Slashdot Mirror
Testing Technology on a Veritable Army of Children?
"The idea is to bring together children ages 10 to 15 years old from around the world at 8 or 9 centers scattered about all continents except Antarctica. The children will congregate at these centers for two days in 2005 to participate in creative technology workshops both virtually between centers and hands-on at their particular center. There will be a heavy emphasis on community building and shared information, in many ways similar to Slashdot. The entire event and all the projects it entails are designed to live on after the kids go home when the two days are up. How this will be done is as of yet uncertain, but will most definitely involve net connectivity to some extent (whether through the village kiosk's 28.8kbaud line in Cambodia or the living room broadband line in NYC). Naturally, issues such as language barriers will have to be addressed. In the particular case of the language barrier, there is talk of designing a custom written language (again, think mediaglyphs from 'Diamond Age') for children to use, build upon, and shape. What other projects are worth considering?"
That little british expirment where they all jumped at once for a minute, made an earth quake...
What would be the equivalent for a group this size? If they did it with their PDAs, would it produce an EMP??
OK.. so that was just stupid. Sorry..
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Crap. They're going to teach all those children to come together under the banner of l337sp34k.
The future is doomed.
Sharkey
now all i have to do is pop back in time about 15 years, drag myself to this thing and send me back after it's over.
Then i can file patents and copywrites on all the stuff i learned and screw up our recent history.
--- As to make my comment seem, by comparison, more intelegent... doodie doodie doodie poop poop poop!
It should be cultural based so that children around the world can learn about each other.
...have them all log into .NET at the same time :-)
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
... sounds like a new way of cheating on exams.
Or does it seem as though a 2-day conference full of children speaking different languages is an awfully short timeframe to train them to reshape the world? In the case of Crystal Age (neal stephenson,) this was only possible because the technology was so powerful as to be able to train the user how to use it without any interaction... are you guys able to do that?
BEN
It would be interesting, I think, to be that young and share in the world culture. It's a powerful idea that things like laughter are so universal, despite cultural and linguistic barriers.
This is the perfect chance for a meaningful experiment into what different people think about the same thing. Over the course of the experiment, beam a happening news story to all the participants. Then, give them options on what they think about what they read, which is automatically tabulated and broken down according to culture. For example, in another terrorist act, you'll be able to see what they think about it from different sections of the world, who supports what happened, who decries it, etc.
I do notice the anti-antarctica bias however...
Time how long it will take a global game of Starcraft/Quake/Doom/RocW to develop.
Time how long it will take for a pr0n server to develop.
Time how long it takes one of them to own you monitoring machine.
Time how long it takes your developed language to be deformed into shorthand.
I fear this is likely to end in fire and uselessness... So why not garner information gained from the chaos caused by teens?
Give them all gameboy advances and give them pokemon.. and then write a webpage to give the results of the games ,
and pocket the rest of the money, (j/k)
Im 24 but I have the K.I.S.S. mentality of kids, can I go on?
"Learning, learning, learning - that is the secret of jewish survival" -- Ahad A'Ham
Wonderful idea! I wish I had thought of this myself.... wait... I did... damn pattent office *grumbles* Can we get this for college students? pleeeeeeaasse? We could be good guinea pigs! Or is there a law against testing technology on humans? (btw, this is my first official post to /.)
Once more into the birch deer fiends!
tech is already frustrating enough when the instructions are in english! "mediaglyphs"? that's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard.
as for sharing information, what information? will these pda's be nothing more than a web forum? without some content creation tools, i see little use for sharing of information. and what kind of content is really worth creating on a hand held pda (within the grasp of a 10-15 year old)?
i'm sorry, but i'm highly skeptical of these schemes involving handing out useless tech to kids. if you want to change the world, give these kids scholarships, not pieces of plastic and metal.
"Ask me about Loom"
How about a PDA with wireless IMing system with auto-translation. send them to kids in poor countries to learn that america (and other western cultures/countires) do not hate them.
I wonder how a bunch of young children would respond to a type of universal translater.
You base it on pictures. say "Apple" and a picture appears. say "Run" and a picture of someone running appear. See if they can communicate. Try to make it more efficient.
Or I patent the idea myself.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Sorry, I've got a sour taste in my mouth on this one. Last time a bunch of rich people backed a project they said would "revolutionize the world" we got the Segway..... which honestly seemed much better on South Park.
I give you.... IT
Old idea, new opportunity. Use the links to teach kids about the things that they can do to improve their community. Use the international interconnectivity to have the children learn about the different changes that are needed all around the world.
A NYC kid will be totally surprised when a kid from India is trying to better toilet facilities in his neighborhood. A kid in Djibouti will be surprised that the kid in London doesn't know everyone on his block.
The international network, and the knowledge that someone is watching their projects will both make it easier for the kids to persist and to get aid in their endeavors.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
What about having the children design the layout and architecture of a virtual city? It would be fascinating to see how a group of children from many different cultural backgrounds would want to shape the city.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
they're radio-locater collars, aren't they? Recess will slowly become "Tag and Release" time...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
I think you could do a lot with a really basic PDA. Something with a good viewable area, a touchscreen, some sort of wireless networking and not much more.
The biggest problem with the ones currently available is that they try and fit a whole PC into a handheld (why the fuck does a PDA need sound capability?). Something that does a few simple things and does them well would be so much better, especially if it meant that it was more durable (good for kids) and had a longer battery life (good for everyone). I'd probably buy one.
Run Linux on it and we can all write nice simple applications for it.. it'd be so cool.
--
Andy
I don't see how this is anything more than a few companies (who are mysteriously remaining nameless) to get together and try to cultivate some public interest by "making 3000 children to join hands and sing for world peace". Give me a break.
I'm sorry, but I don't see why this is deserving of the millions of dollars you're putting into it. I'd much rather see that money go towards feeding the hundreds of millions of people starving all around the world, and not to some corporate PR department trying to spin this as world-changing.
Or maybe it's just me.
I love this idea, but it's hard to comment on without a little more guidance. What's the primary goal? Is it to foster technology prowess, or to build virtual communities, or education?
I'd be most interested in novel ways to have networked PDA's share info, like a peer-to-peer system. Maybe some sort of problem solving, where each person answers part of a complex question, and the correct result emerges from all the contributions?
I remember a story (by Bruce Sterling?) about a similar type of setup, where person X would advertise "I need something" and person Y would advertise "I have something", and their PDA's would notice the match and alert X and Y. There's a lot of good potential in such a system, and we haven't seen a lot of it in the real world yet.
Good luck!
Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
"The idea is to bring together children ages 10 to 15 years old from around the world at 8 or 9 centers scattered about all continents except Antarctica.
As a 12 year old from Antarctica why am I denied access to this experiment. Bah! It wouldn't have involved PDA's with Penguins anyway.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
How does this miracle company plan to track if their experiment has "Changed The World"?
I'm assuming this is coming from some megaconglomo consisting of either Coca-Cola, Nestle or Microsoft...which means there's corporate sponsorship...I guess that teaches kids the value of selling out at a young age. I'm sure they'll all be photogenic...teaching the value of beauty as commodity. Yes, this definetly will be a learning experience "for the children".
I appreciate the ideological thinking, I just can't see a well-funded forward-thinking group acquiring money on the basis of "changing the world" with no ulterior motive, its not a good business model.
As for the e-book...why do little kids get all the really fun stuff?
You have the chance to implant mind-control units, instantly creating thousands of slave-warriors all over the globe, and you even paused for thought? Geez, what kind of evil genius are you?
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Why not? Better yet, search for intelligent life at home :)
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.
How about building a system that would allow these kids to create their own 'media glyph' language to talk with each other.
Maybe you'd network a bunch machines with tablet input devices and let them go to town. Have a cooperative method for deciding on symbols and deciphering the messages...
Seems like the communication aspect of this project is the most interesting avenue for exploration... at first glance anyway...
Guvegrra?
Is it me, or does a point to this gathering of 3000 children escape anyone else? I read over the blurb twice, and noticed the reference to Stephenson, PDAs, and something about a million dollars, but, I didn't read anything about what it is leading up to, or what it is all for.
Anyone have any hints for me?
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
I've been interested in designing a programming language specifically for children involving drag and drop icons representing program flow and actions.
I think this can be done very simply and provide an early and invaluable introduction to the programming thought processes. Not to mention empower these children as they will watch the computer do what they tell it to.
I always thought if it was available the children could download new program icons akin to new VB controls and make more and more elaborate programming.
Perhaps an open source experiment of this sort would be cool. Liek the stories where each group writes a sentence and passes it on. There could be a series of programs passed from group to group, where each group would add their spin by dragging and dropping.
What do you think?
As the playwright said, "Do unto others as they would do unto you is dangerous. Their tastes might not be the same".
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
This should be addressed to children in the target age range today, not the slashdot folks who have (presumably) grown up since they were that age group. What would seem neat or interesting to us based on how we remembered that time period is not necessarily the same as what would be neat or interesting to children living in the current time (or 2005) rather than the times of a decade ago.
It sounds like the whole point of the experiment may be to see what the children will do with the technology, not that what people now would have wished they could have done when they were children -- that is, it sounds like building to a set of preconceptions could be counter productive to the goals of the experiment.
Now, if the goal is to develop a new class of technologies *first*, then expose the children to see if they develop mutant powers -- er, develop interesting new uses of technology, then that is a slightly different matter. Something like, oh, combining Instant Messenging with a neural network system -- give every child a PDA that is also a node on the neural network. Set it up so the children could set up rules/weights for automatically processing messages (i.e. if both Amy and Joey send me a message about the new movie, pop it up on my screen, otherwise I'm not interested in movies that Amy and Joey don't like. If Amy, Joey, and Bob like it, it must be really cool -- forward the message to Kelly, too!) Turn the nodes into a combination advanced instant messaging/USENET node. Sort of Google crossed with Instant Messenging. Every node contributes as a filter/forward/weighter of messages to the neighbor -- ideally, the entire system would start to more intelligently route messages around internally only to the people who are interested in them (i.e. don't alert me about that new article from CNN unless it also shows up on Slashdot and at least two of my friends think it is interesting). The major issue would be having a easy to use user interface that would let people easily set up the filtering/forwarding/weighting system.
"Under carefully controlled circumstances of light, temperature, pressure, and humidity, the organism will do what it damn well pleases."
