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India rejects One Laptop Per Child (Register)India rejects One Laptop Per Child (Register)Posted Jul 26, 2006 21:17 UTC (Wed) by horen (subscriber, #2514)Parent article: India rejects One Laptop Per Child (Register)
"We cannot visualise a situation for decades when we can go beyond the pilot stage. We need classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools." Nonsensical. These are hardly "fancy tools"; certainly not in any financial sense of the word, neither in the Apple eye-candy-laptop sense. And why is there, of necessity, a conflict between OLPC and "classrooms and teachers"? I would expect these ruggedized units to have a hardware and software lifespan which would certainly cover the needs of elementary- and middle-school students. And from where does this guy think the teachers are going to come? Perhaps he envisions 20-something CS grads and/or software developers from Bangalore or Mumbai just chucking it all, giving away their newly-acquired prosperity in a Mother Theresa-like gesture, and moving out to those backwater villages. OTOH, there might be a new generation of American 1960s types who want to do a work-study program at some ashram. I dunno... and John "Maddog" Hall's mumbling comment about recycling used computer equipment would be my (an 18-year Unix sysadmin) worst nightmare! Just imagine having to install, configure, network, and generally administer a hodge-podge collection of old castoff hardware. Does Banerjee -- a career political administrator -- honestly believe that the OLPC's IT professionals like Nicholas Negroponte, et al, haven't done their homework, and have it all wrong? I'm thinking "Not!"
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India rejects One Laptop Per Child (Register) Posted Jul 27, 2006 14:38 UTC (Thu) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] ...believe that the OLPC's IT professionals like Nicholas Negroponte, et al, haven't done their homework... Why should they believe they have done their "homework" -- the Internet allows Indian education administrators to read the history of MIT Media Lab projects. Within education circles there is a lot of discussion about the cost efficiciency of PCs versus other learning aids. And that's for a hardware and software platform that has basically been unchanged in the fundamentals from 1995. OLPC cannot expect a consensus adequate for the spending of Rp billions for an untested aid. Countries like India are well accustomed to rich foreign institutions inflicting inappropiate technologies, so they are naturally sceptical of the OLPC. I've been quite amazed at the lack of engagement of OLPC with the teaching communities. The few OLPC presentations on the web talk in Silicon Valley Technical Jargon or Computer Vendorese. It's not even clear what the purpose of the machine is, in an educational sense. There's a world of curriculum material missing, even from the limited aims I've seen. For example, the discussion above talked about using the OLPC to supplant textbooks. So where are the texts? The idea in the discussion that the high cost of the OLPC can be spread across a decade of education is laughable. Even in kind environments computing equipment doesn't have that sort of life. OLPC is not an aid project. The proposal is that the Indian government pay for the hardware, so that hardware needs to compete against other parts of the education budget. That budget is dominated by staff and building costs. Acquiring OLPC means less teachers. The OLPC has insufficient history justify this. Nonsensical. These are hardly "fancy tools" Maybe not to you, but perhaps you should consider how few people in the world have actually ever used a computer. ...Banerjee -- a career political administrator... A biased description. The page you link to also says he is a prize-winning poet, a published playwright, and on the board of a UNESCO-funded literacy research institute. Hard to think of a more qualified person to make the decision. And if it is the wrong decision then it's of no consequence to Indian education. In that case the OLPC will be a success and the project will continue and India will buy the OLPC some time in the future.
India rejects One Laptop Per Child (Register) Posted Jul 27, 2006 15:48 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] The idea in the discussion that the high cost of the OLPC can be spread across a decade of education is laughable. Even in kind environments computing equipment doesn't have that sort of life. You'd be amazed... it is just that after 2 - 3 years you don't want the machine anymore, not that it is useless. Around here SIMM memories for i486 class machines are still in demand, because they are used in industrial-grade PCs of that aera. And again, if giving children in the US PCs is a good idea, why should it be a bad idea making them affordable elsewhere? One thing that amazes me every time I talk to a school teacher is how they insist on basic skills like being able to do arithmetic with paper and pencil, when you can get a simple calculator almost for free now. What needs to change is what is taught to children, making them aware and able to use what radical innovations like the Internet have to offer. I guess the change brought about by the printing press (and later almost everyone being able to read and write) were seen as equally nonsensical in their beginning. The machines alone won't make a difference, people have to change to make machines useful. But if the machines aren't available, nothing will happen...
