What Should a Community Computer Lab Offer?

Ballresin asks: "A local computer company is expanding and including a computer lab in their setup, and they want me to come in as its Administrator. I am supposed to be giving them input on what to teach/host. What does Slashdot think a medium sized tourist town (Okoboji, Spirit Lake, Arnolds Park, Iowa) should have to offer to the locals? I was thinking something along the lines of 'How to Use Windows 101' and 'How to Use Office 101'. My compatriots want to offer some off-the-wall classes such as 'Hacker Ethics: Why and How' and a few other odd classes. I have polled people in the area, which resulted the discovery that 80% of them are from out of town, so don't really care. What you guys think; What kind of classes or what games/LAN party setups should a new, small business offer? Any ideas/input is greatly appreciated."

Comments

Not the right place to ask

[stonecypher]

By definition, SlashDotters are here because they're deeper into the community, the practices, and either the hobby or profession (for many, both) of computing.

We are going to have no idea whatsoever what Joe Average will want from a set of computer classes. Hey, we don't even know if you're dealing with residents, which won't want the same classes every year, or transients, which will want brief and to the point classes.

I suggest you take all the ideas that SlashDot comes up with, cull at least half of them, put them in a list, and put that list up in the business. Print it on flyers with five or so entries. Ask people to check which ones they would be interested in - maybe let them say sorta interested or very interested - and allow them to write in suggestions. Given that they'll be looking at other things of scale, they'll be able to input what's germane to them.

When you're writing down what you'd present, don't just come up with a topic and go. Think about it: what would Office 101 be? It's not going to be enough time to cover the whole suite. Some people will want document layout and setup in Word, like it was a publisher; some will want Excel and Access, for their small business (maybe tax stuff too.) Some will want to learn how to use Outlook, or Exchange, so that they can function in their corporate environment. Some will want to learn to make PowerPoint presentations.

You've got to remember that most people do not learn computer topics at the rate of a slashdotter. This isn't because they're dumb, or clueless, or any other such geek slander; it's because they have less context to bind to. I'm not stupid, but a mechanic is gonna pick up the specifics of fixing a foreign car way, way faster than I will, even though I likely have a better grasp of the underlying physics. You're going to need to allow a lot of time for basic cluestickery.

Maybe, here's a thought. Every month or so, offer a 101 course on one Office suite app. See how it goes, and have a second one prepared. If it goes well, do your second one while you prepare a sequel to the first.

Above all, don't get stuck in plans. The people that show up won't always be the same ones and they won't always want the same things. Some things (word) you'll be able to repeat. Prepare occasional side-tracks into the weird for geeks if you find them; if you don't, get ready to explain MS Project.

Basically, it's all about your audience, and we aren't your audience. What you get here is nothing better than a starting point.

Megahertz and megabytes

[wideBlueSkies]

I've found that I almost always get blank stares when I start to explain to folks why they need memory, storage or processor upgrades. They especially have a hard time understanding the concept of disk space. "How can you run out of space in that big white box?"

Perhaps a class called "How Your Computer Works" would be in order. The class would have gentle, simplified explanations of all the tech "mumbo-jumbo". And how it all fits together.

People aren't stupid (well most aren't). Sometimes they're just overwhelmed by information and lingo. A guiding hand could make all the difference in the world and actually help make them computer literate.

wbs.

Practice, practice, and more practice

[TheViewFromTheGround]

I work in Chicago's housing projects and have taught lots of little and big courses on computer skills.

What I've learned is that teaching a class in any given application is 1% of the work of teaching people how to use computers. What's most important, in my experience, is providing space and time for motivated people to just keeping banging away and learning new things. The great fallacy of many computer technology centers is that they are closed to the possibility of letting people goof around for a couple hours, when that's exactly what teaches folks.

When I started working on resume writing with some folks in the projects I work at, I was really disappointed that they couldn't remember anything I'd told them, etc. Now, three years later, a couple of those folks have home computers, write lots of email, are good typists, know how to use spreadsheets, etc. Persistence, time, and self-exploration and discovery are what teach lasting technology skills.

Lastly, it's important to remember that you should be trying to teach computing principles. One of my aforementioned buddies has been able to quickly pick up all sorts of other computing skills because he digs on the principles of how computers work, networking works, etc. I think that should be a goal.