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Web-Surfing Indian Slum Kids Ask: "What's a Computer"
chaoticset writes "An experiment in minimally directed self-learning has been going fairly well, from the article: To test his ideas, Sugata Mitra launched something 13 months ago he calls "the hole in the wall experiment." He took a PC connected to a high-speed data connection and imbedded it in a concrete wall next to NIIT's headquarters in the south end of New Delhi. The wall separates the company's grounds from a garbage-strewn empty lot used by the poor as a public bathroom. Mitra simply left the computer on, connected to the Internet, and allowed any passerby to play with it...he discovered was that the most avid users of the machine were ghetto kids aged 6 to 12, most of whom have only the most rudimentary education and little knowledge of English. Yet within days, the kids had taught themselves to draw on the computer and to browse the Net." Update: 04/17 22:23 GMT by M : Mitra has a website about his experiments.
Reminds me oddly of the book version of 2001... Forcing a bit of odd westernization-evolution on the kids...
Like with photoshop? Or with a can of spray paint?
when the machine wouldn't acknowledge their parent-induced handicaps such as missing limbs and blindness. They proceeded to recite curses at which point Windows crashed.
Those Hindu gods are some tough bastards.
It's running Windows. I hope that slum has a license.
That people are learning so quickly on computers. Perhaps it's the missing link in quick education, we could probably educate the "ghetto" areas very quickly then.
I'd be interested in seeing a learning curve for teachers vs. computers, and in self-learning vs. independant.
Perhaps practical education is MUCH better than being taught, which would show that our education system is very unefficient...
Shouldn't you call them "Natives" instead of "Indians?"
:)
Political correctness.
now i have to move to new delhi for a high speed uncapped connection...grrr
You know, I felt discouraged with all of the dot-com bombs. It seemed as if the promise of the Internet was over.
:)
:)
It's these things that remind me what the Internet is all about: learning and communication. It's not about making money (although that might work for some people). It's just about making the world a better place, one page at a time.
This is seriously cool. Nobel Internet Peace Prize anyone?
qslack.com
I'm picturing a ghetto kid, shoeless, standing in front of this magical screen embedded in a dingy concrete wall, and saying:
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...
Yet our organization still has full-grown, western-educated employees who hold the fucking mouse upside-down.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
--
Mitra has a website about his experiments.
--
Not anymore he doesn't...
------
The computers used for the kiosks are all Pentium PCs with color monitors and multimedia support. The operating system is Windows(TM) (9x/NT) and the Internet browser is MS Internet Explorer(TM).
As you might imagine, deploying Internet kiosks in economically backward parts of India is not quite simple. Besides the lack of infrastructure, the other challenges include providing a low-cost solution that can withstand harsh conditions like dust and extreme temperatures, and a kiosk that can be remotely administered. These and other similar requirements have led to the design for a Cognitive Kiosk for Rural, Outdoor, Tropical Environment (patent pending).
An early prototype of the Hole-In-The-Wall kiosk
Listed below are some of the typical problems encountered while deploying the Hole-In-the-Wall kiosk:
Internet Connectivity
Input Device
Administration
Heat and Dust
Security
Internet Connectivity
Internet connectivity to the kiosks has been provided using various methods including leased lines, ISDN lines and Dial-up connections. Internet access in India is at a nascent stage due to inadequate telecommunications infrastructure. Some kiosk installations have been at places that don't even have phone lines. In such cases, the computers use cached web content to simulate web access. Besides this, a host of edutainment software is installed that has actually proved to be quite popular. Future design includes experimenting with remote connectivity with Wireless LAN and Wireless Telephone Line Extender.
Back
Input Device
Keyboard
There is no keyboard available to the users. This is due to the concern of vandalism. Also, it is anticipated that there would be high level of wear and tear of keys as the device is susceptible to dust, especially as the dust particles have an abrasive quality here. All this meant that the cost of maintenance of a keyboard were unacceptably high. Trials are on to see if virtual keyboards can be used.
Pointing Device
Touch pads were used as the pointing device during the early experiments. The touch pads were found to be wearing out quite fast or being accidentally broken by the kids. On an average the life of a touch pad was approximately 1 month. To avoid this frequent replacement of touch pads, a JoyStick Mouse was devised at CRCS. This device has a joystick control for the movement of the cursor, and a button each for left and right click. This JoyStick Mouse is quite a sturdy pointing device that is low-cost. Moreover, it requires little maintenance as compared to the touch pads.
Back
Administration
Though remote administration software tools have been used in some cases, by and large, the task of administering the kiosk is accomplished manually at this point in time. But work has already begun on a Central Control Website through which it will be possible remotely administer all the kiosks that are online. The plan envisages kiosks that have embedded controllers connected to the computer giving details of the ambient variants such as temperature and humidity. The kiosks will also record the status of UPS/batteries. These records will be put on the Central Control Website, where the central observer can take actions according to the requirements. The idea of a kiosk reporting it's own "health problems", is what drives this effort.
