India Rejects One Laptop per Child Program

ex-geek writes "Seems like Negroponte's One Laptop per Child program has been rejected by the Ministry of Human Resource Development of India. Among the objections are concerns about the effect of extensive laptop use on children's health. Better uses for the monies, which would be required to roll out the OLPC project, are also named. Most insightful however is the observation that not one industrial country has so far implemented a similar program for its children, which casts doubt as to what the pedagogical use for notebooks in class really is."

Comments

Passing the buck

[9x320]

If every industrial country is waiting for the others to make the first move, who is going to go first?

Re:Passing the buck

[10sball]

north korea

Re:Passing the buck

[eln]

Nobody has to go first. There are already plenty of schools in this and other industrialized nations that provide laptops for every student. Studies need to be done to determine if those laptops actually help (or perhaps hinder) learning in these schools. It would be silly to spend billions of dollars a year providing every child with a laptop if there are no studies that indicate there is any educational advantage to every child having a laptop.

Also, the concern about health effects may seem silly, but there have been plenty of cases where things that were relatively harmless for adults turn out to have adverse effects on still-developing children. Given this, and given that these children would presumably be using these laptops for many hours a day, asking for studies on this does not seem unreasonable.

Re:Passing the buck

[Spazntwich]

I think they're still working on their "one missile per child" campaign.

Though before that gains any momentum they'll probably need to complete their "one functioning missile" campaign.

Re:Passing the buck

[LiquidCoooled]

As with all computer use, I would recommend caution against sitting kids down and using powerpoint* to set them up in life.

Good teaching implies using the computer as a tool rather than as a quick fix, some subjects are meant to be difficult some lessons need to be learnt.
Its exactly the same with calculators, know how to use one but only after you have tried engaging your brain first.

I feel this way after visiting a few secondary schools for my son recently, there are some which place the computer on a pedistal as the fix all, and then there are others (notably the 'poorer' schools) which have teachers being more involved and interactive.

*This is not a microsoft dig, it could equally be open office impress or any other program.

Re:Passing the buck

[Angst Badger]

Studies need to be done to determine if those laptops actually help (or perhaps hinder) learning in these schools.

No kidding. I've watched school districts in the US spend insane amounts of money on computer technology on the basis of blind faith that computers will automagically improve the quality and effectiveness of education. Even if most such programs were not sabotaged from the start by failing to allocate funds to actually train teachers to use them, there is seldom if ever any effort to measure results.

(To be fair, while I was working for a school district, I saw some really creative uses of computers, but these were a) the exception, and b) still not very good uses of money compared to other things that it could have been spent on.)

The other problem that is not often considered at the outset is the maintenance cost. A school district full of computers needs a full-time support staff, which takes away money that could have gone to hiring new teachers and reducing class sizes, and it also requires regular replacement. One-third of the IT budget for the district I worked in was devoted to replacing obsolete machines.

Surprisingly, the best use I saw for computers was reducing the amount of time it took teachers and staff to take attendance and collate grades. That actually did some good because teachers had more time to teach.

Re:Passing the buck

[Senjutsu]

With kids bent over their laptops at school all day, I'd be more concerned about developmental problems in their spines and wrists. And eye problems, depending on screen quality.

But good job on leaping straight to the "brown people must have primitive superstitions" stereotype.

Re:Passing the buck

[Homology]

Is India still like Indiana Jones, where they'd flee in superstitious terror from the "sorcery" of electronic tools?

Seems like you have a good, decent and very solid Kansas education.

Re:Passing the buck

[blugu64]

"Is India still like Indiana Jones, where they'd flee in superstitious terror from the "sorcery" of electronic tools?"

that would explain some of the outsourced code I've seen on thedailtwtf.com

Re:Passing the buck

[N3wsByt3]

"Also, the concern about health effects may seem silly, but there have been plenty of cases where things that were relatively harmless for adults turn out to have adverse effects on still-developing children."

Actually, almost everything that is harmful to children is also harmful to adults, though perhaps greater quantities are needed to inflict the same damage to the latter, sometimes.

Thus, you choose your words 'relatively harmful' very well. ;-)

Re:Passing the buck

[bitt3n]

As a minister in a far eastern country that shall go unnamed, I am very concerned about the health effects of these western laptops.

Exposing children to toxic chemicals and complicated heavy machinery in sneaker factories and similar industrial environments is regrettably one of the ugly necessities of partaking in the spirit of new enterprise that allows us to join the global community. I believe the expression is that "it is required to break many eggs before one enjoys the omelet."

