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Re: [school-discuss] One Laptop Per Child?
2007/1/3, William Fragakis <william@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
Personally, I thought the author of the original article either a)
extremely parochial and having little understanding of parenting,
education, and technology in education or b) a troll looking for his 15
minutes of Warholian fame. For him, too, it's all or nothing - "no TV or
radio in our home". He is either unable or unwilling to discern the
differences between quality in either medium; or, doesn't trust his
children's ability to make those distinctions and won't take the time to
teach them. He takes the same approach to technology in developing
nations - "some of it might be bad so let's not have any of it."
"In my latest
rant about OLPC
I probably sounded a little extremistic. I'd like to add that I don't
think that computers are generally bad for children. Especially in the
developing countries there is probably good use for them, especially
when it is not possible to have schools or something similar. I think I
got a little annoyed because many discussions that I've seen take the
OLPC as a cure for many problems that it can't be, and the focus is
mostly on technical issues, on 3rd world issues and others, but not on
the children. When done right, the OLPC is surely a nice opportunity to
help the developing countries. For this to work we would have to
include the children and the special needs of 3rd world countries into
our focus. And that doesn't (only) mean childish themes and desktops.
That means reasonable and sustainable pedagogic concepts that are
tailored to these children in these countries. If there's documents
about this please point me to them, I am really interested."
Cheers
Praveen
--
"Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history.
`Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn."
-- Richard Stallman
Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr