A beginner's roadmap to learning ICT skills in Freetown

ICT skills open doors to jobs, study and business, and you do not have to start with expensive equipment. I teach ICT, and I build software for a living, so I see both sides: what beginners find hard and what employers actually want.

This roadmap takes you from your first day on a computer to building a simple web page. Move at your own pace and do not skip steps. The basics make everything later easier.

Step 1: Get comfortable with the computer

Learn how to switch on and off safely, use the mouse and keyboard, manage files and folders, and install and remove programs. Practise typing a little every day. Typing speed and accuracy save you hours later, and free typing practice tools work well.

Step 2: Learn the everyday office tools

Spend time with a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation tool. These are used in almost every office job.

• In the word processor: formatting, headings, tables and printing.
• In the spreadsheet: entering data, simple formulas such as sum and average, and basic charts.
• In the presentation tool: clear slides with few words and good images.

Make something real, such as a CV, a household budget or a business price list.

Step 3: Use the internet well and safely

Learn to search effectively, compare sources and spot scams. Use strong, different passwords and turn on two-step verification for your email. Never share a one-time code with anyone. Learn how to back up important files so one lost phone or laptop does not erase your work.

Step 4: Learn how websites work

Before you code, understand the basics: what a browser does, what a web address is and what hosting and a domain name are. This makes everything you build later make sense.

Step 5: Build your first web page

Start with HTML for the structure of a page and CSS for how it looks. Make a page about yourself with a heading, a photo, a short paragraph and a list. Then style it with colours and spacing. You only need a text editor and a browser.

Step 6: Add behaviour with JavaScript

Once you are comfortable, learn the basics of JavaScript: variables, conditions, loops and functions. Build something small, like a tip calculator or a to-do list.

Step 7: Build small projects and keep them

Skills grow when you use them. Create a personal page, a simple page for a local business or a small tool for a problem you know. Save your work and write down what you learned from each one. A few finished projects say more than a long list of courses.

Habits that help when data is limited

• Plan your online time. Download what you need in one session and study offline.
• Keep notes in a notebook as well as on your phone.
• Join a study group so you can share resources and explain things to each other.
• Practise a little every day, even for twenty minutes.

Keep going

Everyone gets stuck. Learning to read an error message and search for the answer is a skill in itself, and it is what developers do every day. If you finish this roadmap, the next steps are a framework like React, databases and building a portfolio, and you can see what that looks like in my portfolio.

Want to talk about learning or about turning your skills into work? Get in touch.