MIT-AITI- Ghana 2004 -

Final Report

Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary1.1 Purpose of the Report 11.2 Summary of the Report with Emphasis on Impacts 2

2. Program description2.1 General Program Description and Program Objectives 22.2 Country and School information 2

2.3 History of MIT-AITI in Ghana 3

3. Preparation for the Program While at MIT3.1 Curriculum-building

3.2 Logistical Preparation (ATO, MISSING)3.3 Team-building3.4 Interaction with the AITI Leadership (ATO, MISSING)3.5 Successes, Problems Encountered, and Future Recommendations

4. Classroom-Based Learning4.1 Introduction4.2 Facilities4.3 Students4.4 Schedule and Class Operation4.5 Curriculum Tracks4.6 Final Projects4.7 Successes, Problems Encountered, and Future Recommendations

5. The Self-Learning Initiative

6. The AITI Entrepreneurship Course6.1 Overview and Logistics6.2 Lectures6.3 Guest Speakers6.4 Business Plan Competition6.5 Conclusions

7. Additional Activities7.1 Lego Robotics Course for High School Students

7.1.1 Overview7.1.2 Curriculum and Design Projects7.1.3 Implementation, Problems, and Solutions

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7.1.4 Conclusions

7.2 Building OCW Awareness and Enthusiasm7.2.1 Faculty Awareness7.2.2 Public Awareness7.2.3 Interviews to Help OCW Understand its Customers

7.3 College Application Information Session

8. Future Recommendations and Problems Encountered8.1 Lectures and the Classroom8.2 Logistics8.3 Organization8.4 Other Recommendations

9. Impacts and Benefits9.1 Impacts and Benefits for the Students and the Country9.2 Impacts and Benefits for the Instructors9.3 Impacts and Benefits for the AITI Program

10. Travel10.1 Logistics 10.2 Travel and fun

11. Appendix Appendix A1: Java Syllabus and Schedule for Classroom-based Instruction Appendix A2: Java Syllabus and Schedule for Self-Learning Initiative Appendix B: Entrepreneurship Syllabus and Schedule Appendix C: Comprehensive Overview of Student Feedback from Evaluations Appendix D: Distribution of Student Grades for Quiz 1, 2, and 3 Appendix E: AITI Instructor Information Appendix F: Names of Students Participating in Classroom- based Instruction Appendix G: Names of Students Participating in Self-Learning Initiative

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Appendix H: Pictures

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Part I. Executive Summary

1.1 Purpose of the Report

This report is meant to summarize the experience of the MIT-AITI team in Ghana, during a 7-week stay in the summer of 2004. Our program preparation, execution, results, problem solving, and suggestions for future years are outlined in a significant amount of detail. This report is meant to be an excellent stand-alone resource for anyone wanting to know about our program.

1.2 Summary of the Report with Emphasis on Impacts

Part II. Program Description

2.1 General Program Description and Program Objectives

The MIT-AITI Ghana 2004 program was implemented at the University of Ghana – Legon, and at the Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School-Legon (Presec), both in Accra.The objective of the program was to contribute to Ghana’s information technology development by working with high schools and universities. One maxim that the Ghana team was armed with was “Bridging the digital divide”. It is a pleasure to state that in that regard the program was a big success.

We ran a 6-week intensive course at Legon from 14th June to 23rd July (2004) which covered the following subject areas: Java Programming, Java Server Pages and Entrepreneurship. Some concepts in MySql and other topics were visited throughout the course to facilitate understanding of the material. We also implemented a practical robotics course at Presec, using kits of Lego Mindstorms toys. This served as a great way to introduce mechanical engineering to students from three local high schools: Presec, Accra Academy, and Accra Girls.

2.2 Country and School information

Ghana is a small country off the West Coast of Africa filled with determined, bright and friendly people. Its IT economy is growing with many Ghanaians joining the bandwagon of web designers, programmers, database managers, etc. Its premier university, the University of Ghana, though not at the IT development’s forefront, has a Computer Science department that has been producing able and capable IT professionals for many years.

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Presec has been an MIT-AITI partner from the start. It is one of the premier secondary institutions in Ghana and has been producing MIT students for years, a tradition that is not about to stop with the fresh enthusiasm injected into its students by AITI teams.

2.3 History of MIT-AITI in Ghana

MIT-AITI started its programs in Ghana in 2002 with the help of George Heming, an MIT alumnus from Ghana. Since then, other Ghanaians have held the fort of interest and enthusiasm in AITI’s goals, contributing to the success of its Ghana programs. In 2002, MIT students taught old students of Presec and Achimota Secondary School for 6 weeks. The program was expanded in 2003, with another group of MIT students teaching at the University of Ghana, Presec and Achimota.

MIT-AITI’s program has become well-known and is reputable for its objectives, course structure, and products. Its graduates have always been full of appreciation for MIT-AITI.

Part III. Preparation for the Program while at MIT

3.1 Curriculum-building

While at MIT, our team met for 3-6 hours each week. At our first meeting, we distributed all of the 20 lectures, alternating among the team members. For each meeting, each member would present one lecture, starting from lecture 1. We would discuss each lecture after it was presented. Each member of the team was responsible for revising the lecture that he/she presented.

3.2 Logistical Preparation

3.3 Team-building

We discussed weekend trips, what to pack, what medicines to bring, and other logistical stuff, which got the team excited about working together. Having a mailing list was helpful in building team spirit. Listening to Ghanaian music together and making a team name (G-Unit) was also exciting.

3.4 Interaction with the AITI Leadership

3.5 Successes, Problems Encountered, and Future Recommendations

Successes

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Our team split up responsibilities very early on in our preparation period. We had different members in charge of weekend trips, curriculum, sub-projects, OCW, acquiring video cameras, etc. This division of labor allowed us each to focus on particular details of the trip.

