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OLPC: criticisms and a defense
Over at OLPC News, Jon Camfield posts a defense of OLPC. He is reacting to two articles critical of the project: Alanna Shaikh's "One Laptop Per Child - The Dream is Over" and Timothy Ogden's "Computer Error?", both of which are unequivocal in their criticism ("Its time to call a spade a spade. OLPC was a failure." from the former, and "To even its most ardent supporters, the project seems nearly dead in the water.
[...]
And that may be great news for children in the developing world." from the latter.) Camfield is more hopeful: "Alanna says that 'The dream is over' - I think the nightmares are over; the real long-term and more sustainable dream may be just beginning."
Update: OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte weighs in with a defense of the project as well: "As a small non-profit, humanitarian organization, it is hard to battle giants who view children as a market, not a mission, and have other agendas. In spite of all that, the change is huge." (Log in to post comments)
OLPC: criticisms and a defense Posted Sep 11, 2009 18:03 UTC (Fri) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] Negroponte should have thought about that before snuggling up to Microsoft.
OLPC: criticisms and a defense Posted Sep 11, 2009 18:12 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Every singe OLPC system originally shipped so far has run XO, a Fedora
derivative. None with Windows. If you listen to Negropante, you won't get that impression and that's unfortunate for the project.
OLPC: criticisms and a defense Posted Sep 11, 2009 18:17 UTC (Fri) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Couple of relevant stories..."At the moment, OLPC is doing approximately zero work on Windows." Maybe they're just using "can it run MSFT Windows?" as a test for "is it a real computer?"
OLPC: criticisms and a defense Posted Sep 11, 2009 18:36 UTC (Fri) by OLPC (guest, #47981) [Link]
Yes, part of it is if it runs Windows, it's a real computer.... Or so the politicians view it.
It is also (justifiable) concern by mid-level bureaucrats who will likely be employed long after the politicians are out of office that there is a defense to their decisions...
So whether us Linux guys like it or not, it makes life much easier in the government procurement cycle that the computer is able to run Windows, even if it does not do so in the field.
Also, the point of the project is education, not FOSS for the sake of FOSS: a computer as a tool, whichever OS is running, is much better than none, even if the ideal is something where the kids can understand computing better by hacking all of the source....
Free Software for the sake of real life Posted Sep 12, 2009 15:55 UTC (Sat) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Part of education is teaching values and norms. Unless you're planning to move to Cupertino and drive a BMW to work, the values and norms that apply to the software on the OLPC platform will be more relevant to your future real life.
XO on XP Posted Sep 13, 2009 3:17 UTC (Sun) by Mokurai (guest, #60808) [Link]
No takers.
Microsoft paid to have 5,000 units built for testing in the field, but there have been no orders for XOs with Windows, but millions of units have been sold with Linux and Sugar only.
http://www.olpcnews.com/software/windows/nobody_buying_wi...
compared to Openmoko... Posted Sep 11, 2009 20:00 UTC (Fri) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
Just as a sidenote even though I don't know OLPC as well (and it apparently has its MS hassles etc.). Similar dismissive posts could be made about Openmoko (inc/hardware/project/whatever) and its success, while in reality Openmoko is still a huge pioneering success, and ironically only getting better with the Inc having mostly shut down besides producing more FreeRunners as requested by dealers. It's funny how badly Openmoko went in some aspects (company / some management, its own software distribution) and how brilliant it still is and will be gta02-core is something totally new for the whole FLOSS world regarding phones, SHR + Debian keep getting better now that Om distributions are officially dead.
Not sure if it can be compared, but I just mean sometimes there are greater missions than the one milestone (with one project name).
OLPC is dead. good news. Posted Sep 11, 2009 20:14 UTC (Fri) by Alterego (subscriber, #55989) [Link]
OLPC is wrong from the begining.
What is needed is a decent computer classroom in each school, that children will share.
OLPC was occupying the place, and prevented other projects to develop, by getting all attention and money from sponsors.
Its very good news if olpc disapears . rip.
OLPC is dead. good news. Posted Sep 11, 2009 23:18 UTC (Fri) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link]
Let's see... some of the schools don't even have electricity and you want them to have a computer lab?
OLPC is dead. good news. Posted Sep 12, 2009 6:03 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
And yet you somehow think that buying a personal laptop for each student makes sense? No electricity? Buy the school a generator and some cheap PC's, and use the money saved to buy a new roof, pay some more teachers, provide nutritious lunches, and pay for the generator's fuel for a few decades.
Giving a laptop to each and every individual kid was *always* an incredibly brain-dead idea.
OLPC was an *excellent* idea, and still is Posted Sep 12, 2009 11:59 UTC (Sat) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] I won't repeat my other comment, but you are wrong. A laptop can be taken home after school. A networked desktop PC can't. When the textbooks are ebooks, this makes a huge difference. When the laptop includes a hand generator and is low power, it is entirely feasible.
OLPC was an *excellent* idea, and still is Posted Sep 12, 2009 23:09 UTC (Sat) by BlueLightning (subscriber, #38978) [Link]
I thought the hand generator idea was abandoned fairly early on - I understood they were
planning on using different sources such as solar panels for battery charging where electricity was unavailable.
Surprisingly enough it was good choice... Posted Sep 12, 2009 14:10 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] No electricity? Buy the school a generator and some cheap PC's, and use the money saved to buy a new roof, pay some more teachers, provide nutritious lunches, and pay for the generator's fuel for a few decades. Said the truly ignorant person. The problem with this plan is lack of "grand idea" behind it. And THAT means you'll not get money for it. And THAT means that there will be no PC, no new teachers and no lunches. It's possible that there will be a generator, but sure as hell there will be no fuel for it. Why? It's easy: turbulent countries. You can get funding (sometimes
sizable funding) if you are active enough and spend enough time in
government, but: Why? It's easy: in few months there will be new government (or at least new bureaucrat in the old government) and your funding will be revoked. The process will start anew and few months later you can get some additional funding for another, even more exciting program (actually the same program under different name). But in the interim time your generator will go idle and you computer lab will go decrepit...
Surprisingly enough it was good choice... Posted Sep 12, 2009 23:19 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
> Said the truly ignorant person.
I guess I missed the part where presenting a more sensible idea was declared "ignorant". Well, I guess I *was* foolish to try to suggest a solution to compete with the wild success that OLPC has been world wide...
Well, it's true - you were foolish Posted Sep 13, 2009 1:38 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Well, I guess I *was* foolish to try to suggest a solution to compete with the wild success that OLPC has been world wide... If you compare what the OLPC accomplished with initial grad plans then OLPC is failure. But if you compare it with what your "more sensible idea" accomplishes... OLPC deployed millions of these green computers to million of pupils worldwide. Typical implementation of your "more sensible idea" provides either 10-15 schools with good education (that's 10'000 thousands pupils or so) or 10000 schools with one computer each - then it's pointless waste of money: Russia found most of computers added to schools in "great internatization" program under lock and key (to make sure pupils will not break them).
So yes, OLPC can be a failure if you compare it with the most optimistic scenario, but if you compare it with typical 3rd world education program... it's run-away success.
Surprisingly enough it was good choice... Posted Sep 14, 2009 11:51 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
The fact that you think it's a more sensible idea is caused by ignorance of how funding is given. Anything requiring long-term maintenance costs, even a little, is not sensible.
Even in the western world charitable funding comes in lumps, which are usually restricted to being spent on one particular thing, and which never allow for maintenance. You need a solution which can sustain itself, and that was the part of idea behind OLPC.
OLPC is NOT a lab Posted Sep 12, 2009 12:07 UTC (Sat) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
OLPC is not a computer lab, it is a textbook reader. One lightweight low power laptop with ebooks replaces heavy out of date physical books, making it possible for poor governments to distribute up to date textbooks in the native language, and making it possible for kids to carry all their textbooks to home and back to school.
OLPC is a tool. The fact of it being a computer is as relevant as physical books being made of paper and ink and glue; each is only a means to an end. The fact that you can use the OLPC for other uses, such as learning computers, is as relevant as using physical textbooks to write notes in the margins. Neither is the primary reason why they are useful.
OLPC is NOT a lab Posted Sep 12, 2009 23:24 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
> OLPC is not a computer lab, it is a textbook reader.
> ... > OLPC is a tool.
You forgot an import one: OLPC is a *failure*.
OLPC is NOT a lab Posted Sep 13, 2009 0:20 UTC (Sun) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
You could try offering substance instead of invective. Name calling isn't much use to anybody except the name caller.
As for being a failure, they did not sell anywhere near the number they claimed they would. But that doesn't make them a failure. Have you any reports of its actual usage which showed it a failure?
Don't forget how much Intel and Microsoft tried to derail it. Unless you can come up with actual reports of it being a failure in the field, then you are just showing what you want rather than what is.