Back
Heat and Dust
To cope with the high summer temperatures, the computers are housed in a brick enclosure with thicker-than-normal walls. The enclosure that has dust filters, also minimises the dust from the dry winds. Initial experiments tried air-conditioning for tackling the heat but that turned out to be too expensive an option. It has been observed that the computers' performance is affected only marginally by the high temperatures. Therefore, for the moment, only ventillating fans have been used to maintain ambient temperature. The ventillating fans also serve to maintain positive air pressure inside the kiosk. Blowing air with high pressure checks the entry of dust particles in case of minor cracks or holes in the kiosk.
Back
Security
The kiosks are unmanned and, therefore, require means for the safe-keeping of all the expensive hardware. The Hole-In-The-Wall kiosks have in-built security system the details of which cannot be divulged for obvious reasons.
Back
Seems to me like more of a sociology experiment than anything...
I wonder if any prominent sociological societies or groups are aware of this project and its collected data?
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
http://www.indiago.org/images/projects/slum2.jpg
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
While the experiment sounds interesting, I have this weird feeling that the IRBs might have a few issues with this type of experiment if they were run in the United States (and by experiment, I mean controlled study run through a university). Now, the weird feeling stems from the fact that one would potentially have to answer a few questions about using human beings as unaware subjects.
I am not saying that there are a not great deal of potential positives form this type of "experiment" as well. I just want to point out that there might be some ethical issues. I am sure there are some simple arguements that can point out the cost to implement the hole in the wall system vs. the cost to feed/educate/clothe a number of children. (The counter arguement states that if a single child is able to rise out of poverty due to the exposure to technology, the purely economic analysis states that the experiment was a win...)
The groaning aside, it is again amazing that kids will figure out how to use stuff. It does not seem to matter who the kids are or what the stuff is, they seem to figure out how to use it.
This company (NIIT) is well known as one of the farms for H1-Bs - (e.g. Learn HTML in 21 days and go to America). No joke - if you visit India, you see advertisements like this. They're obviously trying to get an aura of semi-legitimacy by publishing this pseudo-scientific study. Their marketing is well known, their courses - dubious at best. For example, my cousing was offered one of their courses as part of their SWIFT Start program (check out http://www.rediff.com/computer/1999/sep/04niit.htm ) a few years ago. Would go because he thought it was a useless bunch of crap.
Would be like IIT here coming out with a "study" based on putting a computer kiosk in South Central. Wait a minute, I'd like to see that....
So what's their connection at?
I bet its the good old fashiond 65 baud tin can and string.
Imagine a Bhagavad-Gita cluster of these!
I wonder if there is any hope for the clueless nimrods I have to support? Nah, since no one that calls me has any desire to learn.
Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?
From the article:
Minimally Invasive Education (MIE) is a pedagogic method and derives its name partly from the medical term minimally invasive surgery. MIE believes that in the absence of any directed input, any learning environment that provides adequate level of curiosity can cause learning.
This is not a new theory, ./'ers. People have been teaching themselves all along - indeed, our school system is the newcomer to the scene. Read, oh, "A People's History of the United States"... but I'm drifting off my topic...
An education system such as this already exists in the States. It's called "unschooling". Give the child materials to learn with, help learning when they need it, and said child will actually teach themselves.
Children are supposedly "lazy" and "not wanting to learn" because they've been forced into it by repetitive cookie-cutter education. This study just gives an old technique a new and more politically-correct name - "unschooling" pisses off the NEA.
You mean the foot pedal?
The children were sorely disappointed when the machine wouldn't acknowledge their parent-induced handicaps such as missing limbs and blindness.
When it comes to the Internet, blindness is a handicap (now that much of the web is moving to Flash and that Flash MX's accessibility features have not come into wide use), but not having legs isn't nearly as much of a handicap, especially when you can prop yourself up and use the computer that way.
Will I retire or break 10K?
We're amazed that a bunch of kids in India can use the web, but have no trouble believing that a survivor of war-torn Afghanistan can (a) get a Commodore on the 'net and (b) emails Jon Katz when he does.
So.. um, how do you say "slashdotted" in Hindu?
Did anyone else read the title on this and think they'd accidentally gone to The Onion instead of slashdot?
What amused me the most was the comment about the kids doing things that adults couldn't understand. Children learn at a faster rate than adults, especially it seems where technology is concerned. This can be seen by looking at the case of programming a video. In most households it is the children who are most able to use technology to its fullest.
I would be interested to know whether a childs ability to learn how to use computers (or other technology) is to do with their natural inquisitiveness and readiness to try new things(as opposed to the technophobia that many older people show), or whether there is some sort of 'critical period' (such as for syntax) after which it becomes more difficult to learn such things. This study would seem to suggest that it is not only the increasing contact with computers that makes children more skilled in their use, since these are kids who have never seen (or heard of) computers before.
The computers used for the kiosks are all Pentium PCs with color monitors and multimedia support. The operating system is Windows(TM) (9x/NT) and the Internet browser is MS Internet Explorer(TM).
/.?
"...he discovered was that the most avid users of the machine were ghetto kids aged 6 to 12, most of whom have only the most rudimentary education and little knowledge of English. Yet within days, the kids had taught themselves to draw on the computer and to browse the Net."
How long did it take them to learn how to install the Critical Update of the Day?
How long to learn how to h4x0r an unpatched IIS server they came across while surfing?
How long to discover and start trolling on
How long to discover Usenet and make their first "Me too!" post?
Like with photoshop? Or with a can of spray paint?
