End of Week 1

I love the challenge of taking a course and making it new each time I teach it. It would be SO boring to go over the same activities again and again. The core areas are pretty much the same but

The challenge I always face is keeping a balance between the hands-on tasks in an ICT course (because the participants need plenty of time to practise) versus the need to develop a good group dynamic and keep the energy levels varied. Spending three 90-minute sessions looking at a computer screen is really tiring. Energy levels usually go down after lunch, just as with classes of language students. The room we are in is also a factor… the lighting is a bit dim and the ceiling is a bit low.

Here are a couple of activities we have used:

1.    Stand up and get in a line’  

At the end of last week, to raise the energy levels before getting down to work, we did a few ‘Stand up and get in a line’ type activities. We tried doing it according to birthdays (not including the year of course) and for the first time there was someone with the same birthday as me! In fact there were two pairs of people who had the same birthday in a group of twelve people. I can’t remember that ever happening before. Then we all thought of a hobby or activity we enjoy, tried to guess where we would need to stand to be in alphabetical order according to the first letter of the hobby and mimed it so the others could guess (an activity I saw George Pickering do a few years ago.) That was also fun. We have an active group with lots of joggers and cyclists!  

Do you ever do such ‘Stand up and get in a line’ activities? One difficulty can be having a large number of students in class so we brainstormed what could be done:

· Have only half the class up at a time (although it might be time-consuming)

· Split the class into two groups that work at the same time was another option

2. Another activity sequence I do involves some physical exercises to prevent damage to the wrists. It gets everyone standing up and moving – great as a transition to another activity of at the end of a session before the coffee break.  

Here’s another new exercise I just started doing. You can also hold your hands palms together (like you are praying). Start with your fingers under your chin and slowly bring your hands down until you can’t keep the palms together any more. Don’t strain! This exercise stretches the forearm.

 There are also plenty of YouTube videos with exercises. Personally I find some of them too advanced! But if you are fit, you may enjoy them.

This can lead to a discussion about how to position your laptop to minimise health issues. In fact recently there has been a lot of discussion about how standing up while working can be considered healthier (at least for short periods.) Lifehacker has a few posts about this topic.  

3. Yawning for energy

Sounds contradictory, right? 

Pretend you are at a boring meeting and yawn (trying to hide it. ) The urge to yawn continues… it gets harder and harder to hide it. Finally yawn really widely and s-t-r-e-t-c-h like you just woke up.

       OR

4. Chewing gum

Ask the group to pretend to be chewing gum – first one piece, then add another, then another and another! Really enjoy chewing…. Blow a HUGE bubble. Pop it J.   

These last two activities of these come from Changing Energies by Joan Agosta (Pilgrims Publications 1988.)

Warmers are a really good way to raise energy levels. As a group, we might discuss whether each participant could contribute a warmer for a different session so we share a variety of activities.