Computer Seminar in Mbamba Bay

In the spring of 2023, we held the first IT course in the history of the Tanzania Project. Teachers from 42 schools were invited to Lovund Primary School and the resource center that was built there. Local teachers had set up 10 computers ready for a course in Microsoft Office.

On the first day of the introduction, the course instructor asked how many of the participants had used a PC before and saw 3 hands raised. The remaining 39 teachers had never used a computer. Some time was spent explaining how the mouse and keyboard related to things happening on the screen, but after a brief introduction, everyone had the basic knowledge and was ready to learn Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, with Word being the first.

The participants learned how to use headings, styles, tables of contents, front pages, headers, and footers, how to stitch all of this together into a professional-looking document, and how to use shortcuts. In the end, the teachers were given a task where they had to use everything they had learned to create a document introducing themselves and their families.

On the second day, the participants learned how to build a good PowerPoint presentation. They produced several slides with headlines, text, and images, learned how to divide the pages into different content, and how to use transitions and sounds. At the end of the day, they were tasked with building a presentation presenting the schools they worked at, how many students they had, and how they were divided into classes.

The third day was spent learning Excel. Tables, rows, columns, functions, charts, and shortcuts were covered, and the participants were finally given a task to create an overview of desks, chairs, and learning materials for their schools.

The fourth day started with a review from all the previous days. In the end, the teachers were given a task where they had to use everything they had learned in the course; they were to produce a PowerPoint presentation that contained a table and chart from Excel and text from Word. In the very end, we had a diploma ceremony where each course participant came forward, shook hands, and received a diploma for completing the course.

We focused the course around the Office programs because local authorities believed this was where the need was greatest. The knowledge these teachers acquired during this week will help increase efficiency and collaboration across schools around Mbamba Bay. The participants have learned how to use digital tools to write reports, create presentations, and keep statistics, and they can spread this knowledge to other teachers at their schools. They have Android tablets with Office, so they also have the opportunity to use what they have learned every day, which is important for maintaining knowledge. The teachers were very grateful for everything they had learned and were clearly proud during the closing ceremony.