We used our mailing list as a forum so that meetings would not run much longer than necessary. So, we encouraged each other to post updates that might be discussed at meetings in email instead.

Problems Encountered and Future RecommendationsWhat to do during the first meeting was a little unclear. We were told to schedule a 4-hour meeting, and review some lecture slides, but we didn’t realize that the main goal was to get through all the lecture slides before we went to Ghana.

We held our meetings in room 2-104 where we knew there was a projector. However, we were often thrown out by people who had actually reserved the room. In the future, it might be useful to actually reserve rooms for meetings or to distribute the team projectors earlier in the preparation period.

We only prepared the Java lectures, and relied on learning JSP in Ghana. It would have been useful to schedule to get through the JSP lectures in the US because it would have introduced the material to team members who did not know JSP before getting to Ghana so that they would be more comfortable learning it on their own.

Only one member of the team was in charge of arranging housing. In retrospect, this process should probably be discussed among all team members to account for special circumstances and preferences of everyone involved.

Part IV. Classroom-based Learning

4.1 Introduction

The AITI curriculum this year was a spin-off of the Introduction to java course taught at MIT (popularly known as 1.00) and covered the basics of the java language through a series of lectures and lab exercises. The course also included a web programming module that introduced students to web programming using JSP, HTML and MySQL, building up to a final project that entailed building a database-backed web site. And for the first time, the AITI curriculum also included an entrepreneurship curriculum that culminated in a business plan competition with a $300 investment prize going to the best plan.

4.2 Facilities

The AITI program this summer was only held at the University of Ghana Legon campus, as opposed to previous years where the program was also held in two high schools in Accra. The AITI team was given access to two computer laboratories at the university:

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the Computer Science Department laboratory (with about 20 machines) and the Chemistry Department laboratory (with about 40 machines). Most of the machines in the Chemistry Department were running on the Windows 98 operating system. All machines in the Computer Science department were stand-alone and were running on Windows XP OS. About half the machines in the Chemistry department lab were also stand-alone, while the other half was networked.

Both labs were equipped with a white board; the Chemistry department lab also had a projector that we used to present lecture slides to students. The team was also given access to a lecture room adjacent to the Chemistry Department, which came in handy later on in the course and during the administration of exams.

Besides access to computers, the students were also given a textbook with all the Java, JSP and Entrepreneurship lectures to take home with them. Students enrolled in the self-learning part of the course were also given access to a Java Textbook to supplement the material in the AITI lectures.

4.3 Students

For this year’s AITI program, we started off with about 70 enrollees. The number however dropped to the lower fifties as students realized that it would be a full-day course, and also as the intensity of the material presented in class increased. Students enrolled for the class by responding to notices sent out by Professor Ayeertey, who is the head of the computer science department at the campus and was also our contact person for the department while we were in Ghana.

The composition of the student body varied widely and ranged from high school students to married working people. The majority of the students were college students at the University of Ghana itself and at the Kwame Nkrumah University of science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi. There was, however, a disappointingly low percentage of female students in the course (only 3 managed to complete it) and we hope this will be addressed in future.

Needless to say, the students brought to the table a wide range of abilities and experience, from senior-year computer science majors to students that had no previous computer experience. Consequently, the format of the course reflected this and it kept changing as the course progressed to enable us to reach out to as many students as possible.

4.4 Schedule and Class Operation

Students spent 8 hours daily on the course during the 6-week duration. We presented a lecture every day for about 2 hours in the morning and then distributed the lab exercise associated with that lecture that was due at 5 pm. Team members would be available during this period to assist students with the lab exercises.

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The Entrepreneurship curriculum consisted of two 2-hour sessions every week (on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons), which alternated between lectures by AITI participants and guests drawn from local entrepreneurs.

We also had regular assessment in terms of weekly quizzes that were administered on Mondays, plus two major exams spaced out during the course.

4.5 Curriculum Tracks

The course initially enrolled students in two tracks: a standard track that would have lectures delivered by team members daily in the Chemistry Department lab and an Open Course Ware (OCW) self-learning track in the Computer Science Lab that had students cover the material in the AITI books on their own, aided by java textbooks and assistance from team members to comprehend the material and complete lab assignments.

The criteria for subdividing the class into these two tracks was not well defined from the word go. We enlisted help from Professor Ayeertey to identify students that would cope with the OCW format in the beginning. However as time progressed, we reached our maximum capacity in the Chemistry department lab and were forced to enroll some not-so-suitable students in the OCW track. This and other factors that are covered comprehensively in the OCW section subsequently led to the discontinuation of the OCW track in favor of two tracks: a JSP track that would cover the JSP curriculum, and a java track that would only cover the java curriculum. Both tracks would be lectured to daily by the team members. These changes were instituted after careful evaluation of the results for the first exam, which was administered and graded in the third week.

4.6 Final Projects

Over the last week of the course, the students were required to complete final projects based on the material covered during the course. The final project accounted for 20% of the student.s grade for the course.

The students in the java curriculum completed sections of the implementation of a Ghanaian card game for their final project. Students in the JSP curriculum worked in pairs to write a database-backed website using JSP, MySQL and HTML. This assignment was open ended and students were free to choose the functionality of the site created. Most of the students were able to complete the final project in time.

4.7 Successes, Problems Encountered, and Future Recommendations

From student evaluations, most of the students enlisted for the course to gain some experience in working with computers and writing software programs. At the end of the course, students felt much more confident writing java programs after spending a substantial amount of time working on the lab exercises for the course.

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The course was quite intensive and we had to slow the pace considerably in the middle to accommodate some students. This was at the expense of foregoing the JSP curriculum for these students. Participation in each of the two tracks was voluntary. After reordering the course, student participation in class improved remarkable for students that were previously struggling and examination results improved greatly. Students appreciated our efforts and in the end, we felt that we reached out to more students using this arrangement.

