Monday 5th March 2012

Today was a small meeting of LC, AM, MH, MO, FW and FMcG.

• We spoke to FMcG's husband through skype. 
• We viewed MH's brilliant Scratch entry

Monday 17th February

Today CD, CB, LC, JE, MH, AM, FBW, FW, CO met with FMcG.

We got a good demonstration from FBW on using Tumblr. She explained it is handy because if you cant get on very often, you can queue up blogs to post in the future automatically.

CB also gave us a useful twitter demonstration. She told us:
gh - takes you home
gp - takes you to your profile
gm - takes you to your messages

Monday 20th February 2012

Today CB, CD, LC, JE, AM, FBW, MH met with FMcG. We spoke about mind maps and how handy they can be for study, writing essays etc. FMcG demonstrated an app called 'Maptini' in which we made a spider diagram on an ipad.

We also looked at some cool but random.... (VERY RANDOM!) things on the internet. Including:
1.http://vimeo.com/36673515 - Mr Happy Man
2.http://foodonmydog.com/  - Food On My Dog

3.http://www.tokyogoodidea.com/bonsai-b- Bonsai Tree creations

Monday 6th February 2012 - GOOGLE TRICK

Today CB, CD, LC, JE and AM met with FMcG. We spoke about random.. but cool phrases to type into google:
1. "Do a barrel roll" and watch the screen spin
2. "Askew" and watch the screen tilt
3. "Chuck Norris" and press I'm feeling lucky.... apparently he can only find you :D

A sincere apology from CD for no blog updates lately!

I CD do sincerely apologise for the lack of blogs published within the last two months. 

I spent a while working at Noreside Education Centre, Kilkenny, a FETAC accredited adult education centre in which various courses are taught. The centre allows adults the opportunity to develop new skills and meet new people. The centre also provides administration services such a typing, CV creation, internet use, photocopying and printing.  The centre aims to meet the needs of all, no matter how big or small the needs are. 

There were free courses beginning in the centre in which a group of eight elderly people who had never used a computer before came in to learn some of the basics. It was the first of the three week course, lasting two hours each class. . At my time at the centre I assisted the instructors in teaching two groups of these elderly people.

The first week started with a slideshow of computer terms, different storage options and the parts of the computers. We then went on to show and assist the elderly in setting up an email address. A lot of the people at the class, had never used a computer, so it was literally one step at a time, but it felt very rewarded to hear a little "Thank you"  as they walked out.

The second week, I helped in assisting the class to compose new emails, reply to emails and attach pictures to documents. Again, most of the class had never experienced this, or even using a computer before the previous week so it was a very rewarding thing to be able to say I helped out with. We then ran through the process of booking a flight, and looking at argos online to check stock of good in Kilkenny. 

The last week, we recapped the sending of email messages, and downloading images which were sent as attachments. I took over the class for 10 minutes, in showing the class using the projector hooked up to the instructors computer how to make small changes to pictures using "Microsoft Picture Manager". (such as colour adjusting, cropping, rotating etc). The last thing we did was showed the students a introductory video to Internet banking on-line.

In between these classes, and sitting into ECDL access classes, I assisted those from the free course who came in to practice, I spent time typing, filing and compiling information. Working in Noreside Education Centre  made me realise how into computers I am, and how I should be more accepting of what I actually CAN do!

I had a brilliant time at the centre and didn't want to leave. In fact I was granted permission to go back for extra days, which of course I jumped at. All the time off left me with a lot to catch up on, but it was more than worth it! :) Anyway if anyone is still reading this (I'd be surprised if you were!) sorry again for the lack of posts lately! WONT HAPPEN AGAIN! :)

All the un-uploaded blogs will follow within the next few weeks :)