digiUP Pilot Course

Times: 10 weeks (+1 introductory session)

Trainer: 1

Volunteers: 7

Participants: Altogether 31 participants from 10 countries (48% Syria)

Gender Participants: 45% women, 55% men

Age: 48% (18-34); 45% (35-54) 7%  (+55)

“This project had a very interesting approach based on the idea that people help each other among themselves. It means that they discovered and learnt about computers by themselves, I was really only there to provide support and give them the initial input. It worked surprisingly well, I have to say.” Trainer of course

Some benefits: 

They enjoyed working in groups and it meant a lot not having to be scared to ask questions or to contribute. It became natural to everybody to take part and to be active. They found it a very good way of learning and of involving everybody in the process. Solidarity and a helpful attitude were very much part of the course atmosphere and never a problem. The presence of the volunteers was very much appreciated.

Times: From February 6th to April 26th, 2017, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, classes of 2 hours (50 hours in total)

Trainers: 2

Volunteers: 4

Participants: 7 participants (22 at the beginning of the course, some didn’t take the whole 50 hours),

Some experiences:

"Before coming here, I imagined it like this, there, one person-computer-person… I
had no idea, logically. Since the beginning, when they said no, two in one computer
or three in each PC… and if today we are three here, tomorrow I would go in front
with [someone else]… so, changing for staying all together, I like it, truly, very
good”. Participant of the digiUP Pilot Course

“But the courage, I think that we give it to the others too, don’t we? The dialogue, I
would provide more dialogue between all of us. In each class, when it finishes, my
opinion is that there could be a little bit of dialogue, [to discuss] how everyone felt”. Participant of the digiUP Pilot Course

“Do you remember that when you started you didn’t understand a lot of
information, and one day you were asked and all of you said: Could it go a little bit
slowly? And from the moment you had the opportunity to say: “We want to go more
slowly”, you started to understand it better and you also started to work better. Ithink that it would be good to include these spaces… two or three days of class, stop
for a moment and: “What do you think about it?” “How are we going?” “No, we are
going too fast or we are going too slowly”. Then, the class runs at an adequate
rhythm”. Volunteer of the digiUP Pilot Course

-Making posters 

The group was asked to separate in small groups of 2 or 3 participants.

Each group had participantsofdifferent age (a young one/s and elder one/s). 

The trainer gave materials to the groups paper,scissors, glue, colour 

+paper, ribbons, coloured pencils, etc. Eac group should make a postefor advertising the IT course. The groups had 30 minutes to do the exercise. The aim of the exercise was  to show the heterogeneous approach and to make participants in the group have trust in their  partners. The posters were hanged to the walls of the computer room to give participants additional  motivation and to raise their self-esteem.

-Exercises in the computer course  . Combination of practicing Word, online search – Creating a Roma fairytale 

The participants work in pairs or in groups of 3. Their task is to prepare a Roma fairytale – to type the  text of the fairytale ( even they can search for a Roma fairytale in the web- google for example), to  format the text( change the font, colour and style, etc), add some pictures or animations. When the  fairytale is ready the participants should save it as a file.  When all the groups are ready, all of the files  are presented and participants starts a discussion to share how did they feel during the exercise and  what kind of obstacles did they meet.