FCLC had an outreach booth next to the “Firebaugh Theatre” which showed two documentaries. One honored historical Firebaugh and the San Joaquin river, and the other called “Every Fifteen Minutes,” showed a drunk-driving role play executed here at the high school where students act out characters involved in a fatal collision.

FCLC raffled five refurbished computers for only $1 per ticket. Most people who purchased tickets were community members who know and support us. We were excited to announce the winners which included a man from Five Points, a woman from Mendota, a three-year-old girl, a mentally-disabled woman, and one of our dedicated volunteers, all from Firebaugh.

Two months after the festival, FCLC checked in with some computer winners to see if they are using their computers. Juan Ruvalcaba uses his to type his homework. His brother and sisters use it mostly to play games. Juan stays involved with FCLC as a volunteer during the Computer Basics classes. Andrea, another winner from Firebaugh, knows how to turn her computer on and off. She is just three-years old and knows how to load her Magic School Bus CD. Elipidio Ramirez from Five Points learns about technology from his seven-year-old son who most uses their computer. In addition, Elipidio would like to sign up for a computer class that is closer to his town of Five Points.

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There were about 11 people on the vehicle, five standing on each side and one driver. The cucumber vehicle is rather high-tech. The cucumbers are cut from the vines low to the ground, sucked up through a chute, dropped onto a conveyor belt where someone separates all the plant material. Then the cucumbers move further on the belt along with rocks and sticks that need to be separated from the batch. The cucumbers go through another chute that dumps them into a large container attached to a tractor pulling alongside.

I looked to my left and right: most people were Hispanic and under 30 years of age; A few were of high-school age, and there were several women. Aside from gloves, most had hats, sunglasses and bandanas covering their mouths. I looked down at my borrowed gloves and realized I was unprepared. My job was to pull the rocks and sticks from the conveyor belt and throw them down on the base of the vehicle. Sounds easy? Not so much, especially since the belt is moving very fast, so fast that there are three people after me that do this same task. At first, I thought, “Oh, this isn’t bad,” but then after an hour my arms and neck started to ache, my eyes were very dry from the air and I was constantly thirsty. I was also starting to feel a bit sea-sick since the conveyor belt moves in the opposite direction as the vehicle. I realized then the importance of sunglasses and something to cover one’s mouth from the dust. Fortunately, the dust was not bad that day and since it was September, the weather was quite tolerable.

I was ready to put in a day’s worth of working, but after three hours, the farmer decided that there was not enough “tonnage” or cucumber production, and so they postponed picking for two days. Thus, the reality of nature.

Though hard work, technology has progressed over the years; just two years ago, cucumbers were picked manually. Workers had to bend down and sort through prickly bushes to rip the cucumber from the vines. Through experiencing a small sample of farm labor, I can better imagine the effort of working in the prime of the summer heat for 8-12 hours when the crops are plentiful and only receiving minimal breaks and $6.75/hour. I have such admiration for these dedicated farmworkers. I am glad I could take part in this small piece of the larger agricultural puzzle that makes up the Central Valley.

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The theory recommends that people recently
diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease be given the most
strenuous mental stimulation they can cope with.

OASIS sponsors an activity group (PALS) for recently diagnosed Alzheimer’s
patients. OASIS is looking for some way to introduce a high powered
Stimulation activity that PALS participants will find to be pleasurable
enough that they will eagerly stretch their declining mental faculties to
participate.

At first, the OASIS CVDN VISTA Volunteer thought typical computer
games would provide the right degree of mental stimulation. But, the
VISTA Volunteer Found that people in their sixties and older, do not like to
play computer games. They quickly loose interest.

After months of study, experiment and observation, the VISTA Volunteer
came across the one activity that PALS participants eagerly look forward to
participating in: making photographic histories of their lives, their families
and their friends.

The Great Valley Center’s Central Valley Digital Network granted OASIS a
$2000 Innovation Fund to purchase technology equipment and software for
the Seniors with Alzheimer’s in the PALS Program to make life story photo
albums. The following are the CVDN VISTAs notes on the Life Story
Project.

Dragon Naturally Speaking

Since getting the Great Valley Center Innovation Fund from CVDN, the PALS members have spent a lot of time learning how to use Dragon Naturally Speaking. Some found it extremely difficult to get the program to recognize their voices, even though they sound pretty good to the ear. The Dragon Naturally Speaking program is sensitive enough to pick out the difference in speech cadence and meter between the most functional and the least functional PALS members. The newest PALS member was able to “train” the Dragon Naturally Speaking program in about 20 minutes. The least functional member took many hours spread over four days. Training the Dragon Naturally Speaking program became an ordeal for the two least functional PALS members. Nevertheless, it was a worthwhile venture. Now the PALS members can use Dragon Naturally Speaking to record their reminiscences. Up until now, they have had to keep hand written journals. It is going to be interesting to see how well they do using Dragon Naturally Speaking over the long run. Several PALS members have fascinating WW II stories, well worth recording.

