint). Getting proficient with technology requires a lot of trial-and-error and failure, admittedly more than a lot of people are comfortable with. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that computers frustrate the hell out of me at times, but when that does happen, it’s usually because of hardware or software installation/configuration issues, not conceptual issues. But as far as getting around the Web and using a computer to its fullest potential, everyone learns differently. Therefore, teaching tech to newer users like we teach reading or algebra is probably not the best approach to take.
Well, I had my last visit with Sharon today. We worked a little bit on PBWiki, with mixed results. First, however, I wanted to mention that I FINALLY remembered to bring an extra mouse with me, which I’d been meaning to do since our first visit. The fact that Sharon’s mouse was jumping all over the place was driving me nuts. The mouse I brought, a nice four-button MS IntelliMouse, worked just fine, so I recommended to Sharon that she get a new mouse, as I took mine back home with me.
Anyway, on to PBWiki. I set up a PBWiki of my own late last night just so I could show Sharon how to play around with Wiki editing. I also found a well-done video on YouTube that explains the concepts and uses of wikis for beginners that I was meaning to show her (you can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY&feature=related). However, the Pittsburgh School District’s website blocked the site when I tried to view the video, which I should’ve foreseen. The web filter said YouTube was categorized as EXTREME content, which I disagree with. There is certainly some questionable material on YouTube, but my experience has been that most stuff is pretty tame and appropriate for middle-schoolers, assuming you’re viewing it with them. The comment boards do turn into flame wars far too often, though, which I wouldn’t want kids exposed to.
After that roadblock, I logged into my PBWiki site and wanted to show her how to edit it. She wasn’t really interested in experimenting, though, and she wanted to set up her own wiki from scratch. I logged out of my wiki and we went through the registration process from scratch. She set up a wiki page and wanted to create a table that other teachers could fill in. She tried the “insert table” utility in PBWiki, but she wasn’t happy with the results (though I suggested she change the table size when creating it), so she created a table in Word and pasted into PBWiki. This turned out decently, so she wanted to save the page and go live with it. This is where things went downhill, as she was confused and dismayed by the site’s prompting her to email the wiki to associates. She didn’t want to take the time to type in all the email addresses, even though I explained to her that the system could grab addresses from her address book if she wanted it to. Also confusing was the password/permission system for other users. Since PBWiki requires a password to edit anything, getting the password out to others is key.
To make things worse, we then found that she had created her wiki using my email address, even though she created her own account. I’m still not sure how that happened. In the end, she decided to delete the wiki entirely and give up for the day (and perhaps forever), as she felt PBWiki wasn’t entirely user friendly, which is true. I was nonetheless disappointed that she had a bad first experience and that she soured on the thing so quickly.
