In Chennai, India where I live many government school doesn't have a computer. For these students computer is a dream. I remember how students from these schools visited our office and touched a computer for their first time. Its really sad to see this at my hometown.
Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard
141–150 of 183 posts
Re: Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
$4.500 GDP per capita is pretty high for what you are describing. Ghana GDP per capita is only $1500 and was actually less than $400 10 years ago.
The $1500 figure is indeed the correct nominal figure, but it's just a number, it's meaningless without context (prices). If you take that into account you get a sense of purchasing power that's comparable between countries, the PPP figure. That's $4500 in Ghana and it's likely what he's quoting. That having been said, the nominal figure is typically more useful when it comes to manufactured imported goods like compu…
I actually think otherwise. PPP can be very high in countries with high inflation and masked real costs (ie: The products are subsidized but not available, so people have to pay the real/full price).
The real one is, well, real.
Re: Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard
#143So I’ve been to Kumasi before. Take this with a grain of salt - this was over 10 years ago and I was there on a two week voluntourism trip. Here are some of the reasons it’s hard to use real computers as a part of the ciriculum there. * Electricity. Blackouts and brownouts are a part of life in Ghana, especially Kumasi. On top of that, the quality of the electricity is low. This poses major challenges for computers i…
My wife and I were just in Kumasi with our Subaru a few months ago -- amazing people. I was able to find a gentleman to run all over the markets in search of the peculiar Japanese lugnuts that I had lost one of. He came back in an hour with 5 examples, and was stoked to get $2 from me. He helped me re-install and re-torque all of my lugnuts. I enjoyed nearly complete cell and data at 4G speed throughout Ghana, both o…
>The optimism and nationalism make a great combo...
What do you mean when you say nationalism? That's just a word that conjures up so many negative implications for me, even though I'm sure it's healthy to some degree. I guess can you describe what you mean in more detail.
Re: Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard
#144He should teach LibreOffice Writer instead so when actually some laptops arrive at the school they wouldn't have to waste money on MS product licenses.
Or they can just ask MS to donate licenses. Better to teach these kids practical skills instead if software nobody uses.
Re: Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> West Africa could be so much more prosperous if only they would will their way towards it. I have just spent a year and a half driving through 20 countries in West Africa. [1] At times I would have agreed with your comments, though lately I have been taking another tact. The developed world has stress, heart disease, cancer and hundreds of millions of people going to jobs every day they hate with a passion. People…
There are different ways to be a developed country. Canada and the US are similarly developed but Canada has a vastly higher quality of life.
I agree, and actually I came to West Africa after 10 years in Canada.
In many ways, West Africa has a better quality of life than Canada.
(yes, of course there are also many ways it's much, much worse, but it's worth remembering it's not all bad, and we in the West can learn a lot from people who love life more than money and family more than things.)
Re: Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard
#146So I’ve been to Kumasi before. Take this with a grain of salt - this was over 10 years ago and I was there on a two week voluntourism trip. Here are some of the reasons it’s hard to use real computers as a part of the ciriculum there. * Electricity. Blackouts and brownouts are a part of life in Ghana, especially Kumasi. On top of that, the quality of the electricity is low. This poses major challenges for computers i…
> I tried to show them the loop button but they did not want it. Ah, the African way. Imagine that 'this is fine' meme as a cultural trait. Or Japan's 'Shikata ga nai' without the corresponding work ethic. West Africa could be so much more prosperous if only they would will their way towards it. There's so much low hanging fruit. This being one example. 30 minutes drawing this everyday, yikes. But that's Africa. Too…
I think you may be over-simplifying and over-generalizing "the African way" in this case. I'm actually surprised that they didn't want to learn the "loop button". Old cassette players even had a "loop button" that some of the not so educated could use. Their unfamiliarity with the computer and its likely "malfunctioning" in the past may be the reason they wanted to keep it as it was. The behaviour of the people is only a symptom in this case.
As for the low hanging fruit, there are many other more urgent areas of focus that bump this down the list - poverty and healthcare being a few [1]. Ghana's democracy is still very young and education hasn't completely permeated every region quite yet. It'll take some time to get where much of the developed world is right now.
Re: Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
The $1500 figure is indeed the correct nominal figure, but it's just a number, it's meaningless without context (prices). If you take that into account you get a sense of purchasing power that's comparable between countries, the PPP figure. That's $4500 in Ghana and it's likely what he's quoting. That having been said, the nominal figure is typically more useful when it comes to manufactured imported goods like compu…
I actually think otherwise. PPP can be very high in countries with high inflation and masked real costs (ie: The products are subsidized but not available, so people have to pay the real/full price). The real one is, well, real.
I don't really see the point. PPP is typically measured by looking at actual prices for a basket of goods (e.g. prices in stores for various grains, flour, rice, legumes, cooking oil etc), and then using that to extrapolate for aggregate prices for types of goods (e.g. food), and then correcting income figures for price differences.
I agree that high inflation and temporarily-subsidised goods make measurement difficult, because it creates a highly volatile price, but that's true whether you want to measure nominal prices or real prices just the same. Stating a nominal price for food in Venezuela in March 2018 is difficult because sometimes it's available, sometimes not, sometimes it's subsidised via government channels, sometimes you need to buy it through market channels, and prices fluctuate due to inflation and currency swings. Nominal price measures have the same difficulties.
That having been said, there are only a few countries suffering these circumstances. Ghana has a relatively stable inflation around 10% to 20%, which sounds high (and it is), but is not much higher than inflation in the 60s-80s in the US or Europe (reaching 15%+) and is quite predictable and workable (unlike inflation of literally billions of percent in Zimbabwe in 2009).
Re: Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it was better than living not knowing that there is such a thing as MS Word.
On the other hand, they paid the opportunity cost of not spending their time learning something that could be actually used to improve their living situation (electrical/mechanical engineering comes to mind).
Indeed. Society needs the basics of carpentry, plumbing and sanitation, medicine, personal finance, cookery before any basic office automation.
Our grand-grandparents lived just fine without a software word processor but relied on safe water and healthy living conditions.
Re: Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard
#149My first thought was that most of my computer science classes in college were in classrooms without computers. I think that was a very good thing. It's interesting that this is instead teaching an understand of basic UI concepts and specific applications.
I've done computer science courses in my university on pen and paper. Same for every course around mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering in general.
Not because people couldn't afford computers but because the don't help you a bit in understanding theory.
Re: Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard
#150So I’ve been to Kumasi before. Take this with a grain of salt - this was over 10 years ago and I was there on a two week voluntourism trip. Here are some of the reasons it’s hard to use real computers as a part of the ciriculum there. * Electricity. Blackouts and brownouts are a part of life in Ghana, especially Kumasi. On top of that, the quality of the electricity is low. This poses major challenges for computers i…
Regarding the first few points, I’ve heard of remote villages in the Himalayas having schools with Raspberry Pis and 12V monitors. The whole system was powered by solar. They then have an offline dump of Wikipedia for students to use for research.