The PALS members are intrigued with the prospect of talking into a microphone and having the computer print their words on screen. As a group, they are quite taken with the process. They had no idea a computer could translate speech into print. After they trained the Dragon Naturally Speaking program to recognize their voices, I had them sit watching the screen and then engaged them in conversation. They were truly amazed to see their words appear on the screen. It was like some sort of magic.

People 80 years old learned to write in school using ink pens consisting of a metal nib and a wooden handle. All school desks had ink wells. Students had to take their bottles of ink to school every day. It is amazing to people born into that generation that now a machine can translate their words directly into print.

Photo Studio

Bill Winslow from the Senior Resource Center Computer Lab, set up the photo studio in the PALS activity room. He has it arranged so that several people can sit around the computer in a semi-circle. The scanner is located to the right of the computer and the printer to the left. The arrangement gives the set up a “console” feel. It is a very comfortable work station.

So far the PALS members have only made a few presentable photographs. They have wasted a lot of photographic paper and printer ink. Photoshop is harder to use than expected. Often, a picture will end up getting so messed up in the editing process, that all that can be done is to put it back the way it was originally. Yesterday they made a bunch of truly horrible prints. They were either too red or two blue. Getting things to come out right, is very time consuming and requires intense concentration. Also, some of the fun editing “tools” such as the clone stamp tool, take a lot of practice to master. But, the harder it is to use the editing tools, the more beneficial the mental stimulation results. The value to PALS members is the difficulty itself.

Life Story Photo Albums

There have been a lot of false starts and setbacks in getting PALS members to make Life Story Photo Albums. Some have done nothing, others have tried and failed, and a few seem to be determined to succeed, even if it takes a long time and a lot of perseverance.

One of the PALS members, a man who has been in the program for a long time, started to make a Life Story Photo Album. He brought in hundreds of photographs from home and used the scanner to digitize 50 of them. Over a couple of months, he cropped the photos, getting rid of extraneous material. He really did an outstanding job of editing. But during this time he started to go into a deep mental decline. Recently, he started missing sessions and now he wanders around rather than participating in group activities. He has completely lost interest in finishing his project. A few days ago, I helped him make some large prints. Then he walked off and left them sitting on the counter, abandoned. They were pictures of his wife and children. In the beginning, he was excited about doing the project. Now, only a few months later, he doesn’t even recognize the family members in the pictures. Several pictures were taken at his son’s sixteenth birthday party. When he cropped the pictures, he was able to tell me quite a bit about the people in the pictures. Now, he doesn’t remember what the pictures are about or who is in them. The pictures just don’t mean anything to him any more.

A second PALS member brought in some valuable WW II photographs he took when he was one of the soldiers who liberated a Nazi concentration camp. Because of his impaired mental state, he became convinced that OASIS lost one of his pictures. No one at OASIS, nor his family at home, could convince him the picture was safely returned. Now he refuses to go to the computer lab or sit down at the PALS photo studio computer console.

A third PALS member recently took a trip to Alaska. He was very excited about going to Alaska and assured us he would bring back lots of pictures. When he returned he told us he forgot to take pictures. I need to ask his wife if he forgot to take pictures or if he forgot he took pictures. You just never know with someone with Alzheimer’s disease.

Other PALS members have had varying degrees of success working with the photo studio. I try to get them to photograph things around the office or in the vicinity of the office that they can practice on. They all want to go to the zoo as soon as the weather cools off so they can get animal pictures.

Overall Impression

It is often reported how people with terminal cancer will go to great lengths to find a cure. Working with people with Alzheimer’s disease, I have come to realize that the disease effects a person’s will to live to the fullest: to exhibit vigor, gusto and enthusiasm. People with Alzheimer’s become passive and docile. They are content to sit and do nothing to slow the progression of the disease. Unless some outside agent forces them to exercise their minds, they will sit in front of the TV all day doing nothing. That is why programs like OASIS, where activity is forced upon them is so vital to prolonging their quality of life. I am still convinced that this type of mental stimulation program is extremely valuable.

Many activities, such as talking to people seems to take very little brain power. Most of what we do each day can be done on “autopilot.” I’ve found that PALS members who can carry on a lively conversation, interact with the other PALS members and appear to be quite functional, can still perform very poorly when faced with a task that takes concentration and eye-hand coordination. In every day living, serious mental deficiencies can go unnoticed because people tend to perform routine tasks by rote. It is only when they are taken out of their familiar routine that the mental shortcomings become apparent to others.