However, instructing our children in the use of a device that may facilitate the exchange of untempered democratic ideas and other destabilizing counter-cultural principles will make it far more difficult for us to promote the adoption of those attitudes and habits appropriate and indeed necessary to ensuring both the continued well-being of each individual citizen, and that of society in general.

Re:Passing the buck

[saskboy]

"Like what? Electromagnetic fields? Those have pretty much been proven okay in the last 100 years."

I guess you didn't know that male pattern baldness, and impotence didn't exist before wireless telegraphy came along, didn't you?

Re:Passing the buck

[dosius]

Computers in schools are overrated. We need TEACHERS to TEACH. Not to mention the price of maintaining the computers is obscene - especially if you live in a district where the computers are likely to get ripped off, sold for drugs or destroyed.

We don't need more than one computer per classroom - for the teacher to use to do her own job.

-uso.

Re:Passing the buck

[Andabata]

You're assuming a "as it commonly is used" use of computers in the classroom. That's not what OLPC is about at all. It's not just about putting laptops in schools, is about changing the teaching methods by using them for what computers were made for: programming simulations, controlling systems, etc. Check out http://www.squeakersfilm.org/>this movie and especially http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/Learning_Learning >Papert's section on OLPC website

Re:Passing the buck

[LiquidCoooled]

The thing is, the school I went to never needed one computer per pupil and I still learnt all those things.
I had use of a computer for technology related lessons but had no need for one during most of the other times.

I still have all my reference books and lesson notes available to me from all my lessons, however the only computer data I have access to from before 1998 is locked away on an Amiga harddrive (I haven't even tried to open it recently) - if this was my schoolwork I would be gutted now because I would have lost so much important data.

Re:Passing the buck

[LiquidCoooled]

Yes actually, I remember spending time in the biology lab with the real ant farms getting taught about group behaviour and navigation which just happened to link in with the lessons about cellular automata and iterative systems in computer studies.

I remember my secondary education tried as much as possible to link lessons together and remember on the whole having good teachers who worked hard to give us a rounded education.

As for needing a laptop to discover the underlying chaotic pulse of the world I call bullshit. Knowledge of patterns doesn't need a computer and recognising the signs of an attractor can be done by anyone looking at the "bigger picture".
Sure, to make pretty graphs and things having a computer handy makes it easier, but its not a requirement.

Just remember this, computers have been around for about 80 years now, smart people have existed throughout history.

How about

[bacterial_pus]

working towards a 'food and shelter for every child' program first

Re:How about

[Anonymous Coward]

The obvious comment in every case is "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day... "

But it's deeper than that. By giving free shelter or food, you destroy the shelter and food providing industries in the countries. The textile industries in many "third world" countries have been wiped out by cheap or free second hand clothing from the west.

If you get people educated and doing something then the contribute valuably and generate a real economy. Have a look at some of the work of the charity Intermediate Technology to understand how this can happen.

Now it isn't obvious that one laptop per child is the best way to do this, but it also isn't obvious that it isn't a good way to do it. The only way to find out is to do the experiment. The fact that India someone in India rejects it so loudly and publically before it's even been tried suggests less than the best motivation.

Perhaps a little helping hand from Microsoft has been around here?

Re:How about

[qortra]

How about not? See, we could give the huge population of India food until the rest of the world runs out of money, and it wouldn't help that much. The children need a way to earn their own food, or else nothing will change in the long run. A starving child who can program a computer or manage a business or teach history won't be starving for long, especially in a place like India that is just starting to be recognized as a potential high-level worker pool.

Re:How about

[Clyde]

Actually, it would take very little money to feed the hungry of the world. The money that third world countries pay out ever year in debt maintenance is greater than the cost of feeding the hungry.

http://www.jubileeusa.org/jubilee.cgi?path=/learn_ more&page=why_drop_the_debt.html

Re:How about

[pherthyl]

The side effect of feeding the hungry is that it effectively destroys their entire local food production business. The farmers who previously supported themselves selling food can't compete with free and are suddenly themselves dependant on handouts to survive.

Do some reading on how the flood of donated clothes from the western world destroyed the textile industry in many areas of Africa. Handouts are a terrible long term solution.

Re:How about

[Lemmy Caution]

Don't apply the same model to food that you apply to shelter. Your core insight, that well-meaning infusions of charity can have unexpected and unpleasant consequences, is well taken. But not all markets work the same: housing is sui generis (particularly when it is land and location that is the cost-driver.)

