1. How are beginning students introduced to the basics of the keyboard, turning on the computer, and other computer basics?
Dave: They were introduced to it by letting them explore the computers. We gave them very, very limited instructions before we set them off to explore around the computers and see what they could do and see what was there. And after we gave them some time to do that we maybe had a little bit more structure to some of the things we had them do. We knew the fear was there and we had to do something to take that fear away.
Crystal: We did what we call goods, bads, and comments. And at the end of each day the students would fill out something good about that day, something bad about that day, and any comments, concerns, or questions that they had about that day. We had always had the computers on for the students. When they walked in they were just turned on, and at the end of the day we had always gone down and just turned the computers off for the students. And on one of the goods, bads, and comments it said, "How do you turn the computer on?" So the instruction that they needed, they let us know what it was.
They had some control over what we let them know about the computer and what we let them discover about the computer. Once they found out it was very non-threatening--whatever they needed to know we'd help them with and what they wanted to discover they could--the computers then became something not to be feared.