Just give them these.
Seriously, if they want to change the world, give each kid a portable computer he can use with a touchscreen and take home for homework. Instead of lugging around books, paper, three ring binders, they have a digital note tab. It would be expensive, but it would be good for education.
~ now you know
It is merely designed to spend money, make a lot of media hype, and try to get other people to invest even more money in a larger project of similar nature. The projects themselves are irrelevant as to wether or not they accomplish anything, such as the betterment or eduction or the children.
First meet the practical needs of these people before you try to sell them advanced solutions to digital age problems that they don't even have.
perhaps they could figure out something that will make it easier for little geek boys to talk to talk to little girls! Now THAT would be ADVANCEMENT!
Seriously, I can't think of anything "earth-shaking" about the PDA's that hasn't already been done.
The new wireless games / instant messages that are on phones now are much cooler than anything I've seen on a PDA! Perhaps they could do something like the previously commented wireless P2P for operation in a crowd. Or perhaps something like the "tamagachi" pets for singles!
How 'bout some type of "universal translator" unit, kinda a cross between IRC chat and babblefish? That could bring people together (or maybe not....I'm not sure how the fish would w how to translate "workin' it & doggin' it").
Whatever the app, the way to change the future is social not necessarily technical.
Sounds like something Woz would be into. Didn't he just come out of pseudo-retirement to launch some sort of PDA-based something or other? Food for thought.
Set up somekind of PDA buying and selling network. Like Dopewars only more kid friendly. Allow the kids to setup as 'companies' or 'countries' according to a couple of options, you could allow the kids to loan each other 'eCash', work for themselves or as groups.
A great example of this from my youth involved a berry patch. A bunch of the kids decided to pool together what they picked. Another picked alone. When they shared it out, it turned out that the kid holding their bucket ate like half of 'em. That was the end of socialism in my home town.
Whatever you come up with, I think all of us here will agree that in general, a technological idea just flat out sucks in its first implementation. Whether its some web game, or a nifty pda, or some puzzle the children are expected to solve that gives even adults trouble...it isn't going to change the world unless you do the test/fix cycle a few times before you try to go for a large scale. Otherwise, its doubtful the system will even work at all when all those thousands log on, much less work as intended. You ought to have some method of actually trying a few good ideas before you jump off into developement land.
Think TEST. Think INCREMENTAL improvement. And most of all, DON'T set impossible expectations.
For most of the children in the world, a PDA is just about the least useful thing you could imagine. However well-intentioned your motives, it will most likely be looked upon as elitist Western arrogance attempting cultural imperialism.
I Heart Sorting Networks
8 or 9 centers scattered about all continents except Antarctica
So is that 8 or 9 centers total, or for each continent... even if 8-9 per continent, that is alot of area/kids to cover. 3000 kids seems like a very small group. How many kids 10-15 are there in the world? Your affecting such a incredibly small percentage of kids, how are they going to spread the knowledge that they gained at a 2 day seminar...
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
The only defense is to issue recorders and use the PDAs for sheet music to the brown note.
Well, you could get these kids together and teach them to sing in perfect harmony. Then you could buy them a Coke, and keep them company... *sway*
This is not likely to produce anything meaningful or even useful. It is more likely to be a giant feel-good soirie, where we ask the "future generations" how they think the world could be made a better place.
Bah.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
For heaven's sake, don't pit them against each other across cultural/national dividing lines. If you must divide them into teams, make the teams cross-cultural. Even better would be to make them all one team.
Then come up with a dramatic demonstration of what they can accomplish as a human swarm if they ignore cultural boundaries and all cooperate. Concentrate on drama. Give them an experience that will imprint on their minds the power of letting go of nationality and attacking problems instead of each other.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
too bad on the third day when the 3000 child-geeks get back to school their 9000 bully couterparts are not only going to steal their lunch money, they'll get a free PDA.
:)
Give the kids some sort of implant that lets them implement mind-control
...and colour their hair platinum blonde.
I had a penpal in Montreal when I was in 6th grade. I got the cheeziest letters outta him because his teachers screened everything and were constantly looking over his shoulder (I assume - mine was doing the same thing to me)
I think something creative would be better - I honestly don't think words are the best medium of communication, it's too easy for words to slip into cliche. Conversations of the 'how are you? I am fine. I just got a new bike. It is blue" variety are...empty.
Let the kids draw. Paint. CREATE something - give 'em a webpad with a good freehand program and a simple interface (NO CLIPART - no 'place sun with streaming rays here' button) Let 'em express themselves. It's easier for kids to become involved if words are only minimally involved. Or, do both - couple/link it with a livejournal-type diary interface. Diaries are more about the person than about who they're 'talking' too.
Jsut the perspective of an artist/musician. Take it for what you will.
Triv
Visual Logo?
m l
http://www.media.mit.edu/starlogo/
http://el.www.media.mit.edu/projects/ybl/
http://www.atlantic.net/~caggiano/logo/index.ht
I know I'm a dork for replying to my own comment, but ...
This sounds like the ideal way to conduct some sort of Turing Test. Have 1000 AI Bots thrown in the mix and randomly connect kids and bots together to chat.
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.
What would be interesting about this project/experiment would be for psychologists to see how these children react to this scenario.
Will they only work with those in their (region | ethnicity | village)?
Will they contribute the same kind of ideas based on their ethnicity?
I'm not certain what the project is about or its purpose but I do believe it would be interesting to see what other information could be gleaned from it.
-
...the Mouse Army.
Don't mod me down cuz you don't get it, of course if you are not amused mod away.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
some venture capitalist had alot of money left over and there are no more .COMs left to get rid of it with, so he decided to design and manufacture 3000 PDAs and give them to children.
.COMs had
I will grant it this though, it is a better business model than many of the
I Heart Sorting Networks
Start testing today, impiment tommorow. 2x4s with post-it notes for all yoru glyphs hand drawn and the like so your human factors experts can test need to be done now, and you need these foreign children in early. Don't impliment much (you can design your communications infrastructure, but beware that technology will march while you do other things) now, but don't waste your time one software or custom hardware until you have a design worth working with.
OTOH, make sure that the human factors guys give you enough time to work with, and you give the testers enough time to work with. The time line needs to be well done.
In order to make the time line possibal, first the a good hardware design that you can work with. Then once that is finialized (but not nessicarly bug free), work on software, but have the human factors people prioritiese, don't start all projects at once or this won't work, better to have half your features working then all the features, but none work.
And if your project managers didn't respond "I already knew all that and am doing it", quit now so your name isn't on a baddly run project that will fail.
I would aim to use the PDA's for communication. Create a symbolic computer language and use it to run/program the PDA's and communicate between participants.
...
Base it on things like the Logo programming language and efforts to teach great apes to communicate using symbols. Smart kids should
be able to pick up 2000 symbols in a couple
of days.
Don't go with a written language -- you're going to have problems with the basic idioms if you do (Oriental languages vs. Arabic and Hebrew vs. Romance languages). Everybody understands symbols and pictures.
Two days is not nearly enough time to become proficient -- you're going to have to get these PDA's with the symbolic language installed to the particpants weeks in advance.
Mostly, keep it simple -- don't try invent Esparanto for the PDA
Keep it fun, these kids are going to be trying to connect and communicate, don't allow them to withdraw into playing with their PDA's.
A global network running at 56k or higher, wireless, no "pay per meg/min" charges, that enables everyone with one of these devices to communicate in real time with anyone else with a device. Funded by UN/Gov'ts? Funded by private advertising? Funded by running it as a charity and only charging running costs, with richer areas subsidising poorer areas? In any event, giving thousands of children from around the world one of these and the means to stay connected to each other would be damn cool.
Does this remind anybody else of the "1 million child recorder concert" episode of South Park?
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
One thing that does make me a bit skeptical: I can't think of a single world changing thing where the initiator(s) started by saying. "Lets change the world. Doing xyz should do it."
As a kid (7-10) I Lived in Japan and knew Japanese and English and had a friend that was German and Japanese and he had a friend that was German and English. And we would all go out and play soccer, video games and so on. It was hilarious to listen to us talk because we were always translating for each other. It would really encourage communication if the kids at this event were multi lingual. As a side note Japanese is a very gliff based language and very logical if traslated into pictures it would work very well. ie. |_ ~|~ _|_ is over |- is under
Lifes a game play to win!
I'm surprised the typical Slashdot cyncism hasn't been shown yet. How do we know this guy is for real? How often is someone assigned a project years in the future, with a multi-million dollar grant, to spend on basically "something technological" and he asks SLASHDOT for opinions?
I would think that perhaps a nice set of uberservers running something like Babelfish's code might work as well, if not better than, mediaglyphs...
There would be a bit of lag, but nothing insurmountable if properly planned, I would think.
Just a thought...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
I've always had this idea of building a scooter like device with just two wheels. I've always thought that might change the world.
I think with todays technology you could almost make it drive itself. And with 2-3000 child laborers handy you might make a buck or two. You may also want to patent the idea so no one steals it...
I would caution those designing this -- what sounds like fascinating -- exercise, against fabricating a language. This stuff has been tried before at the end of the 19th century, by the developers of e.g. Esperanto, the original Basic (before there were Spectrum 16ks) -- and as an exercise, it never worked. Read e.g. Paul Chilton's 'Orwellian Language and the Media' for an examination of the way new languages intended to unite also create authoritarian power structures.
No matter how many poor people you feed, they'll still be poor -- and when you're done feeding them, they'll still be starving. Simply injecting food doesn't provide education, marketable skills, encourage growth of local businesses, &c.
A project that helps to educate, on the other hand, leaves a much more lasting presence. If this results in children who grow up to have a better understanding of the global market, who are more likely to posess entrepreneurial spirit, or who simply have higher hopes for their communities than those around them, this project will have done worlds of good -- more than simply providing food could ever do.
touluse? huh?
Hmmm, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say this is another Dean Kamen thing... Way to go man!
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
So what your really trying to say, is that Nintendo has finally decided how to kick off the ad campaign for it's next version of Pokemon?
It hurts when I pee.
Its a shame with so many starving children and families around the world, that this is a topic of discussion and worse yet a matter of business!
What a bleak future we have, if these are the solutions we have to change the world.
