The Internet

I realize that I haven´t written much recently about what I actually do all day here at the school, so I figured I´d give you a little taste here today. The main thing I do is teach (or try to teach) computer skills to the students here. One of the tasks I help them with is performing basic internet searches. This proves to be difficult for a number of reasons.

First of all, I don´t think there are many students here that understand what the internet is. They seem to think that it´s some sort of magical thing contained within the computer that can give them answers to their homework questions, as well as show them pictures of Daddy Yankee. I think just having a general understanding of the vastness of the internet and how it actually functions would greatly improve their ability to use it effectively.

Secondly, most kids seem to think that the internet has to open up with the google home page, and if it doesn´t, they are immediately lost. They don´t have the ability to navigate to the google homepage (or anywhere else for that matter) and are continuously opening up new windows if they want to start a new search. There are also varying degrees of skill using the back and forward buttons, and clicking on links.

Lastly, the majority of students have trouble understanding that the computer cannot read their minds and doesen´t always know what they mean. This also goes beyond computer skills to basic knowlege, because the root of the problem is just being uneducated in general. An example of this is a student who was in here yesterday. His homework, as he copied down verbatim from the board in class, was "find information about the constitution of the republic(meaning the Dominican Republic)." So of course he types "the constitution of the republic" into google and finds a page discussing the constitution of Costa Rica. He immediately starts copying down some information, not really paying attention to what the words mean, and ignores our attempts to get him to understand that this is not what he wants. Finally, Anthony walks him over to a map and explains where Costa Rica is, where we are, and why what he´s looking at is not correct. I think we made a small amount of headway.

I guess, all we can do is keep trying and do what we can do.

Have a geat weekend everyone.