Hi, My name is Dario Oturi and I am a librarian with Kenya National library Services Kisumu branch a Public Library. My goal is to see how the learning circles can be improve computer literacy to our coming technology bus classes. I am excited that it will allow us to have a wider variety of knowledge skills in our classes and not require us all to be experts in the material but rather be facilitators of the material. I think the greatest challenges are figuring out how to adapt the courses for the benefit of our particular students and learners residents to be most useful and not challenging other than the course content! I wish The courses would offer jobs to most of the jobless youths within our localities…
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Hello Dario,
I have worked with several adult literacy programs that have designed digital literacy classes. Some create their own digital literacy curriculum: others use a free or proprietary online curriculum: still others customize an existing online digital literacy skills curriculum. If you would like to see a list of free online digital literacy curriculum sites let me know.
David J. Rosen
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Hello David,
I would like to see a list of free online digital literacy curriculum sites
Hi David, My name is Steve and I facilitate a learning circle in Siaya, Kenya. Until I met this community, I was going through a hard time trying to help my local community in basic computer and digital literacy. Sherry introduced me to GCFLearn free and I have seen the best results.
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@Dario, I am glad that someone in a nearby City is in the P2PU fraternity and has seen the benefits thanks to P2PU Community. The other day I was referred to a great site that is interactive and easy to use by Sherry and Nico Koening and I assure you that i really appreciate their work. I am in a learning centre in Siaya and would be glad to visit the library and see your library at your invitation.
Steve
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my name is Amy Dia am the Assistant librarian lira public library.we had are workshop in mukono,Uganda that motivated me.I would like get more skill in ICT and how to facilitate a learning circle,i have not learnt much but ready to get more ideas.
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Mambo Dario,
We created a brief list here: Basic Computer Literacy
Let us know if these are of use to you or if you have others that work better,
Great to see this work continue at KNLS!
Nico
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My name is April Chmara. I’m a new part-time Adult Services Specialist with DeKalb Public Library in DeKalb, Illinois. Part of my job is to implement adult programming and my supervisor suggested looking into starting a Learning Circle. I have found the site to be very helpful and I’ve already gotten a lot of great ideas and resources. I’m happy to have found this community.
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Hey @April! Nice to see you here. I got married last month over the border in Cook County 
Let us know how we can help!
Who are you?
My name is Jordan (Slowly transitioning from my first name, Anna, to my middle name, which is preferred), and I’m a public librarian in Boston, MA.
What motivated you to join P2PU?
The fact that there was a writing course available. I’ve been a Municipal Liaison for National Novel Writing Month since 2006, and I love writing. I wanted to find a way to teach writing courses for adults, but I didn’t want the burden of being the “expert” so it seemed like a perfect fit for me.
What are you hoping to achieve here?
Getting people to write and have fun doing it.
Something that you recently learned?
I’ve been researching gun holsters for a story I’m working on and learning about the various types of holsters that I didn’t even know existed has been fun and interesting.
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Hi,
My name is Jessica, I’m responsible for managing 4 branch locations here in Hernando County FL.
I would like to bring P2PU to this community because we have an interested and invested patron base and i feel they could benefit from this style of learning.
Hoping to achieve good numbers and successful stories at the end!
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Hey Jessica,
Welcome aboard! I wanted to point out a couple other library systems that are already involved. @Megan_Danak from Tampa Hillsborough Public Library and I facilitated a staff training together last month. Her and her colleague Lori have been actively trying to understand how to make learning circles work in their community. I’m sure she would be happy to tell you more and keep you updated as she is not too far away.
Also, we’ve also worked a bit with Miami-Dade Public Library, Athanasia Fitos has been our main contact there and I can connect you when you like.
Be in touch,
Nico
Ah cool, that is good to hear. If she has any questions for me I can help also. I ran a learning circle in Chicago when I was working for CPL.
Jessica
Hey Jessica, happy to connect here or via email (danakm at hcflgov.net). I’d be interested in hearing about your experience up in Chicago.
THPL has done around a dozen Learning Circles around the county since we started last year. Fiction Writing and HTML/CSS are two that the public really liked. So far we’ve seen the most success & attendance with classes that have some kind of tangible takeaway (writing stories, coding websites). After the training with Nico, we started using the model with staff. Just wrapping up four learning circles on presentation skills, and they were very well received.
Nice to “meet” you! -Megan
Hi!
I ran a few circle in Chicago… some good, some lost interest along the way. That is how it goes! I agree, the most successful circles have been related to computer science, website, writing fiction. I do like your idea of using P2PU for staff training. Gives us something to think about.
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Hi There. Am Miriam Mureithi, a librarian at KNLS Thika, a public library in Kenya. I am a facilitator with P2PU and have done several learning circles. It has been an exciting experience having people come together to do an online course. One which attracted a lot of interest is Basic Computer Skills. I am glad to be be in this community.
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Hi Miriam! Thanks for saying Hello. Looking forward to hearing if this kind of forum could be useful for your colleagues at the Kenyan National Library Service. I know you group uses Whatsapp to share updates with each other, but I hope this can be a helpful space for people to ask questions and share feedback with the rest of us. Let us know if you think there is a way for this space to be useful to your colleagues,
Nico
Hi Nico! Am excited to be in this forum. We have been using whatsapp and also telephone conversations to to get updates and learn from one another. How complicated is it if i want to pay for an exam to get a certificate from the universities offering the P2PU courses. For example, if i go through Basic computer skills is offered by University of Wisconsin.
Great question @Miriam_Mureithi Do you mind posting that question to New Topic (Go to main community.p2pu.org and click + New Topic top right corner? That way we can go into more detail and get other feedback from others.
My name is Allan Mudenda Hagwelele from Zambia. I work as Provincial Librarian for Southern Province and head Choma Provincial Library. I got to know about P2PU through a training done by EIFL in Lusaka. I would want to learn skills that will help me start learning circles in my library. I look forward to interact with the community here. It is interesting to note that Peer to Peer learning is free.
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