Into the Field, Into the rain (Thursday)

Today, I gathered the initial field data for my class's exercise that we'll carry out next week.  

The premise is that we are doing an early concept assessment for a new "company", "The Speedy Bead."  This "company" will provide high quality beads (something that is hard to find in Panama) quicker than they are available from e-railers in the States like eBay or Firemountain Gems.  In addition, they would come quickly, with low shipping rates - something that is impossible if you buy from outside Panama because there is no reliable post, so things must come in through a freight forwarder in the US, which is extremely costly and takes quite a lot of time.  

The "data" I gathered today is background for this exercise and represents the current purchasing process of beads in Panama City.  My friend, Lydia, went down to Avenida B, the rather rough area where Don Chicho and Casa Lieu are located.  There, she picked out beads, and demonstrated how she puts together sets of beads for projects.  

I wrote up this information for the class to read before Wednesday.

On Wednesday, we are going to go to Lydia's home where I will show them how to do an ethnographic visit - using all of the methods we use.  She will show us where she keeps her beads, how she plans and executes a project and what she does with finished projects.

Then NEXT week, we will do another Affinity Diagram - this time using ALL of the colors of Post-its that we have - of the data we will gather.  Again, it will be in the hallway.  Again, it will stimulate interest (I hope.)  And it will serve as the basis for paper prototypes of the website that the class will create and test.

I'm very excited!  

Planning (Tuesday)

Today, I met with my class on a Tuesday - a day usually reserved for Karla's lectures in the evening.  However, this week, Karla was (supposed to be) in Austin, Texas on vacation.

Except that early Saturday morning, luckily before she set out for the airport, she realized her passport had expired.  Oops!  So instead of being away, she was here.  We went to lunch, and planned a number of things including how we can organize the Panama UXPA chapter, how to get more work from Panama published, and how we can continue to work together after I leave.  It was lovely.

And then, we met with the students.  I was trying to teach in Spanish - which lasted about an hour and then my brain gave out.  Luckily, Karla was there.  She helped to explain more about what we'll be doing tomorrow when the students meet with the Dean (Nicolas) who is the stakeholder for the web page redesign work we're doing as our class project.  We practiced open-ended questioning again, and covered NDAs and other things we need to have prepared for the interview.

The students will be coming to my office tomorrow morning for a last review and then, with luck, at 10 am, we'll be in our meeting.  It promises to be interesting!  And fun (I hope)

It will also be in Spanish.  So I'm heading off to bed early so I have as much Spanish "bandwidth" as possible.

Birthdays and Accomplishments

Feliz 32! 

El Decano Nicolas with the cake

Doris as she presents

El Decano Nicholas, Doris and Karla after all was said and done

Things are a bit tense here in Panama City because the Construction Workers have gone (I believe) on strike and apparently, sometimes things get violent at times like this.  I had 2 friends send me messages about this though I wasn't able to get much more information.  It is still a concern and Elba said she'd call me if she hears of anything.

I could see the results of this because there were very few cabs on the street today.  I finally saw a cab and flagged it - though it had 2 women also in it.  It turned out that they were going very nearby so it was OK.  But I wouldn't have done that if cabs had been more plentiful.

The day at UTP began with sweets.  I had gotten a late start because I spilled on my last shirt and had to do laundry before I could head in.  The department gathered to have one more birthday party.  The cake was huge - and very tasty.  I joined the coro and it was great fun to sing again.  I really must learn the words to the second verse that they sing here.  

A friend from South Africa pinged me later to tell me that 32 in binary is 100000, so it's much more important than 30.  :-)

Shortly after lunch, at 1 pm, one of our students, Doris, was presenting her Masters work.  I'm very interested in what she did - which is good because I'm going to coach her as she writes an article on it in English.  Man, what a daunting task!

Thing was, I was supposed to be teaching at 1:30.  The class was all interested in Doris' work too though so we rescheduled for tomorrow - same time, same place.  I went back over, but by that time, she was in the midst of her presentation and I really didn't want to throw her by coming in mid-stream, so I waited outside until she was done.  There was a long pause, and then they called her back in to ask a bunch more question.  It took me back (WAY back)!  

But, no surprises here, she did a great job and passed her defense.  YAY DORIS!

I went back to the office and completed my rap.  Yay!  I also found someone who can beat box so we'll work on that tomorrow.  Then I plan to put together a slide with the text and slides with each of the "Lessons learned" too.  Plus (most importantly and significantly) I have to put together my Case Study slides.  I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to do, but I have to do it.  Now.