Closer to the former. Read the article: "And they would use [Microsoft] Paint. It's very, very popular with all of them."
Will I retire or break 10K?
Children have the most curiosity, and the littlest fear. They will try things that people who have experienced negative results previously may not. For example: my 2 year old son can play Halo better than I can, not because I'm bad at video games but because I cannot adapt to the controls and controller the way he can. I'm still stuck in the quake mouse + keyboard point of mind.
So what's their connection at? I bet its the good old fashiond 65 baud tin can and string.
Hardly an acoustic coupler. From the article:
The following was more interesting:
That must be a pretty d*ng big cache. How many clicks is it from the average US site to WinMX.com or Kazaa.com? (WinMX and Kazaa are two popular P2P file-sharing apps for Windows.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
That was my
That did seem kind of strange.
On one hand there is the tech industry making jokes about how stupid users are and on the other hand you have this, proving that the tech industry is often full of themselves.
Computers don't need to be made difficult to make use of, but the tech industry needs them to be more complicated than what is needed to get the job done.
How else can those in the tech industry make themselves feel.....impotent...
Before moding this down, consider your gandmother usings Windows.....for the first time.
I heard that they are great in ASF HTTP Server administration. I wonder why.
(Or are they Indians from Indies? Damn you Cristoforo Colombo!)
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
It is not an experiment. It is only Micro$oft running a successful ad campaign in a market that has 1.3 billion potential customers. And we're all impressed.
Veni, vidi, vici.
There are some wonderful observations for educators and those providing government funding for educational infrastructure from the Hole-In-the-Wall experiment.
Perhaps one of the most important observations made by Dr. Mitra was, "The terminology is not as important as the metaphor."
Metaphors, by their nature are transformational. As Marshall McLuhan wrote in Understanding Media, "All media are active metaphors in their power to translate experience into new forms."
(By "medium," McLuhan means anything that we conceive or create - tangible or intangible, everything from tables to televisions to televangelists. The "message" of a medium is the set of effects or changes that the medium will induce in us, our society or culture.)
In this case, the Indian children used metaphors to which they could relate to effect changes in, and transform, the way they experienced common-place life: Indian music, letters, Shiva's drum and so forth. In doing so, they will tend to view the rest of the world through changed eyes, and will undoubtedly "demand" (even tacitly through imagination) these new experiences. They will likely be dissatisfied with the conventional approach to instruction, perhaps preferring more self-guided, exploration and discovery-based education. What effects might this have on the educational system in India? What effects will this have on educators in North America and Europe who will be forced to confront massive investments in seemingly unnecessary "computer literacy" programs. How can approaches to adult education take advantage of child-like curiosity and discovery?
In the graduate-level course I teach, the majority of the course is discovery and exploration. Where we end up at the end of each seminar is largely irrelevant. If we reach a point of being able to ask a profound question as a "conclusion," the seminar is a resounding success. As seen with these Indian children and Dr. Mitra's brilliant experiment, "The teacher's job is very simple. It's to help the children ask the right questions." To which I would add, adult learners, too.
its interesting...
One could never do this experiement (as
presented) in the United States (and
probably other. more controlled societies
as well) because you couldn't get Human
Subjects Approval with out informed
consent.
It would be interesting to get some sort of
grip the real long term effects on the
kids will be.
And it got peed on.
not_cub
q='echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"';s=\';b=\\;echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"
It reverses the direction of the x and y axes. It's like moving the cursor around on a lever.
in that "Hackers" book by Stephen Levy .. but i dont remember the exact idea ... something in San Francisco and a terminal in the wall -- maybe someone else could elaborate
I agree, but feel your viewpoint is a little extreme :)
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
actually its about keeping government agencies and universities connected (DARPA Net).
it's nice to bring your ideas to the table, but the net is all about 3 things.
1. Commerce - self explanatory
2. Self Glorification - Personal web page? yeah like you weren't trying to show off (unless its just a resume which is practical) (btw, i don't mind showing off).
3. Communication - Communicating between different groups for BAD OR GOOD, whether world peace ensues is not the net's concern
Photos.
Maybe it was the same guy, but i read about this experiment years ago. I think it happened in St. Louis, by accident. It was mentioned in a book by Jonothan Kozol, "Savage Inequalities". The point the author stressed is that they kept asking Yahoo about Disney. Creepy. But children with no exposure to technology figured out how to use a computer, even if they were just looking for disney info.....it was only their beginning.
What they'd do with a Beowulf cluster!
(go ahead, mod me, i'm at the cap)
...is irrelevant. *What* information is what is important. I can find anything and everything I need to on the net, what I can't find is WHAT to look for. Don't teach kinds facts and figures, teach kinds how to know what facts and figures they should be looking for!
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
No, there won't be a linux version. The engine is heavily reliant on windows. Trust me.
UT was better than Quake 3. We got Q3. Did we get UT? No, we got shafted.
No, wait. I mean... YOU got shafted. I run windows xp! Ha! FAGS!
Also I dual boot FreeBSD for kicks. That, and I had your sister last night. In the pooper, no less!
I wonder if public school ever was supposed to be actually educational. But from my experience, at the time I thought of it like day camp. A place to put the kids while the parents worked.