OLPC is NOT a lab Posted Sep 13, 2009 23:53 UTC (Sun) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
So, how many did they sell? And since you mention the "derailment", how many Classmates have sold? In short, how is the "Giving Laptops To Third World Kids" market coming along? If Intel tried to derail OLPC, it was because Intel wanted that market. And I haven't heard that they have done much better than OLPC... because the whole idea was pie in the sky stupid to start with.
OLPC is NOT a lab Posted Sep 15, 2009 0:40 UTC (Tue) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
How about Peru and Uruguay?
I guess in these times there always has to be an immediate winner and a loser. However, such approaches don't really work when discussing long term education solutions.
Yes there were setbacks, it's initial goal was quite ambitious. Failing to meet an ambitious target hardly makes you a failure. Well, only if we take your approach and give up the moment things get a little bit tough.
If you think education reform in developing countries is something that can happen in less than a decade, well your opinions are rather worthless.
Computers + electricity + Internet + microfinance Posted Sep 13, 2009 3:27 UTC (Sun) by Mokurai (guest, #60808) [Link]
The naysayers won't believe this either, but that won't stop us.
Earth Treasury has a plan to supply renewable electricity and Internet to go with OLPC XOs, paid for by investment in new businesses in the area, enabled by education and Internet access. Each of these elements has been proven separately, and they will be much more powerful together. The aim is to make profitable investments in the future of the world's children, in much the same way that Grameen Bank and Grameen Phone made village phone ladies sustainable, bringing in several billion dollars of conventional investment.
After all, it's not a computer project. It's an education project that aims to eradicate poverty. The costs are in the tens of billions of dollars annually, and the return to all participants will grow to trillions of dollars annually.
You don't understand OLPC then Posted Sep 12, 2009 11:57 UTC (Sat) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
Too many ignorant people make similar rants -- why buy computers when they don't even have textbooks, or electricity, or water ...
OLPC can be entirely justified on a financial basis alone. The cost to ship all those textbooks to remote areas is a tremendous burden on poor countries, and OLPC cuts way back on that, not just per-child, but on updates. Not only is one OLPC much lighter than all those books, they can be shared in a family where children are studying at different levels.
A lot of third world countries rely on donated surplus textbooks, possibly in foreign languages, possibly out of date, certainly in the wrong context and half-irrelevant. The cost of writing new textbooks is probably comparable to the cost of translating old stale textbooks, but the cost of publishing is zero, and that makes it feasible.
And last but not least, a child can walk an hour to school carrying one laptop with all books, rather than leaving books at school or making that long walk with too much weight.
OLPC has almost nothing to do with teaching computers, and almost everything to do with using computers to solve problems.
I do understand OLPC, and internet gap. Posted Sep 12, 2009 12:45 UTC (Sat) by Alterego (subscriber, #55989) [Link]
you are totally missing socio-economical *reality* in africa. You should have a look at http://gapminder.org/ and learn from UN database explained in nice videos before accusing people of being ignorant.
Take a paper and a pen (great things can be done with these tools) and count how much it cost to give 1 billion laptop to children in developping countries (and include transport, lifetime, pollution and recycling ...), and compare with the cost of one classroom with 20 computer for 1000 children, ie 50 times less.
1 billion olpc is impossible, 20 million minidesktop is possible, and could have been done if we *really* wanted to reduced the internet gap.
I do understand OLPC, and internet gap. Posted Sep 12, 2009 13:03 UTC (Sat) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
And the cost of paper textbooks for those 1,000,000,000 children is?
I do understand OLPC, and internet gap. Posted Sep 12, 2009 20:49 UTC (Sat) by Alterego (subscriber, #55989) [Link]
you count as rich occidental people.
In western Africa (where i have spent several years, for TIC in schools) books are in the shcolar library (if any) and last 30 years maybe more.
Compare the cost of one scholar library + one computer classsrom, with the cost of one laptop per child during 30 years ... and you will see.(and the laptop does not last 15 years, whereas books can last 100 years)
Remember that 300 million people in Africa live (or try to survive) with less than 2$ per day, so governments have severe budget constraints, and for sure other priorities than spending all teri mony in computer, when the same goal can be reached with paper end pens (and teachers...)