One of the biggest problems we encountered was the lack of adequate information on the exact format of the course for students who wished to enroll. Some students expected the course to be an introduction of how to use computers and Microsoft’s packages. Some also had no idea that we expected them to be in class all day over the six weeks. There was also no information that we would be conducting the OCW track of the course. This would have attracted students who were especially suited for this arrangement, rather than requiring us to force students to enroll in that section of the course.

We encountered some problems working with the machines in the lab, mainly because most were not connected to the local network. This complicated installation of course software and distribution of lab assignments and other materials to the students. We also delayed the installation of JSP software until the very end and this cost us a couple of days that would have given the students more practice with JSP.

We also encountered some problems with the final projects. For the java track, we had to improvise and use the last two labs as a final project, and this worked well for the students in this track. Students in the JSP track could not, however, complete a final project, mainly because we did not have specifications for one. The JSP final project was also a lot more challenging than necessary because we had to a very short time to introduce the material to the students, and also had to spend some time teaching the students SQL in the last week.

In future, it may be more beneficial to intersperse the JSP and MySQL lectures with the java lectures (rather than having them at the very end) because most of the JSP material does not depend on understanding the more advanced java lectures. This would give the students more time to digest the material and make better use of the power of JSP in their final project.

Part V. The Self-Learning Initiative

Part VI. The AITI Entrepreneurship Course

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6.1 Overview and Logistics

It was recognized in the previous year (2003) of MIT-AITI programs that one major piece of knowledge that MIT students could impart aside from technology skills is entrepreneurial skills. For Africans stuck in slow economies with a difficult job market, entrepreneurship is an excellent option. The AITI entrepreneurship program started from the initiative of Eston Kimani, who ran the first entrepreneurship program in Ethiopia in 2003. This year the entrepreneurship program spread to all the AITI countries, including Ghana. Eston had prepared an improved and expanded set of lecture slides, and we were sent to Ghana with the mission to deliver this knowledge in a practical and motivating way that enabled our students to become entrepreneurs in the future.

The entrepreneurship program consisted of eight lectures and four guest speakers. Towards the end of the entrepreneurship program, we also held a business plan competition, for which everyone in the class got together in teams to write up an idea and compete for $300 of start-up capital from AITI. Lectures were held each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, with a guest speaker usually replacing one of the two lectures.

The team delegated responsibility for the entrepreneurship program to two people: Ato and Lauri. The two were chosen because they were the only team members with any entrepreneurship experience or knowledge. Ato is a management major, and has dealt with entrepreneurial initiatives in Ghana like GhanaThink (a non-profit forum for ideas to improve Ghana). Lauri had been involved in organizing the MIT $50K business plan competition, and along the way had gained experience about starting businesses.

6.2 Lectures

Lectures were held on a variety of topics: producing and consuming, the entrepreneurial mindset, the what and how of business plans, outsourcing, business innovation, social entrepreneurship, marketing, and production excellence. Ato and Lauri managed to explain the entrepreneurship material in a way that felt effective to us and got high marks in student reviews. Students commented that they found the material very practical, and no one had been exposed to it before. Overall, the lecture portion of our program was well planned and students felt like it added a very meaningful part to their education.

6.3 Guest Speakers

It was a concern to our team that no one had direct experience with for-profit startups. It seemed hypocritical to be lecturing about entrepreneurial knowledge without any personal experience. However, we managed to compensate for this missing perspective and credibility by inviting four great entrepreneurs to speak to the class. The guest speakers told about their experiences in entrepreneurship and told the group what they think makes someone a successful entrepreneur. The first was Mark Davies, the founder of Busy Internet, Ghana’s largest and most popular internet café. The second was Ace Ankomah, an entrepreneur lawyer from a dynamic and popular new law firm based in Accra. The third was Mawuli Tse, an engineer and businessman who had worked at many

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and varied companies after graduating from MIT. Lastly, we invited Andrew Kafe, a spokesperson for the Ghana New Ventures Competition, to speak during the last day of class. The business plan competition he represents is one of Africa’s most established, and we cooperated with him to direct our students towards further resources in entrepreneurship through their free program. All of these speakers answered a variety of questions, and filled an important role by managing to motivate the group about entrepreneurship. They brought the class a local perspective on entrepreneurship that made students realize it is feasible even in a poor economy. All guest speakers were found through connections we had made with the Ghana New Ventures Competition.

6.4 Business Plan Competition

In the final three weeks of the program we also began an entrepreneurship competition. The idea was to make students feel the competitive drive of entrepreneurship, and also to get them actively involved in entrepreneurship by having them write a business plan. The competition required everyone in the class to work in teams (or alone) to produce an idea, and market it with a business plan that was as thorough and persuasive as possible. The teams had two weeks to produce the final business plan. At the end of the two weeks, Ato and Lauri went through each business plan, giving feedback and deciding which plan would win an investment of $300 from the AITI program.

The entrepreneurship competition turned out to be a success, but it got off to a slow start. When we announced the start of the competition, students were busy from 7am to 10pm attending our lectures, struggling through labs, and traveling between home and school, so it was difficult to convince them that more work was necessary. We discovered after one week that no one had even touched upon the idea. That was a big problem because we knew that discovering and developing good ideas takes time, and in one single remaining week it would be very difficult for students to find a good idea and then write 10+ pages about it. Clearly, the issue needed more emphasis so that students would work extra hard for the remaining time.

