Back to the Computer Centre

I am back at the computer centre, teaching more life skills. Today's topic: "applying for a job" - which includes creating cover letters and resumes. I watch these young adults, high school educated people, struggle with double clicking a mouse. They ask questions like should they include primary school education on their resumes, or the fact that they may have been a prefect in the third grade. They add hobbies like "reading the bible" to their CVs; the girls accent their computer skills list in magenta; they set the background of the word document to rainbow coloured, because it looks pretty. These students have absolutely no business skills whatsoever, and more than halfway through their computer training course, their technical skill level with the applications is, for the most part, still abysmal.

Those of us involved with Softchoice Cares have been talking about what to do to help the centre, and unless there's quality instruction and ownership and commitment from the students selected to take part, I don't even know that it makes sense to continue providing equipment.

I wonder what secondary school in Uganda is like. These students seem programmed to follow a series of very specifics steps in a very specific order. There's not a whole lot of critical thinking in terms of, "would this concept apply in this scenario?" It is somewhat depressing, but we push through the lesson and when we're done, at least each student has their own simple resume. Office jobs in Uganda pay about five times higher than a typical Ugandan labourer job, so the work that this computer centre is doing is hugely important.

Behind the scenes, the techies in the group have managed to network all the computers, and image and configure the donated laptops we brought with us. Still no internet access though - maybe tomorrow.

Day Four: The OCA Computer Centre

At the computer centre today, we have a weird adventure teaching high school graduates. With so many varying skill levels in one class, it is hard to help so many at once and still cater to everyone's own individual level. Some people are almost as good as I am at Excel, and others don't understand how to save a file, what CAPS LOCK is, or haven't yet quite nailed the hand-eye coordination to double click on something. But man, do they want to learn!


Our topics we have decided to teach, thrown together at the last minute, are as follows:

a) Using some of the templates in Word, such as writing a Business Letter
b) Filtering in Excel
c) Basic Powerpoint Presentation Skills

I'm a little baffled by the Powerpoint decision, personally, as I don't exactly think these young people are going to be creating powerful presentations anytime soon, but hey, we go with it.

The students can barely type - most use the hunt and peck method. And they are so polite that I'm not sure if they are pretending to get the concepts, if they really do get the concepts, or if they've done this before at some point. I really can't tell how much I'm even helping. They all seem really keen to learn Microsoft Access, and I don't think they're ready for that just yet. But Access is apparently required for the majority of jobs in Kampala, and these students know it.

I have my "side" of the room, where I float around and help make sure people are on track with the lesson, aren't stuck somewhere, or don't press the wrong key somewhere along the way. The girls on my side are great - they really want to learn. They are super religious - the whole class is actually. It's funny, they create Powerpoint presentations about "Our Lord, Jesus Christ". (Agenda: 1. God Loves You 2. God Takes Care of You 3. God Loves Your Family, etc.)

Dean is in the back room, getting the new laptops installed. By tomorrow they should all be imaged and up and running. Dean is our resident Tech Guy - he's been here at the lab the whole time so far. I kind of feel bad that he hasn't gotten yet to see the Babies Home, or the Street Kids Centre, but he's where he needs to be, so good for him. Later this week we'll be networking the whole lab. Dean is working on getting Internet Access - these students are going to go nuts. We hope the Ugandan Internet Provider people will be able to make it happen: all the online help these students could have access to! Today we think we have it nailed, and then it turns out the location doesn't have a clear path to the signal or something, so we're back to square one calling new providers, looking at new options.

On the way back, I stop at an Internet Café, and have a chance to sent Mike a super long email. I buy a phone card and try to give him a call on Dean's phone but get voicemail and the connection drops shortly after I start to even leave a message, anyway. It's still nice to hear his voice, even if it's just a recorded greeting. The comforts of home, the people who I love, are so far away.