Also, education is not a panacea. You can over-educate a population past its economic opportunities and create a variety of problems, from the widescale loss of the best-and-brightest to other countries, to a population of resentful, overeducated people who are only able to find jobs in the lower ranks of the agricultural and industrial sectors (this is much of what happened in parts of Latin America - the Sendero Luminoso of Peru was largely officered by a generation of well-educated poor youth who found no job opportunities awaiting for them after their much-vaunted education was finished.)

England did not have the most widely educated population back when it was the richest, most powerful nation in the world. I think you might find the correlation between education and prosperity, historically, to have a number of suprises.

Re:How about

[qortra]

You can give all the anecdotal evidence that you want, and it won't change the facts. These places are destitute because their population is uneducated and unable to generate income.

Suppose for the following the survival rate for children is 20% (i.e. horrific).

YOUR IDEAL SCENARIO: you can somehow convince enough people in various charitable organizations to feed the entire child population until they grow up to become unproductive, uneducated (but perhaps self-sustaining) people with mediocre quality of life. Then, when the next generation of children comes along, you're going to have to try to convince the same people (or perhaps different people) again to "think of the children" by giving money. Except this time there will be more children because the previous generation all survived. And somewhere along the lines, people will stop giving money and 80% of the population will die, except that the population by then will be enormous, and that same 80% death rate will represent 100 times the number of people.

NEGROPONTE's LESS-THAN-IDEAL YET REALISTIC SCENARIO: that same money that was going to be used to feed the children is used to educated the children (buy the laptops which in turn give them access to knowledge). 80% of the population dies out. The remaining 20% become well-educated productive members of a society which is now suddenly educated. Business are attracted, people generate income by becoming employees, people use that money to start businesses or their own, and the next generation receives the benefits of their education. This process of course happens much more slowly than one would assume from that description, but it happens nevertheless. 80% of this generations children died (which is truly tragic), but in the long run, the region is better off.

Of course, I think that Negroponte would suggest that people keep the basics-based charity flowing to those kinds of places during the OLPC phase so that we can avoid the pointless loss of life. Regardless, the OLPC money would mean that there wouldn't have to be charity money flowing into those places in a generation or two; My point is that the basics without the education is almost completely pointless in the long run.

Re:How about

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

The side effect of feeding the hungry is that it effectively destroys their entire local food production business. The farmers who previously supported themselves selling food can't compete with free and are suddenly themselves dependant on handouts to survive.

Depends on how its done. Aid agencies such as oxfam have recognised this for a while - and rather than importing food to troubled areas, try to either give locals money to buy food or buy from local farmers.

Government agencies don't particularly like that however, as they'd rather spend their aid budget within their own country, helping their own farmers (its amazing how much of the average first world nation's "aid" budget will be spent within that country).

MS counter move

[bstadil]

Gates have been courting India for quite a while. This move is a political move nothing to do with the merits of the program.

I really don't care about India but would love to see Bangladesh adopt the OLPC program. They have thanks to Yusun and his Microloan program almost eradicated poverty so they seem to be a more innovative people. Remember 10- 15 years ago you almost always heardf about the plight of Bangladesh? Heard anything lately? I rest my case

Re:MS counter move

[alphakappa]

I understand, but the truth about India/Bangladesh is that the poverty line as defined by the government really is a poverty line i.e. it's barely enough to survive.

Some Good Points

[Shadow Wrought]

The Director makes some good points, but I think there is also a sense that no country wants to be seen as needing the program. I wonder if the program itself could be seen as an affront to the pride of many of the target nations.

Maybe the pledge to buy two laptops to donate to get one free really isn't such a bad thing after all. Governments have a difficult time tturning away things that are free.

Re:Some Good Points

[rmckeethen]

Agreed. India has nuclear power -- and, of course, nuclear weapons -- plus indigenous satellite launch capabilities, the largest film industry anywhere (a.k.a. Bollywood), the fourth largest economy on Earth measured in purchasing power, the second largest global population and, to top it all off, India is the home to one of the world's oldest pre-industrial civilizations and is the origin of not one but *two* of the world's major religions, Hinduism and Buddism. Somehow, I don't think the Indian government is going to be keen to accept a program that seems adapted to third-world nations, not regional superpowers struggling for first-world status and recognition. Hell -- just based on how much software development is going on in the country, the $100 laptop ought to be a sure-fire winner, so it's hard to justify India's turning down the program for reasons other than politics and national pride.

Health reasons?

[Neil Blender]

What, is he afraid that India will turn into a country where everyone has a really muscular right arm?

Reduce the population first

[Anonymous Coward]

India has too many people already. I recommend a "One Child Per Laptop" program! :)

Nigeria accepts OLPC

[Gord]

Worth pointing out that according to this, brief, article Nigeria has ordered 1 million of these laptops at $100 a throw.

Re:Nigeria accepts OLPC

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Great. 419 scam emails will jump 100 fold.

Re:Nigeria accepts OLPC

[Spazntwich]

They probably see it as an investment in what is currently their third to fifth largest national industry.

Re:Nigeria accepts OLPC

[shri]

Thank you for pointing that out. Given the rumored corruption of the government employees out there, I'd like to see how many of these laptops actually do end up in the hands of kids.

Two words

[twofidyKidd]

"...which casts doubt as to what the pedagogical use for notebooks in class really is."

Sex Ed.

Re:Two words

[Capt'n Hector]

Not funny. Insightful. Do you know how much ignorance there is in developing nations about STDs, birth control, pregnancy, etc?

Re:Two words

[Nimey]

Do you know how much ignorance there is in developed nations about same?

Ssshhh... don't let on about birth control education, or the Catholic Church will condemn the program.

Re:Two words

[Jherek Carnelian]

Not funny. Insightful. Do you know how much ignorance there is in developing nations about STDs, birth control, pregnancy, etc?

Which may be one of the reasons countries reject these laptops. Regressive idealogies, particularly the ones that think women are only good for babies tend to reject that kind of knowledge. I know a girl who used to teach that stuff to women in the villages at the southern end of the philippines and the men there were not happy to have her around (she's a "radical feminist" by /modern/ filipino standards which would make her about average if she lived in the in US).

Beyond reproductive health and self-dominion, there are lots of areas of knowledge that many societies would rather not give their children (or adults) access to. Like a pastie-covered boobie at a sporting event.

Industrial Countries have Textbooks

[xzvf]

Industrial countries have and can pay for nearly new textbooks to give to each child. Most parents in industialized countries have computers their children can use. OLPC replaces books and gives the entire family access to information.

Re:Going to Africa next week.

[Senzei]

Sorry folks but yes, it's a good idea but there are far more basic needs that must be addressed FIRST.

Yep, there are a lot of people with really basic needs. Too bad there are not more educated members of society with the ability to communicate those needs to each other and organize some aid. It would be awesome if someone could help give an education boost to those countries that are above starvation but not yet affluent enough to really provide a lot of help. Oh wait...

Not mutually exclusive

[StefanJ]

There is no reason not to simultaneously provide medical aid, food aid, aid to repair infrastructure, and etcetera, and computers. That is a phony dichotomy.

One of the big failings of aid and development programs in the past has been a lack of appropriateness; clueless big projects which do little or nothing to help.

It is possible that the One-Laptop-Per-Child project is one of these clueless projects. It could, however, end up as a sort of force multiplier, a source of intelligence (in the "information" sense of the word) and a form of feedback that would let aid organizations know what is really needed and where.

Several experiments in the US

[theCat]

Over the years, a few US states and many individual school districts have experimented with one-student-one-computer, to general positive results. It's not without its detractors, of course, and I suspect that lately these programs have to a degree fallen under the wheels of the "teach toward the test" canflagration now sweeping the nation.

I think anyone who says "feed them first, then give them a computer" misses the point that if all you do is ever feed people and then move on, that's as far as they get. I get the impression that while most people living in poverty will happily accept a meal, they will likewise fight hard and loudly to better their condition even at the risk of someone going without a meal in the process. You don't have to be a rich Western geek to understand that filling your belly today doesn't guarantee a full belly tomorrow, and food aid is notorious for drying up once a current crisis is abated.

These poor people need a leg-up, and they need it now. The emerging information market will forget they even exist if they don't learn how to interact with it on its own terms. Out of sight is out of mind, and out of mind is quickly dead and forgotten.

Re:Several experiments in the US

[Reality Master 101]

Over the years, a few US states and many individual school districts have experimented with one-student-one-computer, to general positive results

Care to link to these positive results? I've only seen studies that show how overall useless, if not negative, computers are in the classroom, especially when you give them to students. They get broken easily, they're generally used in non-educational ways, and they're a big distraction. I doubt you can find some clear, unambiguous gains for students with laptops.

