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A Child's View of the OLPC
Finallyjoined!!! sends us a BBC account of a dad who traveled to Nigeria and brought back an XO laptop for his 9-year-old, Rufus. Here is Rufus's review, a child's view of OLPC. "Because it looks rather like a simple plastic toy, I had thought it might suffer the same fate as the radio-controlled dinosaur or the roller-skates he got last Christmas - enjoyed for a day or two, then ignored. Instead, it seems to provide enduring fascination... With no help from his Dad, he has learned far more about computers than he knew a couple of weeks ago, and the XO appears to be a more creative tool than the games consoles which occupy rather too much of his time."
How does you wandering around with your DS have any bearing at all on how a totally different system with totally different software and totally different requirements works?
Oh yeah, it has no bearing at all.
Maybe you should go read up on the OLPC software stack.
The one thing that struck me the most was the part where the kid asked about what his "friends" were saying to him, and how hes learned hola. This is more than enough of a learning tool to master a language. I personally know from first hand experience how this can work from a game I used to play that people from all over the world played. From starting the game at age 10ish one of my friends had learned english, finish, german and a little french. The ability to talk to other kids from different areas with language barriers is a great way for people to learn a language. Also for all the people who are talking about how food would be a better choice than education etc you are missing the point. There are plenty of charities and other donations to help starving kids. Not every kid out there is starving, but even some that are not starving are education deprived. I think this program could help alot of these countries get more education for thier children which in the long run will help them with money and food issues hopefully.
I don't doubt for a moment that this thread will be filled with the usual /. grousing about the usefulness of the entire project, but let's give credit where credit is due: it looks like they have made a product that appeals to children. Perhaps they know what they are doing?
And in his spare time, working on the next version of the Linux core...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
This sounds a lot like WGA and DRM to me. The machine "checks in" with the server to make sure it's still authorized. What else does it report to the server?
So your 3-year old kid already plays Counter Strike: Source?
That's some pretty good parenting, right there.
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
John Negroponte ("Director of National Intelligence", "Ambassador" to Iraq), older brother to Nicholas Negroponte probably doesn't let any of Nicholas' educational toys get sent to Iraq because they'll be handy to the resistance fighters. It must have been *torture* to have John Negroponte for an older brother. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte
Freedom is free.
Why do I get the feeling that I'm living not just Science Fiction, but in "The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" (Neal Stephenson)? True education is subversion, because true education will give you the tools to challenge the status quo.
First George Orwell, now this. Where does it end?
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
Your kids are too old. Once they hit puberty the natural curiosity focuses almost entirely on social status and the opposite sex. A 9 year old typically has far more general curiosity.
Not to take away from the article but I would like to read a review from a kid who has not been exposed to technology/computers as much as Rufus. It would be interesting to read about their reaction to this technology and how it affects their daily lives. I grew up in Peru and was not exposed to technology to the degree that I am now, I know a laptop like that would have made a world of a difference to me.
[alk]
No surprises in the article - in fact it sounds like a typical experience of a small child given any computer and allowed to just play with it. (Especially a child, like Rufus, who already has some experience around computers.) Jim Lileks has reported much the same thing with his daughter and the Mac she was given. I've heard similiar reports from friends who've let a child loose on a machine prepared for them.
So far as the length of his fascination - let's hear back in another week or two, or another month, or next year. From late November to now is a matter of three weeks, tops. Even for a nine year old this isn't particularly long.
As they themselves say, and as I have repeated ad nauseum here myself, the OLPC is justified on a pure financial basis. It replaces print textbooks with digital textbooks. The print textbooks are usually hand me downs from foreign countries in foreign languages, out of date, expensive to acquire and distribute on a per-copy basis. The digital textbooks have only the upfront cost, either in translation or original material, no distribution cost or delay, up to date, and the OLPC can carry all of them on the long walk to school and back without any extra weight or bulk penalty.
The acquisition and distribution costs alone pay for the OLPC. The other benefits are pure gravy.
It is also pathetically patronizing to tell these people to stop growing their own food and rely on handouts from foreigners for such basic necessities. "We're foreigners and we're here to help because you are too dumb to grow your own food" just doesn't cut it. Far better to grow their own food and rely on OLPC handouts that they *can't* make themselves; at least that is the beginning of a way up the ladder to a better life. Begging for food isn't.
Infuriate left and right
I think the OLPC project is indeed about education as Negroponte keeps insisting. The magic isn't in the laptop hardware (ok, some of it is revolutionary, such as the display) but more in the potential for collaboration and learning. It's a laptop designed to be an education tool and designed for learning. The paradigm behind it is very different than what microsoft, intel and asus are in it for, and that changes the results significantly.
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Damn. It sounds like the computer I used in 1979, was unusable. No wonder I didn't learn anything. Why the fuck did the school have that useless thing!?