Tech Coach Experiences Upgrade Moving to Africa

After ten years of teaching in North Carolina public schools, Ryan Harwood decided he wanted a change. So he and his wife made a big one. They moved to Ghana. Ryan and his wife had always wanted to work internationally, and following the recommendation of a former principal who had moved there a few years earlier, they found Ghana a natural fit.

Play video: CoffeED: Ryan Harwood (19 minutes 15 seconds)19:15

Success of BYOD

He started as a humanities teacher at Ghana’s Lincoln Community School, where he now works as a Technology Integration Coach. You might assume that the technology he and his kids had access to would be a step down from the classrooms in the States. Quite the contrary. In North Carolina, the classes had only one computer for the kids and one for the teacher.

“When I got here to Ghana, it was a Bring Your Own Device school and every kid had a laptop or access to a laptop,” he says. “The Internet connection wasn’t as fast, but there was more connectivity because more kids had devices. We were handed a laptop as we came in as teachers, so I instantly had a MacBook to work with whereas, in the States, I had a giant super monitor Dell. I had kind of an instant update by moving to a developing country. That was not what I expected. I think most people expect that when you go to a developing country, you’re not going to have things. But in the case of an international school, that’s not always going to be true.”

Ryan’s story is a fascinating one, and he’s turning another page as he and his family prepare to move to Amman, Jordan. I look forward to catching up with him down the line to hear more first-hand knowledge of international learning environments.

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