Re:Several experiments in the US

[loquacious d]

The Alaska Association of School Boards is implementing a 1-1 laptop program, based on a similar successful program in Maine (which I believe has just gotten its funding renewed). From the executive summary of Maine's two-year retrospective report:

In summary, the evidence collected for this evaluation indicates that a large majority of Maine's middle schools have successfully implemented the one-to-one laptop program, and there is already substantial self-reported evidence that student learning has increased and improved. Additional research needs to be conducted in the coming years to document and understand the long-term impacts of the laptop initiative on teachers and teaching, students and learning, and on schools.

The report notes that there likely needs to be much more professional development and integration of technology into curricula, but it seems that even in its nascent stages the 1-1 program has helped keep students interested in and proactive about their learning, and improved the quality of their work.

One neat thing about technology in schools is that it lets you do completely new kinds of schoolwork. A new kind of project that many of my English-teaching acquaintances are starting to like is the fake-novel-movie-adaptation-trailer, or artsy-literature-inspired-music-video. Going outside the bounds of the traditional two-page book report or reading journal really helps students think differently and more deeply about the subject (especially for students not compatible with the text-based US school system). Film also really lends itself to literary tropes like symbolism, foreshadowing, and irony. This kind of thinking is just not possible (or at least very difficult) without prevalent access to technology. I've heard anecdotally that music students love GarageBand for recording state honor band/choir audition tapes, or just for practicing in general (recording yourself is notoriously one of the best ways to figure out all the myriad ways you suck). And the sheer amount of good information and media available on the internet is rapidly rivaling even the best-equipped public school libraries.

Obviously the $100 laptop isn't going to be a great video editing machine (though, if you can do it on an Amiga...), but even the basic functions of word processing and Internet capability (the Wikipedia, for chrissake! how great would the world be if everyone had the Wikipedia?) have the capability to dramatically improve the baseline quality of education for developing populations.

From my own experience, I have been lucky enough to use computers since I began school in the mid-80s, and I feel that they shaped my development in a very positive way. Computers are fantastic tools for teaching critical thinking, reading comprehension, model-forming and abstraction, mathematical concepts (especially geometry), and with the internet, efficient internalization of data from multiple sources. David Chalmers and Andy Clark have argued that external resources, when properly utilized, can effectively become part of our cognitive process. By teaching children to take advantage of the astounding power and resources that computers make available to them, we do them a far greater service than cramming multiplication tables and D'Nelian handwriting exercises down their throats for 180 days a year from the age of 5 to 13.

After all, people should be generalists, and computers are the generalist's tool. What would we humans be without tools? Shivering, unathletic apes. $100 is cheap for a tool that

Re:Several experiments in the US

[Bastian]

Over the years, a few US states and many individual school districts have experimented with one-student-one-computer, to general positive results. It's not without its detractors, of course, and I suspect that lately these programs have to a degree fallen under the wheels of the "teach toward the test" canflagration now sweeping the nation.

As a former student of a school with a one-student-one-computer program, I'd like to point out that I'm not convinced by the positive results people are reporting. When you spend God-only-knows-how-much-money and muck around with kids' educations with a program like this, admitting you screwed up is just about the dumbest thing a person could possibly do. I can't speak for anyone else, but my high school really screwed up with that idea. That didn't stop the administrators from bragging and bragging and bragging as if these laptops had turned everyone into a genius child. (Rather than just being one more distraction.)

The part of this whole computers-in-the-classroom thing that nobody seems to be getting is that a computer is not a solution. A computer is a tool. I place people who wave the computers in the class banner all the time in the same mental category as people who are convinced that $PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE is a gift from God and perfect for every situation.

If we want to fix up our schools, we should start by reviewing our crufty old educational plan that hasn't been revised for decades and basically ignores all major research on how people learn. Once we have a new plan, we can go about figuring out how to implement it. I'm sure that computers will be the best way to implement some details of the plan, but they should be used only for those things, and if it turns out that there's a better way to do something else (lectures, for example, are almost guaranteed to suck if PowerPoint is involved), then they should be avoided.

But stuff like the OLPC program seem to work from the assumption that computers are this magic bullet that will instantly improve education - through some hand-wavy magic computron field, maybe?

I agree, these people need a leg-up. I just worry that exporting this educational cargo cult we've been constructing for the past few years to countries that already have even more problems with education than us has more to do with tripping them into the mud than giving them a leg up.

Particularly the psychological effects...

[GillBates0]

Also, the concern about health effects may seem silly, but there have been plenty of cases where things that were relatively harmless for adults turn out to have adverse effects on still-developing children. Given this, and given that these children would presumably be using these laptops for many hours a day, asking for studies on this does not seem unreasonable.

FTA: "Both physical and psychological effects of children's intensive exposure to the computer implicit in OLPC are worrisome, to say the least.