A shame
Mark
Think something wearable. Something that can be integrated with normal days without being too obtrusive. Simple interface (touch pad on the outside of the belt unit?) with capability of sending messages to others. Possibly integrated image caputure. Definitly HMD.
The only problem with building wearable gear now is that the parts (specifically HMDs) are too expensive to buy one of, but in bulk are probably far cheaper. Make them commonplace and they will be cheap.
no. are you?
So, does this mean you dress them up in fatigues and get them to march around in town with M16s?
At the low end of "learning" is asking questions. That's been done on a larger scale before.
d at e.asp?NewsID=159
s s_ release.jsp?INFO_ID=2001970
s s_ release.jsp?INFO_ID=2001971
Anyone remember the PlanetProject? November 2000. A worldwide poll of humanity asking lots of questions "what it's like to be a human being at the beginning of the millennium." (quote, unquote.) You could connect via a web site or get found by roving pollsters carrying PDAs. 1.2 million participants.
Hurm. http://www.planetproject.com seems to be offline. That's where everything was supposed to be archived "forever". So, I'm left with some press release pointers:
Harris Interactive did the research/statisitcal methodology:
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsby
3Com, among others, provided technology and news updates:
http://www.3com.com/corpinfo/en_US/pressbox/pre
http://www.3com.com/corpinfo/en_US/pressbox/pre
--- "It annoyed me, so I fixed it." -- Tom's First Principle of Engineering
It's like a normal PDA, but the only font is wingdings.
As far as I can tell we have seven languages available in babelfish.altavista.com. Kids sign on with a particular language (maybe more can be added for the event??) and they can talk to each other with their wireless pdas to anyone else connected. All translations go via English (it seems the easiest) and some form of translation, however accurate, will come out the other end!!!
I think a pokemon online game would really take off with a kid friendly interface. I dunno if that would change the world, but it would make $$$. I know a ton of 8-12 kids who play really lame java MMOGs just because they are based on pokemon or dragonballZ or whatever.
-- Adam
This kinda sounds like a project JASON might do. They have done some good quality stuff over the last few years.
It's for children accross the world to experience firsthand the unity and cross-cultural understanding made possible by unnamedcorporation(tm)'s new handheld friendmaker. . .
.made possible by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
. .
Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny.
Handing out technology is pretty much the mindset that has prevailed in the schools up to now, and it doesn't work. Teachers don't have the time or resources to effectively use the Macs/PCs they have, and most schools have no competent SysAdmin--they usually draft a teacher and they grudgingly do it for a year.
Talk to your local elem. school teachers, esp. ones with diverse classrooms, and get a feel for their challenges. Then tailor a technology approach that meets their needs; if you can find ways to improve the effectiveness of teaching, you will help more kids.
I think that the ideal device would be a PDA that is so ubiquitous and inexpensive that it is not worth stealing, and no great loss if damaged or misplaced. Now, design a classroom around that device-- the child carriers the PDA home or to school, but at either place it can be plugged into the desktop and become part of a more capable, flexible learning system, with a keyboard, mouse, or other input device depending on the child's need.
The main initial benefit of the EDA (let's call it) is to provide local storage of homework assignments, calandar, contact, basic reference information, and statistics on use. This ensures that kids can't forget their textbook, or homework assignment, or spelling list, or worksheet, because the teacher can synch every EDA in the class at the end of the day.
Unplugged, the EDA stores key imformation for homework, reading, and studies-- much like a handspring or palmpilot. Plugged into class net or a home PC, it is the front-end of a more powerful networked information device.
More ambitiously, use the EDA and the wired classroom to give teachers instantaneous feedback on student interaction, learning, participation. The Teacher's workstation would enable them to scan the entire class during a writing or reading assignment, enable or disable instant messaging or polling, and even measure the time use and interaction on a class assignment, realtime, or record statistics that can be analyzed later. This would also make standardized testing much more consistent across school.
Stop with the "Apples for the Students" already. It is having little positive impact on learning, burdens teachers that are already overloaded, and amounts to little more than a toy that teachers use to distract students while the provide individual attention on handle admin duties.
---
I have to agree that just giving people technology doesn't make them smarter. Just like so many things, previously acquired training/knowledge is essential.
:)
Kind of reminds me of the Onion article: "Kalahari Bushman puts new modem to good use"... it's about how this guy loves his new 56.6K sportster modem -- it's sharp edges are great for scraping animal skins, pounding grains into flour, collecting water...
Write a PDA version of WorldGame and be sure to release into the Public Domain.
I think kids would do wonderfully at it.
Long live R. Buckminster-Fuller!
Perhaps if these companies want to change the world they could give these kids what more children in the world need besides PDA's:
FOOD
Add sensors via a standard I/O on your PDAs. Get the kids using the tech to understand the broader worls. Perhaps a global air & water quality effort?
ok, this project is really kewl ;-)
;-) i was thinking illiteracy would be a problem, but not really: can you think of a better motivator for a rural poor kid to get reading or what? good luck! look forward to reading about how it is all received on slashdot in 2005 ;-)
i read a while ago about a guy who was building wind-up flashlights, for everywhere, and things like wind-up radios and televisions for places like rural africa. no batteries! (except internal lithium rechargeable? can a capacitor handle the charge storage? i dunno.) the radio just needs a few cranks every now and then and it will pipe out broadcasts for a few hours before needing a new crank. here's a link i found.
so we have all these failed (business-wise) iridium satellites flying around and other satellite networks with a few extra bandwidths here and there that might be persuaded to have something alloted from them for this project.
so make a pda that has a handcrank, uplinks to a satellite, and is basically nothing but a glorified Instant Messenging App with some sort of Babelfish (the fish!) built in that translates whatever native language is involved into a neutral heuristic. then that xml heuristic is uplinked via satellite, downloaded to a recipient, and retranslated into whatever language the recipient is using on their pda.
i'm certain that would be kewl enough for these kids to take home with them after a few days, get hooked on, and use as long as the handcrank still works, the supposed lithium batteries don't bleed away, the ruggedized case survives kid-friendly drops and crunches and unfriendly monsoons and drops in streams and drainage ditches, and the satellites stay in orbit and their bandwidth backers stay interested in the program.
i think that your biggest challenge, whatever tech you implement, will be keeping them interested. it would be a shame to blow all that dough on something that stops working after a few days or the kids just plain lose interest in because of complexity or lack of compelling features.
ok, kind of ambitious, but it sounds like you have some money to burn
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
but beside being prepared for a life as a consumer what else is the value of such a project?
the company funding it gets some claps on its shoulder and some PR. the kids then go home and that was it.
you guy should wake up and think about children's life expectancy in the third world. if the IMF makes some development help and gives them a huge amount of handhelds, as a credit for development nothing will change. yeah the company providing the devices will get an assload of development money but bla?
these are no concepts of a better world...
heh, i don't know if many people watch movies but to me i personally cant wait to see this project. All i have to do now is watch Anti-Trust until it is. To me it sounds like ur making exactly what they did just on a smaller scale. An amazing implementation to see would be something wonderful for the world. If this ever does become, hopefully we can see something out of it too :) leak some source here and there or just release everything in like 2007 :)
- Zac Epkes
how about a big ol quake fest?
low overhead
compelling action
and they take away skills that many of them will need in their next civil war...
Would your army of children be interesting in sucking my cock with their pert little mouths? I know I would love to have a couple thousand smooth-skinned, naked little boys at my disposal next time I get horny!!
OK.
:) ...
:)
For those that haven't read diamond age.
One of the underlying themes was that of a "young lady's illustrated primer".
Think of a PDA with a terabyte of data, voice recognition, and advanced AI. It pays attention to a childs growth and continually challenges them.
Any question that the child asks will be immediately answered.
The PDA also used "mediaglyphs" which are sort of a Esperanto based on symbols. Instead of building a device which says "eject" you just have a mediaglyph which animates when you put your finger near it of a VCR ejecting a tape.
The first child that grew up with the "primer" was significantly advanced from other children.
I am in the process of building a "primer" for my niece (she is one). It won't be as advanced as the one in the Diamond Age but it will have a dictionary, encyclopedia, art, pictures, etc.
... it might be a good idea to build an "Illustrated Primer" open source project that could build Open Source content for children with geeky relatives
... buy the diamond age and read it now!
Kevin
Create a series of collaborative zones that require children to interact with different digital mediums and work together to contribute to common projects. Make them extremely simple. For example, one might just be a big blank canvas where kids can use simple digital paint tools. Another zone could involve music composition with sound tools. Give them simple 3D objects and let them create virtual spaces to explore. Many other mediums and variations are obviously available.
Different cultural backgrounds will influence what they create, and it would be interesting to see how children adapt and comporomise while still expressing themselves.
When the formal get together is all over, let them keep contributing on their own. Over time the entire space will evolve.
Provide a means for them to communicate in each zone, but expect that formal written language will not work. Let kids draw to communicate rather than typed text.
Translated:
Well, to start off with the idea of some small bit of technology distributed to ~3,000 kids for two days will change the world is flat out stupid.
If you or your backers were really interested in something substantive then you'd be looking at plugging into some established organization and seeing that the money or tools or whatever resources you have to offer can realisticly do with real-world issues (and yes, lots of those folks can blue-sky dream too, just they've got an idea of how 3000 kids lives could be made better in a substantive way.)
But no, you want a big pile of sponsored egoboo with some web-site left afterwards as a testament to your vision and caring. Bleh.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Spare the lab monkeys, bunnies and rats! Use children!
Oh yeah, I can see how this offtopic. An "army" of children getting together and they're supposed to communicate to help society. Not related at all to Lord of the Flies.
It seems like others thought it was offtopic too - check out this post 7 minutes after the parent. Hmmm, that one even got an "Interesting" mod.
The name of the book you're thinking of is __The Diamond Age __. Unless it was published under a different title outside of the US.
There was something about this on TechTV the other day (forget the show) where they went to the MIT Media lab to take a look at some of the things they were working on. A couple of the cooler projects were using technology to allow greater inteaction with more traditional toys (e.g. dollhouse, puppet show). I'd suggest trying to get ahold of the people there to work on something. Given the puppet show thing on the program it would be cool if the kids could make a show and type in the text/action for each puppet actor. Then using some backend technology to translate, it could be sent to others. This would fall more into the individual (and group) storytelling realm, but it could be a fun project for a day. For the dollhouse type thing maybe you could have replicated character actions across the venues or maybe make the whole thing virtual inside the Unreal engine or something (with it geared less towards violence :).