Thus, we decided to make the business plan a mandatory part of the program, not just a percentage of the grade. We told students that we held it in such high regard that no one would get a certificate if they do not complete a business plan. What’s more, we omitted several of the in-class exercises that were planned at the end of entrepreneurship lectures, and replaced them with class and group discussions about business ideas. This was very effective, because the students realized that we were serious about the deadline, serious about the competition, and now we were giving them time to think about it in class so there was no way out but to do it. Some in-class exercises, like having one student get up and sell his idea in five minutes, got the class to feel the pressure about how hard the task ahead was, and brought up such lively discussion that the business plan competition suddenly got popular.

Almost everyone submitted a plan, and the competition ended well. We received a diversity of ideas, and effort shone through each and every plan. We felt that the experience of writing a full business plan gave each student a unique chance to think in-

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depth about a business idea, and realize that there are many things to consider and do before an idea can become a successful business. It was an excellent idea to have students complete such a meaningful task at the end of our entrepreneurship lectures, and the $300 was a sufficient amount of incentive to bring out good ideas.

The competition ran as well as we could have expected, but it had one shortcoming that needs to be corrected in future years. We ran the competition so late that we could not give enough feedback and enough further lessons to ensure that everyone graduates with successful entrepreneurial skills. Many plans went along with a prematurely idealistic “everyone will love this product and anyone that invests in this plan will be rich” theme. Many plans also ignored our lessons about providing a unique service to consumers; they simply took an existing product and decided to sell it cheaper! Cheaper chicken, cheaper food, and cheaper schools were all themes in the business plans, as if the current producers of those products have made no efforts to reduce costs. Since most plans had no revolutionary ideas about cutting costs, aside from “we will pay competitive wages to our employees” (with what money!?), those plans were doomed to fail. Finally, as we had feared, one week was not enough time for almost anyone to come up with a unique idea. Some of the brightest or most enthusiastic students had thought of business ideas beforehand, and came up with good plans, but most others followed the trend of picking an agricultural product and selling it cheaper. These were all very basic mistakes that everyone goes through in their first attempts at entrepreneurship, even in the MIT $50K. They could easily be fixed with another week of entrepreneurship lectures, or through a chance to re-write/re-think the business plan. Unfortunately, the only forum we had for feedback was a quick report about each business plan and a short general speech during the final award ceremony. We did our best to give constructive suggestions through those two avenues, but we don’t think it was enough to drive home the point. Next year, we recommend personal meetings with each team, or if time permits, a personal meeting and a revision of the business plan. As it stands, the business plan competition is the single most useful thing we can have to make students more likely to choose entrepreneurship in the future. If run correctly, it can help them through the basic mistakes so that they are more prepared in their future endeavors. It’s also the most involving and practical way to make anyone learn about entrepreneurship. Lastly, many people choose normal jobs over entrepreneurship because the complexities of entrepreneurship are so unknown to them; after writing a business plan that entry barrier is significantly lowered. We felt, and the students agreed, that this years’ business plan competition was a major positive part in their entrepreneurship education. Next year, let’s give it more time and make sure everyone gets as much out of that resource as possible.

6.5 Conclusions

Overall, we think our entrepreneurship course achieved a lot. Students gave us consistent positive feedback throughout the course, saying that they found our material very interesting and they were very happy to be exposed to it because no one else teaches these things to them in school. The exposure to entrepreneurship concepts, successful local entrepreneurs, and a chance to get detailed feedback on a full business plan proved to be a unique and motivating experience for everyone. What’s more, we ended the

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course by directing students to further resources in Ghana for entrepreneurship. We emphasized the professional skills and networking that the Ghana New Ventures Competition can provide, and we gave clear instructions for how easy it is to participate in that. We expect many of our students to take advantage of it. The GNVC is our back-up for ensuring that these Ghanaian students become mature entrepreneurs.

Part VII. Additional Activities

7.1 Lego Robotics Course for High School Students

7.1.1 Overview

The Ghana team followed a suggestion from the AITI leadership to produce an additional course that taught robotics with the aid of Lego Mindstorms, a famous robot assembly kit developed at MIT and now commercially available world-wide. We chose high-school students as our target group, and developed a program that would introduce students to basic engineering concepts (mechanical, computer science, electrical) through kits that we obtained from Prof. Marty Culpepper of MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. We also chose to introduce students to the competitiveness and attention to excellence that exists in the engineering field by hosting design competitions. Our program turned out to be 7 lessons long, each lesson lasting 3 hours and held Monday and Wednesday afternoons. For the sake of diversity, and to make the design competitions more interesting and more competitive, we invited 6 students from each of these three local high schools: Accra Academy, Presec, and Accra Girls Academy. Since we had six Lego kits available, students were divided into teams of three. Because we expected some out-of-class work, teams were comprised of students from the same school.

7.1.2 Curriculum and Design Projects

The program was initially planned to include a mixture of lectures and design work, evenly balanced throughout the course. We hoped that this structure would give students a chance to test out the theory we taught, making this a great education while being fun. However, the design projects required so much more time than anticipated that the lectures were phased out after only one significant lecture on gears and gear trains. We felt that the practical work was more unique and motivating, so we compromised on theory with the hopes that this way the students would learn the most.

There were three design projects that we assigned to the teams to complete. The completed robots then competed against each other and we gave some critique of each design. We were very pleased to see that the designs kept improving as the class progressed.

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1) Race Track – Teams were asked to build an autonomous robot that circled three times around a lego box, surrounded by a white surface made of sheets of paper. Teams could use touch sensors to sense the wall of the box, and light sensors to sense the edge of the white paper border. The idea was simple enough but the results were disastrous! Only one robot managed to reliably circle the box with the aid of a light sensor. All other robots chose an infamous and fateful “dead-reckoning” tactic. “Dead-reckoning” robots are ones without any sensors to the outside world, essentially rendering them “blind”. In this case, students used a simple timer on each motor to traverse the perimeter of the box. Any engineer could have guessed that small errors add up, and not a single one of these robots managed around the box, but jammed into the wall within the first ½ lap. Clearly, students were not given enough time for this assignment, their skills were not developed enough to think up of reliable autonomous designs, and some teams simply weren’t enthused enough yet to actually put in a significant amount of effort into this competition. At least the students learned an important lesson in robot design: reliability is key.

