A Ghana teacher teaches Microsoft Word by chalking the screen on a blackboard (interview)

NPR interviewed Owura Kwadwo Hottish, 33, an ICT teacher at Betenase M/A Junior High School in Kumasi, Ghana, in March 2018 after his Facebook post of chalk drawings went viral in mid-February. In the interview, he says there are no computers at the school, so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard, spending around 30 minutes before every class. He studied art and graphic design in secondary school and has taught computers for six years.

He says he also teaches turning a computer on and off, the components of a PC and creating folders this way, and that the drawing is erased after each lesson to make room for the next class. Hottish says students are used to it because every subject is taught on the blackboard in rural communities, and that they can apply the lessons on real computers 'but not with ease'; they sometimes fumble.

Draw the whole software window in coloured chalk, buttons and tabs included, so students learn where things are before they touch a machine.

Having a detailed drawing lets students learn the interface layout without hardware.

His art background made a convincing replica possible.

Rural students already learn every subject from the blackboard, so the method fits.

Chalk is the one resource the school reliably has.

When equipment is missing, a faithful low-tech model of the interface can still teach the layout and vocabulary students need.

Self-reported in the interview: he received international attention and offers of donated computers, but at the time nothing had reached the school. Asked what he would give his students, he said computers so they can get the feel of them. He said students sometimes fumble when they first meet real machines, and he could not tell whether graduates went on to computer work.