If you need to go back to the titanpad, its https://titanpad.com/0VZGu3wmfC
Please edit your notes into your bit of advice with a connect to a reading, in the same way as we did for wikiguide:
don't use a reading someone else already has claimed!
Daniel, 26: Castells: Grassrooting the Space of Flows
Truly get to know your communities, since a good CyberNavigator/CyberOrganizer needs to understand the connection between computer literacy and cyberpower with the material world. Whether that means going to more local activities, becoming regulars at community hubs like coffee shops, or simply people-watching, understanding who is in your community and what they need will inform you how best to serve them and their unique cyber needs. Castells shows us in Grassrooting the Space of Flows the true power of the CyberNavigator and its crucial role in the community: acting as a liaison between the cyber world and the material world.
Chuck: 33: Himanen: Hacker Ethic
Ask Questions and LISTEN to people, don't assume that you understand their problem and rush to the solution that YOU see- you may miss the real issue or you may miss an opportunity to help THEM learn/ explore/ find a solution for themselves. Convey the joy/ excitement/ enthusiasm YOU feel to your patron- I enjoy working with technology, playing with technology, discovering its capabilities and its limits and I want to help my patrons to have that experience as well. Don't be afraid to screw it up, and feel free to share those experiences too- it demystifies the experience and lets everyone be HUMAN together. Let it be fun!
Em 43 Finn Literacy w/ Attitude
Don't worry about not knowing everything- just do your best. Go into it with an attitude of encouragement. It rubs off on people and they'll be encouraging to one another. Try to be patient as often as you can!
Try to keep in mind the goals of the people you're assisting. It takes a lot of courage to come to someone for help, don't let your own goals or assumptions of what someone "should" know mess with your ability to help them. Not everyone aspires to be a technology expert-- some people just want to get by, and that's okay. Empowering people through computer literacy is going to look different in different settings and with different people.
Most computer literacy taught at the school level is taught for domestication purposes. It's not the "dangerous" literacy Finn advocates. Take time to think about the ways you can use this newfound computer literacy to empower the community or people you're working with. This means taking a serious look at any privilege you have as the "expert" as well as doing a realistic assessment of their needs, goals, and desires.
Victoria Drews, 21: Hui "Social Capital in Gansu Province"
Hui notes that social capital is important not only in initiating informatics moments, but also in guiding them. He explains, for example, that social capital can be used through emotional reinforcement from friends and family in the form of commiseration when things go wrong and positive interest when things go right. In short, have empathy in your informatics moments: we're all learning!
18: Vos - New Amsterdam History
Vos & Ketelaar discuss the value of the New Amsterdam History project in allowing migrant groups to engage in the action of social memory. I have found that cybernavigating within a late-middle-aged population is allowing them to participate in the social memory of their families again. There was a pretty common feeling of exclusion each was experiencing, and learning new technologies like Facebook or Skype is allowing them to participate more fully in their families. My advice would be to recognize the motivations of people seeking help from the cybernavigator in order to help guide the assistance you give. In addition, it's important to not just do things for them. I tried as much as possible to have people do things themselves, no matter how trivial the step seemed, so that they could become familiar with the relevant processes (e.g. vetting an app to download from the Play Store) and continue to engage with new technology well after we met.
Rachel, 31 Uotinen
Uotinen brings up an important question not discussed in many of the other readings: what if cyber technology isn
(42) Best: Ghanaian Cafe
Try your best to go in with as open a mind and as much patience as you can. It works best if you don't over think anything - let the person you're helping speak, actively listen, repeat back to them what you think they are asking for, and go from there. Every person has different needs, and you'll quickly realize what you can do to help AND what you can't do to help. Sometimes you won't know what to do, and that's OK - you can always tell the patron that you'll go grab a co-worker and see if you can help them figure things out together. That way, it's OK for them to not know, it's OK for you to not know, and it's a shared effort of figuring things out.
Courtney:Don't be afraid to be wrong, and if you are, don't be afraid to admit that you were wrong. They won't mind if you turn and say "Oops, that wasn't what I expected, let's try something else". If anything, you're going to show them that it is perfectly fine to make mistakes, learn from them, and then start again.
Clark (46). There is always value in the work you do. Some people may come in and simply want you to help them print something, others will need more extensive work. Then, there are times when you are not going to be utilized at all. This doesn't mean that your services and the services of the center they are using has no value to them. In many cases, just knowing that your work is available as a resource is the greatest benefit for the people.
Emily, 24: Old People Emailing
Advice: Don't be afraid to learn alongside individuals when they are learning something for the first time. You can show them, not only how to find the answers that they seek but also that learning by trying isn't always frustrating and can help them gain confidence.
Reading: The reading talked about teaching old people how to email for the first time, their reason behind wanting to learn, and discussed some of the struggles with modern technology that can make learning newer technology frustrating for older individuals - screen size, number of steps to complete a task, etc. I think it also reminded me that there are certain aspects of the internet I can stumble my way through because of the similar situations I have been in and it's not always important to take the role of an all-knowing instructor. We can use that time to show them how patience and trial and error can make a world of difference.
Ed, 31:
Listen to the people you are trying to guide, present yourself as a helper, and ask for help if you don't have the answer--after all, Community Informatics is all about: shared knowledge!
Reading: Pitkin, Access to information is the antidote to poverty. Information enables people to organize themselves, to change policy, to improve their own living conditions.
Kate: Fullilove (14) -
"Root shock, at the level of the local community, be it neighborhood or something else, ruptures bonds, dispersing people to all the directions of the compass. Even if they manage to regroup, they are not sure what to do with one another. People who were near are too far, and people who were far are too near. The elegance of the neighborhood - each person in his social and geographic slot - is destroyed, and even if the neighborhood is rebuilt exactly as it was, it won't work. The restored geography is not enough to repair the many injuries to the mazeway." Practice cultural competence, respect differences without trying to recreate the cultures that produced them, and think of the cybernavigating relationship as building an entirely new community.
Danielle: Neustrom- not everyone is going to have the same understanding that you have in regards to technology, how to use it and make it useful for them. Be patient, and learn how to meet people where they are so that you both retrieve something from the expereince.