2) Battle Bots – Because the autonomous competition was so difficult, we took a step backward and made a competition that allowed a human controller. Each team built a robot capable of pushing another robot off a table, or flipping over the other robot. Three touch sensors were extended from the robot with long wires, and these could be used to control the robot. To make sure that students felt enthused, we had a large box of juice drinks going to the winner. Not only that, we threw in a robot designed by Lauri, to represent MIT, so students felt scared enough to actually put in a lot of effort. The biggest strength of the competition is that removing the autonomous requirement made the concept easier to handle and having two robots fight at the same time made the competition very interactive and motivating. We made two iterations of this competition, allowing extra design time between the competitions. The results were excellent, and designs were beginning to showcase complex design and thinking.

3) Cleaner Bot – Having gained experience and confidence from the previous two competitions, we felt the teams were ready for another autonomous robot. A 6’x6’ square made of white paper was taped to the floor. Inside the square were scattered 40 Lego pieces. Each team had to design an autonomous robot that would move around inside the square and sweep those 40 pieces out. There was a 60 second time limit. Points were awarded based on how many pieces were removed in this time. This time, the students surprised us with ever better designs. Everyone came up with a working robot. Students thoroughly enjoyed seeing their robots work, and now that they finally grasped how to better design robots they were much more enthusiastic about seeing their robot compete against others. This design project was a successful ending to the course, as it left everyone feeling good about engineering.

7.1.3 Implementation, Problems, and Solutions

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The design projects were all interesting, but their implementation was at first shaky. It shone through that our program had never been attempted before. The precision and professional touch of the JAVA course could not be matched in the lego course simply because we had no idea of what to expect and needed to deal with constant drastic changes. For example, the course occupied six hours each week, and it turned out to be too much for some students. The Accra Girls Academy completely quit the course after the first two weeks, because they had an exam period that they needed more study time for. It also showed that some students, most notably the girls, were less interested in designing with legos. Our open-ended design approach didn’t work well with those students that weren’t self-motivated and enthusiastic about engineering. Not only that, the two teams that came from other high schools (the classes were held at Presec) always arrived at “Ghana-man time”, which was a fashionable 1+ hours late! This made organizing very difficult, because the program either needed to be started late or instructions explained three times. Finally, we created the curriculum as the course progressed, meaning that the curriculum was better suited to student wishes and progress, but it also didn’t end up fulfilling a greater unified goal that a prepackaged curriculum can accomplish.

Regardless of such harsh obstacles, we came up with a lot of solutions that made the course end successfully. For example, to improve the discipline and to get students to take the course more seriously, we began giving out prizes in our design competitions to make them more fun. What’s more, once the Accra Girls quit, we took one of their sets and had Lauri make a robot to represent MIT that competed for the prize. Students, feeling the pressure in competitions, got much more excited about the course and produced much better designs. We also started paying more attention to critical feedback, telling students more honestly where they went wrong so that they wouldn’t get the impressions that any design is ok. Finally, we clarified the course protocol: we would no longer expect any effort to be spent on projects outside of class, and once in class, every student must work very hard or go home.

7.1.4 Conclusions

In the end-of-course feedback, all students said they liked the course a lot. Although we didn’t go through all the material we had hoped, the students felt like they got a lot of experience out of the course. Everyone would have liked the course to continue, and everyone said they would do it again if given a chance.

The great strength of the Lego program was that it gave high school students an introduction to engineering that is not available to them anywhere else. We got them to think about design approaches, and taught them new concepts and skills. With a revision of the curriculum, based on the experiences we had in Ghana, this program can be made very valuable. It can be used to enthuse students about engineering, and give them a foundation that will make it easier for them to understand further material.

7.2 Building OCW Awareness and Enthusiasm

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The AITI Ghana team made several extra efforts to publicize MIT OCW, beyond hosting a self-learning track that was based on material from 1.00 (MIT’s JAVA course, material available on the OCW website). Our efforts were propelled by a strong belief in the OCW concept, boosted by a personal presentation given to us by the OCW office at MIT.

7.2.1 Faculty Awareness

First and foremost, we felt that it was important to advertise to University faculty. The OCW website is actually geared for faculty, in the hopes that MIT can impact educators and education worldwide. It is not meant for self-learning, although it can be used for that. Thus, we wanted to make sure that the faculty at Legon know about OCW, and are enthused enough about the concept that they actually begin to use it. To this end, we held an OCW presentation open to all Legon faculty. We drafted a professional invitation letter that we sent out to all departments with the help of prof. Aryetee, our University contact.

Unfortunately, it turned out that our letter was sent out too late, and the attendance was low because not enough people had received it on time. However, we did the best we could using Steve Carson’s OCW presentation as a base (Steve Carson was our OCW correspondent at the MIT end). We gave the lecturers a grasp of what OCW is, how it can help them, and how they can use the website. Because internet was not available, we had made sure to download several example pages so that we could showcase some important material during this presentation.

The professors that attended were pleased with the concept, and had several thoughts about how it can be used in Legon. For example, some thought it is a good idea to keep MIT material as the “up-to-date” standard and strive to at least partially teach the same material. Overall, the information session was a great idea. We sent our small group of teachers away with the message that OCW should be talked about among faculty that didn’t attend.

7.2.2 Public Awareness

Secondly, we felt that public awareness was important. Branding the OCW website in the face of general faculty and students was important so that people would take it seriously. Thus, we drafted some appealing advertisements for OCW, some geared for students and others for faculty, that we postered around Legon University in Accra and even KNUST University in Kumasi. Their effectiveness will be determined by the visitor numbers to the OCW website, to be determined in the future.