India rejects One Laptop Per Child (Register) Posted Jul 27, 2006 16:42 UTC (Thu) by jhardin (guest, #3297) [Link] > One thing that amazes me every time I talk to a school teacher is how they> insist on basic skills like being able to do arithmetic with paper and > pencil, when you can get a simple calculator almost for free now.
I sincerely hope you are being sarcastic.
The purpose of basic education is to teach the student *principles* and *techniques*, not which button to push to achieve the desired result.
If you throw a cheap calculator at a student rather than teaching them the basic principles of arithmetic and the methods and techniques for solving math problems with no tools beyond paper and pencil, how the hell will they ever *learn* and *understand* mathematics? And what will form the basis for further learning?
To put it in IT terms, wouldn't you rather people learned the principles behind how computers operate, instead of just which checkboxes in a MS application dialog box to check? The former empowers them and enables them to build incrementally on their existing knowledge without limit, and maybe lets them solve their own problems - especially when those problems go beyond the limits imposed by the tool they are presently using. The latter keeps them from learning and just reinforces the view of things (computers, calculators) as magical black boxes beyond the powers of mere mortals to understand, and keeps them from ever growing beyond being anything but stupid lusers.
Don't sell students short by giving them scooters before they've even learned how to walk.
> What needs to change is what is taught to children, making them aware
All machines are force multipliers.
The Internet is a force-multiplier for the mind, as a repository for searchable knowledge and a mechanism for rapid communications between people.
If you don't first have the ability to *use* your mind - to ask meaningful questions, to find and understand the answers, to integrate those answers into what is already known, and to detect and resolve errors - then the Internet is useless. The force it will multiply is that of serving as a source of entertaining and distracting pablum.
Once they know *how* to ask questions, once they know *what* questions to ask and *what to do* with the answers, *then* they can be taught how to use the Internet to search and explore a much broader base of knowledge much more quickly.
> The machines alone won't make a difference, people have to change
I agree that machines alone won't make a difference. I disagree that that machines are a *substitute* for basic skills and understanding, which seems to be the position you are arguing.
> But if the machines aren't available, nothing will happen...
Shakespeare composed all of his works without a word processor.
Newton figured out and codified most of the rules of large-scale physics without a calculator.
The pyramids were designed and built to very high degrees of precision without calculators or anything beyond the simplest construction machinery.
Students must be educated with basic problem solving skills and a basic set of facts. Machines can be used to improve the efficiency of this process, but they cannot be a substitute for this process - *this* is the point the Indians are making. Giving students laptops is not going to magically improve their education. They may be important force multipliers for the learning process, but there must be something provided *beyond* them, there must be a learning process in place for them to enhance. Otherwise they may be worse than useless.
India rejects One Laptop Per Child (Register) Posted Jul 30, 2006 11:44 UTC (Sun) by kreutzm (guest, #4700) [Link] I wholeheartly agree. Unfortunately there is more and more the trend to argue "but they will always use computers later" even in countries where Leibnitz developed calculus (and the first add-multiply-machine, btw.).
India rejects One Laptop Per Child (Register) Posted Jul 28, 2006 13:30 UTC (Fri) by illtyd (guest, #2124) [Link] "And again, if giving children in the US PCs is a good idea, why should it be a bad idea making them affordable elsewhere?" It would be a good idea. The point from the Indian official is that $100 each is nowhere near affordable in the light of the budget needs of Indian government schools
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