-J
If you want to be world-changing via a handheld (a la the diamond age) I would suggest a peer-to-peer wireless PDA that the kids get to keep, and that will be available (via open design or just sold) to other children after the event. If the kids have the ability to network with eachother, without the need for a service provider or centralized infrastructure-- their exchange of information will be as unrestricted as possible.
If the data was encrypted, kids in places where access to some information is forbidden by the government could relay data through eachother to other places without being eavesdropped on.
You could also add repositories of information to the network-- big servers full of literature, technical books, encyclopedias, artwork, class texts, etc... that kids anywhere could access via the free p2p relay network that they comprise.
The initial batches of handhelds will need more range than something like the Cybiko (www.cybiko.com)-- maybe a couple of miles (FRS goes this far, so this should be possible) since the devices will be sparsely scattered initially. The ability to use a cable and one of the devices to make an internet bridge (again, like the cybiko) would extend the connectivity of remote areas, too.
Add some built-in teaching software. Basic math, vocab, reading, whatever you can fit so that the network is not always necessary, too.
I would love to see an empowering Primer a la the diamond age-- I hope you succeed, however you do it!
wat the hell is a "foo"?!?!? i see it evrywhere u stupid open sourse programers!!1 what the hell is it!??! foo foo foo foo !! foo!!!!!!!! FOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! why do u all have sucha foooo fetish1?!?!!1?!?!!???
some1 pls explain to me wat it is. thank u
bob890710309@aol.com
thats the best usability test. if monkeys can use it adults can use it too.
thats the microsoft philosophy...
This sounds like a big conference put on by the MIT Media Lab a few years back:
www.jrsummit.net
To be perfectly honest, I think that while kids playing with technology is cool, it truly suspends disbelief to argue that it will result in tremendous advances or new ideas. Frankly, taking that same money and educating poor children around the world will pay back far greater returns than a two-day conference.
First, what is the age group of your children? A six year old has half the life experience of a 12 year old :) Gender, puberty etc... should be understood if you care about your audience. (They dont have to be targetted but you should try to understand).
Secondly try and be _very_ clear of your goals. Are You?
1 Trying to help 3000 children with some technical skills to fit into this technical world? (Realise that whatever the money being spent, however generous, it is not the primary investment here -- ie serve thier lives)
2 Trying to market the technical talents of "X"? This is still a generous notion so long as it positively affects the children?
3 Show that children can participate, even in our technical world, and inspire\use them as an example -- be very careful here.
Lastly, especially because they are children see it through their eyes. If I can help send me an email at bosahv@netscape.net
1. Teach them the rudiments of a "neutral" second language, such as Esperanto. [I assume some degree of literacy will be required.] Communication is the key to understanding.
2. Don't waste money on PDA's. Buy them guns.
I think I have a solution for your language barrier problem, Golem. You should take a hint from the most basic way that people that don't speak the same language communicate to each other: gestures. In other words, I think you should make their communication avatar-based, and let them put in commands to make the characters move. The kids may not understand the words for "yes" and "no" in each other's languages, but just about everyone will understand that a character nodding their head is "yes" and a character shaking their head is "no". You could even make it more complex by having them express anger by scowling and stamping their foot, happiness by smiling, greeting each other by waving, and staying together in the virtual world by pointing in a direction to indicate where something is or walking somewhere and making a "c'mere" gesture with their hand to get someone to follow them.
It wouldn't be absolutely perfect, because it can't express complex ideas like global politics or history, but it would make a very good communications medium for children.
PDAs are not spontanious enough for children in a multi-lingual environment. Too long to type your messages in, never mind translation issues.
:-) to fund future efforts!
However, I think that digital cameras, the - cheap ones mind you - could be ideal, particularly if you give the older children video cameras in addition (say 1/10 of the group gets video cameras, or you have a "camera crew" per two dozen participants).
You want to say "HI" to Wong Meng in Taipei? Turn the cam around, smile, take a picture of yourself and send it. Much easier than text entry, translation etc.
Have base station PCs, use the cameras as webcams some of the time, and still cams the rest of the time, and have the kids take them home at the end of the gig: and *continue*to*publish*pictures* as time passes - kinda like the penpal idea.
Think of it as "children's eye window on the world" - longditudinal images from the conference participants over time, plus it's going to put less load on your translation services.
And a picture is worth a thousand words.
If you do still want to build custom hardware, think like a "Compact Flash" format wireless transponder to basically squirt pictures to base-station PCs as they're taken, so the kids don't have to mess with file upload/download: point, click, put images online.
Hell, you might even end up with a commercial product at the end of it
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
my old high school is already using PDA's and 802.11b for their entire school. why would 3,000 kids over the globe with PDA's be any big deal (especially in 2005 when people will be probably using electronic tablets instead of notebooks).
Why not make it a discussion of their personal or national heroes? They would learn about each other's cultures and nations and also may inspire them to be like someone they otherwise may have never known about...
For example, here's a hero you probably have not heard of: Sir Peter Blake.
This signature intentionally has just seven words.
No, this seems more like a Wozniak thing to me. I mean, cross Apple and the US festival, and you get this. (Well, subtract the music and beer from the end result).
Combine this with the fact that we just heard about Woz's new secret startup, which will have something to do with wirelessly connected PDAs that use GPS to change the world, and what have you got? Well, I guess that means you've got Apple, music, beer, 802.11, love-ins, teenagers, GPS, children, PDAs, global summits, and mediaglyphs all trying to change the world.
In thirty years we'll look back on all this and long for the days of guns, beer, and titties.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I would like to participate. This project sounds very cool. Can I volunteer for it?
What do the young need to understand?
What would you have benefited from when you were 10-15 years old? Personally I'd say its an education of just how low down, scheming, conniving and duplicitous the adult world real is. How its not how capable you are that matters, but who you know and how much you lie that makes the difference.
Give the children an education of how to win at adult games, how to really influence things. Let the idealism of the teenage years convert that into action for the real world - just give them the raw materials.
Does that take a PDA ? Nope.
Does that take a million dollers ? It helps.
The world is screwed over by those who can influence law, make the agenda, who can give YOU a job. In the end you end up slaves to those who lost their moral compass with their milk teeth. Give our children the raw understanding to recognise and play that game, their game, and win. Only then you do have the faintest chance that something will actually change in this world that we have fashioned.
The children are our future, and at the moment its a bleak, vapid, one.
As someone who's been working with at-risk kids in Brazil for the last eight years, I'd like to suggest some things that I think you wouldn't want to do:
- Don't assume that everyone everywhere speaks or even understands English - or even has a basic grasp of literacy!
- Don't assume that a fifteen-year-old in the two-thirds world has the academic background or world-view as an American kid - remember that many of them won't have even finished primary (grade) school!
- Please don't assume that American kids have something important to teach these other kids - or that two-thirds world kids would necessarily even want to talk to Americans (other than to ask for money)
- please remember that poor in the two-thirds world often really means poor and that these kids mightn't be able to buy spare batteries, use phone lines or the Internet, or maybe have even pen and paper.
I really can't imagine any useful application of this technology. Some kids, I'm sure, will try to use the PDAs as GameBoys or trade them with someone for food or Nikes.
Anyway, I hope I don't come across as too much of a wet-blanket, it's just that I've met some fairly "out-there" ideas for helping Brazilian kids.
If i pretend to be young, can I get a free pda? Is this like when my parents made me say I was 10 to get in the circus free?
Wow, brainwashing thousands of children, sounds like Pokemon ;-)
While I can't think of a single useful thing to
t ml). This is just way too cool. Use the same core for a PDA, webpad, wearable, or desktop configuration depending on your purpose.
do with 3000 children for 2 days, here are a couple of ideas for hardware...
www.aquapad.org - FIC is finally shipping these now, I belive. Cost might be around $1000 each for everything... so only 3 million and you'd be set! Midori Linux or Windows CE The advantage would be a full-size screen, and the possibility of some systems with flash, others with hard drives, etc.
www.simputer.org - promises a sub-$200 handheld of some type. Don't know if they have actual hardware, but is an "open design" I recall there were some interesting ideas in application development.
There was another "open" linux pda project that recently bit the dust. The design was done and prototype boards were tested, but the creators couldn't get enough orders of the pre-production units to make it worthwhile. I just can't remember the name. I do remember the device looked cool and if I believed that PDAs were actually useful I would've signed up.
If you are gung-ho to build your own (a very good way to spend someone else's money in my opinion) give some though to the IBM metapad concept (http://slashdot.org/articles/02/02/06/1448209.sh
You could do worse than look at what Alan Kay is involved with. Kay is a true computer pioneer and has from the beginning focussed on children as users of computers. His goal is to empower them by giving them new kinds of tools that let them create, not locking them into predefined worlds.
His current project is Squeak, which is designed to let kids create dynamic documents, games and worlds and interact with them.
Teaching kids to use technology as creators rather than as passive consumers would be one of the most important lessons you could present.
what if im already a geek, but am in the 10-15 range? Can I get a portale IM too! Actually, I already have a PDA, but it still sounds cool.
sounds like a perfect project for twext texts, which parses a foreign text into chunks, then formats native language translations betwixt the lines.. integrated with lyrics and recordings, your kids can learn one another's languages, or at least English, singing one another's songs.. or something like that
Dump a bunch of PDA's, no matter how cleverly designed, on a bunch of kids from all over the world, and the first question is very likely to be "What games can it run?"
Just as Cliff Stoll has so eloquently pointed out in his books ("Silicon Snake Oil" and "High-Tech Heretic"), learning to use technological gimmicks should be way down on the list of things that kids need to learn to function in the world.
I'm not stating that technology cannot be used as a teaching AID. It most certainly can! However, I think it's extremely important -- I would even say critical -- that your program emphasize (and, hopefully, teach!) the importance of critical thought, analysis skills, reading and writing, basic math, etc. BEFORE it teaches how to apply those skills with technological widgets.
In short: If you're going to do this, teach the kids that technology is a TOOL. Teach them that it is NOT, under ANY conditions, a substitute or crutch to replace the basic 'wetware' skills that we all need.