7.2.3 Interviews to Help OCW Understand its Customers

Before our trip, we made a great deal with Steve Carson of MIT’s Open CourseWare office. If he helped us out by giving funding for JAVA books that were useful in our OCW curriculum, then we would do him a service by interviewing ten Ghanaians that

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use OCW. This deal benefited both OCW and our program, so we were enthusiastic about conducting the interviews.

Each interview followed a protocol that Steve Carson had provided, and lasted about 45 minutes. We asked each subject about their professional background and their experience using the OCW website. We asked for suggestions to improve the website, and other information that would be useful for the OCW department to know. Another great benefit of these interviews is that we were able to establish a small network of high-profile contacts for the OCW office. For example, the head of the computer science department at the University of Ghana – Legon was convinced that reviewing their entire curriculum through the OCW website was a good idea. Steve Carson now has an initial interview (held before the curriculum development), and the professor’s personal permission to be contacted, so the OCW office can get a great idea about what kind of problems African universities might run into while using the OCW website for such purposes.

7.3 College Application Information Session

We had an urge to encourage Ghanaians to aspire high and apply to MIT and other great academic institutions in the US. As part of this initiative, the team organized a college application and admissions information session at Presec on the 25th of June.Due to logistical problems and delayed communication, this was the only one that was organized. However, a few MIT cards were donated to a number of schools including Presec, Achimota, Opoku Ware School and St. Louis School, both in Kumasi.

Part VIII. Future Recommendations and Problems Encountered

What follows is a list of fine details our team discovered during our stay in Ghana. It should be worthwhile reading for future AITI teams preparing for a trip in Ghana, and most details will be relevant for the other countries as well.

8.1 Lectures and the Classroom

Speak very slowly and very loudly and articulate. Ghanaians speak English but they will not understand a fast American accent.

Bring USB sticks to exchange information between computers Bring enough certificates for advanced students (more than 10?). Have certificate

design on computers in case more need to be printed out. Bring CDs with software (and lectures and labs, but those tend to change

throughout the course) already burned on them to give out to students at beginning of course. Then, bring enough to burn the rest of the curriculum at the end of the course.

Revise ArrayList lecture Have more textbook references for students – lecture slides are not enough

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Weekly quizzes, in addition to perhaps a midterm and final exam, keep the students on track, and the teachers aware of how much they are learning.

Distributing report cards with lab, quiz, and exam grades two or three times throughout summer helps keep students up to date with their grades.

Stress attendance – students cannot do well if they do not attend class from beginning to end. Also, important announcements are made everyday.

Problem: Professor was very busy and not interested in OCW. Problem: Some students cheated – we made an announcement in class that we

suspected some students cheated and we gave them 0’s for their quiz average. This scared the class very much, and the cheating stopped.

Grading labs can take 2-3 hours. Grading labs as students finish was very helpful. For students that don’t finish before the deadline, we graded their labs and left them a “comments” file with their grade and suggestions for improvement.

Make detailed syllabus – stress cheating and attendance. Also include breakdown for labs, quizzes, exams, etc.

Create a regular way to post announcements – stress that students are required to be aware of announcements made in that particular place. (Otherwise it is hard to matriculate the information when students are in and out of the classroom – at lunch, absent, in another lab, etc.)

Make sure the university knows the proper times for the class. Our class initially thought it would run from 9-1pm, when it actually ran from 9-5pm.

Problem: The skill level varied tremendously. We eventually split the class into two tracks. If this approach is decided on, wait a couple of weeks before the split so that students/teachers are able to really evaluate their skill levels in the Java class.

If possible, print out the labs. Our students often complained that they could not take the labs home with them.

Have a well-thought out OCW-selection test prepared that tests students’ competency in logical problem solving.

Make-up exams might be necessary, especially after the first exam. Review labs the day after they are due. Otherwise, the students who missed parts

of the lab will be unlikely to go back and review what they misunderstood.

8.2 Logistics

VISA cards are the only ones accepted at Ghana ATM machines Internet in living quarters would be very helpful Bring staples and staplers Contact radio station and newspapers in Ghana immediately – don’t wait until end

of course Keep list of working computers from the beginning of the course (list should

include which computers have what parts working, including network, CD drive, USB port, software installed, etc)

Realize that installing software can be a 15-20 hour job

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Problem: The head of the Computer Science department allowed people to enter the class over one week late (almost a quarter of the way into the course). Perhaps after three days into the course, nobody should be permitted to join.

Problem: There were only three women in a class of over 60 students. Next year, we should encourage women to sign up – perhaps make it cost less for them to take the course.

Plan weekend trips in the beginning of your stay – otherwise, it’ll be likely that plans will fall through.

Have a car (that fits all the team members) and driver somehow – the head of the computer science department let us use his driver. This was very convenient in terms of transporting the team back and forth from class and lunch breaks.

Realize that the bank hours are 8:30am-3pm Monday-Friday (while class is in session). So, plan appropriately by having a VISA ATM card, or exchanging a lot of money at a time.

Somehow have students fill out evaluations electronically. This will make it a lot easier to analyze results.

8.3 Organization

Define and redefine goals, as a team, more clearly throughout the summer Describe the weekly reports with teams in a bit more detail before they leave for

their countries The professor is a good resource. Although he gets busy, maybe have weekly

lunches with him to keep in touch with him. Recruit the Ghanaian AITI alumni to help as TAs for the next year, and encourage

them to run AITI sessions on their own during the year or in other parts of the country.

Expect the first and last weeks in your country to be a 7am-1am schedule, between preparing the labs, preparing lectures, evaluations, etc. It will settle down a bit during the middle few weeks.