The psychological aspect seems to be more important and worrisome, IMHO. The things developing children interact with are known to cause a long-standing effect on their psychological development - particularly creativity, analytical skills and imagination. Most people (and geeks) including me can relate to how Legos had a +ve impact on their mental development as kids and how the newer "specialized lego sets" hamper this development by being too restrictive. The same can be said for many other articles/games that kids are exposed to in their developing ears.

I would venture to say that extended interaction with a particular GUI/software/interface could have a negative impact on development of these mental faculties. I'm not saying that it will, but it is quite likely that it will hamper/restrict the child to think only along a certain way, and it is quite reasonable to prevent a large-scale project such as this before adequate medical studies have been done.

Re:Particularly the psychological effects...

[lawpoop]

"The things developing children interact with are known to cause a long-standing effect on their psychological development - particularly creativity, analytical skills and imagination."

I remember going over this in psych 101 and even the author of our textbook, Peter Gray seemed skeptical. What is the criteria by which we measure the things children interact with? Does a toddler who only has cardboard boxes to play with grow up stupider than one who has plastic puzzles in primary colors? IIRC, Gray wondered if an inner city child who had no toys, but interacted with extended family in the house and watched cars go by each day was in any less stimulating an environment than a kid who had nintendo or plastic blocks. Is there any objective measurement? The child who interacts with adults is arguably in a more stimluating environment. Understanding, predicting, and manipulating adult minds arguably takes more mental faculties than doing the same with blocks.

When I was a boy, I remember a stick being variously a rifle, a magical staff, a metal sword, a light saber, a spear, even a spaceship. Are my analytical skills impoverished because I ran around in the woods and played with sticks instead of playing the living room with shiny, plastic transformers? I remember being bored to tears by He-Man and G.I. Joe figures that required no imagination -- everything they did was pre-determined. I prefered playing with leaves in puddles or making figures out of mud or clay.

I did *want* those toys that other kids had -- but when I got them, I certainly couldn't play with them. They were much to boring. They just sat on the shelf as models. That's really what they are.

Re:Particularly the psychological effects...

[lawpoop]

As an almost 30-year-old, I now clearly understand the power of marketing, materialism and peer pressure. As a child, I would have given almost anything to have the toys I saw on commercials and that all the cool kids played with at school. However, when I actually got my hands on them, I found out that they were just as boring as all of the other toys that I had relegated to goodwill. But wait! There is a new cartoon series with cool new robots! And the toys come with laser swords! If only I could get my hands on *these* toys, I would be forever entertained and happy, and never want for anything else in life.

This is a life lesson, not some logic puzzle. Certainly you must be speaking facetiously.

Re:Particularly the psychological effects...

[tritium6]

As long as we are randomly spouting "facts" about the damages to creativity inherent in using an interface, I'm going to point out that my artistic creativity has been seriously hampered by being forced to convey my written thoughts in a series of pre-determined archaic "letters". If I had been able to create my own words and letters, think of how much better my art skills would have been. Lets break down all conventions! Interfaces only work to constrain and limit communications.

Re:Particularly the psychological effects...

[ClamIAm]

Um, right.

So because the GP at ten years old didn't possess the life experience and mental framework to rise above pervasive marketing, peer pressure, and peer envy, he's obviously an idiot. And oh no, he changed his mind about something! He's weak too!

Remember kids: snarky, cynical posts are always right, and if you disagree, you're stupid.

Re:Particularly the psychological effects...

[lawpoop]

All I'm saying is that there was less imaginative possibility with a robot action figure than with a plain ol' stick. The more ambiguous and plain the object, the more scenarios I could fit it in to. If you have a castle playset, you are going to be playing castle most of the time. If you decide that the castle is actually a space station, you have to overlook the castley features like bricks and turrets to see the space station. However, the cardboard refridgerator box has no scneario-specific features to ignore -- just possibility as far as the mind's eye can see.

The action figure's realm of expression is smaller than a stick's. The robot could be an evil villian in his hideout, or he could be a good guy on his way to saving the galaxy. However, one thing he will *not* be doing is breakdancing, because *his legs just don't move like that*. He can only do a stilted walk. However, because the stick has no features that are going to contradict the impositions of your imagination, you are going to have an easier time playing a variety of scenarios with the stick than with the robot action figure.

It's like the difference between writting fan fiction and creating your own universe. There is simply a greater realm of possibility when you have blank pages. You don't have to follow the rules and

And like I said earlier, I *did* have mass-manufactured toys. At the time I wanted them very badly, but upon reflection I can see that I had much more fun with things like sticks and boxes than I ever did with any action figure. I like action figures and still have some to this day, but they certainly aren't a fountain of imaginative play.

