
Ghana teacher drawing MS word on blackboard gets real computers - ashwanidausodia
http://indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-globally/after-ghana-teachers-ms-word-drawing-on-blackboard-went-viral-indian-firm-gifts-real-computers-to-school-5102261/
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jimmies
Stories like this totally make sense to me. Dreams are the most fearful force
in our lives. A teacher needs to transfer inspirations to their students just
as much as knowledge and experience. Experience can be gained by exposure, but
inspirations can totally exist without much exposure. As a student, when you
don't have inspirations then the lack of (or the existence thereof) practical
exposure sucks, but many things were dreamed about for a long time before
becoming a reality.

I didn't know what an actual computer was until I was 11. I am a millennial,
only 30 now, but I was one of those people who only knew about the magical
computers through my dad's stories and books. In the first 10 years of my
life, I grew up poor as a church mouse in a rural area in Vietnam. To tell you
how bad it was, I'm a male and only barely over 5ft and 100lbs now. My dad,
who was a college lecturer, told us about him learning English and how to use
MS-DOS on his 1.2MB floppy disk in the early 1990s -- it was mind-blowing to
my 6-year-old brain. Everything you need is in this small package. If you want
to delete something, just press a key instead of scratching it! If you want to
issue any command, give it all it wants to know and press Enter!

I just had the first blip of making an impact by shipping a free software
product that many people find useful which I first shared here. I am quite
convinced that people don't just use that software because it is useful and
functional to them. Compared to a $300 commercial product that has everything
working correctly my free software project that uses $100 worth of hardware is
a piece of buggy brahmin shit. People tried it because it gets them inspired.
Shortly after I announced, it set up pictures of people trying and making
awesome setups on the homepage. I also made a subreddit to share stories and
ask questions, and a personal blog telling why and how I'm making progress and
what I was really thinking when I made those decisions. I am still very much a
real person that has opinions, dreams, and ideals. I haven't turned into an
intelligent PR speech machine that says the empty words. That is something a
company that sells those products can't deliver compared to a hipster dude
living in a hole like me can. I am living in a dream as much as the adopters
of my software.

I used to see a quote on a professor's office door when I was an undergrad
that said: "People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said,
but they will always remember how you made them feel." I tried to keep that
quote in mind whenever I have the opportunity to teach or bring something to
someone.

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teekert
Funny because the blackboard doesn't mention MS Word anywhere as far as I can
tell, it mentions "Features of a word processing window" and it doesn't
specifically look like MS Word either. This also makes me wonder what happened
to the one Laptop per Child project [0], their G+ site was not posted on since
November 2016. Is it really Microsoft Word that is going to be used by these
students? Or will it be LibreOffice or Google Docs?

[0] [http://one.laptop.org/](http://one.laptop.org/)

~~~
Maken
Look at the title bar.

~~~
teekert
Oops, you're right.

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delhanty
Dupe of yesterday?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16610469](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16610469)

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aaron695
So rather than solving the problem (Millions without access to appropriate
schooling) we cover it up.

Let alone what they need is NOT computers, it's phones (And more importantly
TV and Radio access)

I know a lot of these places can't afford the electricity to run the machines,
was this sorted? (And if it has solar, generator or intermittent, then low
wattage devices with UPS are needed)

~~~
Symbiote
A Ghanaian company (subsidiary of the Indian one) donated the computers, so
hopefully they're aware of any potential power issues.

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Hydraulix989
Sure, it's a nice gesture, but I'm wondering how they will solve the
electricity problem in Ghana with desktop computers?

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INTPenis
Everyone keeps pointing out electricity but first off, not all of Ghana is
suffering from a power shortage. Secondly, even if they can have it on one
hour a day it's better than what came before.

~~~
hapidjus
I think the parent meant why desktop computers instead of laptops.

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Hydraulix989
Right. Sorry, I thought it was more obvious.

My friends who live in Ghana go days without being able to access the
Internet. It's actually a big problem.

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flukus
> For more than six years this computer teacher has been drawing interfaces on
> blackboard for his students as the school did not have the resources.

This is a nice story, but doesn't having a computer teachers in communities
that can't afford computers seem like a waste of resources?

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Maxious
It is a nice story but perhaps overstating the problem a little: "Showing his
class how to use a PC posed a fundamental problem as the school’s only
computer and his own personal laptop were both broken."
[https://news.microsoft.com/apac/2018/03/15/teacher-who-
used-...](https://news.microsoft.com/apac/2018/03/15/teacher-who-used-a-
chalkboard-in-computer-class-because-he-had-no-computer-stars-at-microsofts-
education-exchange/)