Now I see it as a camp for the indoctrination of culture. The public education system is pretty much the same from here to Alaska (skipping Canada). They have similar course structures, similar standards, etc...
The point is to make the students all have a commonality. More than just living in the same town, state, or country, because those types of bonds aren't strong. Instead, because we share the same educational structure, we learn the same history, take the same tests, and generally learn to approach life the same way. Public School itself is another bond. No matter what state you go to, you can always find people to b*tch about the crappy public school system with.
But looking outside the mandated structures, the school itself is a tool to be accessed by the students (like the terminal from the article). There is a wealth of possibility, not from the courses, but from the things that are ancillary to your report card. The opportunity to contribute to a newspaper, to perform in a play, sing in a chorus, or compete in a sporting event. All these things are available through the school system. The kids who benefit the most from Public School are those that approach it with curiosity.
Sweat
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I happen to live in a small town where a lot of the population are what we call "fisher people"; meaning that one (or less) generations ago they lived on fishing boats, which are their livelyhood, and had little education.
Today the kids do go to school, and have TV and everything but life is still pretty simple for them and your typical fisher family would not have access to a PC. (though dad probably has some fancy sonar and radar on the boat)
Well our public post offices now have free Internet Kiosks as part of a "internet for all" program; which is great.
The other day I saw a fisher girl of about 6 in front of the terminal. I was rather surprised and had a sneaking peek over her shoulder to see what was going on.
She had just gone to some web site which for some reason had crashed the browser. So not hesitating she brought up the task manager, killed the hung task, and loaded the browser again to continue.
I have desktop support people who work for me in the office who are not as comfortable doing things like that!
R.
I wonder if more studies like this could in a way greatly effect todays educational system. maybe one that promotes learning through experimentation where teachers become in a way guides and not prison guards force feeding children information whipping them into emotionless drones (yeah there are exceptions but for the most part I'm sure many ppl can relate to this).
))Sideswiped))
I remember seeing on TV about a project done by the UN (in the 60s or 70s I think it was) where they gave poor isolated villages a TV set each, and had it tuned into a specially aired UN channel. Through the TV set the villagers were able to learn significantly better techniques for farming, health and education.
The project was discontinued, and I am unaware of any other similar efforts. Why? Who knows.
Repeat
Kid in slum working on PC w/back to alley...
Gang Banger walks up behind him, knifes kid... takes money... Stacks body in nearby dumpster...
Until
Now if you let the DOJ take it over, then you'd have integrated facial recognition cameras looking over the shoulder of the kid, which would detect the GB coming up, but wouldn't notify anyone because the DOJ is trying to watch the GB to catch bigger fish... Result is the same, but cost is higher...
I hear that Junis has offered some Commodore 64's to help out.
-Sean
...reminds me of how I learned to use a computer. When i was third grade we got a bunch of C64s installed, one per classroom. I was drawn to it and started learning how to use it without really understanding what I was doing, I had a manual, so I had terminology, but I don't think I really understood how the computer worked until later. very rapidly I knew more about the computers than anyone in the school (teachers included) and was actually given time to play with the computer when the rest of the class was working on subjects where I was way ahead (like reading).
Soon I was on call to fix problems in other classrooms with the computers, and in fourth grade I set up a lab of apple II clones by myself.
My parents bought me a c128 and before long i was programming in basic and a little assembler. I was online with qlink too.
Fast foward a few years and now I'm a year out of college with a comp. sci. degree and earning more than at leat 95% of my peers, and I enjoy my job!
These kids are like me in third grade. They don't understand how it works, but they will explore and learn, they may not all grow up to be coders, but they will be better off from the experience.
I think the researcher is underestimating the adults in this experiment. My mom learned how to use a computer like these kids and I did. I set up a computer for her and cut her loose with the advice that she should explore and not be afraid of breaking the computer. About a year later, she bought me a domain for my birthday! and she has one of her own which she uses for her real estate buisiness.
I think if the adults had some motivation and encouragement, atleast some of them would learn to use the computer like the kids do.
Finally, does this remind anyone else of the screen from the Rama series of books by Clarke?
A buddhist walks up to a hot dog stand and says ``Make me one with everything.''
4. Porn
I like petting kittens.
I didn't read anything about analysis of how the kids made the interface do what they wanted. How did their brains interpret seeing a monitor? What happened when they discovered that by touching it the picutre would change? How did they correlate this to tasks?
I'd love to see some analsyes of the very early input queues. Before the click metaphor was learned.
these kids will be able to get an education. Just hope they don't come to slashdot for it ;-)
.... http://www.pornindia.com.
I'd say the experiment was a rip-roaring sucess.
Bringing irony to the Slash-masses
UT runs on Linux.
and q3 mods rock ut mods, especially in terms of cheap cs clones.. urbanterror > tacops.
Woah! You can tell this guy isn't working for an American software company. Must be some sort of radical socialist or something...
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
Within hours, the RIAA had already accused them of pirating music
This is great! Now with all the 6-12 year olds getting free access to the net they can learn about NYC taxi cab rules and apply for their license before they even emmigrate to America! This is wonderful!!
so they dumped a computer in some indian pisslot. i wonder...how many people pissed in the usb ports:O
I wonder if the ghetto kids have figured out that if it all is to count it must be ISO 9001 certified?