Value of the Program

Only in the long run can the value of the program be measured. It has proven to be much harder to set up than I thought it would be, both because of the lethargy of the PALS members and because I have to squeeze time out of a full schedule of pre-existing PALS activities that take priority.

Because of the time-squeeze, I am moving toward suggesting individuals schedule time to work on their Life Story Photo Albums on days they would normally be sitting at home in front of the TV.

Also, if I could raise the level of enthusiasm, I have a couple of old Photoshop programs available for them to use at home. But that would be asking a lot of them. I am finding that people with Alzheimer’s tend to let hobbies and other free time activities drop by the wayside.

One PALS member used to make model airplanes. A wing he designed has become famous and is mentioned by many web sites devoted to the model airplane hobby. Now, he has lost any desire to make model airplanes and didn’t even show any emotion when I found his wing design, which bears his name, on the internet.

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AmeriCorp*VISTA member, Debbee Williams, has been challenged with increasing the capacity of technology programs. To meet this challenge, she has recruited and trained a community volunteer in the BGCA program Web Tech. Two times a week throughout July and September the club hosted a volunteer led web design class. Young people from ages 6 to 13 participated and developed web pages based on their own interests. Web pages were displayed to club members the end of September and will be on display to the public and the World Wide Web beginning October 21 with the Clubs first digital arts festival.

Web Tech is one of the Clubs five Digital Arts Suites curriculums as part of a national $100 million partnership between BGCA and Microsoft. The program is designed to be interactive, self-directed and engaging while teaching youth to learn either MS Creative Writer (children based web-page design program) or MS FrontPage.

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What I did next was a bit unconventional but faced with the option of sending the laptop in for a repair that would cost upwards of $500, I decided that a more basic and cost-effective fix could be done by simply turning the internal fan on at all times. In order to do this, I needed a source of power inside the laptop that was hard to find. Although in regular PC’s, power connections are regularly available, in a compact laptop each component has its own unique power connection. Thus, I had to find another source. Knowing that the common computer mouse gets 5 Volts of power from the standard PS/2 port in order to function, I decided to use that as my power source. I then proceeded to butcher an old computer mouse and disconnect its cord. I connected the old cord to the laptop’s PS/2 port in the back and routed the wire inside the case through a vent near the internal fan. I then cut the cord and located the wire that gets power from the PS/2 port. By then connecting this wire to the power line of the internal fan, I had a permanent 5 Volt connection that allowed the fan to stay on whenever the laptop was turned on. This way, the CPU was always being cooled and thus, never went past 45° C. The overheating problem was fixed. The laptop has been problem free ever since.

Although this was a primitive fix and not very elegant, it was free and saved the organization hundreds of dollars. I saw an opportunity to use some basic electronics experience that I gained in college to save the organization money that they can now use to better serve the community. More importantly, the procedure can be undone very easily to return the laptop to its previous state. However, since the PS/2 port of the laptop is now used to power the fan, a USB mouse must be used. Visually, it is also a bit disconcerting. At first glance, it looks like someone stuffed a mouse into the laptop as you see a cord connected to the back of the laptop mysteriously disappear through a vent on the side.

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Linux, and other open source projects, have a lot to offer to the non-profit world. First of all, you can get it for free (or at a big savings compared to MS Windows). While there might be a lot of resources for discounted software that are available to us, there are a lot of limitations and restrictions. For example, schools and faith-based organizations are not eligible for a lot of them. You can only receive a certain number of copies during each eligibility period. And so on, and so forth. Linux has earned a reputation for being a very stable, reliable operating system, and it has a lot of other virtues that I could expound upon all day, if you caught me in the right mood. However, finding a place for Linux in your organization is not all sunshine and roses.

Even I, as a free software advocate, have to admit that Linux has a few drawbacks. For one thing, it’s not quite as user friendly as Windows, and documentation can be hard to find (but then again, when was the last time you saw a Windows User’s Manual?). There is a shortage of IT consultants who are knowledgeable about Linux. But in the long run, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Linux definitely deserves serious consideration for a place in your organization’s technology plan. Now the challenge is to get everyone else to buy into it… but that’s a story for another day.

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This afternoon was another rewarding experience in the CLC. Esparanza, who took the Computer 101 series while she was a cannery worker came in to practice her typing. She greeted me with a hug and tells me she is enrolled in college. Her body language is so confident........Another lady who had signed up for a Yahoo-free email account at a Stockton Library was at a loss at how to use her account and I was able to help her. So many good things happen in the learning center and I feel a worthwhile service is being provided.

As for my teaching opportunity in the CLC, I thoroughly enjoy it! Most of the patrons coming through have been eager learners and they come back to the CLC from time to time. The reward occurs when patrons complement the CLC and make statements like, "you have opened a whole new world for me". Thank you for the opportunity to do something I enjoy very much.......

