Ghana's Windows Blackboard Teacher And His Students Have a Rewarding Outcome (qz.com)

Quartz: A lot has changed in the life of Richard Appiah Akoto in the fortnight since he posted photos of himself on Facebook drawing a Microsoft Word processing window on a blackboard with multi-colored chalk, to teach his students about computers -- which the school did not have. The photos went viral on social media and media stories like Quartz's went all around the world. Akoto, 33, is the information and communication technology (ICT) teacher at Betenase M/A Junior High School in the town of Sekyedomase, about two and half hours drive north of Ghana's second city, Kumasi. The school had no computers even though since 2011, 14 and 15-year-olds in Ghana are expected to write and pass a national exam (without which students cannot progress to high school) with ICT being one of the subjects.

The story of the school and Twitter pressure from prominent players in the African tech space drew a promise from Microsoft to "equip [Akoto] with a device from one of our partners, and access to our MCE program & free professional development resources on." To fulfill this promise, the technology giant flew Akoto to Singapore this week where he is participating in the annual Microsoft Education Exchange.

Comments

That guy's got some skills

[rsilvergun]

his chalkboard diagrams looked pretty amazing. That's some serious dedication to his students. Glad they got computers. There's so many old PCs getting trashed that often just need a new drive or a few caps replaced.

Re:Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

At work we throw out perfectly good laptops because they are out of warranty,where do they go? In the big "electronics recycling" bin where they're damaged and ransacked for parts by the techhobos that roam the citys e-recycling bins for goodies. The amount of shit we throw out in America would probably furnish most 3rd world countries several times over with technology.

So, what happens ...

[PPH]

... to all those chalk-board drawings when Microsoft pushes a new Office version that moves all the controls around?

Viral marketing.

[Col. Bloodnok]

This story reeks of it.

*A* device?

[rainwalker]

That's nice, but donating one laptop seems...stingy? Very "thoughts and prayers"? A reasonable laptop is like $300, less for corporations, especially for a $90 billion dollar company.

Re:*A* device?

[Sarten-X]

I built a computer lab in Ghana. One laptop is plenty.

A single laptop is enough to make a huge improvement in the students' lives, through demonstrations and guided lessons. Despite the promises of the Ghanaian government, a lot of these kids won't actually be taking the ICT test, and a large percentage of those that do will not be using computers in their daily lives for the foreseeable future. Having a laptop demonstrating key concepts is a good first step towards the education they need if they're one of the lucky few.

A lab is stuck in one location. It's a prime target for theft. In time, it will be neglected, repurposed, and broken. A laptop is portable. It can be secured in a cabinet, carried discreetly in a bag, and taken to a repair shop (there's was a nice one in Kumasi a few years ago) frequently. The logistics of handling a single laptop are far easier to manage than a classroom full of them, and far easier than desktops.

Re:*A* device?

[whoever57]

I thought the same. They spent money flying the teacher to Singapore. Would a better use of that money be buying more computers for the school?

Re:*A* device?

[Mr_Silver]

That's nice, but donating one laptop seems...stingy? Very "thoughts and prayers"? A reasonable laptop is like $300, less for corporations, especially for a $90 billion dollar company.

I don't disagree that one laptop would be stingy, however that doesn't actually appear to be the case.

From the linked article it states that that they received a gift of a laptop from the University of Leeds, followed by a further 5 computers (not clear who from, but not unreasonable to assume it's from one of Microsoft's partners) and then a further laptop for Akoto's personal use by NIIT, a computer training school headquartered in Accra, the capital of Ghana.

By my count, that's 2 laptops and 5 desktops.

Re:Ramming Microsoft down third-world throats

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

Teaching rote MSFT junk. Like in India, where it is some supposed "benefit" to receive free licenses and materials, it's an attempt to undermine the efforts of a society under the guise of assistance as benevolent market leader. Garbage.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's the EXACT same tactic Apple Computers, Ltd. (which has since renamed itself to "Apple, Inc.") used in the 1980's and probably 90's as well, to boost adoption of their (at the time, clearly inferior) computers, such as the Apple ][, Apple //e, etc. versus the far-superior IBM PC, (superior for the purposes we'd have put them to if we'd had them in computer labs then, instead of crappy little Apple 2's,) since otherwise they'd probably never have gained sufficient foothold to matter, and the Apple Macintosh (later Apple Mac, then eMac, then iMac, etc.) would not even exists. Actually, those I think Apple just DISCOUNTED, rather than gave them outright, but... it's the same idea. "Get 'em hooked while they're young."

You're right though, but we can all take solace in the thought that as these Ghanaians grow up, they'll figure out that the "gift" is really a Trojan Horse, and then they'll put GNU/Linux on the computer(s,) and LibreOffice, and join the better, smarter members of the developed world in giving the bloated, decaying, stinking corpse of Microsoft the finger, as they turn to F/L-OSS like the rest of the world SHOULD.

Until the battery no longer holds a charge

[tepples]

At work we throw out perfectly good laptops because they are out of warranty

I tend to keep a laptop longer than that. I replace the battery once it no longer holds a charge, but once the replacement battery no longer holds a charge, I have considered that the time to replace the laptop with one that probably has longer runtime out of the box. Is it practical to expect every PC user to, say, learn how to replace lithium ion cells in a laptop battery pack?