End of a Great Experience ^_^

Today was the last day to "officially" mentor my teacher. I say that because this definitely is not the end...
as I have mentioned in previous posts I would really like to continue with what I am doing.
as an end to my assignment, I wanted to ask my assigned teacher a group of questions to assess her experience as a whole.
Here is how the interview went:
1. What did you get from this experience?
I learned many basics to deal with the internet, many simple tasks that may seem simple to others have been very valuable to me and to my development with computers.

2. If u had the option to do it again? Would you?
Of course, but with the same teacher  lol

3. What would you do differently?
I would learn more things that I have on my mind like power points, and how to conduct research, in addition to new web sites that could be beneficial to me.

4. What was your favorite technology to learn?
Being able to send links and things that I found on the internet to others that I keep in touch with via emails, this has been something I really wanted to learn for a while and I finally got the chance to.

5. What do you wish you learned more about?
I really wanted to master twitter more than I do, it is a cool website but I still have some practicing to do on there.

6. How have the technologies you learned changed the way you use the internet?
Now I use it while understanding, as opposed to using it while just memorizing. Also, the internet used to be a scary thing to me, it gave me more confidence to explore new things and learn more. Before, I used to think that any wrong click would ruin everything, but I am more open to exploring now.

7. Do you recommend this program to others?
Yes, of course, everyone needs to learn how to master these things because they can help us a lot in our lives.

8. What technology did you view to be most useful? And why?
Stumble upon, if used correctly, can open your eyes to so many things in the world that you never even thought about. Delicious.com was where I kept all of these things for reference.

9. What was the thing you found hardest to learn?
Learning how to deal with more than one tab at once was a challenge to me and it always left me very confused, but now I navigate the internet with more confidence and knowledge thanks to this program.

10. Any comments you would like to make about your experience?
My student teacher; Kawthar, has been very patient, she helped me understand everything and I really enjoyed working with her. I hope she continues with me later so we can both benefit more and more. Good luck to her in everything she does.



This should tell you everything about what a great student my assigned teacher really was.
finally, I was really hesitant about this program and was seriously not looking forward to working on it at all. when the criteria was loosened a bit, and we had more freedom as to who we would like to work with, I found this to be my very favorite assignment. my teacher and I never skipped a meeting time and were always looking forward to working with each other and learning more and more.
World 203 was the class I was mostly unsure about at the beginning of the semester, now I can confidently say it has been my favorite.
my decision to stick with it even though I was really lost at first was definitely a good one.
I was afraid of it because I did not understand it at first. but if we only take classes about things we understand in college, what is the point of calling it an education?
The College experience is all about getting out of your comfort zone, this means different things to different people, to me, it means learning as much as I can in this time I have here.
I am coming out with so much out of this class, knowing a great professor that has an amazing love of life that each one of us 100 was touched by, amazing new friends that I met through my world group, the use of so many new technologies that have expanded my horizon to what is out in the world and what I can do with the amazing available asset called the internet, great role models in our TAs showing us where hard work can lead. (thanks to Cole :) ), and yet another great college and life experience.
Thank you to everyone in world 203 this 2009 fall semester for making my experience what it was.
Good luck to all.
Kawthar Amin

My Turn to Learn

OK! so this past Sunday December6th, I went for my regular visit to my assigned teacher's house where we sat down on her computer to teach her more of what she wanted to learn. This was probably the most successful visit so far, she just keeps getting better and better at it everyday. This last time I felt like she was getting things before I even said anything.
she said that she now understood more than memorized! which is exactly what I was aiming for! because now she takes the principles she learns and applies them to different programs and websites, which maximizes her understanding of the usage of the computer and the internet.
I plan to continue teaching my assigned teacher even after the semester is over because both her and I enjoy it so much. It is so rewarding and so important.