Sell the computer, feed the kids. Sheesh.
Just another reminder that it's not the degree you have that counts (though degrees are a good thing), it's what you can figure out / how fast you can learn & adjust to an environment that determines how productive you'll be.
Q: Of all the things the children did and learned, what did you find the most surprising?
A: One day there was a document file on the desktop of the computer. It was called "untitled.doc" and it said in big colorful letters, "I Love India." I couldn't believe it for the simple reason that there was no keyboard on the computer [only a touch screen]. I asked my main assistant -- a young boy, eight years old, the son of a local betel-nut seller -- and I asked him, "How on earth did you do this?" He showed me the character map inside [Microsoft] Word. So he had gotten into the character map inside Word, and dragged and dropped the letters onto the screen, then increased the point size and painted the letters. I was stunned because I didn't know that the character map existed -- and I have a PhD.
...if the Doctor made Slashdot IE's homepage :)
Karma: \Kar"ma\, n. [Skr.] (Buddhism) One's acts considered as fixing one's lot in the future existence.
It is completly sick that they had money to through away on this experiment when there are so many people starving. What's even more sick is that fact that no-one can see this, despite the obvious confrontation of frivolity and innocent poor children.
Isn't western civilization great?
Mr. Allen: I happen to have Marshal McLuhan right here, and he has something he'd like to say to you.
Mr. McLuhan: You've completely misunderstood the meaning of my work. How you could have possibly been made a professor is something that I will never understand.
Hehe. I wish I could have quoted that accurately, but it's been a while since I've seen Annie Hall. I don't actually think you misunderstood anything.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Never mind the review board. I say: Just put in a clickthru agreement. This is cyberspace, after all.
Amanb, I feel your moderated pain. The two comments that know the difference between hindi and a hindu *both* got moderated down. Time to start up the metamod again...
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Manipulative Americans Reply: It's In My Pants, Take a Look!
>The teacher's job is very simple. It's to help >the children ask the right questions
The teacher's basic job is to teach.
That second sentence sounds wonderful
but means absolutely diddly.
Its funny how techies love to find 'new and better' ways... (we wont have any classrooms, the kids will find all the information on the net. It'll just ooze into their brains.)
Look, if youre teaching trig, spanish, chemistry, or any other subject you have to teach it first before they can interact in the fashion you pseudo-described.
You have a Spanish class and no one knows spanish, sure they can ask questions but no matter how many questions they ask, they wont learn squat if there is no teaching (and a good eaching plan) involved.
Govt. study some 10 years agoa showed that it takes 17 hours to learn Windows and 5 hours to learn the Mac OS.
The first batch of MCSE graduates are due any time now...
Would you like to join my libertarian individualist commune? If you join now, you can come to Saturday's meeting to vote on a uniform.
So if I plug my "clicky-mover" into the "whirring-clanky-thing" and watch videos on the "colorful-eyesquare" I'm computer literate? What happened to standardization of language? Imagine how many variants kids could come up with? We need some sort of standardizytion to be able to exchange data across worldwide mediums. Or?
Hello my little fella,
If you are reading this message from one of those kiosks in India, here is an advice for you from an elder:
GET A LIFE!! Leave this computer shit.
I think this is a great idea. And the way they implemented it - beautiful. Real DIY -attitude!
:)
I'm not a "hippie" myself. I don't like most of the people (I love them though, enough not to kill them) in this world, but...
If somebody would like to start a project with me, which would produce a easy-to-install/easy-to-configure/lo-fi (just think about all those 386/486/Pentiums) Linux (or?) distribution which would be made for people in 3rd world countries and poor people in general - I would be very very in to it
Way to go!,
-- Mikko
where a couple of years ago, my next door neighbor decided to throw away his entire old Mac setup, including the monitor, modem, keyboard, mouse, and all of the cables. Everything worked - I grabbed it when I got home. The local kids' response? To spraypaint black graffitti on the monitor. No one thought to take it and play with it, and I'm pretty sure that it this neighborhood computer ownership was pretty low.
one could also reason that these technologies need to be protected from some company that wants to make money with it.
as far as i understand, patents are meant to protect the inventors, and this is IMHO a clear cut case of a good use for a patent. the people that conduct this research appear trustworthy to me. i'd rather have them hold the patent to this setup than let some big company steal it away.
I was stunned because I didn't know that the character map existed -- and I have a PhD.
"and I have a PhD"....hahaha.
That is truly funny.
The image of a huge wall that separates a handful of elite technologists from people who live in such abject poverty and squalor that they use this vacant lot as an open-air toilet is incredibly disturbing.
From a typical techno-geek perspective, yes this is an interesting experiment. But take a step back. Psychosocial experiments, especially those involving children, have strict ethical protocols that must be followed -- at least in North America and Europe they do. Was this a relatively benign experiment? It sounds like it was (the site is down so I can't say one way or the other) but that is not the issue. One of the key principles in experimentation is informed participation, and minors cannot give consent to participate. The purpose is to prevent exploitation.
Food, shelter and decent living conditions come far higher on my list of priorities than learning how to surf the Web. I wonder if the experimenter thought about what the potential health consequences might be for children spending more time hanging around such unsanitary conditions as a result of his kiosk.