I do understand OLPC, and internet gap. Posted Sep 13, 2009 0:28 UTC (Sun) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
100 year old textbooks are pretty useless. So are 30 year old ones. Math might not change much at the grade school level, but a lot else does. Anyway, books in the hands of schoolkids, carrying them to and fro every day, won't last 30 years no matter how well they take care of them. Or did you mean to keep all the physical books in a library at the school so the kids can't take them home?
Kids can take the OLPC home with them for study and homework. There's another savings -- do your homeowrk on the computer and not need paper and pencils. One OLPC can also be OLPFamily and still be better than your one PC per 50 students. What good is one PC for every 50 students anyway? It doesn't do squat to get rid of heavy textbooks and their distribution and obsolescence. Even if you had one PC oer student, a desktop PC is not something kids can take home with them. Are you proposing that kids not have any homework, or that they stick around school to do it there instead of home?
oldies but goldies for education. Posted Sep 13, 2009 1:57 UTC (Sun) by Alterego (subscriber, #55989) [Link]
oh yes
* 30 years old dictionnaries are obsolete (did electicity was invented then ?) * children books with old stories are useless to learn writing and reading
The aim in Africa is to rise litteracy from 50% currently to >80%, and try to keep children at school until 10-12yo (with teachers), and educate women (Senegalese say : "Educating a woman is educating a nation")
To learn reading and writing you need teachers. Computers are useless. The median population in Africa is 25yo, and birth rate is very high, so you'd better reuse your tools rather than buy new ones each year:
<rant> Several comments here clearly demonstrate that using a computer is useless to get correct information on this topic.</rant>
homework: http://www.nepad.org/ http://gapminder.org/
I do understand OLPC, and internet gap. Posted Sep 13, 2009 0:43 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
and of course because there are people in africa who live on $2/day we should do nothing for children in Peru or Brazil (just to name a couple countries) that aren't in quite as bad a shape.
I do understand OLPC, and internet gap. Posted Sep 13, 2009 2:02 UTC (Sun) by Alterego (subscriber, #55989) [Link]
do we have one laptop per child in USA, Canada, Europe, Japan... ? NO
did this prevent us from walking on the moon ? NO.
Do you think that buying a laptop for each child in our rich countries will reduce the cost of education ?
I do understand OLPC, and internet gap. Posted Sep 13, 2009 2:33 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
actually I do think that buying a laptop for each child would do wonders for the education in the US, and save a ton of money in the process.
IF it is used as a platform for digital textbooks.
the state of California recently did some searching for digital textbooks and found several that it approved (and quite a few others that almost meet every criteria). I believe that all of the textbooks that were approved were all available for free.
the reason for this search was to try and save money. the cost of purchasing textbooks is _HUGE_. while some of this cost is the cost of producing the content, most of the cost is the cost of printing, warehousing, and shipping the paper copies. it's even worse when you consider that publishers need to pay to print a large number of textbooks before they can sell them, so the price they charge for the ones that sell also needs to cover the costs of the ones that don't sell (including development costs obviously)
so you could have a $50 paper text book sell for <$10 and have the publisher make the same amount of profit.
digital textbooks need a digital platform to be usable. that platform needs to be portable.
so you could go with a e-book reader (kindle or equivalent), or a laptop. they cost quite a bit
but if a kid needs 5 textbooks in a year (and most need more), a savings of $40 per book will cover the cost of an OLPC, and could probably cover the cost of a e-book reader (with quantity discounts)
so the payback time would be about one school year (even allowing for breakage). if kids are able to use the laptops for even two years there is a very significant savings
this is completely ignoring any other uses that a laptop could be put to.
I know that my grades improved significantly when I started using a word processor instead of writing papers out longhand (the freedom to edit without having to re-write at least an entire page made me willing to do so), digital flash cards, touch typing tutors, speed reading software, as well as just puzzle games, there is a LOT that can be done with a computer (even a relatively slow one) that can't be done with paper. and if the cost of the machine is already covered in the savings that you get from switching away from paper copies then all these other benefits are gravy
so yes, I believe that buying every child in the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan a laptop would be a wonderful thing.
as for the issue of going to the moon, you phone has more processing capacity in it than the computers that the rocket scientist were using when we went to the phone (and I am _not_ assuming that you have a smart phone. it's to the point that even a dumb cordless phone has more processing capacity in it than the computers that we flew into space, and even a 'no features' cell phone has more than was available to people on the ground)
no, the amount of processing power available to kids was not the decisive factor in going to the moon. but what does that have to do with things?
