Teaching computers without computers pt 2
Click here to view: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
How do you teach computers without computers?
Before our mission, I learned that most of the schools had few, if any, computers; Yet they were teaching computers. I struggled with this concept for a while. How can you possible teach computer skills to students without computers?
How could local teachers, with no formal education, know how to approach this? What sorcery were they using? I didn’t find out until I touched down. They had no clue how to teach it.
In part 1, I talk about how I structured my lessons and the delivery of the basic fundamentals of computers. In this post, I cover giving the teachers the resources to teach a school of 400+ students with little power and one or two computers. There are lots of materials on how to teach the fundamentals, but few people in the modern world have Zambia’s problem.
The simplest solution to this problem would be to provide them all with computers.
Some math:
If you consider that the 24 teachers come from different schools with 400+ students each, we’re talking about at least 9600 students attempting to learn how to type. Assuming we could get our hands on some 4800 used laptops (1 for every 2/3 kids) for $100, it would cost us $480,000 (CDN $). We raised ~$10,00. Not only is this not possible, it’s not very sustainable. How many kids would benefit before the laptops broke? And then what? The schools are way too poor to buy new ones. I had to come up with something else.
I tackled the problem in four separate parts:
- RCA android tablets
- Typing lessons and the typing sheet
- Paper prototyping and Microsoft Office
- Programming games
Each addresses a specific problem the teachers face to establish a foundation of knowledge. Let’s dive in.
1. Android tablets
Although my focus has been on “teaching without computers”, you simply can’t avoid the fact that they need some exposure to the real thing.
Thanks to the gracious donations of our supporters, we were able to purchase 20 RCA android tablets with built in keyboards. At an amazingly affordable price of $88, the tablets were perfect for our budget and our intentions. Despite some very unfortunate logistical problems with Walmart (with the tablets arriving two days before departure), we were able to charge, set up and download apps onto each tablet.
I downloaded educational games, typing apps, Microsoft word, excel, PowerPoint, math apps, maps of the earth. I was unimpressed with the typing apps, so I built my own on the flight over to Zambia called Disjoint Typer.
Screenshots from my typing game, Disjoint Typer
During the five days, we spent at least an hour or two running through typing lessons, building up their muscle memory and familiarizing them with correct typing form. I also walked them through the basics of operating the tablets, and how to best utilize them with their students.
Free things
The first time they saw the tablets, you could feel the mood shift. I have to admit, I always feel uncomfortable giving things away. There’s just something so primal hidden inside us as humans that makes us go crazy around free things. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Like when they throw out T-shirts at hockey games or big events. Does anyone think about whether they’ll actually wear the shirt? No way. But they NEED it. I know I wouldn’t wear it, but dear God do I want one. The barbarian inside me demands it.
Luckily this wasn’t a concert and I wasn’t shooting t-shirts from a cannon into the crowd, but I always wonder if giving them things is the right thing to do. Will it disrupt the ecosystem? Will they abuse it? Could I have used the money elsewhere?
But despite all that, I think we made the right decision purchasing the tablets. They’ll make a huge difference to the teachers and in turn help the students.
Distributing tablets:
The problem with donating items is that once you leave, there is often little accountability on the recipients. They can be sold, moved, stolen, or used for personal entertainment. To counter this, Katie, Passwell and I discussed two options for donating the tablets.
- Better for Students: We “bundle them” together and schools can rent them out.
- Better for Teachers: We give one per teacher.
We ended up choosing option 2 for a couple of reasons:
1. Less work on Passwell and his foundation. Passwell is trying to solve a lot of problems within the community: women, children with disabilities, education and environmental issues. The man has his hands full and doesn’t need to be chasing 20 tablets.
2. More exposure for the teachers. A five-day crash course on computers is good, but not enough. Leaving them with a tablet lets the teacher grow on their own. With the state of the teachers’ computer knowledge, any improvement from a teacher’s side would immediately benefit the students.
Showing the teachers how to close apps.
I think we made the right decision. The tablets will go a long way and needless to say, every teacher who received a tablet was ecstatic.
2. Typing lessons and the typing sheet
I found a typing website (www.typingclub.com) that gave me some fantastic inspiration. They state that key to getting good at typing is practice. Why?
Muscle memory. Does Lionel Messi think about how to position his foot when he kicks a soccer ball? Not a chance. There is no conscious thought of lifting the leg back, aligning it with the ball and swinging his foot. When he wants to kick the ball, he simply does it.
An efficient typist does not think about typing. They simply think of the sentence they want to type and the hands flow magically across the keys.
If we understand muscle memory and how humans learn, we can use it to teach typing.
The Typing Sheet
The typing sheet
The biggest challenge with typing is moving the typing process from the conscious part of your brain into the subconscious part of your brain (I.e. building muscle memory). We don’t know where the keys are. The way we learn is by repeatedly moving our fingers to the right key. But you don’t actually need a keyboard to do that, you simply need the finger to make the correct movement.
This illustration (I call the typing sheet) is a map of the keyboard. Each colour represents a finger. For example, all of the blue keys should be typed by the left index finger. The orange keys are for the left middle finger, and so on.
It’s obviously not as good as a laptop, but it’s cheap, it’s scaleable, and it’s sustainable. Most of the teachers have access to copy machines when they head into town. Printing 400 copies costs very little compared to a computer and it still builds that muscle memory.
The original design I took from typingclub.com. Originally intended to cover keyboards so students can type without looking at the keyboard.
Every student can have a typing sheet and no one needs to share! It’s my hope that when they do make the switch to a real keyboard (perhaps during an exam), their fingers will know what to do
The beautiful thing is that when they move to real keyboards, it will be such a natural, easy transition. They know where the keys are! I printed 40 laminated copies, and 400 low quality copies.
-Stephen
As a graduation present, every teacher recieved a laminated copy of the typing sheet