OLPC at a turning point

OLPC at a turning point

Posted Apr 24, 2008 5:55 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
Parent article: OLPC at a turning point

There is great beauty in the idea of putting a well-designed learning tool into the hands of children and empowering those children by providing a system which is completely open and hackable.

There is great beauty in that idea, for children who want it. It should not be rammed down the throat of every kid. At least, it can be, but governments should not be asked to pick up the tab, when the money could be spent usefully on many more important things. I don't just mean electricity and clean water, though those are priorities too in many target countries. I mean basic education in reading and writing, math, science. It is an achievable goal with old-fashioned textbooks, and spending $100 on one laptop per child will leave governments that much less to spend on real education. There is NO evidence, even in developed countries, that laptops improve basic language and math skills; and some evidence, in fact, to the contrary.

I also don't know why these machines aren't being sold on the open market. Lots of rich kids in developed and developing countries would enjoy a hackable toy like the OLPC. Lots of parents would prefer buying such a thing to a dumb Windows machine, if their kid has the aptitude for such things.

There is NOTHING wrong with a child, or an adult, who does not enjoy hacking on a computer. You can have any number of successful and productive careers, and even be a productive user of a computer, without going all low-level.

The whole OLPC idea reeks of an elitist, condescending "We know better than you, so take what we give you and be grateful" attitude. I'm glad India chose early on not to be a part of it.

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The key part of that quote is "a well designed learning tool" - the hackability is not the
main goal, although in my view (and the author's) it is also important.

OLPC is not just a laptop, it's a way of very cheaply distributing textbooks and educational
applications, compared to the cost of printing text books, paying for many extra teachers,
etc.  It may actually be a very cost effective way of improving education, and it's certainly
worth a try - existing approaches have not generated a step change in the number of children
who reach a high level of education.

OLPC's openness is important for developing countries as a secondary and longer term goal,
because it will also spread technology awareness and help create a small percentage of real
hackers who will be able to kick-start the country's IT industry when they are a little older.