I help a middle aged woman fix-up a new resume. We just used the Microsoft Word template but even that was more then she expected. She was so grateful and she said it looked so nice.

A lady was coming in everyday and typing up a document. For some reason it was mentioned, either to her or someone else, that the scanner could scan text (as most can) and then you could edit it. She was shocked and overjoyed, this saved her retyping 18 more pages of some important legal document that she needed done right away.

A Punjabi mother and daughter came in during my shift again. I showed them Mavis Beacon Typing Tutor last week and this week they are both using to it increase their typing skills.

Today a gentleman was working on his resume online and for some reason he needed a photo of himself. So he asked me to take one with his camera phone. He then emailed it to himself and was able to use it. It is just amazing what technology is capable of. And what it will be capable of, so much potential.

These two ladies came in and needed help looking up someone in the federal prison system, I know searching on internet can be a great way too look-up an old friend who you’ve lost contact with, but this is a new one for me. Who knows if they found him or not, but i don't know of any other way of locating someone in that situation.

I saw a woman who was using two pairs of glasses to see the screen. I showed her how to change the monitor resolution. Then I also showed her the screen enlarging program on computer 4 -ZoomText. I don’t know if she’ll actually use it but she was certainly unaware that such things existed.

I assisted a patron in creating & designing an invoice for their home based business.

I helped a man scan a photo and then edit it with Photoshop.

A CLC user asks if they can scan a photo and 20min later they have an edited version of it emailed to themselves.

These are the inspiring and humble ways that our volunteers help directly or indirectly to empower people with technology in our Computer Learning Center.

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A very fine lady in her early sixties from North Carolina recently moved to Riverbank. In her early years, after she finished college, she worked as a keypunch operator for a government office. She relates in her story that computers with programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel were not available. Mrs. Dee as I will call her throughout the story came to my site to tackle the new challenge of learning computers.

We started conversing about what I do and what she would like to do in our computer lab. “Well Mrs. Dee said”, I like Microsoft Word because I write letters to a company where I get my health supplies. You see Julio, I have a computer at home but most of the time when I type a letter the same disappear in a blink. I must be doing something wrong or touching the wrong key. Her voice sounded almost wistful, even to her. I was listening to her conversation very carefully as she was expanding on the subject of technology and what she would like to do and learn. I asked Mrs. Dee to type anything she likes and make mistakes in he writing as I was going to show her some little nice things that WORD can do for anybody. She went on with her typing, making mistakes and going as fast as she could to show me, in a way, that she was previously a good typist. I signaled her with a low tone of voice to stop her typing as I was now going to show her how to practice Spelling and Grammar. Mrs. Dee smiled in strange contentment and kind of snuggled deeper under her sweater.

On we went into the icon for Spelling and Grammar and to her wonder, a small window opened inside the big window. “You see Mrs.Dee I muttered,” you will learn a lot today and more tomorrow. “Oh sure, she said, breaking her lips into a big smile.”

We corrected the entire paragraph she wrote. We did do and undo; numbering; bullets; align left; align right; center; increased indent; decreased indent; bold; italic; underline; font size and more things as we devoured the paragraph we were correcting.

Now, Mrs. Dee is a regular at my site. She comes in the morning and or the afternoon. She knows how to correct letter, insert, format, view, edit and other tasks. And the most important thing is, that Mrs. Dee feels confident; she has expressed out her coziness and contentment with the classroom and what she has learned in a little less than two weeks of practice.

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In North Carolina, Spanish-speaking populations are relatively new to the area so my Spanish speaking skills were useful, but organizations have just begun to target and adjust to these newer populations. In Goshen, California the ability to speak Spanish (at least enough to get by at times) has helped me tremendously, as populations of Spanish-speaking persons and a culture of migrant farm working have long been established. I have also pulled people in the community who are bilingual to help me communicate with groups of children, computer workshop students, and some church groups. In terms of developing computer workshops I have had to be especially mindful of finding Spanish language resources and Spanish speaking instructors.

The digital divide has also grown between men and women, with men sometimes statistically out using and outpacing women in some areas of technology, especially in careers. In North Carolina I have participated in programs that encouraged young women to become involved and interested in jobs relating to technology. Although I am a feminist, this divide did not even occur to me until I began to pick up on the gender pattern of youth who entered the Computer Learning Center in CSET. Furthermore, when I announced the beginning of classes to interested groups, I found that although women wanted to come, they had the additional job of childcare. To address this issue I have attempted to provide childcare for those workshops where women with children are in attendance, as I found that women with children were reluctant to come and would send their husbands in their place.

I am pleased with the skills I took from organizing in North Carolina that I was able to apply here in Goshen, CA and also thrilled to be learning new community organizing tactics as I make my way around Goshen and learn to overcome and negotiate the challenges of community development within a rural community.

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