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



On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 11:03 +0530, Vikram Vincent wrote:
> Technology is necessary for the development of any nation and
> technology directed towards constructive purposes is definitely
> welcome.
> It's all a question of prioritisation. 
> If the children (the society) are at a stage where all their basic
> needs are satisfied then one laptop per child will have the desired
> positive effect. 
This assumes that this is a binary function, i.e. only when all the
children have their basic needs met, then invest in educational
technology. 

It isn't. In any society, developed or developing, there is a continuum
of needs. While it is essential to make sure that those at one end of
the spectrum have the "basic needs", it is also essential to assist
those in other parts. As they become better educated and eventually
capable of higher-value work as adults, this increases the economic
strength of that nation. Otherwise, what good would it do to have the
entire nation fed but incapable of little more than the most menial of
jobs (I, too, can take an argument to the extreme). To wit, look at the
overall economic effects of specifically technological education places
like Taiwan, S. Korea, Ireland and India. In these cases, it can be
noted how having a nucleus of young adults with a high level of
education in technology extends the economic resources and opportunities
in a nation, vis-a-vis its peers.

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."

One could even suspect (I won't) an ulterior motive: what gain could
developed nations have by inhibiting developing nations the ability to
educate wide economic groups of students in technology? One of the
remaining resources many developed nations have is a well-educated work
force which gives them a comparative advantage in those industries. As
many U.S. workers have found, someone in India can write software just
as well as them at a fraction of the cost and many high tech jobs have
been exported just as manufacturing jobs were a generation ago. I
imagine that there are potentially millions of kids in Africa,
less-developed Asia and South America who could write perl or python
just as well as anyone else. But if they are kept doing manual labor, it
saves the high-paying job of someone in N. America or Europe.

The OLPC project isn't about dumping a bunch of MacBook Pros off the
back of a truck in a remote village with a coupon to the iTunes store
attached but recognizing the realities of the infrastructure of
education in many places _and_ the positive effects of technology on
education.

I recognize that many of us have opinions on this matter but I caution
against, imho, feeding the troll (as I have probably done).

Regards and best wishes for the New Year,
William Fragakis
morrisbrandon.com



> Else It is a waste IMHO and efforts must be directed to implement the
> former.
> If schemes such as the OLPC and others are pushed without satisfying
> the former requirement then we must question the motives
> 
> -- 
> Regards
> Vikram Vincent
> +919448810822
> http://groups-beta.google.com/group/bangalore_alive/
> http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=19591248