Should you believe otherwise, I would suggest that you take a look at any of the high-traffic Usenet discussion groups. Pay particular attention to the grammar, syntax, and spelling in the posts. With the obvious exception of those for whom English is not their native language, it's pretty easy to tell who knows how to use logic and language, and who does not.
Good luck.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Palms? Foolish. Give 'em iPods, let 'em dance. Dancing, as you know, trancends all languages and cultures.
Having skimmed the other comments prior to posting, here's somebody's articulation of the first idea that sprung to my mind (so consider it voted for again):
"so make a pda that has a handcrank, uplinks to a satellite, and is basically nothing but a glorified Instant Messenging App with some sort of Babelfish [altavista.com] (the fish!) built in that translates whatever native language is involved into a neutral heuristic. then that xml heuristic is uplinked via satellite, downloaded to a recipient, and retranslated into whatever language the recipient is using on their pda."
'Cept that if you need low latency -- these are kids -- you'll want WAPs and IM 'Fish servers at the point of the conference.
But how are you planning on getting 3000 kids to use it? Won't they just seek out the other kids from their individual cultures -- the ones who don't "talk funny"?
The exception to this probable trend would be the few kids who either don't need the PDAs to communicate cross-language or the gaggle of other kids who just want to have casual sex with somebody who lives half a world away. (~750 hormone-charged boys aren't going to spend the first day trying to solve that problem? Heck no!)
Your company may have high hopes for this "conference", you may get a lot out of good product ideas from observing it. But you have to keep the human element in mind here -- there's a huge potential for a lot of negative fall-out. Either it will be too constrained and neither your corp nor the kids will get anything, or it won't be constrained enough and the kids will go home with interesting new diseases and/or scars only to turn around and be a lingering PR nightmare for your corp.
But I kind of expect this is a bit more thought out than that. I hope.
Create 1000 Robots spread throughout the world.
Give it the ability to roll around and look in all directions. Give it a microphone. Include touch sensor. Give it a speaker.
Create 1000 virtual reality booths that are connected to the robots via satalite. Let the children explore the worlds/cultural of 999 other places.
That would be neato! golly wiz!
This isn't the sig you are looking for... Carry on...
All countries have procedures for licensing Amateur Radio stations. You might even get a worldwide contest scheduled where HAM radio operators get points for contacting as many "Kid Stations" as possible in a 48-hour period. There would be plenty of HAMS worldwide who would volunteer to help in a project of this sort. Amateur Radio fosters communication and cooperation. If international morse code shorthand is used, it can transcend language barriers as well.
"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific." -- Jane Wagner
I have too many questions to respond intelligently. What type of organization is it? Is it a tech company? Software, or hardware? Is it an educational foundation? Is it a charitable organization? What is their purpose for trying to blow approx. $1000 per child in two days?
But this topic really interests me. I lived three years in Africa (Chad) and four years in Asia (India) during the nineties, I am a teacher, and I'm almost finished with a Ed Tech Master's degree.
Some comments:
1) It's going to be really difficult to get kids involved who aren't already connected in some way. In Chad few villages have any phones or even regular mail service. The elementary school in the village where I lived had exactly two books for use by the teachers for over 100 students. The situation is better in India, but outside of major cities, most students aren't going to know about this opportunity.
2) Children tend to be given much less respect in both Asia and Africa than they are in the west. A ten-year-old who has been given a crash course in whizbang technology, is unlikely to be able to rally a community to take advantage of the benefits of technology.
3) Cities in many less-developed countries have a glut of technologically proficient youth. In India over the last five years internet-cafes have sprung up on every street corner. The challenge is to integrate technology, information and the benefit it can provide into the daily life of the community.
Golem1024, please give us more information on which to base recommendations.
I've been to Djibouti, it's very dirty, the cops are mean and they still have an internet_cafe_with_2_computers.
You can't be serious about the 2 days. You're going to spend millions of dollars, spend years designing this mysterious PDA, and then only spend 2 days with the 3000 kids. That's just all wrong. You won't be able to make any kind of true change in a kid's life in only 2 days. You're building all these centers already; why not have them spend several months there, or even a year? In a year, these kids would be able to make true, lasting friendships with people from all over the world, and be able to use these PDAs as something more than just a cool toy. If you send a kid back to China with a nifty PDA, do you really think that would be useful to him? He's going to use it for a while until the battery dies, and then he put it away and go back to his school with two books. No, have him learn how to use it correctly, and it'll (possibly) motivate him to change his life.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I realize that all the centers won't be in third-world, poor countries - that all of the children won't be poor.
But at any rate, giving away advanced technology won't help - no matter what it is. If the infrastructure isn't in place to keep the tech going (power, supplies, repair, etc) - it will only last so long, then become another piece of "junk".
I would say the thing to give people, of any age, is education. If it has to be based on technology, then give the people enough education to know basic tech (ie, teach fundamental machines - you know, the wheel, inclined plane, lever, etc - then teach how they go together to form more advanced machinery, machinery that can help them advance).
I remember seeing a site detailing how this group help some people in a third-world country develop solar cooking techniques - by teaching them how to build a parabolic reflector from basic materials easily found in the village. The group taught the people how to form a parabola using simple techniques (that don't require complex math, just some string and nails, and straight lines), then make a template, to make a mold in the ground, to form a parabolic "mirror" using weaved mats, mud, concrete, and tinfoil or other metal.
Teaching such things is what will help. All kids should learn the basics of such applied science at an early age - whether they are from the first or third world. Show them how to construct things from available materials, cast off "junk", etc - to be self-sufficient and rely less on the "man's" expensive "new" stuff, and instead scrounge among the cast-off detritus left behind.
Move on further by teaching how to build simple steam engines and turbines (maybe simple water pumps and such first, to teach flap valves, pistons, etc). Remember, the first practicle steam engines were built in the 16th and 17th century, and other "toy" technology was developed by the Greeks much, much earlier than that! Show how to build wind generators from cast-off 55 gallon drums and car alternators (or squirrel cage motors) - think large scale anemometers, or build a Savonious Rotor - give power before tech.
There are tons of other things that could be done - but it all boils down to education. Most importantly an education in self-sufficiency, and how to recognise those that want to enslave (either litterally or via economics, social programs, or otherwise) - and how to avoid it.
The problem is huge - I really don't know if there will ever be a real solution...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Yep. Thinking about this. Looking at a community moderation schemes to define a lexicon and usage.
golem1024
How about linking the children via Sound and Video so that they can see and hear each other (even if they can't understand each other).
While I won't be flame bait by suggesting cultural exchange, I do not see anything wrong with sharing *safe* personal information... "What's your dog's name?"
Next, utilize Landsat, or it's descendant, to allow the children to see where the other children live. No, not your address, just a geographical image showing the differing terrains.
Finally, have them do a small project where they compare the weather in different areas for the past week ("Really?! it was raining all week here!!")
Then you could use other satellite imaging to show the children how a tropical storm in one part of the world can cause it to rain in an apparently unrelated local, or how a volcanic eruption in Asia can make the winter a little colder in Canada.
The goal of such exorcises would be to give the children an idea as to just how big the world really is while at the same time, showing them that "it's a small world after all..."
Reality is in the mind of the beholder - me 1996
Someone please mod the above as the troll that it is. Every day someone comes up with a "new solution to change the world". Is this the solution? Is Doctors Without Borders the solution? Is the Red Cross the solution?
Individually, no; but the fact that enough people care to try something new to change the world for the better is a step in the right direction.
What's "bleak" is that there are people like you more willing to cry "shame" then give possible solutions a chance.
This is great to hear, as we (O'WONDER) have been planning a wireless device to appeal to children (and adults too!) and it will hopefully be ready way before 2005 and you could test it.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
You just know in your gut that during this world-changing event some 15-year-old out there is going to figure out how to write "f1rst p0st" in mediaglyphs...
Mr. Ska
build them a gadget which will put them on everquest or some such thing, and allow them to easily trade with each other. It'll get them good and ready to step up to the plate and make their country competitive.
CISV has 50+ years of experience bringing children from 100+ countries together. Perhaps they could help to find solutions to some of the common issues you will no doubt address? As a participant, I have been to Egypt and Nigeria when I was 13 and 11. I'm sure I could arrange for someone to speak with you about how they might assist with your project. Check out CISV -Erastus
Don't let the programmers or hardware engineers have much of a say in the initial design of the hardware or the software interface. Too often too many PDA companies make the mistake of letting the technical people get first crack at the design, and by that time any kind of human factors design has been reduced to something crudely bolted on at the last second. You should always design an interface/form factor before you ever write a line of code, design a circuit, or set up an injection molder. Keep in mind that the most successful PDA in history, the Palm, was created after its designer carried a block of wood wherever he went to get the idea of how a PDA should act and feel.
Study child psychology. If you have a multi-million dollar budget, hire someone who does research in that area. Children will be interested in different kinds of things at different stages of development and will have different styles of play. If you know the characteristics of their stage of development, you have a better chance of designing a product they would be interested in and you would have a better idea of just how they might interact with that product.
In the March 1997 issue of ACM's HCI journal Interactions , there is an article titled User Interfaces For Young and Old. Read this. The author discusses some of the pitfalls of technology products geared for young children. One of their best points is that computerized stuff for kids often lacks any real kind of tactile interaction, which is incredibly important for children of a young age. Another good one was that you have to be careful that the PDA does not revert children into little solitary beings like most computer software does.
Don't limit yourselves to a PDA form factor. It would be cool if you had something a little like Lego mindstorms that was really modular and would allow children to communicate in different ways if it they reassemble it differently. Put one block here, it communicates with another child's creation across the world. Take that block out and put another one it, and it communicates with the machine next to it. Something like that might create more effective play and communication between children than simply "Palm Jr". Pardon the cliche, but "Think Different".
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Well, duh.
This is an excellent opportunity to implement Professor Hodgson's KIDs experiment from Lain. ;)
o/~ Join us now and share the software
When I began dabbling in computers as a child, my progress was constrained by lack of information. The crowd I hung with, couldn't fathom my interest, and I never did talk my parents into that modem.
I marvel at the ease with which answers to questions can be obtained, aided by todays technology. Such ready access to information accelerates learning exponentially, for those inclined to make use of it.
Question? What do most groups of kids do with computer mice?
Answer: Beat each other over the head with them.
