Introducing computers

Sitting here in the computer lab, having just given a lesson to a young woman, a friend of the school director, I am suddenly very thoughtful about computers. That’s how it is here – I came this morning without any specific plan, I opened the computer lab, spent some time exploring the various activities installed for kids, and then I was introduced to this young woman, and now I’m teaching. On my other side is Monsieur An, a school ‘inspector’ who tends to hang out in the computer lab and the library with me. We make a good team. I like to talk about what I’m doing – explain this or that section of the library, this or that site on the computer, ideas I have – and he responds with incredibly lengthy lectures on Islam and all sorts of stories and theories on human behavior. I’ll listen patiently for about twenty minutes, and eventually he’ll stop, and then we’ll continue to work. Right now he’s having a lot of fun with the keyboard; I never really thought about it before but he’s right – all the vowels are on the top row.

During the past month I have been gradually ‘initiating’ the teachers in the computer lab, basically introducing them to the machines that they have access to, and actually have had access to for over a year. › Continue reading

Tags: takeaways, technology