Computer Camp 2010 – Day 1

Since the school has 5 weeks off for the World Cup, I decided to hold a 3 week computer camp for the grade 7 learners. Since there are 34 of them, I split them into 2 groups for a 3 hour morning session and a 3 hour afternoon session.

Monday morning at 8:30 am during their winter vacation, the grade 7 learners showed up at school to learn about the computers. They knew they were divided into 2 groups, but they didn’t quite understand that half of them were to come at 12:30 not 8:30. Since I was alone and trying to explain mostly in English, it took about half an hour to get them straightened out, but they finally figured it out. 13 chose their computers and sat down. I made booklets to help guide the lessons and we dove in. They fought me when I said “Break Time.” I’m not quite sure how they survived the morning. It was freezing in the computer lab. I had on a hooded sweatshirt over long sleeve and short sleeve shirts toped off with a coat, a hat, a scarf, and gloves. Some of them were sitting in short sleeves and shorts. (When I left my room in the morning, it was only 42 degrees.) The African sun is definitely a good thing. In the winter, it is always colder inside than outside and the shade has to be about 20 degrees cooler than to sunny areas. When the 3 hours was up, they did not want to leave, but I had to kick them out. I needed to warm up in the sun and eat some lunch.

The second group came with more gusto than the first. We started at 12:30 and flew through the content. We’re learning about the basics of mouse and keyboard use, how to find what you want on the computer, and touch typing for starters. Next week we’ll move on to some word processing. The time flew by and quickly came to an end. The learners rushed out to the warm sunny afternoon buzzing with excitement about all they had learned today.

I waited around for anyone to show up to my community class at 4:00, but no one came. Shame. I was actually quite relieved that my day was done after 7 hours at the school already. Perhaps tomorrow will be a slightly longer day, but hopefully less confusing.