Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Teaching Computer Lit. in Developing Countries?

Posted by Cliff on from the non-physical-reading-material dept.

Pro777 asks: "I am a US Peace Corps volunteer currently teaching 'Computer Studies' at a High School in the Republic of Samoa, in the South Pacific. Anyways, myself and other IT teachers are having a difficult time finding a good digital textbook to teach basic skills such as basic computer architecture, word processing, and using spreadsheets. Real textbooks are cost prohibitive, and a lot of what is found is too high level for our students. Any suggestions?"

33 comments

  1. Here first. by Rod+Beauvex · · Score: 1, Funny

    We need to teach computer literacy in America first, then move on to other countries.

    1. Re:Here first. by srobert · · Score: 2, Funny

      Perhaps Europe or India have something like a Peace Corps that could come here and teach it to us.

  2. MIT Open Courseware by DisasterDoctor · · Score: 3, Informative

    MIT is putting all of its course materials online.

    There should be plenty of stuff in there to cull for your introductory courses.

    http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

    1. Re:MIT Open Courseware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Are you kidding? He's asking for a tutorial on how to turn on a computer and open a new Word document. Do you see anything in the MIT EECS curriculum that looks remotely like that? Don't you think that's the sort of thing MIT freshmen are expected to know already?!?

      Anyway, to throw in something positive with my empty criticism -- this looks like a potentially helpful site. And if you Lunix weirdos want to complain about the Microsoft focus, well, you have vi so write your own.

  3. Wiki wiki! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Wikipedia, Wikibooks, plus various wikis and websites all over the web for more detailed texts, like TLDP, Internet FAQ Archives etc. Good luck!

  4. Return Question by FidelCatsro · · Score: 2, Insightful

    An important factor is , What machine are avaliable to you , if any.
    A great deal of teaching revolves around commen referance .
    You can find the best text in the world , but if it requires you use an IBM PC and your stuck with a bunch of colico computers then it wont be much use to your

    --
    The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
  5. An Excellent Text by flamesrock · · Score: 1, Informative

    How to think like a computer scientist

    Dive into Python

    And have you considered illegitimately downloading texts off of filesharing networks? I don't anyone will really care...

  6. Make your own, then by ChibiOne · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What about writing your own stuff? Seriously, you could pick a couple of good basic documents about what you want to teach as a base for new ones. Yyou could even write from scratchthe one about computer architecture.

    1. Re:Make your own, then by 4of12 · · Score: 1

      Roll your own is a great idea.

      Taken one step further, as long as you have a {black,white}board in front of the class, why not use that to support your lectures and have the students copy down notes?

      Young students in developing nations are probably more receptive to personal, face-to-face instruction anyway (as are most of us). I used to avoid textbooks as much as possible when I was younger, relying instead on attention to what the teacher said and some amount of innate intelligence.

      Also, your students would gain in note taking skills at the same time that you develop a good introductory computer skills class. Those note taking skills are probably at least as important as the computer skills.

      FWIW, I commend you strongly on your current vocational choice. What you're doing makes a difference and is one of the few glimmers of hope and light in an otherwise crazy world. I wish a greater fraction of my tax dollars were going the Peace Corps.

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
    2. Re:Make your own, then by Pro777 · · Score: 1

      Myself and my fellow volunteers have written some of this stuff already, simply out of necessity.I just want to make it thorough as possible (i.e good pictures, diagrams, etc.),= and I'm guessing that there are others out there with the same problem that I have.

      Trying to teach computer literacy to high school students is tricky...on ancient computers in a place where both internet access and electricity are ridiculously expensive... Many of my students had never touched a computer before my class.

      Many of the websites mentioned have good resources, but nothing compiled and ready for download...at least that I could find given my slow, expensive internet connection.

  7. Project Gutenberg by tomarseneault · · Score: 2, Informative

    They are a free on line book supplier. I did a quick scan of their offerings and did not find very much but their list keeps growing and you might have better luck. http://www.promo.net/pg/

    1. Re:Project Gutenberg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Project Gutenberg collects mostly literature that has expired copyright (NOT it textbooks)

  8. try wikibooks by reverius · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think this is the perfect (and intended) use for Wikibooks.

    One book that might be useful: Windows XP for Beginners.

  9. Build a notebook out of published web materials by xanthan · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are a lot of web sites that have sections for teaching beginners how to do many of the basics that you speak of. If you're using Microsoft software, be sure to check out the Office section of their web site -- there are a wealth of materials there. Assuming you have a small enough class, collecting articles based on the course outline and putting them into a series of PDFs that can be easily shared and printed amongst your students should provide the beginners level material.

