First Mega Project Blog
1- what do you plan to achieve?
We are planing to teach basic IT skills to students of age 14 to 18 as these skills are crucial to perform efficiently in university and workplace..
We have started with 20 students and we are teaching them MS Word by conducting online class for 45 mins every Sunday..
In the long run we plan to teach MS PowerPoint and MS Excel too. And we will increase the number of students as well..
2- How do you plan on achieving their goals?
At first we created an online questionnaire to get an idea about previous knowledge and willingness of the students.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdTW5PGQOGiC065ZqaYXGUsu_FrCzAugx1WfE28vmIfHGqDpw/viewform
We conducted our first class on 2-May-2021 from 5:00 pm to 5:45 Pm. We briefly explained about MS Word and Home Tab.
3-How will you divide tasks within a group?
We have divided our course in four weeks and in fifth week we will have an assessment. Every week two members will conduct an online class of 45 minutes (30 minutes lecture and 15 minutes discussion).
Course Breakdown
We have divided our course in four weeks and in fifth week we will have an assessment. Every week two members will conduct an online class of 45 minutes (30 minutes lecture and 15 minutes discussion).
4-Where you able to meet their goals?
We were able to gather 15 students. We have made them fill out a survey form regarding their interest in learning and their previous knowledge of MS Word, to track their performance and to know how many students are aware of the importance of these skills.
Then we made syllabus of the course and divided the tasks among all members.
Last Sunday we conducted our first online class. 14 students attended the meeting and session went very well. Students were engaged and they asked many questions to which we provided satisfactory answers.
This Sunday we are going to conduct our second online lecture insha allah.
5-What were the challenges?
Lack of motivation in online learners
As hard as distance teaching might be for us, it’s likely even harder for our students. They’ve gone from classrooms explicitly designed to support learning, to bedrooms and kitchen tables where distractions are plentiful and expert support isn’t always on hand. It’s no surprise that more than a few will be tempted to opt-out.
Lockdown challenges
Due to covid-19, most of the students have left the cities and gone to their own villages, due to which the number of students for online learning is still low, but as the situation improves, the number of students may increase.
Low Impact
Because of the online class, children do not focus as much as they do in schools — which is why learning is not so effective yet but we are hopeful, very soon we will create harmony among students, which Fun activity in class, and various energizers will be taken advantage of.
Substandard internet
In many places, online teaching is being affected due to lack of good quality internet. Right now, three students in our class belong to GB and the quality of internet is not good there. But despite this, our team is trying their best to take them along with the rest of the students.
Unavailability of Electronic devices
Not every child has electronic devices, so they use someone else’s laptop in the house, which also causes problems. If at some point that laptop is taken away by someone else, this child will not be able to have a class.
Noise Disturbance
Students have been taking online classes from home, which makes a lot of noise and makes it difficult to focus on learning and teaching, and the noise around them distracts the children.
6-What was the outcome?
In order to get to know the current status of student’s knowledge of Microsoft Word, we circulated a questionnaire among students. The questionnaire had questions needed to know the extent of knowledge students already had. On average, students had almost 22% knowledge of Microsoft Word which can be seen below.
So, the course was designed in such a way that firstly we will introduce the interface of Microsoft Word to the students so that they will be able to get the basic idea. In first week, we conducted a class on Sunday in which two of our team members participated and taught about the basis of Word to the students. At the end of the session, basic questions regarding the lecture were asked in which most of the students were able to participate. We also asked them about their understanding and most of them were able to understand. This process will continue to take place until the percentage reaches at least 90%.
7-How many people were you able to impact?
In our course, fifteen students enrolled themselves. The enrollment process took online in which we made a questionnaire on google forms and circulated it among students. Fifteen students enrolled themselves in the course. Out of the fifteen enrolled students, ten students were able to take first class. But, the number will surely increase in the next class as we have informed students to join class on time next week
8 -Would they change their approach in future?
Microsoft Word can help students to create new innovative methods of learning and teaching. Word suite for students help to transmit educational materials and practice systematically in school and university faster with higher quality.
One of the advantages of using Microsoft Word is that it is available practically everywhere. Word comes standard on many pcs and these computers are in excess of almost every student. Our main purpose is inculcating the importance of Microsoft Word in personal and professional lives.By practicing and learning more about this software , they will change their approach in future as well because they know the worth of it in practical life.
9- How would you continue this project in future?
As the students of college and don’t have the good knowledge of Microsoft word and in universities they face difficulties in making the report initially.
So after fellowship we can continue this project by following steps:
- First we will advertise this with our fellows and community.
- We will make a proper Facebook and Youtube add about our course.
- We will make proper course videos and design a complete tutorial.
- Make a proper Youtube and Facebook channel in which we will upload our complete tutorial videos and give access to our registered students via generated questionnaire.
- Should prepare Advertising flexes and display on public sites.