What have I been doing?

Soon after arriving in Nouakchott I began teaching computer classes at a small cybercafe in a neighborhood called Socajim PS. I teach two classes, the first is a bureautique course that covers Windows, Word, Excel, email, and the Internet. In the first half of the course, the students mostly copy completed documents and spreadsheets to learn how to use the features of Microsoft Office programs. I try to get through this as quickly as possible because my goal has been to create more interesting assignments than simply copying someone else's work. I want the students to understand how to use these programs to do their own work in the future, which means starting with a blank page and figuring out how to fill it ones self. My other goal is to teach the students how to do research using the Internet. There are barely any libraries or other sources for written material here so the Internet opens up an huge amount of information to the students.

In the second half of the course I give assignments that include creating a CV in Word, using Wikipedia to research various locales and presenting that information in an Excel spreadsheet, using Google to find the answers to a number of obscure questions, and creating invoices and a cost/benefit analysis in Excel based on the work of imaginary businesses.

The second course I have been teaching is on computer maintenance. I really enjoy this because all the students have been so excited by it. It's very hands on--in the first week we take all the computers apart and put them back together and try moving components around between them. This is something none of them have ever done, even if they have their own computer. This first class always begins with the students nervously huddled around the computers while I urge them to began surgery. After 30 minutes the entrails are spread across the floor and I'm desperately reminding them to work slowly and be gentle.

By the end of the course the students have reinstalled Windows multiple times, worked with a number of Windows maintenance tools, edited the registry, deleted computer viruses, learned some basic networking and, most importantly, used the Internet to search for solutions. This course probably covers too much material and gets too advanced, but I'm hoping to peak their interest in working with computers and give them the confidence to try solving computer problems. These skills, as well as those of the bureautique course, are best learned through repetition in real life situations.