DUH.
That or take out the mice's balls and roll it around.
(hmm, opt for optical mice mabye?)
Technology does NOT do anything for childern who are not inclined towards it.
Hell run a battery of tests, get all the worlds NERD childern together and in one room, and THEN you will have something going.
But you get a large group of jocks and Nerd childern together, all you end up with is a large school house with lots of fancy hi tech equipment.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
A hunt for anitbiotic soil bacteria could turn up something to make everyone proud. An inexpensive lab-on-a-slide could be developed for preliminary screening, with positive results to be sent on for further testing.
It's 5pm, time to be cynical. Why not spend those millions on tutors for two days? Show the world that reasonably funded and unobstructed education can accomplish more in two days than many school systems can accomplish in a year.
With a good education, these children will be able to change the world on their own.
Well, if we're going to try that, let's avoid Latin and start with Esperanto, or Lojban, or Klingon or something which at least starts out with fewer irregulars.
Esperanto? Ecch! Too Polish. I'd suggest something based on one of the Interlinguas (Interlingua de IALA or Latino sine flexione) as the Latin/Romance bases of those language both sound less harsh than Slavic and prepare the children for the language of science.
Heck, if you're going with a relatively regular language, you might as well use a regular alphabet, but note that regular alphabets may be more difficult for dyslexics to learn than Latin ASCII!
.cixelsyd eb yam uoy
Will I retire or break 10K?
Consider using a chording keyboard as one input method. I doubt many of these kids have been taught touch typing yet. Considering how good some kids get at "texting" each other with a telephone style keypad, I would imagine that many of them would pick up on using the chording keyboard very quickly once they figured out how much faster they can be than whatever the other input method(s) are for it. A chording keyboard consisting of half a dozen keys around the perimiter of the PDA would allow someone to hold it and input information 1 handed. It would seem to be a perfect match for a PDA... theoretically. But since most people already know how to type (not a problem with these children, as I said) and are afraid of learning a new system, no large PDA company has taken the chance on one. This might be a good opportunity to test them out and see just how hard or easy to use they really are. Even if they don't become popular with us adults who have become set in our ways, if it becomes popular with children's electronic devices then it will become popular with adults in 10+ years when those children have grown up.
It certainly also needs some kind of IR input/output like the Palm/Handsprings. A large stand alone IR transmitter/reciever so that a teacher or other such person could brodcast information to a whole class at once would be useful, too. For that matter, they'd be good at trade shows and presentations for palm/hanspring customers. "My business card, and accompanying notes for this presentation will be boadcast now, for those of you with compatible PDAs." Perhaps a jammer, to keep kids from using these to cheat on tests also. LOL
If you could make them so that it was easy to program your own applications for them using someting like BASIC (or even LOGO!, everyone remember that experiment.) or some other language that is designed to be easy for young people to learn so that even non-computer geek kids could write small applications for themselves, it would be interesting to see how many kids would do that.
Since they arent yet completly indoctrinated with identity (nationality, religion, race, class) etc. Let them discuss moral/ethical questions.
If you built a system (i thought about this one night when i couldn't sleep) where you pose a simple question: Is it ever ok to kill someone? The majority will thing maybe no. Somebody will object: but it would be ok to kill hitler? If the system is smart enough objections start new branches of the discussion or splits them, links between arguments etc, etc.
With a system similar to that would they reach the same conclusion in the end? Would different questions end up in the same conclusion (it's smart to share resources, love eachother etc).
If this would work it would truly make an impact.
Or you could use Blissymbolics as a base symbol-language, perhaps with localization modules to subscript the symbols in whatever language the user is familiar with?
One of the problems with symbol-based languages is that their ambiguity makes complex communication difficult. Try translating "A generator is easily repaired by rewinding the armature with fine copper wire.", or "The horrors that I have seen have etched an acid path in my very soul."
Take the 3000 kids and implant them with a PDA. Just have a bunch of input and output wires strung all over their brains. 10 to 15 is too old, though; start them when they are babies (You'll have to be careful with the equipment as their body grows). As their brains are figuring out things like "oh, this connection moves my hand", it will also learn how to control the PDA, and interpret it's output (though some output, like a good strong shock, will be understood instinctively). Some of the kids PDA's could be linked together wirelessly so that the kids could "think" at each other. You would probably want to have several groups with different levels of interconnectedness and when this interconnectedness was turned on (you can't explain to a baby why someelse's thoughts are in their head, and since we don't know what this will do to them some groups should not have that feature turned on until they can understand the concept of other people), to see how much of a group mind they develop. This would be particularly interesting if at least one group was spread out geographically and/or culturally.
Perhaps some could be given baby toys that are remotely controled by the PDA, to see if that accellerates the speed with which their mind learns how to manipulate the PDA; I bet it would.
It's a neat idea. But I think it could use some improvement.
Your 3000 kids will have a great time for two days. Then, 95% of them will go back home to their regular lives, taking with them nothing more than a memory of a good time.
Two days is too short of an immersion time to build a longterm community or involvement. Especially when you consider that much of the first day is going to be spent on logistical issues -- getting the kids oriented, teaching them what this neat toy does, showing them where the bathroom is.
You need to keep them there for about a week, to fully ingrain new ideas and to *start* setting new habits, and follow up with a good amount of handholding/encouragement/prodding afterwards if you want them to keep participating.
-Thomas
The cool thing about Diamond Age is it set the youth apart but also gave them a new commonality.
;-)
You could do this but you have to have an agenda and you will receive flack. The better you do, the more flack you will attain.
First, you need to identify what you want to accomplish or say. I will proceed on the assumption that you want commonality and you also want to install a sense of empowerment that these young people can change things now that they have these new tools. And you only have two days.
I saw a comment where the person commented on using Iridium and a hand crank powered computer. That was pretty cool.
But you need more. You need the connectivity and the longevity of the units, but you also need an agenda. A humanism experiment perhaps?
Let these children use these new tools to forge a new relationship that crosses boundaries but not just for a day, for the rest of their lives. A robust technology that sows the seeds.
Perhaps with a built in renewal date. The units have a projected life of 10 years but they will meet in 5 years as a caucus to rebuild the technology anew.
But if you really want this project to take off you are talking 2 days of crash course learning and artistic concepts. We're not talking about the stuff you get from Cert classes or colleges but stories and memes that will scale. If you look at the deeper meanings of mythology and tribal stories you will find "DEEP MEMES".
If you want this technology to stick you need allegories and deep memes that will resonate and allow these kids to do something with the technology you've given them.
The funny thing is if this works, it will appear it won't. No one will notice because they will have accepted the change.
Much like we take the internet for granted. I think nothing of the fact that I can take any address and generate driving instructions. Plus be able to call the place from my cell phone if I get lost. A whole container of knowledge (orienteering) just lost its value. This sort of magnitude of change.
The ability to reconnect to these people at anytime PLUS the ability to use this to override media and disinfo PLUS the knowledge that it can change things forever. And knowing how this will do it. Perhaps a set of memes with interlocking ethics from the individual to the societal.
If you are after this sort of change, it's intriguing. Anything else, IMHO, will be a waste o' time.
An interesting day dream if nothing else, if you can intuit the above to what I see in my mind.
Well, to "change the world", you're going to have to offer or facilitate
some/any of the following:
- change in attitudes
- discovery of new information
- create a new "enabling" methodology/technology
- alter people's perceptions
- empower individuals in a new manner
- forge new synergies between exhisting
attitudes/perceptions/abilities/information
- likely other stuff I may not have considered
It seems to me that technology is mostly a means to an end - i.e. merely
giving everyone a fancy Palm VII is probably a sure receipe for disaster.
Now, you're group of participants is really interesting; 10-15 year olds
across the globe.
Firstly, I think that would give you an enormous opportunity to help
children/teens be "heard" in a more global sense. In other words, there are
a lot of children issues that are not paid "proper" (whatever that means)
attention on a global level. Also, especially in light of the recent
September 11 events, perhaps this cross-section of children of the world
might have some really meaningful things to say about terrorism, war,
violence, human rights, discrimination, etc. Perhaps they could function
as a highly targeted "think tank" and come up with something of interest
for the other children of the world...
Since the time window is for 2 days, I would suggest to have several
activities, programs, events, creative-collaberative sessions. Remember
that children of that age range tend to have shorter attention spans and
often are driven by instant gratification. I suggest that these various
activities are inter-related; where the back-end server systems help combine
these different, even disparate elements into a whole. Also, if some of
these activities could be asynchronous where the kids could go back to them
when the mood strikes them and continue their contribution(s), that would be
exceptional.
The media glyphs ideas are really interesting. Especially since you're
going to have several different languages. I think it would be really
exciting if the kids could construct more complex glyphs to represent more
complex ideas by dragging simpler glyphs onto each other and attaching them
according to a specific ruleset (i.e. attaching a up-arrow above another
glyph means one thing, but putting it inside means something else).
However, I think that the glyphs are limited, since the participants have
only two days. If your goal was to begin the evolution of a
language-neutral media glyph "meta language" then go for it, but otherwise,
it's possible they could get in the way, if they were the only method of
communicating. Perhaps some sort of media glyph activity could be set up
in addition to other activities.
I believe Slashdot has posted articles about some very sophisticated
translation software - that even translates spoken languages in real-time.
I would imagine that a text-based version would be much easier to implement.
Another thought is that the interfaces for these on-line collaberative
sessions should be transparent, very flexible, and "clean" or "easy" to use.
As I said earlier, many/most of the issues involved are not technology based.
I think you'd need to reserve resources very early on in the design phase to
psychological (child), sociolgical, cultural, and economic studies. Rather
than doing "new" studies, I would think that a good panel of experts from
various fields would be able to get you the input you will need. The
technology design should come after these other dicussions take place. The
technology development should come last.
This is a really exciting project, which, in my humble opinion, has
tremendous potential to not only reach out and touch 3000 children
positively, but can serve as a beacon for a great many more.
Good luck!
B.
As an ed. tech. guy I have to say: Why? It sounds cool, but educational technology is about defining problems and coming up with solutions. Ed. tech. is not about wires and gadgets and Palm Pilots and geegaws It's about the scientific application of learning theory to learning problems.
What's the problem? What are you trying to teach/accomplish?