Technology does not exist for technology's sake. At it's best, technology exists to improve people's lives.
Perhaps NIIT should see what it can do to improve lives and alleviate the misery in the slums that surround its campus instead of sticking Web terminals into walls to see how the local troglodyte children react to it while standing ankle-deep in human waste.
Where are the Linux distros, that work with 4MB? I was looking for one (for my old notebook), but it seems they're hardly available. They would be great to recycle old 386s und 486s...
ANYONE that says linux doesn't really need to pay much attention to cut and paste uniformity in the GUI is alienating all these people, as you cannot explain the intricacies of Gnome/KDE peculiarities with cut and paste to illiterate people that don't know their own language, not to mention English. This experiment is a vindication of the usability supremacy of GUI for internationalised systems, The same way even an illiterate kid in Delhi can appreciate the finest van Gogh painting.
I'm not dissin' KDE or Gnome, just saying that what you're doing is important, and that you need to understand that there are a lot of people that when the GUI crashes, or the core dumps or a buffer overflow's exploited they WILL hit the reboot switch. Stability stability stability.
S'il vous plait mountee /dev/hda1
Vous etes certainment? Oui ou Non
Il y a un dump de la core, vous pouvez debuggez?
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
I have spent the last 4 years in college (thats not Univercity in the UK) doing various diffrent courseses, have i learnt anything usefull? er not really, well not during classes anyway, all my real knoledge has come from breeaking, fixing, tinkering with computers, the thing that i have learnt from college are all social skills, its been a time to find out about my self, and make some really good freinds, and thats what education systems have been about for me, not the gaining of knoledge but learing live with other people.
Burt "Out of my mind back in 5 minutes"
Then wait and see which one gets the most attention and watch how they are used by kids who have no prior exposure to any computer GUI.
That should tell us something about intuitive GUIs.
Idempotent operation: Like MS software, wether you run it once or often, that doesn't make it any better.
Many adults have technophobia which causes them to get a mental block the moment you say "operating system".
India is a nuclear power that has its own space programme and develops its own attack helicopters. And yards away from those hitech compounds you have kids scavenging for food in the dumpsters.
He's convinced that 500 million children could achieve basic computer literacy over the next five years, if the Indian government put 100,000 Net-connected PCs..
This equals 1000 kids per computer per year, right? Do these kids have a good learning curve or are the learning goals set too low?
You do not exist. Go away.
So I suggest we all start donating one of our old 486's together with a NIC with BootROM. Since fast internet access is obviously not a problem, you can set up one giant LTSP terminal server and use cheap workstations as 'things'. All in favor?
before I start getting spam in Indian. "Make cows happy fast." "Increase your spirituality 150% in 5 days or your money back."
Give a boy a computer and he will figure out how to use it so he can download porn.
It's a law of nature.
But he has has very good ideas,like holeinwall pc. i hope he gets more funding. this is not news exactly, though
it is a large training shop whose made a fortune of training MSCP MSCE ETC for fancy fees. they could always do with some publicity.
Their shopfronts are impressive and their rexeptionists are glamaorous. their students are mostly dumb f**ks who couldn't get into engg or professional courses and wandered into this because they wanted to believe the crap they'd be computer professionals. poor sods. (my couzins oneof them and still curses something affwul everytime he hears sees the name).
So this is what those embedded devices are, that everybody is talking about.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
From the interview:
"The answer is that just because a method is economically viable, doesn't mean you shouldn't look for alternatives. A good business is one which provides more and more for less and less. The cost of your goods and services should spiral downwards."
We should be careful not to treat children/humans as test-subjects. I get the feeling the children in India could have been replaced by monkeys, dolphins (change the user interface). FLT
FLT, not just any theorem.
I find this wonderful. One thing you learn very quickly in a society like that is that you can not change the entire society and alleviate poverty.
You have three choices. You can:
a) pretend the poverty doesn't exist, and get caloused,
b) try to make changes from the top, usually to be met with distain and feel like you are hitting your head on a brick wall,
c) help people one at a time, or a few at a time.
by providing these kids with a little insight into computers and the internet, they discovered that there was opportunity out there. It would be a big step for a street-kid in India to manage to get an education enough to get into the anything computer related, but without the knowledge that such things existed, there would be no motivation either.
I see the analogy similar to giving the kids a soccer ball. They have fun, they exercise, and they learn a little of what the game is like. They may have goals of becoming a professional player which they wouldn't have without the ball.
Michael
We don't need no BSOD.
We dont need no Microsoft.
Microsoft leave them kids alone,
Hey! Microsoft! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
But Elaine, did you know that he first wasn't going to title it "War and peace", actually he wanted to call it "War, what is it good for?"
Knowledge is the only way out of poverty.
Ignorance is the barrier.
Casper
Kids are learning MACHINES!!!
NIIT has been trotting out this story at every opportunity for something like three years. I know some people who have tried to use NIIT for IT projects but finally just had to let them go. It's weird - they appear to know what they're doing at first but then they act as mystified as you are when their product comes out like nothing you'd told them. They had invested big $$$ in other software companies that made bad and/or overpriced product and then went bellyup, all while layng people off. No Americans left - they got rid of them all I think.
