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RCEF Intern Fan Guibing helping a student surf the web.

Computer classes have been going on for a few days here at Guozhuang and things are going quite smoothly. We have ten students of varying ability, though none of which are very experienced. The plan is that this first class will go on to teach other villagers how to use computers, thereby increasing uptake (purchases) of them and raising their knowledge and skill levels in the process.

We split the classes up into upper and lower, with lowers being assumed to have no knowledge whatsoever of computers and uppers to be familiar with the basics of word processing, searching the net for information and downloading materials.

I am expecting the upper class to help instruct the lower class, and so hold a separate training session in the mornings especially for them, where I not only teach them new computer tricks they might not know, but also ask them to think through clearly what they wish to teach and how they will go about it.

Outlining what people need to learn is fairly easy (turning on the computer, word processing, browsing) but the devil is in the details. For instance, when teaching typing there are a lot of concepts that need to be taught, such as the new line, using Shift to access various punctuation marks and copying and pasting. If it is your first time teaching computer usage it might easily overlook these things, but if you do then you’re in for a world of pain, as you will soon have a classroom full of students pulling you left and right, asking you “How do I move the thingy down to the next line?”

At Guan Ai we’ve been discussing a lot recently about how to get teachers to lecture less. They should present the concepts once, quickly and then let the students get on with figuring it out on their own. This works particularly well with computer classes, possibly because the students are so eager to press buttons and try things out. In two hour lessons I barely spend more than 15 minutes explaining new functions.

Most of the time there really is no need to spend that long. Some students get it and some only kind of get it, but that’s ok. If some students don’t get it at all then you’re doing something wrong, as you should be able to transmit some of the concept to them.

But if you’ve helped all students achieve even a fuzzy level of understanding then what you’ll find is those that do get it will help those that don’t, teaching them the steps of, say, how to create a border around their image. As a teacher it makes my life a lot, lot easier, as I need only step in every now and again when there’s something they want to do that I’ve not taught them before, like how to move an image into a new folder.*

Of course I’ve used similar techniques before when teaching English, but can honestly say it’s never worked quite as well as this. I’m curious as to why. Is it the nature of the subject? Is it the tight-knit nature of this village community? Or do I have an unnaturally co-operative group of students? If it’s the latter then it can’t be because they’re a homogeneous grouping – there are men and women ranging from 16 to 60 in this class of varying educational backgrounds.

One possible factor I have thought about is the layout of the classroom. It is small, about four metres by two and so there really isn’t space for much more than one chair per computer. Everyone else has to stand up, which has the effect of encouraging those standing to roam about. Those walking about naturally spread the knowledge that they may have picked up from other users. You could say they’re information bees, spreading knowledge pollen!

* Even in these situations I don’t always tell them what to do. I’ll often give them a clue, like asking them to click on the right mouse button and see if there are any functions there that they might find useful. However, I do keep a note of these small tasks for the next time I stop them to explain a few new concepts/tricks/functions. It’s a lot of work to get everyone’s attention, so when you do have it you have to make sure you have a few things lined up to teach them.

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