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
To me, what is inferred from the reference to Diamond Age is a technology that will change the children's lives, but _not_ in a conventional way. If I am correct in this, then suggestions like "send them to college" or "give them food" are entirely against the point.
The idea of the Primer in Diamond Age was simply to make little girls as "badass" as possible. One of the girls with the Primer joined a prominent illegal hacking network, for instance. The idea was to make the girls think for themselves, question authority, and in all ways get off the beaten path and transcend "society."
I don't think this is really the company's goal at all... and if it is, there's no way a PDA can accomplish this. To a child, a PDA's most interesting feature is the Snake game. It comes nowhere near an interactive, intelligent guide-to-life like the Primer.
I think that the better choice would be to give them an experience that they will not forget, that may shape some aspect of their lives. Two days is an incredibly short time for something like that, but here's an idea-- an extremely sophisticated version of laser tag on a gargantuan scale. Try thinking not of Diamond Age but of Ender's Game. See what kind of strategies 50 teams of 60 kids can come up with and make them battle each other. Maybe give them various materials/technological toys to work with, a variety of combat conditions, etc.... maybe one team would have to fight off two others from a superior defensive position. See what they try, and document it.
Each child would be working with 59 other children from various places around the world, so the cultural aspect is there. They would be learning-- not in the conventional way of "education," but in terms of critical thinking, cooperation, and problem solving. The technology is there with the laser tag system, and whatever other toys you can think of for them to use. Also, this would be damn fun.
Not sure if this is the kind of think you're looking for, but you could flesh it out if you wish.
is to create a multiplayer game. The game could have easily understandable (and culturally independent) goals in order to do well at the game. The kids could then be split up into teams where they either know, or don't know who and in what city, etc. their partners are. The goals could be simple, but in order to win they would have to share and express ideas, work together etc. Nothing in the game would have to be made up of text as symbols are most common in games anyway. The only thing that would have to be done is for the rules to be explained to them in their native language. But if the goal of the game is simple, the rules to the game wouldn't have to be hard. It would be nicer to have some idea of what goals you guys actually want to get out of it as well... the teams could be ranked at the end of the two days and all the teams could find out who their teammates were and where they were from. And of course prizes (money, food, scholarships, whatever) could be given out to the top teams. The graphics in the game wouldn't have to be great or anything either. I think it is highly doable given the deadline of 2005 and the use of PDAs. I am sure some other readers can make improvements etc.
I lived with a fellow last year who ran an awesome project with inner city youth called "Living Lego City". Check it out! http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~mr4/index.html You can read all about it. It was AWESOME! The kids learned TONS! I have developed technology that will let you do this project online, with thousands of users. If youre interested, email me at wired@cmu.edu Sincerely, Ian Nieves
hmmm... sounds good except I dont see how you could build a community in two days...
but it would be fun to work on the IT side of this project.
Let them experiment in first "training" an automated universal translation system, then evolve a consensual grammar, and use it to communicate.
Build in a cheap line scanner or camera for them to scan small pictures in, apply hand-written labels to them (initially just nouns, later adjectives, finally verbs), and transmit them to a database.
They also view a database of all entered pictures and apply labels to them - so a multi-language database of labels is created, and validated by multiple users.
They also view the database of pictures and link together ones they THINK might mean the same thing. With multiple inputs this begins to line the words written in different languages, allowing translation.
Let anyone enter a correction if they think someone has mislabelled a picture - first seeing if anyone else gave an alternative label and "voting" for that, or entering their own alternative label if not or if they disagree with all the other labels.
Hand writing recognition translates their writing to the closest matching picture(s) by matching to all labels and knowledge of which language they are writing in. That should allow them to write messages that get pictures added along with the best translation so far.
See how far they can get toward developing a universal translator and using it to converse and tell stories about themselves.
You might want to bootstrap it by initializing the database with lots of pictures and having two groups get a lot of words entered. That way when you go out to many languages, they won't have to spend as much time entering pictures, and focus on the labelling of pictures in their own language.
After labelling noun objects, they could do adjectives by labelling sets of objects shown together for contrast - different colored objects, different shaped objects, etc.
Same idea for verbs - label action pictures like "Boy throws ball", "girl chases chicken".
Obviously they'll need some sort of forum to "chat" in - perhaps a simplistic 2D "world" that they can fill with pictures (as part of the labelling process) and areas where they can chat are just special rooms where 2 to 4 kids can enter at a time, each with a few lines to display the text (or graphic when no translation is available). All screens would have a picture dictionary available.
After the experiment, roll the software out to anyone with a communicating computer or hand-held (open-source Java for most of it, so any company can translate it for their device), and let it continue to evolve.
Well, that's pretty crazy, but it might work. I wonder if the original poster will see it way down here?
whos talking about solutions for anyone...
CONSUMERS are what will save the future. Doncha know... look at the US - if you wanna be patriotic and show your support for the bombing of the rich kids in afghanistan from marin - then get out there and BUY BUY BUY.
as long as they are spending their money on products and not useless crap like food then the future is great.... for corps anyway.
.
Make the theme global warming. Our generation has little motivation to deal with it, and there are few opportunities to find out whether the next one cares any more than we do (read: in the US).
It seems to me that the 2 days would do most to 'change the world' if it utilized the information collected over a longer period of time. The point therefore is not to change/educate the children, the point is to do so for a significant part of the world's population. (define the audience: will significance be evidenced in number of individuals, or significance be evidenced in few but powerful?)
Global warming is a scenario which the world is confronting based on its risk taking/risk aversion. Those that are least able to avoid reprocussions, are also less likely to accept risk. Those that have most to gain, or can pawn off their liability, (or maybe feel they have nothing left to lose) are most likely to take the gamble.
One can imagine interesting games with this scenario: would the kids in the hurricane-prone Caribbean be more averse? would the kids in the northern US be more reckless? how would the strategies differ by family status or cultural perceptions of community/responsibility? Would the results be the same after an intervention informing the actors of the effects their strategies were having on others? After an intervention with incomplete information? After an intervention with a reshuffling of 'risk'? The outcomes would be an interesting lesson for all of us.
"You teach best, that which you most need to learn" -R.Bach
A zero sum game is a game that, by defination, someone is going to lose. Chess is a zero sum game. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ZESUGAM.html for more details.
/ ze rosum.html is a longer read with some more complex games. Well worth the time.
h tm
Non-zero sum games are something else altogether.
http://www.winwenger.com/part37.htm is a good read on this subject with an extremely simple zero sum game (on page 2)
http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/eco/game
If you want some deeper insight, try http://ubmail.ubalt.edu/~harsham/opre640A/partVI.
No Zen is good zen
How about some sort of cooperative multiplayer game?
i cant imagine if i read this online or dreamt it... build a system of thousands of inexpensive little anti-landmine drones that each have those tiny TCP/IP stacks built in.. design a game where the children remotely guide these drones to disable mines in afghanistan. each child gets points for their mines and the one with the most points wins a .. landmine.. or something.
Its also a shame that so many of us will talk about world hunger, but when it comes to actually doing something about it only the bold rise to the occasion.
If all else fails, Type "Format C:"
I know that this may seem optimistic... but here is my thoughts
Having children connected electronically does present the opportunity for change.
Since most children are still innocent, they could learn at an early age how to cooperate with each other. The future lies in the hands of the children. If they learn to work together and overcome differences, our lives will eventually turn towards the better.
If all else fails, Type "Format C:"
Tracking database
PDA, accessories, shipping ($500)
Regular personal contact, otherwise the system needs to be completely self-explanatory for the children. At best, the programming will be non-trivial... actually, it would be revolutionary
Continuous (?) wireless link
In 3 years? Whew! That's ambitious.
But, you can usually cut project time by increasing project fundingI agree with the comments about not making it "cultural;" let the kids figure out how to ask what life's like for the other kids, if they want- don't force it on them, or you'll only reinforce stereotypes.
More importantly, in designing the overall setup for the PDA (or whatever the heck you're using), please do some real UI (interaction) research. With only 2 days, you'll want a *very* consistent system that'll be easy for everyone to acquire.
Kids acclimate faster than adults, so don't sweat too much familiarity- just keep it simple and consistent enough that it needs little introduction.
Jef Raskin's book would be a good place to start- many of the concepts feel "weird" to a geek, as the go against the grain of our familiarity, but they've been lab-tested on the uninitiated. Still, Raskin *is* a believer in training-before-use (one of the reasons I like him), so a guy like Tog might have more to say about rapidly-acquirable designs. I don't think kids have that much trouble with acquisition, though- plenty of them could pick up the Apple II or C64 in its day, and you'll lose a lot from over-cutifying the project. (Still, you do need to cater equally to female modes of interaction, something that hasn't been done in the past, and I'm not sure what the current opinion is there- girls are said to be more/less visual or verbal than boys..?)
In fact, that last point might be an interesting point of research- divvy up each national group into a few sets, and try, say, 4-5 different interaction models, pooling the results to see what the best 'internationalized' design might be..
My advice: in planning this, take away the "gee-whiz" factor of PDAs, "mediaglyphs"... technology itself. If this project is to lead to some increasing change, then it must be, in the words of Freemon Dyson, "auto-catalytic"- that is, there must be some ongoing and increasing incentive, or fulfillment of a human want, for people to join and contribute to the momentum of change. The Gremane (sp?) Bank is Dyson's prime example of a successful "auto-catalytic" organization (it's a bank started by a Bengladeshi economist that loans money to groups of 3 women at a time). Growth implies geometric change. Also, most people (including children) are sheep. How are you going to attract the motivated kids in these countries? Maybe you could push this project more in a hacker direction, and organize the young 31337 to create a highly-publicized event (the World Game is a cool idea, but who is going to pay attention to it in the media, unless it interacts with the real world somehow). I'm pretty cynical about the potential of having children be a test-set, but it is cool to think of the project as an opportunity to mentor bright children from diverse backgrounds.
Show the army children what children in other parts of the world are studying at their age--do it on a country by country basis.
The interactive "show" should probably focus on subjects such as physics, math and logic. Explain why children in those countries are expected to learn those topics and how they learn them.
Topics such as world history and literature
may cause scandal-- thinking here of current Japanese textbooks and their descriptions of WWII/ Japan's occupation of Korea occupation/the Nanjing massacre.
Include a test engine in the PDA that would let the kids try their hand at other nations's math and science tests at their age level.