8.4 Other Recommendations

Have party/closing ceremony to wrap up the course/connect with students on a different level in the end

Get custom-made shirts from MKOGH Lessen the AITI alumni v. AITI newbies feeling – alumni should be more of a

support network Have more contact with AITI members – maybe weekly phone calls Keep toilet paper with you Problem: Students did not immediately show us the same respect they would

show a Ghanaian professor – because we were foreign/young. It eventually passed when they realized that we were working hard for them.

Watch out for Ghana-man time – give yourself twice as much time to do everything (including scheduling meetings, making photocopies, contacting

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entrepreneurs, etc). Also, lots of extra emphasis and incentives are needed if you want students to be coming to class and other events on time.

Have a picture database of students. This helps in learning names and keeping track of students attendance and progress.

Part IX. Impacts and Benefits

9.1 Impacts and Benefits for the Students and the Country

MIT-AITI is bridging the digital divide amongst the Western countries and Africa. It is also increasing MIT’s reputation as a world-class institution and a major player in the IT economy worldwide.

This year’s program reached about 70 students who were instructed for about 40 hours per week. The final projects had a great impact on the students as they could readily identify with their aims. The Java project involved building a Graphical User Interface to play a Ghanaian card game called Spa. The business plans submitted for the entrepreneurship competition showed the business interests and innovative ideas brimming amongst Ghanaian youth.

The students who have gone through AITI’s programs have generated a greater interest in Computer Science and gained a head start into being knowledgeable in IT. Some of the AITI alumni have started business and projects based on Java and are now tutoring their colleagues in various institutions. These students have been pursuing Java and computer science as a whole even more vigorously from the inspiration MIT-AITI students gave them. “We can’t repay what you did for us!” Some of these students have been pinpointed by our team as people who could teach other Ghanaians Java programming and other computer science courses in the near future.

Most of the students who have taken part have been talking about the way the AITI course has been so much worth the money they paid for it. “This class is so worth my cedis!” They have learnt to seek knowledge online and acquired better understanding of various subjects.

Most importantly, the MIT-AITI curriculum and expertise gave students a positive classroom experience they had never before imagined. The students shared stories of stagnant university classes with no support structures, where only a few ever learn. We met cases of recently graduated computer scientists who had no idea how to program before our course because they were never given computers to use in their studies and the school had not provided the tutoring resources necessary to make them understand the material. What came into the course was a mixture of many unused talents, and what came out was a class full of excited students that now proudly claimed “I am a programmer!”. Students not only learned new material, they learned practical skills and found a new attitude towards education in general.

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The enthusiasm of the students creates exponential growth for Ghana’s IT sector. We hope that our entrepreneurship program enthuses students to market themselves as problem solvers and innovators, and finally enter the workforce as their own employer with a new idea.

9.2 Impacts and Benefits for the Instructors

Taking part in AITI’s Ghana 2004 program was an enriching, life changing and productive experience. It was rewarding to impart knowledge to students. Teaching was an excellent way to share information, ideas, and culture with the students. The Ghanaian students and its people were so welcoming and hospitable that it made the G-UNIT team feel at home and involved.

9.3 Impacts and Benefits for the AITI Program

The MIT-AITI program benefited from our work in many ways. We felt that our improvements in the curriculum and style of teaching (the extensive lab help, the student feedback sessions) will help guide next year’s groups to success. We also added value to the entrepreneurship program by successfully performing everything that was given to us. Since the program was new, we will be well-informed and able to improve on it for next year, helping to spread practical entrepreneurship skills to Africans. Our team also started a new initiative, the Lego Mindstorms robotics class, which will hopefully evolve to an introductory engineering curriculum that could be taught in future years. Finally, our passion contributed to the program by the improved reputation that AITI now has in Ghana, and by our varied success ranging from OCW awareness to a network of Ghanaian TA’s, and onwards to all the finer details. AITI’s program will be significantly advanced as a result of the effort made by our team.

Part X. Travel

10.1 Logistics

G-UNIT is very thankful for the logistical support and help that MIT-AITI gave it before, during and even after its program in Ghana in 2004. Logistics were sought about hotel accommodation, food, travel, etc. A lot of logistics were also found and figured out during our stay. This is not to diminish the work of the logistics team but to state how a lot of such information is not readily available online and some logistical information may be much better than what had been recommended before the commencement of the summer program.

G-UNIT lived in Hotel Chez Moi, a hotel in East Legon. The conditions were good, each room had a TV, air conditioning, bathroom, etc. The internet facilities never worked so that was a downer.

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We mostly used public transport for our trips. Jacob Aryeetey, our University contact, lent his car and driver for transport to and from the University every weekday morning and evening.

We ate at a number of restaurants, canteens and chop bars. These include the Bush Canteen, Asanka Local Chop bar, On the Run eatery, Redd Lobster restaurant and others. The food was delicious, especially after we had adjusted to the more radical flavors.

10.2 Travel and fun

We traveled to a number of tourist attractions all over Ghana. We were at the Aburi Botanical gardens, the Akosombo dam, the Arts Centre in Accra, Makola market, etc. We also cruised on Lake Volta with the Dodi Princess. For the July 1st weekend, we traveled to the Central Region where we visited the Cape Coast and Elmina castles, the Elmina Java Museum, the Kakum National Park and the Hans Cottage Botel. The Central Region trip was planned with a tourist agency. Our trip to Kumasi for the July 8th weekend sent us to the Kumasi Zoo, Centre for National Culture, KNUST and Lake Bosomtwe.