Re:Particularly the psychological effects...

[lawpoop]

First off, I have to say that you probably do have greater imaginative power than I do.

If you have a look at a cardboard refridgerator box, you will notice that there is nothing about it that indicates that it is a refridgerator box. It is a box, but it is a *refridgerator* box in name only, not in function. At one time, it may have had a refridgerator in it, or it may have even had a washing machine in it. Maybe it never contained any appliance at all (despite whatever it was originally manufactured for). It is more generic, and therefore has greater possibility in my weakly imaginative mind. The castle playset was sometimes the Hotwheels carwash, but more often then not the shoebox with some holes cut in it was a better all-purpose building in Hotwheels land. Take your Risk example. It's very creative and clever what you and your friends did with the boards. How much more possiliby do you invite if you got rid of the boards altogether? If you got rid of every Risk element? Why, then you have potential for anything and everything.

If I have to imagine that the robots legs can do the splits when it's obviously physically impossible, why should I do all that work? The robot has legs, they look like legs, they move *somewhat* like legs, but only up to a point. It's the uncanny valley phenomenon. Obviously they were designed with the intention to be as much like real legs as possible, but they fail miserably when it comes to actually getting around or kicking bad guys. If it takes all that imaginative work to overcome the robot's malfunctional legs, why not just get rid of the stupid robot altogether? By contrast, the stick has limitless possibility. It wasn't built to be a rifle, therefore it doesn't fail to live up to my expectations. Likewise as the sword or magical staff. It's not an obvious contradiction to my imagination. It can't fail in its role because it *has* no pre-defined role.

I don't understand your argument about the blank page book versus fan fiction. If you write a story and call it Star Wars fan fiction, but it has no Force, no Empire, no light sabers, Jedis, wookies, spaceships, stars, or wars, in what sense is it even Star Wars fan fiction? It would be just as if you had started with the blank pages. What is the myth that an unwritten story has more possibility than fan fiction?

- fear of change?

[EnempE]

If your current marketable resource is cheap labour, why would you educate your populous with access to world media? Would this not just increase their expectations regarding an acceptable standard of living ? Would this not increase the level of communications between the youth with mesh networks bridging communinities? This level of communications could perhaps lead to a level of organisation that could be a powerful political force? Could this element upset your current long range planning for your country ? Would you take the risk?

Momma... Momma says laptops are the devil

[kaoshin]

There may be a better use of the money, but the bit about children's health is pretty lame. What do they think that kids will go blind? Reminds me of when my Mom used to tell me "Dont sit too close to the television set!". Even the eye doctors said crap like that. I started using computers as a child and my vision was also poor. My optometrist said that if I kept using computers constantly like I was then I would end up requiring glasses or corrective surgery or something. Even after an increased amount of usage (I now have multiple monitors in my face for 12+ hours a day) my vision has actually improved to 20/20. Am I genetically superior to most nerds, or was it all just a load of crap? I can understand my vision not changing, but how it actually got better by increasing the time and amount of radiation my eyes are exposed to IMPROVED my vision boggles the mind. Socially though, they may be correct. I'm not a fat nerd, but if you get into computers you will have to work with fat nerds, and who wants that? Besides, I'd rather discourage Indians from learning computers because they seem to be taking all my jobs from me. So yeah, I say they should maybe punish children who use computers, perhaps with a shocking monkey.

Re:Momma... Momma says laptops are the devil

[DerekLyons]

There may be a better use of the money, but the bit about children's health is pretty lame. What do they think that kids will go blind? Reminds me of when my Mom used to tell me "Dont sit too close to the television set!". Even the eye doctors said crap like that. I started using computers as a child and my vision was also poor. My optometrist said that if I kept using computers constantly like I was then I would end up requiring glasses or corrective surgery or something. Even after an increased amount of usage (I now have multiple monitors in my face for 12+ hours a day) my vision has actually improved to 20/20. Am I genetically superior to most nerds, or was it all just a load of crap?

 
No, you are an unusual case sitting out under one end or the other of the bell curve.

a little off topic, perhaps...

[westlake]

the concern about health effects may seem silly

I have been wondering how easy it is for a young child to keep the laptop batteries charged. This would seem to be at least an order of magnitude more demanding than a Lifeline radio.

One missile per child?

[Asztal_]

Oh, you simply must come over, I have the latest model.

The markting is bad.