This would of course be unpopular for kids in the USA but might be fascinating for kids elsewhere.
Oh how little do Americans know about what people around the world are learning.
Just manipulate the minds of a few tousand
kids around the world and you have taken a
giant step towards world domination.
How about creating a device with a web cam and the ability for each child to deliever a shock to anyone of the 2999 other kids (ala the old episode of the simpsons). Also have some sort of simple game where they win shock credits which allows them to deliever a shock to anyone they want and watch the response via streaming video.
Why waste so much money on technology, when you could use this undecent amount to teach children from third-part world how to grow crops efficiently, how to protect themselves from nasty things (think AIDS, but also parasites whose symptoms are still considered in some places as demoniac possession), how to stop thinking of a better world and start builing it?
No, no, don't answer, it's pretty clear: doing so won't add to your sponsors installed customers.
Hi, i'm IT Manager for eircom Ennis Information Age Town, we are the world's biggest community based IT project (that I know of) - http://www.ennis.ie
We are involved in providing technological information, aids and supports to the local community. This means everybody acrros the board, from primary school kids (5-12) to secondary school kids. From the smallest community group or charity to the biggest industrial company and everybody in between. We have been doing this now for over three years on a shoestring budget (£15m Irish to be spent over 5 years). The one thing that I've drawn from all of the reaction that we have got, is the need to communicate. Not only with the local populace, but also the world beyond. They (the community) have so many stories to tell and so many different ways of surprising you that you will never be able to cater to everybody. There's a vibe in Ireland at the moment that we are now (post euro) a part of something much bigger (Europe) rather than being just an Island on the edge of the world. We are now more than ever looking abroad to our neighbours for, well, for neighbours. To do what neighbours should do, have a chat, cup of tea (in a national sense, if that makes any sense???). With that in mind...
I do think that your project should be some sort of communication device, It should be for the 8-13 year age group, they will be your most responsive. But you must be prepared to gather as much information as possible from everything that happens. Don't let anything be lost. No matter how small. Think about it like this, in fifty years, or a hundred years, the most informative source of social history isn't going to be the media (newspapers, print, tv, net sites et.al) it'll be the people's own opinions, their reactions. The focus should be on the kids and their actions and reactions. Get them to talk, to interact and listen. From what they give back, there's "gold in them thar' hills".
From a technical point of view there are a few things to consider: Are PDAs the way to go, would the web combined with something like the "soon to be unveiled" electronic paper combined with PDAs be enough, are there other mediums to consider besides the printed (albeit iconic) word. How about video, by 2005 3G will be rolled out to wireless devices, at least in Ireland and the UK anyway. And with the Japanese taking an active interest in Europe the push will be on for this to happen much quicker than that.
Think about the way that kids interact, they play. By playing they bond and grow. Online gaming of a "safe" kind has to be considered. Harry Potter is the biggest weapon us Adults have with our kids today. Take the kids to another land, enchant them, then you can't fail. Just find the hook, that clever piece of marketing that will grab their imagination and will build up the two days in 2005 to be the most important two days of their life.
sic transit biscuitus
2) If the things are worth making, the potential market is 300,000,000. If they are not worth making, then DONT MAKE THEM!
3) If you want a glyph language, the Chinese already have an open source, fully debugged one. Don't try out a completely untested Alpha version on non-english speaking kids - it wont work.
4) You might as well use English anyway. All kids speak English, everywhere, cos "The Simpsons" is in English (and, I am told, so is Gangsta Rap, although I am not so sure :-).
5) Make it a condition of the design/manufacture that the architecture is open source, so everyone can make compatibles if they feel like it. That way it will have a future, and there will be some merits in investing time and effort in learning to use it.
6) Why reinvent the wheel? Why not use an existing model whis is already tested? Get Psion to sell you a job lot of their old models? Or what about that Russian thingie designed for kids.
7) Actually, the whole project is a bunch of @#%£, because kids all over the world are already communicating with each other by e-mail. Even the most remote parts of the world DO have e-mail, and its far cheaper than phone calls. Of course in poorer parts of the world, the facility is shared. Its not a problem - most of the poorer parts of the world have cultures that can handle the idea of sharing something. Its the rich bits that have trouble with the concept of sharing.
8) If you want to 3000 kids from all parts of the world together in one group, why not get two secondary schools from East London to merge.
Seems to me that if this is going to be PDA based, why re-invent the wheel? Have a look at www.simputer.org, and see if their aims and technology fit well enough. Invest in them (better than throwing money into already rich corps) and use the rest to provide ONGOING support for the participants - 2 days of intense activity makes a media event, 2 months of involvement makes personal/community change!
I'm not connected with Simputer in anyway...blah blah blah... except for being on the same wavelength and planet!
As for the "damage" you say might be done -- damage of what sort? Even if this is a "pure PR exercise", where's the damage?
A very simple implication: technological superiority == cultural superiority
If a third worlder sees this techno-gadget and realizes loads of cash are being spent on letting him play with it, rather than spending it on feeding his hometown, what's the implication?
Whatever's going on there must be mighty important, therefore worth it, therefore somehow superior.
The baby milk formula is actually an excellent example. You say
...determines that the risk is worth taking...
Well then please explain to me how an uneducated third world mother with no medical background can determine wether that baby milk formula is any good for her child? She can't, as millions of examples have proven.
Furthermore, getting back to my first point, she especially can't determine that, if loads of (multinational-company-sponsored) people in white doctor-like lab coats run around and tell her to use it, because it would be better for her child. Because she perceives these people as figures of authority. Why? Because the very same people (first worlders) come to her country with all these superior gadgets, cars, you-name-it.
The conclusion drawn? They must be superior, consequently the culture/society that produces such a technological superiority must be better/superior.
They are willing to throw their own culture overboard, that is the damage done.
Have you ever been to Nepal for example? I have. These people are truly happy, you can see it in their faces. Yet when I tell them that I come from Germany, their faces are awestruck and they say "Wow, what a great country.". Well what they don't know for example is that we have about 15.000 people a year committing suicide in this country, because of their genuine unhappiness. AFAIK suicide is practically unknown in Nepal.
Still think our culture is superior? I'm not so sure. But this is getting off-topic...
Idempotent operation: Like MS software, wether you run it once or often, that doesn't make it any better.
This is indeed a chance to develop Media Glyphs. Though handicaped people have used similar systems to communicate with small icons and pointing. So, there is background for this type of thing already.
I think the world needs a "system" like that. I think it will accelerate learning in many ways. Not just languages.
Two days doesn't seem long enough.
We should help them out by preparing downloadable plans for building a PDA. Then one of the kids can load the plans into their PDA and transmit them for "mass manufacturing".
Next give one of those PDAs to each of the participating kids, so they all get to take one home.
It would be helpful to have the equivalent of "traceroute" which would reach down to the next level of this "manufacturing" technology, analyze the tech, and emit plans for manufacturing more. So all the kids can also take home their own manufacturing plant.
I hope Barney(Bhar'nee) is not at the centre of this
childrens get together...
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
Remember spidergoats? Let's make sure that the next generation can shoot webs from their nipples.
I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into me--and we both winked.
Seriously, one very useful aspect of Nell's Primer (in "The Diamond Age") is the way that the stories (Dojo the Mouse and Dinosaur, ant arithmetic, Castle Turing, etc.) were localised mappings of what were described as universal folklore and fairy tales.
If this project could dig up useful and practical examples of retargettable folklore, we could get over the "cultural differences" obstacle.
All we need is a few good ractors who are willing to put in the overtime and talk like a Vicky.
I've tried not to spoil this for anyone who hasn't yet read The Diamond Age (a real spoiler would be to describe the re-appearance of a character from Snow Crash - if you liked Snow Crash it's worth reading TDA just for that!)
An important aspect of how the Primer related to the human characters in TDA, was the fact that (from Hackworth's initial design) 3 primers were made, given to 3 girls of similar age, but used very differently.
All the adults involved (especially Dr. X) were surprised that the ractor was so important to the development of the child. Nell's primer was the only successful one, because of the constant presence of the ractor who opted in to a contract to perform all of the spoken word on her primer (she effectively became Nell's mother). The other 2 primers all had different ractors, contracted on demand, with no constant parental presence.
Obvious moral: the [TV|PC|PS2|GBA] will not replace a proper parent, so log out of that Burly Scudd ractive now, and raise yer damn kids right!
Teach them to use their own brains and not become parts of PR stunt for people who have more dollars than sense. Teach them that marketing and advertising are a capitalistic evil. Teach them to think for themselves.
In order to get through the human language barrier, create a GUI front end to some sort of database. The kids click on sequences of scrollably-selected word buttons at the right of the client screen in order to describe pictures. It might be a good idea to start with a long list of nouns and verbs and adjectives and then put together a two dimensional array wherein each column is for a human language, and each row is for a word. I can't see why 16-bit ISO character sets can't interoperate in such a situation. Some nuances of word meanings will get lost, but that is hardly the point. The kids could name their pictures using the GUI (choosing buttons), and then they could use search tools on this internationalized human-word database to find pictures drawn by other kids. For safety's sake, maybe an alteration of Gnutella's standard behaviors could be deployed, using a different "socket space" over TCP/IP or perhaps inserting a "nanny protocol" layer in there. Then again, with only several nodes, a virtual private network could be used without too much trouble.
Getting back to the user interface, highly simplified labels like "fast big truck" could be used as a label for a drawing a kid makes of a monster truck. The kid would just look up three words from the list: fast, big and truck. Let's say that someone correct him through the protocol and suggests actually using the word, monster. Kids could possibly ask each other things about what they drew, using the GUI "babble fish" for the dialogue.
If the project is developed under the GPL, of course this could be extensible, and it would be international in the first place. If, say, $3,000,000 is allocated, you never know. Maybe the funding/managing entity could hire a team of about 12 coders and 6 linguists full time and then leverage Open Source. If it takes 3 years, that means 54 person-years' worth of salary. At U.S. $50,000/year each (a bit steep for the not-for-profit sector), there would be money left over for overhead and for necessary hardware (which, by the deployment date, should be darned cheap).
I think it should be cheaper yet. If there is still money left over, send it to computers-for-poor-kids programs.
Why not just give them all a hiptop?
A picture is worth a thousand words...in any language.
-Ross