I do understand OLPC, and internet gap. (No, he doesn't.) Posted Sep 13, 2009 3:38 UTC (Sun) by Mokurai (guest, #60808) [Link]
do we have one laptop per child in USA, Canada, Europe, Japan... ? NO
--Actually, yes, starting in Birmingham, Alabama, where they know something about poverty and opportunity.
did this prevent us from walking on the moon ? NO.
--How many countries can afford the gold-plated US approach to space travel? One XO has more computing power than all of the Apollo Moon missions. The cost of the Apollo program in the 1960s is several times more than enough to give a computer, solar panels, and an Internet connection to every child in the world today, and train all of the teachers.
Do you think that buying a laptop for each child in our rich countries will reduce the cost of education ?
--I don't think it, I know it. The XO-2 will be $75 or so next year. That is about the cost of one hardcover textbook, and can replace dozens of them. If you were in third grade, would you rather carry an XO home on the bus, or a backpack full of books? California, the first state in the US to act on digital textbooks, expects to save more than $2 billion a year when the program is fully in place.
OLPC: criticisms and a defense Posted Sep 12, 2009 15:20 UTC (Sat) by csigler (subscriber, #1224) [Link]
Is OLPC dead? No. It's still an ongoing project. But, to be sure, it is pinin' for the original projections the OLPC leadership made.
I feel certain these little green portables have changed many impoverished classrooms in a way never before imagined. But is this change success? What is the measure of success?
Success is measured by how well a project's results match up to the goals set for it. Therefore, by one measure, OLPC has been an abject and embarrassing failure. The original price point and manufacturing projections were the fantasies of incapable engineering planners. This much is certain. The big mistake -- from the standpoint of public perception -- was touting OLPC as the "$100 laptop" for education. I have little doubt that a cost overshoot of 100% would be unthinkable in industry and would cause any project to be terminated on the spot. But OLPC is a non-profit, non-industry project, so it continued on. The final icing on the cake was the massive G1G1 order and delivery failures. Many who were interested in helping needy students through OLPC to the tune of $400 were sorely disappointed. These sorts of failures are hard to recover from, especially for a non-profit that depends on the support of a segment of the US public. (Note I haven't said boo about Windows on OLPC -- it seems to me to have been a non-factor.)
By the other measure, that OLPC would bring better education to needy students, the project may be working where governments have deployed it. The main problem, from my reading of the articles, is there hasn't been a good metrical study done of student learning and performance with OLPC versus without OLPC. Anecdotal evidence seems neutral.
If one is willing to accept the above assessments, the best one can say about OLPC is that it may be helping in the few places where it's been deployed at a cost of twice as much per unit as initially promised. That's not so rosy. If OLPC can keep on going, its developments may be interesting (ref. Pixel Qi). But I wouldn't be surprised if continued development becomes too costly compared to income and grant receipts, and the project only soldiers on for another year or so. One thing is certain: OLPC is no longer headline worthy, and that's bad for them.
In the end, whether OLPC invented the netbook or not is merely a matter of academic speculation.
Clemmitt
OLPC: criticisms and a defense Posted Sep 13, 2009 3:48 UTC (Sun) by Mokurai (guest, #60808) [Link]
Studies: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Academic_papers
Deployments have been going on for less than two years. Few studies have been completed. We have amazing results in some cases. Much more to come.
Anecdotal evidence: http://radian.org/notebook/astounded-in-arahuay
There are, of course, examples of XO deployments that ran into problems, where the teachers were not trained, where there was no electricity or no Internet, where the computers were locked up at the end of each day and not sent home with the children, and so on. I saw some reports from the field today (Afghanistan and Senegal) about successful programs to support governments, school administrations, and teachers to do it right, and about organizing solar power installations to go with laptop deployments.
The standard response from initially skeptical teachers in successful deployments is, "I can teach now!"
OLPC: criticisms and a defense Posted Sep 14, 2009 12:09 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
Think about how many projects you hear about coming under budget, and compare with the number that overshoot by an astounding margin.
A cost overshoot of only 100% sounds like an unusual budgeting success to me.
OLPC: criticisms and a defense Posted Sep 14, 2009 16:57 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
especially since the system specs changed (they couldn't get a fedora based system to work with the initial specs, so they increased the specs on the box)
but a large part of the expectation on the costs was the effect of volume pricing. since they didn't hit the volume they were after they didn't get the price discounts they were after either.
OLPC: criticisms and a defense Posted Sep 14, 2009 17:26 UTC (Mon) by csigler (subscriber, #1224) [Link]
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings"
- Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
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