The kids using it place no immediate value on it. There is no sense of destruction with it. The Kids didn't pay for it, their parents didn't save up money for it, so there is no "be careful!" factor involved (as evindenced by the shivpuri results).
Now to those of you who had computers as kids, think of your own past. It was either a gift to you or you were "stealing time" on a machine... You didn't know what you were doing, but you didn't care about doing something wrong. You just did it (and you probably screwed a few things up, too). And you learned from that.
This method of trial and error, the "school of hard knocks" is by far the greatest teacher because that is how human consciousness is wired- to learn and pick up clues on causality from our environment.
To this day, if you ask me how I wrote my CDLI device driver, I'll say "I took some code examples and hacked around until it worked!"
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Now I finally have a snappy comeback for all the labusers who get in my face and tell me how hard computers are and how much they stink.
But seriously, this somehow reminds me of the old Shadowrun covers....
The root is Indu(s) ... people who live around
the Indus river... believed to by coined by traders... not the land of Hindu's, a religion
popular in that region.
"H" is/was silent but just like french (l'Homme) and old english (h'orse). Some Indian dialects still do not have the "H" sound/letter in their language. Off topic, but many dialects also do
not have an S or Z here is the affect that you must have heard.
School, Stop, Station -> subst'with Es -> EsSchool, EsStop, EsStation
Zebra, Zambia -> Subst'with J -> Jebra, Jambia
The people of India refer to their land as
Bharat (e.g. Maha-bharat from circa 2000 years) and their inhabitants as barath-ia or H-industani
Moguls liked the word Hindustani and used this reference mostly where they ruled in north and west but the term bharati is popular in the east and south.
If you ask me in English I will reply I am an Indian. If you ask me in any of the three dialects
that I speak I will reply accordingly to keep with
the norm and expectations of the person asking the question
-IB
I watched this in TV two yers ago.
So that's an old story.
It's a project sponsored by microsoft in order to show how easy Windows was....
given the fact that everyone can patent stupid and obvious things nowadays, doing the same thing yourself is a valid strategy to protect yoour idea from being exploited.
i suggest you try to understand my post before you try to punish me with smart citations. pot and kettle etc.
regards
"What's a Troll Libs?" you ask. Well, I propose that a Troll Libs is a troll -1 post that has been reposted with a lot of the offensive material replaced by blanks to be filled in, in follow up posts, with words and phrases asked for at the end of the blank (in parentheses).
This idea is to do something along the lines of that classic pencil and paper amusement Mad Libs.
As an example, I will post the first one, based on the troll -1 above. Here is the Troll Libs text:
Have at it. I hope you enjoy.As somebody just finishing a PhD in experimental psychology, I must say that these experiments appear to be totally unethical, not to mention deeply disturbing. A basic principle of experiments with humans is that of informed consent to participate prior to involving a person in an experiment. I don't see any evidence of informed consent in these studies. Worse yet, they have posted pictures of the kids on their website! Appalling.
That's freaking hilarious...er, you are joking, right?
I love this. It's possible for setups like this to do great good all over the world. Imagine farm children in Mexico growing up on the net, and looking up better ways to cultivate the land. This has the potential to shift the world towards a better balance of wealth. Of course there is the possibility of people preying on these kids, but the potential benefits far outweigh all the negative consequences I can think of. I'd like to see an organization form for this purpose.
Ignorance kills, complacency kills, hatred kills, but usually not the ones guilty of them.
ok, hands up who *didn't* learn to use a computer this way? now, who read the manual?
er yeah, and? so i had fun, it's better than real life!
Burt "Out of my mind back in 5 minutes"
I bet head tracking technology as a mouse replacement works a lot better in India. I mean, the dot makes an easy target for the image processing software.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
It's really an interesting project, they are training people right there in nigeria help them develop networks and computer systems so they can maintain and then spread the knowledge. If you have some time and want to see the world you could always volunteer.
There is a great article about this experiment in this months Dr. Dobbs.
Great insign and funny stories on how kids where able to take the control of one of the machines.
Personaly it's great to see ppl do good with tech.
--=.=-- www.cyber2000.qc.ca
would be to set up a tv in a wall a few feet away that plays 24/7 - which would get used more?
Must be some of that new math, eh chris? One of the linked articles was published 25 MONTHS AGO, so the experiment must have been started well before then. "News" indeed.
Fried ice cream is a reality. - George Clinton
You sir are a penis weasel.
Curious how illiterate children can teach themselves the rudiments of computer use, while my graduate-degreed users who grew up surrounded by the best technology the world offers can't understand the difference between right-click and left-click. It boggles the mind.
I suspect this says a lot more about the inherent resourcefulness of the slum kids than either the web or computers generally.
Imagine what they could do with clean water, three square meals a day and a fucking roof over their heads.
First things first, boys and girls. Water, then food, then shelter, THEN toys.
Nah, it's a reminder as to how freaking obtuse the MS user interface really is. :)
So how come my 15-month old daughter hasn't figured out how to click the button(s) on the mouse yet? What age should we start letting children play with computers? (She has her own internet-connected Celeron computer in her own children's computer desk in her bedroom, with "toddler" software installed. She seems to prefer climbing up and touching the monitor; doesn't seem to have worked out cause-and-effect relationship of moving mouse moves cursor. Perhaps we should be using touchscreens instead for children?)
