New Delhi: The viral images of 34-year-old Richard Akoto Appiah – known as Owura Kwadwo Hottish on Facebook – teaching ICT with a sketch of Microsoft Word interface on the blackboard has received widespread support.
The photos posted by the teacher on Facebook inspired NIIT Ghana, an offshore wing of the Indian firm, to donate five computers, a laptop and ICT textbooks to the school. The company also promised to provide an advanced free IT training for the teacher for his effort.
Director of NIIT Ghana, Yaw Amoateng with the support of Sanjeev Mishra, Senior Manager of the Kumasi office of the firm handed over the computers to the Municipal Chief Executive and officials of the Municipal Education Directorate.
Hottish is a computer teacher at the Betenase M-A Junior High School in Ghana’s Sekyedomase town. According to Hottish, his sketch of the interface helps the students to learn the basics of MS Word.
He spends, at least, 15 of the 70-minute lesson period to sketch this Microsoft Word software and has been using this method to teach students for the past six years.
“I wanted them to have a picture of everything (Microsoft Word interface) because there’s no computer here. I decided to adopt this drawing thing so that they will know when you are from this step, you move to the next stage,” he said.
His efforts have received widespread support from global social media community.
Rebecca Enonchong, a tech entrepreneur from Cameroon, shared the image with Microsoft Africa on Twitter asking if they could provide the class with some computers.
“Hey @MicrosoftAfrica, he’s teaching MS Word on a blackboard. Surely you can get him some proper resources,” she tweeted.
Microsoft Africa responded by providing a computer to the teacher and access to free professional development resources.
Tech giant Microsoft also flew Akoto to Singapore to attend the annual Microsoft Educators Exchange training for free of cost.
“Supporting teachers to enable digital transformation in education is at the core of what we do,” responded the tech giant.
A 2015 study published in the journal Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences on implementation of ICT learning in Ghanaian secondary schools found disparities in technology use among urban and rural school students.