January. Another new year. New resolutions, new projects, back to the grindstone. I didn't actually make any resolutions this year, just resolved to continue the positive path I started last year regarding health: physical, emotional, and spiritual. This also means updating my outlook about life, including my work.
Part of my job as a part-time librarian is teaching computer literacy classes every Tuesday. I teach two classes each day, each lasting 1.5 hours in the subjects of mousing and basic computer skills, Microsoft Word, Internet and web-based e-mail. People take four classes total, one each week. I used to dread teaching them at first (my very first librarian/supervisory position), but now can honestly say I enjoy doing it.
Sometimes, I teach mentally handicapped folks, those who have never touched a computer before in their lives, seniors and people my parent's age. Many times, people want to take the classes again, and sometimes more than twice. This is okay, but if we have a lot of people waiting, they may have to wait a few months. For folks who have never used a computer before, they sometimes forget what they learned, so it's just like taking them again for the first time.
In addition, there are people who use the public terminals who do not have those basic computer skills, so showing them for the first time is like a crash course in teaching a computer class. This can be frustrating for a new user, because there is a lot to learn! For younger generations who have grown up using computers, this may seem silly. The number one complaint I hear from new (older) users is that nobody will take the time to explain things- they breeze through so fast, or they just want to do things for them.
It's funny how a person like myself, who used to adore the idea of teaching and loves learning, could really not like it very much at first. I felt like a new teacher in one of those Gangstas Paradise movies, only without gang members and violence. Just totally out of place and overwhelmed! But with a few mere months experience, I became much more comfortable with myself and with instruction. All the library outreach programs in between surely didn't hurt, either. Forget Speech 101, just give a few of those!
Probably one of the most rewarding things is to help people do things on the computer, like set up e-mail so they can see pictures of their grandkids, print forms from the us government website so they can get their wife to come visit them from another country, and stuff like that. It's also really neat that people tell me how much they enjoy someone taking the time to show them how to do something simple, like use a scroll bar! Yay for libraries!
Part of my job as a part-time librarian is teaching computer literacy classes every Tuesday. I teach two classes each day, each lasting 1.5 hours in the subjects of mousing and basic computer skills, Microsoft Word, Internet and web-based e-mail. People take four classes total, one each week. I used to dread teaching them at first (my very first librarian/supervisory position), but now can honestly say I enjoy doing it.
Sometimes, I teach mentally handicapped folks, those who have never touched a computer before in their lives, seniors and people my parent's age. Many times, people want to take the classes again, and sometimes more than twice. This is okay, but if we have a lot of people waiting, they may have to wait a few months. For folks who have never used a computer before, they sometimes forget what they learned, so it's just like taking them again for the first time.
In addition, there are people who use the public terminals who do not have those basic computer skills, so showing them for the first time is like a crash course in teaching a computer class. This can be frustrating for a new user, because there is a lot to learn! For younger generations who have grown up using computers, this may seem silly. The number one complaint I hear from new (older) users is that nobody will take the time to explain things- they breeze through so fast, or they just want to do things for them.
It's funny how a person like myself, who used to adore the idea of teaching and loves learning, could really not like it very much at first. I felt like a new teacher in one of those Gangstas Paradise movies, only without gang members and violence. Just totally out of place and overwhelmed! But with a few mere months experience, I became much more comfortable with myself and with instruction. All the library outreach programs in between surely didn't hurt, either. Forget Speech 101, just give a few of those!
Probably one of the most rewarding things is to help people do things on the computer, like set up e-mail so they can see pictures of their grandkids, print forms from the us government website so they can get their wife to come visit them from another country, and stuff like that. It's also really neat that people tell me how much they enjoy someone taking the time to show them how to do something simple, like use a scroll bar! Yay for libraries!
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