Overall, G-UNIT had fun! Maybe not like 50 Cent does it, but close. We visited the Labadi Pleasure beach twice, one time where we went to the public launch of Tic Tac’s (a Ghanaian musician) album. We partied at Jokers, Boomerang, Celebration, Warehouse, and Indigo night clubs in Accra, Cape Coast Nite Club (for Obour’s Konkontiba album launch) and Kiravi and FoxTrap night clubs in Kumasi. We wined and dined at Dynasty, Paloma, Odo Rice and Palace bar restaurants. We also ate a lot at the Living Room Cinema near our hotel and we had our sending-off party (ceremony) at the same place. That party was magical, as we got to have fun and got to know our students better.

Part XI. AppendixAppendix A1: Java Syllabus and Schedule for Classroom-based Instruction (Aw)Appendix A2: Java Syllabus and Schedule for Self-Learning Initiative (Aw)Appendix B: Entrepreneurship Syllabus and Schedule (Aw)Appendix C: Comprehensive Overview of Student Feedback from Evaluations (Ts)Appendix D: Distribution of Student Grades for Quiz 1, 2, and 3 (Ts)Appendix E: AITI Instructor Information (sammy)Appendix F: Names of Students Participating in Classroom-based Instruction (Ts)Appendix G: Names of Students Participating in Self-Learning Initiative (Ts)Appendix H: Pictures (lab, students, etc…) (Ts)

Appendix C: Comprehensive Overview of Student Feedback from Evaluations

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Week 1 evaluation results (1-strongly disagree 5-strongly agree)

class taught good pace 3.67labs reinforce lecture 4.26fun in class 3.76class is practical 4.17time to finish labs 4.41labs graded fairly 4.41satisfied with class material 4.07class worth cedis 4.48understand entr 4.71entr lectures practical 4.56enjoy group assignments 4.51homework requires thought 4.55

Week 3 evaluation results (1-strongly disagree 5-strongly agree)

class taught good pace 3.41labs reinforce lecture 4.24fun in class 3.62class is practical 4.20time to finish labs 3.54labs graded fairly 4.49satisfied with class material 4.14class worth cedis 4.36understand entr 4.32entr lectures practical 4.19enjoy group assignments 3.62homework requires thought 4.16

Final Week evaluation results (1-strongly disagree 5-strongly agree)

class taught good pace 4.22had fun in class 4.45enough time to finish labs 4.03labs graded fairly 4.73satisfied with material 4.48likely to use Java in future 4.88programming can solve real problems 4.76know how programs work 4.55I can make a custom program 4.03improved familiarity with computers 4.88class worth cedis 4.94understand entrepreneurship 4.47material was relevant 4.44material was exciting 4.53

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speakers motivated/taught me 4.75business plan was useful 4.50regular hw was useful 4.44now I will become an entrepreneur 4.50

Appendix F: Names of Students Participating in Classroom-based Instruction

Last Name First NameAddo Paul AnsahAdjokatse SampsonAdom JoshuaAgbai JeffersonAkaho ElikplimAkoto Eleanor Joyce KorngoAmartey Samson TettehAmuzu Dominic Selorm YaoAnsah Gladys EsinamApenyo PhilipAppiah Owusu EmmanuelArku KennethAtitso EricAyikwei MarkBoateng KwasiDebrah KwabenaDjokoto EdemDomakyaareh AaronDzide SelomFolson KwekuFrempong KennethIssah SulleyKonadu MichaelKukula DavidManu BenjaminMensah AlexanderMensah RobertMensah James JoeMensah-Dotsey EnyonamNumekevor Anthony MawuenaOduro-Amoako SethOfori-Mensah MorrisPipim YeboahQuaye RichardTandoh Eugene Kofi JimWemegah David Dotse

Total: 36

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Appendix G: Names of Students Participating in Self-Learning Initiative

Last Name First NameAbilba DennisAddo-Teye AnthonyAdusei Alfred BarimahAgyei Yaw OsafoAnteson JosephAntwi AlexAppiah JosephBadu AlexanderBropleh BorbiDogbe Paul YaoEnnin JonathanFawundu SalliaGadagbui Paa-Kwesi ConstancioHabibu AdamHevi LouisaKofi-Anim MichaelKromah Momo, DedonNoamesi EmilObong JohnsonQuartey AndrewZutah Thomas

Total: 21

Appendix H: Names of Students Participating in JSP Track

Last Name First NameAbilba DennisAdjokatse SampsonAdusei Alfred BarimahAgyei Yaw OsafoAkaho ElikplimAmartey Samson TettehAmuzu Dominic Selorm YaoAnteson JosephAntwi AlexApenyo PhilipAppiah JosephAppiah Owusu EmmanuelAtitso EricDebrah KwabenaDjokoto EdemDogbe Paul Yao

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Dzide SelomEnnin JonathanFawundu SalliaFrempong KennethIssah SulleyKukula DavidMensah RobertMensah AlexanderObong JohnsonOfori-Mensah MorrisPipim YeboahQuartey AndrewTandoh Eugene Kofi JimWemegah David Dotse

Total: 30

Appendix I: Names of Students Participating in Standard Track

Last Name First NameAddo Paul AnsahAddo-Teye AnthonyAdom JoshuaAgbai JeffersonAkoto Eleanor Joyce KorngoAnim Michael KofiAnsah Gladys EsinamArku KennethBadu AlexanderBoateng KwasiBropleh BorbiDomakyaareh AaronFarngalo FrancisFolson KwekuHabibu AdamHevi LouisaKonadu MichaelKromah Momo, DedonManu BenjaminMensah James JoeMensah-Dotsey EnyonamNoamesi EmilNumekevor Anthony MawuenaOduro-Amoako SethQuaye RichardZutah Thomas

Total: 26

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Appendix J: Pictures

One of our hotel rooms

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Team G-Unit

Our lab

Lego Mindstorms at Presec

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Whole class and G-Unit

Ghana

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G-Unit again

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