[elucido]

I do not think you can market a program like this as "One Laptop per Child Program", and it just happens to be from America, and just happens to include the name Negroponte. I mean, I'm not trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist, I'm an American, but what government will agree to this when it's marketed like this?

Most people question anything that is so cheap that it is nearly free, they ask why if laptops are so cheap that only the third world can have them? Since when did we design laptops or anything of this sort for the third world, or India?

I think these laptops ARE a good idea, I just don't think you can market it like this and expect it to take off, at a time like this when the middle east is falling down the drain. I'm not surprised by India's reaction, India is suspicious of the deal, and who wouldnt be.

lord

[Danzigism]

i think they just need to market the damn things.. i'd gladly pay $150-200 for one, for my kid.. just manufacture them damnit!! i think the idea is great to give kids these things and all, but i'd rather buy the kids tons of books and put the money in to providing them a good education, with good teachers and a nice working environment..

ourselfs?

[DavidinAla]

Your post is pretty good evidence of a broken education system. Where did you go to school? ;-)

David

Re:What's good for the goose is good for the gande

[1u3hr]

I didn't start out cynical about computers in education; I spent years working in education, promoting the use of computers, and frankly didn't see many worthwhile results, with the possible exception of training a bunch of kids in the use of office software.

My daughter is 9 and I really don't see much point in her getting, or using, a computer for schoolwork any time soon. She uses mine as a game machine and to send photos to her friends (who she sees at school every day anyway). They have a computer class once a week, which seems to consist of using Wordpad or Paint to make simple documents. I wouldn't like them to spend more time using PCs, it's just a distraction from "real" learning.

However, the Negroponte plan, as I understand it, is meant to provide access to resources (eg, ebooks, the web) not available to students otherwise. (With my daughter, the problem is not access to books, it's persuading her to sit down and read them.) But the Indian report has a point: if the same amount of money was invested in printed books (which are extraordinarily cheap in India) and hiring more teachers, the results would likely be better than providing ebooks. Sadly, of course, if education had the budget priority to fund this programme, it would be at the expense of, not as well as, traditional tools.

You need to learn some history

[njdj]

Despite colonial occupation that bled our country for hundreds of years

That's what your politicians tell you. Find a non-politician who's 80 years old, who was there, and talk to them. India was better off under "colonial occupation" than it is today. The Brits didn't "bleed" India, on the contrary they unified it, built infrastructure (especially railways) and gave it a legal system.

A country should govern itself, not be governed by foreigners. But you have nothing to be proud of in what your politicians have done in the last 50 years.

OLPC is a crazy idea.

[jalfreize]

In India, there are basically two kinds of schools -- the high tuition, exclusive schools run by Christian Convents or rich, privately funded educational institutions, and the 'municipal' schools run by the government.
Most children that go to the former category of schools come from middle class/upper class families and already have access to computers at home.
Presumably, the OLPC program is for the second type of schools, which mostly children who live close to or below the poverty line attend. Most of these schools will have teachers who have never used computers, and who are likely to resent any drastic technological change such as computers in the classroom.
So, along with an OLPC program, the government would have to run a massive teacher-education program to teach the use of these computers in the classroom -- not to mention overhauling the coursework so that it makes effective use of these machines.
In addition, the government would have to put in place infrastructure to service and repair these laptops at affordable prices throughout India.
All of this to be done in a country of more than a billion people speaking hundreds of known languages and dialects.
When you think of these factors, those laptops are going to cost way more than the 100$ MIT claims.
I could go on and on about the fallacies of this scheme, but clearly, it would be crazy for India to adopt it at this point in time.
The government has wisely rubbished OLPC. India cannot progress from slates and chalks to laptop computers in one stroke. It has to progress at an organic rate and accept technology in education gradually, ensuring the teachers are comfortable with it before it gets to the children.

To everyone making critics out there...

[vhogemann]

I recommend you to take a look at the OLPC site (http://www.laptop.org).

The project is amazing, it's not just about handling a laptop to a child... They're producing a collaborative environment called Sugar (using GTK, Gecko and Python), to help children share content. Also, they're working on educational content, and educational applications.

The mesh network idea is just incredible, it will make possible to the children create their own content, and share it with their colleages even where there's no access to the internet, since the wireless card keeps on running even when the laptop is on sleep state. It also make it possible to share internet access throght a large area, since every laptop act as a router.

It's really fantastic, and you can see that there is a real commitment behind this. And, since everything is OpenSource, YOU can help them! You can contribute wiht code, or content, or ideas!