9 years ago I worked on many computers and worked with many programming languages. When I left a prestigious company to go into the wilds of Africa, I wanted to help people who knew nothing about computers will teach them. When I opened a computer training center in my garage. I used the old 8086 stationary machinery which has donated for the event.
Start, I had only four people interested in learn about computers. They were so afraid of the computers that they did not want to move them. These "students" knew what about computers. But they were afraid to break them, and they knew that a computer costs more money than they ever would see in years. To overcome this fear that I quickly opened up a PC today andart, see st ed to pull out the cards and devices in your computer. I then handed each paragraph that I took out to the closest person to me and told him to pass it on.
Each part was I should explain whatart p was and what it was used. The students did not know exactly what to display them. Nor do they understand how it worked. They were just amazed that they could keep on it and watch it in all its parts.
Over the coming months, each studentarted st to understand and learn about a computer. After about 3 months were each able to take a computerart AP, and put it together so that it could properly. Then peopleartSt. ed to come and see what we did. More and more people wanted to learn.
From this experience inarted st to see certain things about basic computer usage in this third world nation.
1) many people were influenced by the West. Either it's good or bad they wanted everything Western. Computers was no exception.
2) in the country as a whole has not many educational programmes to teach computers. There was a great need for training center.
3) Was such a desire to learn about computers, because of the need for the people. They needed a way to survive.
4) were so many job postings by people who understood the Microsoft products and how to repair a computer that's what I focused on. The people who have undergone the courses have been able to find the job almost immediately.
5) people in the country had been told by officials that the future of the country was using computers. So everyone was looking for a quick and inexpensive way to learn computers. Within one year after my arrival in the country, there was a computer training center in every street corner. Not many teaching the skills needed as most of the centres whereartst by people with little or no knowledge. But people in the area were not aware of this. They had nothing to measure it.
Some of the challenges we face when we develop training in third-world nation are:
No consistent stream
Many times, it was not any power. It is difficult to teach computers without power. But we did so many chalk board discussion. We were the students visualize and practice when they were near a computer.
Too many people and not enough computers
My largest class was approximately 30 persons for 10 computers in a small room. We did a lot of friend type work. A person would use the computer while their friend would stand behind them and look at. As we move type training, we want to give everyone a keyboard without the computer (we had donated about 100 keyboards). A friend writes while the second would look if it did it properly to teach spoken letter or number type.
There is no such thing as broadband
Wearted st to offer internet training at one time. As the world advanced to broadband andarted st to develop sites with media content and large graphics, the third world was left in the dust. Most sites have difficult to open for a number of reasons. Sites like Facebook and YouTube is a joke for internet users in a third world nation. Best internet connection for those who can afford it is approximately 64 Kbps or less. Even Xp or Vista operating systems became more internet-centric. Your OS became very quickly out of date. Many countries are trying to get caught but it takes time and money, lots of money.
After several years, I ended up with 2 computer training centers. They were eventually all ran by local people who had passed all my courses. I needed longer to teach the lessons. The teachers teaching in their local languages along with English. It was fun to watch as they described a CPU to the students. It worked fine. But many things in a computer or its use will not translate well into the local languages.
Today, they are not running. My job duties have called me elsewhere.
We have had over 300 people undertake courses.
Has been successful? Absolute. I still run into former students say thank you for teaching computers because they have a good paying job. Some have even said that they knew the topic so well they had also taught people in their workplaces.
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