    AFAIK, there isn't anything free in the formal courseware world for the kind of content you are looking for. The market for beginners books, guides, and lessons is staggering -- you'll be pressed to find a good quality beginners coursebook that doesn't cost a pretty penny. The short web articles on the other hand are plentiful and should hopefully be enough to get you and your students going.

    Best of luck.

    1. Re:Build a notebook out of published web materials by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      AFAIK, there isn't anything free in the formal courseware world for the kind of content you are looking for. The market for beginners books, guides, and lessons is staggering -- you'll be pressed to find a good quality beginners coursebook that doesn't cost a pretty penny.

      On the other hand, what is the current state of copyright law in Samoa?
      It may be perfectly legal for you to purchase one copy and then make a bunch of xeroxed handouts for your students as course material.

      That assumes that you have access to a cheap photocopy service. Else you might have to turn to the old educational stand-by, the hand-cranked mimeograph machine, which will have the secondary effect of giving you a good buzz if you use it to make enough copies.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    2. Re:Build a notebook out of published web materials by xanthan · · Score: 1

      Depends which Samoa the author is referring to. American Samoa (the eastern islands) are a US Territory. The independant state of Samoa has its own government, but given its proximity to the American Samoa and its New Zealand roots, I would guess that it has a similar copyright law.

      A more accurate question is whether it is observed and/or enforced. For a small classroom, I doubt either is an issue.

  10. That's easy by HungWeiLo · · Score: 1

    Very first thing - teach the fundamentals of safe pointers. Then right-clicking should come naturally after that.

    Seriously, if it's just basic computer skills, you can very easily write your own. Make it in a tutorial/hands-on style which the locals can use in real-life applications (keeping track of hotel revenues from tourists, etc.)

    --
    There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
  11. GCF Global Learning's free tutorials by sohojim · · Score: 3, Informative
    I work with nonprofit computer training programs in the US, and I've always been impressed by GCF Global Learning's free computing tutorials, at www.gcflearnfree.org.

    Originally funded by the local Goodwill in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, GCF offers instructor-led online classes, as well as free training materials, for all sorts of classes, from "Computer Basics" to "Access 2002." The best part is that they also offer free materials for OpenOffice.org software!

    The UN-funded International Open Source Network has an excellent "Intro to Linux Desktop" course at http://www.iosn.net/training/end-user-manual/. That page also has links to other free software training materials.

    You should totally write up a detailed account of what you're doing and submit it as a Slashdot story -- I'd be interested to hear more. Or do you have a (shudder) blog?

    Good luck!

  12. here's some by zogger · · Score: 2, Informative

    fix any spaces slashcode inserts

    http://www.linux-tutorial.info/modules.php?name= Tu torial&pageid=224

    http://www.internet4classrooms.com/on-line2.htm

    http://www.w3schools.com/html/

    http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/explore/prog ra mming.htm

    http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/

    http://oooauthors.org/groups/authors/userguide2/ ca lc/

    http://spreadsheets.about.com/

    Also check out both gnome and kde documentation for running their various applications, should be enough there to get most any kids going. I would imagine that knoppix is your friend too, easy enough to burn all the spare copies you might need, no worries (not much) about borked installations to the schools hard drives. That's kde side, gnome side ubuntu will ship you free disks as well. Free and free is a dandy price. And dozens of other distros for free if you can download them on some broadband. Dialup you are sorta semi limited to the minis which don't have as many options, although fine in their own right.

    Windows stuff, really no idea, on your own basically, although I imagine there are any number of tutorials for anything you might want at any level out there.

    HTH

  13. Make them learn by bluGill · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Teach them to learn, not teach them to use one particular program. Sames as the old teach a man to fish thing. Give them a computer, and tell them they must write a paper with it. Mark all the spelling mistakes up and then write a note: next time use the spell checker. They will learn, and in the process learn to find what the rest of the program can do.

    Of course it is much easier to teach someone one program than to teach them to think. In the end though thinkers are what the world needs.

  14. Buy in South Asia by dodobh · · Score: 1

    There are specially printed versions of most books for sale in South Asia only (India and neighbouring countries). These are typically for about 1/10th to 1/4th of the cost of the US version.

    If you ask the publishers nicely, they may print low priced versions for your region as well.

    If you have a specific list of books, let me know in reply to this and I'll quote pricing here for you.
    Shipping is about 50 INR/kg (that is just over a dollar) depending on the distance to you.

    --
    I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
  15. Re:Samoa, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they'll bet the shit out of you son!