Did this remind anyone else of the genius ghetto children in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow?
I sent a note to the webmaster at one of his web sites asking for his comments. This struck me as a delighful case of life imitating art.
"The medium is the message" my ass. The medium is the massage.
I just hope they don't get goatse'd...
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
This actually echoes the same understanding behind the Computer Clubhouse (which, incidentally has a presence in India).
http://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/1998/clubhouse/
http://www.computerclubhouse.org/
Anyone else reminded of Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age? I don't want to give too many spoilers but the primary plot line surrounds poor, illiterate kids acquiring (by a complicated set of coincidences) access to advanced learning devices initially developed by and for the wealthy elite.
And within weeks they had hacked the government website and sent out a computer virus.
Clever little devils. ;-)
LA5T P05T bizNatcHes!
"The children also knew how to use Ctrl+Alt+Del and could restart the computer."
Interesting that thats one of the first things learnt by Windows users.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Everyone does not need to know history, accounting"
And we're a nation that not only doesn't know it's own history, but knows even less of the rest of the planet. Also we are the lowest "savings" nation around. Those two items alone would benifit us as a nation, immensely.
No keyboard. A Windows box...
How did they Ctrl-Alt-Delete?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
No witches were burned in America. There were, however, a good many hanged by Puritans in Massachussetts.
Next thing you know, they've got the 8 year old girls wearing plad skirts ... :-)
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
plad = plaid...
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Didn't you mean, "break kids"?
Enby in Waltham
I have heard of cases where, to avoid the experimenter effect, a benign study was conducted and upon conclusion the subjects were informed and given the option to opt in or out after reviewing the data collected.
I have also read about experiments where the particpants were aware that they were participating in an experiment. However, the stated goal was different from the actual goal. Again, participants were informed after the fact and given the option to opt in or out.
Interesting that suddenly the comment was modded down as FLAMEBAIT of all things. A REDUNDANT moderation would have been fair since I had unknowingly raised questions similar to two others earlier in the thread -- tcyun and drDugan.
Obviously someone was more than a little sensitive to someone raising questions about experimental ethics and the priorities in countries such as India where the disparity in standards of living between the majority and the few (such as our esteemed experimenter) are almost unimaginable to those of us in the West.
HENRY DORS: Why is it worse for people in third world countries to be (relatively) wealthy?
It isn't. But if you've ever lived or traveled in India, or countries in a similar stage of development, you would see the disproportionate mass of the population that lives at or below the poverty line in conditions that we woudn't allow our pets to endure. And it is in an open sewer that the experimenter decided to place his kiosk, where kids would naturally spend more more time. Do you see what is wrong in that?
I haven't missed the point of what he was trying to do. I simply take issue with the method he used and question the relative merits of one action over another.
As for my sarcasm in using the term troglodyte, the choice of words was deliberate so it's too bad you missed the point. However that is exactly how all too many of those elites see these desperately poor children. I think that the project is a worthy one if you first provide for those children's basic human needs. If the government is unable, unwilling or incapable of doing so than it is up to those elements of society with resources and means to do what they can to help.
POWERBARR: The difference between the US and India is that instead of a few yards away, they are probably ten to twenty blocks away so passersby don't have to see them.
While I agree that poverty like you described is a problem in North America, you are incorrect to reduce the difference to one of geography. The problem is also one of magnitude and proportion. The sheer numbers of Indians living in such conditions dwarfs the number in USA. The proportion of Indian society that lives in abject poverty is far greater (some would say the majority) than in the USA.
MKS113: I find this wonderful. One thing you learn very quickly in a society like that is that you can not change the entire society and alleviate poverty.
Nobody is saying that he has to change the entire society. Just try to do something in your community. What would be wrong with relocating the terminal so kids could surf the net in sanitary conditions? Or occasionally providing a bowl of rice or a glass of milk to the kids who participated in his experiment?
NEGATIVEK: How does that old saying go? "Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime," or something like that. Dumping money into a problematic society isn't the way to do things. Educating the members of that society, teaching them how to make money on their own, helps not only the members of that society, but everyone else too. Giving away money will make people dependent. Teaching people is a practice that will pay for itself quickly.
Agreed, but the problem is that sticking a computer into a wall isn't teaching. If he wanted to provide some basic self-directed language, literacy, math, and science lessons then that would be one thing. There was no teaching going on here -- at least not by the experimenter. Nobody mentioned anything about giving away money -- just using it a little more wisely. A hungry kid doesn't learn as well as one who is starving.
SISUKAPALLI1: Familiarity with computers without the background education in reading, writing, composition, and comprehension, not to mention basic math and science will take a person only so far.
Agreed. We are beginning to see that schools equipped with computers don't inherently make children better students by themselves. In fact there is ample evidence that it often does the exact opposite, while diverting critical and scarce funds from other areas of education when these schools are pushed into the upgrade cycle.
Get a solid foundation in the basics and the kids will grow up well-equipped to learn about computers or any other subject they desire.
Really funny ... I've surfed the Net for two years on a Commodore.
:)
Even configure, and upload material to my website from the Commodore I've had for eleven years.
Yeah - hilarious!
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"