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Re: [school-discuss] One Laptop Per Child?




i worked with the Jhai Foundation to put together prototype machines for remote, infrastructurally primitive areas. the node machines were _very_ low power with wifi and VoIP. the system included relay machines that were intermediaries between the remote node machines and some township that had internet access. the primary use of the machines was as a telephone. the value was to connect the remote users with their family members and friends who'd gone to more populated locations for work. the connection was not only family news and photo sharing (so-and-so got married, had a baby...), but also commerce: what of our crafts should we send you kids in the cities to sell? the secondary use was for education: "our kids are better educated than the dumbheads in the next valley", a matter of local pride. other uses included tracking market rates for crops and other goods (to better their negotiations with the local sharks), medical info (to keep up on local news--the latest outbreaks, when the doctors might be coming, etc.), and more.

On Jan 15, 2007, at 9:14 AM, lee rodgers wrote:


>>I couldn't agree more. >>Since I first heard of the OLPC program, I've found it insane.  > >>When your world is dominated by where your next meal is >>coming from and IF your next meal is coming, you probably >>aren't too concerned about things like PC's, the Internet, >>etc.

First of all I think there needs to be even more perspective here... sure people value food first, but altho the malnourished suffer, most of the developing world doesn't suffer from constant starvation or severe malnourishment, nor does the old eastern bloc, nor most of Asia, etc. AAMOF most of the places where there's severe malnourishment the causes are found in warfare or kleptocracies, and chronic malnourishment is due to broader social problems as well (like the Dalits in India).

Speaking of the Dalits, this is the kind of liberating device many of them are looking for... most of the Dalit population were the former Buddhist (Theravada) population before the Hindu Brahma ramrodded the caste system down everyone's throat. The Dalits are reclaming their destiny from under the Brahmin thumb through two means: Education & conversion (back to Buddhism or over to Xianity), and their leaders already see computer tech as the great equalizer. The OLPC is spot-on what they need. Maybe $150 per unit is too much, so the first one they get will be shared in a classroom by 8 shifts of science & math students, but down the road families will be able to afford it....

>>This is one project that should die an early and fast death.

Why don't you take a "wait and see" approach instead of parroting the usual nihilist  avante-liberal nay-saying? Or is it a white man's burden to decide who gets to jumpstart their industrialization with which technologies?

The OLPC is starting @ $150 (American) but the price will come down. It's a great prototype of what can be delivered for a very low cost (well below Nokia's 770). In 5 years expect sub-$100, in a decade, $50 per unit (maybe not retail but certainly mfg'd).

> But OLPC people cannot give them peace and security.

Chicken & egg.... Education leads to self-governance and social stability ... modern educational tech could bring that sooner. The OLPC - as a concept - is in its earliest phases, but 10 years down the road there's a great potential for real ubiquity of devices of its ilk. The boom of electronics manufacturing in Asia is just a prelude to what will happen around the world.

mcooper <mcooper@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 13, 2007, at 8:23 AM, Yishay Mor wrote:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid79489195/ bclid60818931/bctid336122058
Negraponte, Papert and Bender explain.


On 02/01/07, Anthony Papillion <anthony@xxxxxxxx> wrote:I couldn't agree more.
Since I first heard of the OLPC program, I've found it insane.
 
When your world is dominated by where your next meal is coming from and IF your next meal is coming, you probably aren't too concerned about things like PC's, the Internet, etc.
 
This is one project that should die an early and fast death.
 

It is a tough call, isn't it? These people are using what they know best to do something for kids in developing countries. In the interview, Negroponte says, "I can't think of anything better," and that might be most important line. These OLPC people are sincere and mean well, but you don't think they have thought enough about it yet. I would say in their benefit that they are doing what they know. They are using what resources they have. They know PCs, so that is what they are offering.


So what do you give children in developing countries? Financial aid? Or do you teach them to fish? One of the biggest problems with these countries is political corruption and exploitation. So do you give them guns? What are the other options? The developing countries need safety and political stability first. They need food, shelter, and security more than PCs. True.

Perhaps OLPC should be giving laptops to poor African-American families in Mississippi and opening camps to teach them. What about poor Appalachians and the children of the working poor? Or how about young people on Indian reservations? How about the children of illegal farm workers? Or what about the homeless children in America? Those children go to school. How about computers in homeless shelters and staff to teach children there? Steve Hargadan has a podcast with one of the people involved in a project to put computers in homeless shelters, and she is a PhD who herself was a homeless child.

I do think we should do something for children in the developing world, but Negroponte and the MIT people are perhaps not the ones to do it at this stage. They cannot affect military dictators who use children as soldiers and sex slaves. They cannot change corrupt politicians who siphon off oil profits and leave their citizens starving in mud huts. OLPC could, however, do a lot for the poor in the US, because information would really give poor children a way out of the cycle of poverty.


Gee, a little bit elitist, doncha think? It's good enuf for the poor in the USA, but we know what's good for the rest of the world? Let's be quite clear here: Not every locale south of the equator is as bad off as you portray (never mind some of the biggest slave-traders are oil-rich nations who can readily afford the OLPC machines). So the contrasts you make don't reflect the world as it is, as each situation is different.

Look at it this way,  most of the world has access to television sets, even if there's just a few in a village, etc. Why not OLPC-type machines?

And what about all those old 80286's going to the 3rd world to be used in various locale? They don't get there for free, either, it costs a few bucks to ship a 50 - 60 lbs. of equipment to Botswana (doing very well, no starvation, no war, no corruption, but in need of good, rugged, portable machines).

I remember years ago -- a very long time ago now -- I awaited the delivery of my Austin Computers laptop in 1995. It had the largest damned LCD screen on the market & sported a heafty 32 MB RAM, a rocket of an 80486. I waited 2-3 extra months for it b/c the LCD factory in Kobe had partially fallen down from the earthquake, but the people of Kobe got up & went back to work with holes still in the factory roof. The point I'm making here is that people can work, learn & achieve under all manner of circumstances, b/c people seek the most important fruit of achievement, stability and will suffer all manner of privation to attain those fruit.

I encourage people to give the Dalit & other poor of the world a chance and stop bad mouthing this project.

/lee



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