Amazing Progress

Over the past weeks my assigned teacher has been making unbelievable progress. I have never seen someone so eager to learn.
I want to say that I was very hesitant about this assignment before I actually started working on it. teaching my teacher has been an unforgettably pleasant and rewarding experience that I would do again on any given day without a doubt.

Before I started the program I actually had a set plan for what I was planning to do, I wanted to go through the major web sites on the internet and teach them to my assigned teacher to bring her to the same level of a college student today. I was plannig to go through twitter, blogging, stumble upon, youtube, gooogle, google docs, google wave, jing, delicious, picasa, and many other programs I had learned to use over the course of the semester. I soon changed my course however to tailor to what my teacher really WANTED and NEEDED to know. she wanted to know how to send links of videos, imaged, articles and slide shows that she found online to her husband over seas. she wanted to learn how to create a slide show, and how to download pictures from her camera onto her PC, and then how to edit those pictures and to send them via email as well.

I found teaching my assigned teacher these things more important because you need to know the basics before you are able to learn the more complicated things online.

she is so attentive and she asks a lot of questions which is very important since this was my first time teaching anyone anything, and I am sure I missed out on a lot of things I should have said. so her questions helped keep both her and I on the right track.
we have been keeping in touch via emails and phone calls since these are the two she is most proficient and comfortable with.

Another thing I would like to say is that my visits to my teacher's house (we did a lot of face to face) have become more of a family event. tomorrow for example I am taking my niece with me because she wants to hang out with my teacher/ mother in law's daughter while I give the lessons.

this was my update so far.
will be back soon for more info :D
peace

second Sunday success

Today was my second day teaching my assigned teacher how to use different technologies online. I must say I am really enjoying it at this point. we went over some things that I taught her last time but that she was not too sure about, we also went over a few new things. the sheer look of happiness and satisfaction on her face when she understood something was priceless. we have yet to get to blogging, but it is a very strong but slow progress that I will probably continue with her after my class is over, I just enjoy it so much!

we got emailing out of the way for sure, she loves Stumbleupon and apparently has gotten the entire family into it too. they spend hours on there :) she caught delicious the fastest out of anything I have taught her so far and she loves the idea that all her faves would be saved online where she can have access to them where ever she has access to internet connection.
my email is flooding with youtube links and stumble finds that she shoots to me everything she sits down to surf... I would not have it any other way :)
I feel like I want to teach her everything and anything about computers because now I am really experiencing the benefits of doing this, it really is great to teach someone to do something they really enjoy.

can't wait tell next week's lesson !

teaching a teacher :)

Last Sunday I finally met with my assigned teacher to teach her how to use certain technologies that I have just learned myself over the course of this semester. she told me that she would be more interested in strengthening her existing skills first before learning new ones. so that is what we did for the entire day on Sunday where I taught her how to send links to websites via email, how to conduct better research, how to send and reply to emails, I also made her a twitter account and taught her about the risk of displaying too much personal information online, I showed her how to find people on Twitter and how to follow them and search tweets that she might be interested in. I also introduced her to stumble upon. we are planning to go further than this next Sunday where I plan to introduce her to delicious.com as well as how to make a blog and the things people do with them.
I would say this is very successful and I really wish I picked her (my future mother in law) from the beginning, she is a really good student and I feel great about helping her understand all of these new technologies.
can't wait tell next Sunday :]

isolated areas

in class today we talked about some different areas in the world that are very isolated. I just think it would be awesome if I got to go to one of these places. it would really change the way i view the world I bet...
I would also like to talk to someone who has actually done that and hear about their experiences.

slow progress

I really feel like this class just goes really fast and some days I feel completely lost and just when I think I caught up I find out that I did not!
but I keep working really hard and doing all of the work that I have to do!
I really hope to get an A in the class because of the amount of work that I do!
I like my group and I feel like we all get along pretty well!
I feel really good knowing all of the new things I do right now but I still feel like I am really behind so it's this weight that I am carrying around constantly!
I really hope it gets better as time goes by.