tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15516659.post3106910221868976514..comments2023-08-08T17:05:32.970+02:00Comments on Live and Uncensored!: One Laptop to Rule Them AllAngela Natividadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14122974605784803487noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15516659.post-29930500593673787212008-01-03T13:40:00.000+01:002008-01-03T13:40:00.000+01:00Olivier,Point made about the definition of "Third ...Olivier,<BR/><BR/>Point made about the definition of "Third World." I've made the changes. (Homie, do you ever switch off?)<BR/><BR/>No matter what kind of product you're talking about (PCs, SAT prep courses, crack-cocaine), it's relatively easy to say some people have more access to them than others, but that the latter isn't barred from them entirely. It's a matter of ease, frequency of access and familiarity with the resource.<BR/><BR/>My wish is that Negroponte be frank about what he's doing. There are myriad merits to making personal computers more available to children who might otherwise have to go out of their way to use one. He doesn't have to behave like that's a banal goal in and of itself.<BR/><BR/>But to propose to be improving education from within the system? That's a tall order, and there's no end to the source of the existing system's problems. Teachers need better training. Class sizes could be smaller. We could always use better resources. And yeah -- perhaps the simplest way to tackle the educational system, if that's your goal, is to install heating. <BR/><BR/>Bringing laptops into schools are generally a result of teaching methods changing with the times, not the source. One cannot improve an education system if one's "improvements" demand a fundamental leap in methodology that no one is actually trained to administer.Angela Natividadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14122974605784803487noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15516659.post-63103170595915421012008-01-02T19:23:00.000+01:002008-01-02T19:23:00.000+01:00I'm not sure what you mean by "Third World." Real ...I'm not sure what you mean by "Third World." Real "Third World" countries are mostly in sub-Saharan African countries these days and have way bigger problems than not having computers for kids, such as scarce drinkable water or a high number of orphans because of ongoing guerrillas and diseases. One teacher per classroom is a more pressing matter than one laptop per child in these countries.<BR/><BR/>Now if you're talking about "emerging" countries (what I'd call the Second World), they have everything you find in the US or Western Europe, only it's much less broadly distributed because you have much thinner middle classes. The rich in, say, Brazil, have access to world-class pretty much everything. As a matter of example, kids in the private school my daughter is attending in Chile all have a wifi laptop starting at age 13. It's a more digital school than most even in Western countries, but at 450 USD/mo, not all Chilean parents can afford that kind of school by far (for scale it's 150% of the minimal wage). However, many Chilean kids have access to cheap internet cafes so not being able to afford a PC doesn't mean you never get to use one.<BR/><BR/>Arguably "bit literacy" would be a helpful skill to get more poor children out of poverty, though you have to wonder whether more basic skills are properly taught as is. My Chilean housekeeper reads the newspaper everyday but she recently had to use her cell phone to get the result of (2x410) + (2x300), which I would argue is arithmetic 101. The question Negroponte didn't address properly is, is this the best use of the funds for these schools, as opposed to say, better teacher training, or better facilities, or free meals at school. Even in upper Second World countries such as Portugal some schools close for lack of heating when winters happen to be harsher than usual. I'd argue that keeping them open and heated would be more of a priority than OLPC.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12961822910798283634noreply@blogger.com