  16. Teach concepts and stick with open formats by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 1
    You mean "how to turn on a computer and open a new word processing document." Teaching the concepts will make the students able to adapt to many computing environments.
    Do you see anything in the MIT EECS curriculum that looks remotely like that?
    Yes. There is an AbiWord Tutorial at MIT.

    Also, there are several pages of tutorials for OpenOffice.org

    AbiWord and OpenOffice.org both support the OpenDocument (XML) format as well as their own XML-based formats. OpenDocument is being favored by the EU and developing nations have even more benefit from it as it alllows more choice in software and platforms down the line.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  17. itrainonline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://itrainonline.org/ has a number of online courses available for free, mostly under Creative Commons licensing. It ranges from basic computer use to multimedia production, writing on the web, etc.

  18. LET'S START ONE by dj_virto · · Score: 1

    I've thought about this too. Here in the US, I teach introduction to computers at the community college level. Textbooks have reached the point that they cost more than the tuition for the class! So, you could more than halve the cost of an introduction to computers class for low income people here, not to memtion the benefits for people in your situation.

    Sure, there are many partial haphazard resources out there already, but as far as I've seen, no coherent, organised single source textbook for us to gather around.

    If we have maybe 12 people each write a chapter, say one on input devices, one on the various formats and kinds of disk storage, another on basic internet applications, etc, then maybe have one or two people lay out the pages and find photos, maybe other people contributing the 'infographic' illustrations.. it wouldn't be an unreasonable amount of work for each, and given the dubious quality of the commercial equivalent, we could easily outdue the other offerings out there in quality and with-it-ness.

    Everyone involved could be well credited on the title page, but it would be very important that everyone undertstood that this would be a permanently and fully non-profit effort.

    Additionaly, it would give us a chance to counter the microsoft-toadying theme of many of the commercial texts.

    Updates would be important, so we'd have to organise a way to continually maintain the digital textbook, keeping it current, while keeping in mind the teachability of the text..

    We could build the textbook in a modular way, so that each instructor could choose the segments that match their student's software, equipment, and skill level. Each segment would be complete with text, links for further reading, and a couple different kinds of assignments. In-class and hands on projects would be a nice addition too.

    That's what I've been thinking, but such projects seem to work best with a combination of collective decision making and individual initiative.

    Ok, many of us see the need for this, so let's do it! I've set up a yahoo group for us to get together on this. The first order of business will be to decide how we will go about the project (wiki/ not wiki, whose webspace, etc) and then, to work out a general outline of what chapters are essential to such a text (additional subject could always be welcomed), then to divvy up the initial chapters and get at it!

    Many of this have seen the need for this for a long time. Let's do something about it together.

    Group name: community_computers_text_project
    Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/community_computers_ text_project
    Group email: community_computers_text_project@yahoogroups.com

    1. Re:LET'S START ONE by xanthan · · Score: 1

      Updates would be important, so we'd have to organise a way to continually maintain the digital textbook, keeping it current, while keeping in mind the teachability of the text..

      Being in the middle of a 4th edition update of my own book on Linux, I can't begin to describe the amount of work needed to maintain a full book. Giving a single chapter sufficient depth to make it useful and interesting is typically about 20-30 hours of work depending on how efficient of a writer you are. Keeping a text up to date, especially one on current technology, requires a serious update every 9-12 months. Subjects that we would consider "fundamental" like the idea behind a computer can still age and require refreshing.

      I don't mean to be a killjoy, but I do want to share a realistic view on the process of writing and maintaining a textbook. If you decide to go forward with the project, I wish you the best of luck. I do hope you succeed.

      Cheers,

  19. My Experience by SmittyT · · Score: 1

    For 3.5 years I taught ICT in Mongolia as a VSO then a UNV. In regards to books, check with the Asia Foundation in Samoa. They have a books for Asia program which distributes brand new books. Here in Mongolia they have a lot of IT books available that no one ever takes or uses.
    However, these books can be useless depending on the level of English of your students. We had all kinds of books Cisco Press sent us for free however most of the students could not understand them as the english was too advanced.
    What I found best was making my own materials or copying them from the web. Check with other PCV's in other countries and see what they are using as well.

  20. Get Lotus 123 version 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It had the most awesome tutor, that covered basic stuff like how to use the keyboard, because at that time PCs themselves were brand new.

    There was way better resources in the 80s for learning about computers themselves. In the 90s and nowadays, people began to rely on users having just picked up a certain body of knowledge from the ether, and so instructional materials stopped starting from zero.

    But back in the beginning, you had to start from zero. Consequently, a lot of introductory information about computers now is really not introductory at all; it teaches you how to use applications, rather than about the machine itself.

    --Julian