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OLPC a Hit in Remote Peruvian Village
mrcgran writes "The Chicago Tribune is running a feel-good story about the effects of OLPC on a remote village in Peru. 'Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago. At breakfast, they're already powering up the combination library/videocam/audio recorder/music maker/drawing kits. At night, they're dozing off in front of them — if they've managed to keep older siblings from waylaying the coveted machines. Peru made the single biggest order to date — more than 272,000 machines — in its quest to turn around a primary education system that the World Economic Forum recently ranked last among 131 countries surveyed.'"
Which may worry some people in power when impressionable children have access to all kinds of corrupting influences. "Daddy, what is 'capitalism'?" or "Teacher, why don't I have freedom of the press like my friends in America?"
I predict some kind of censorship - under the cover of 'protecting' them, of course - within a year.
Education is extremely important. All those saying "well, what they really need is better medicine, food, etc." what I have to say is: Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life.
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I hate to be a buzzkill, but I think it's too early to start praising the success of the XOs just yet. Kids love new things, especially things that look like toys. It's no surprise that they're getting so much attention right now, especially since they just came in. Let's see a story in a few months or so about the Peruvian XOs and their educational benefits once the novelty wears off and the laptops start having problems that the kids will have to fix.
Most of the talk on tech sites has focused on Microsoft trying to stuff their unwanted OS onto the laptop and getting the hardware specs increased to handle their OS, but there is a strange and sad reaction that I see to the laptop that mirrors the reaction to universal health care:
Poor people are supposed to be poor.
You can't have winners in life when there are no losers. Poor people are supposed to be sitting around in filth like Michael Palin in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And poor people are supposed to sit around in public hospitals for hours waiting for substandard care and dying early. That's their job in life.
How can a white middle to upper class American feel smug about themselves when poor people are getting the same care as they are and have access to information technology to better their lot in life?
- Read articles about fishing in Spanish Wikipedia.
- Explore the articles' references.
- Teach yourself to fish.
- Catch fish.
- Sell fish.
- PROFIT!
Am I missing a step???You know, it's almost enough to make an old geek cry, imagining these kids learning about computers and becoming proto-geeks, who otherwise might have lived their entire lives without ever seeing a laptop or using the internet.
The reason is that our press really is worthless now. They are VERY afraid of taking on the corruption within our gov. In particular, Sibel Edmunds has offered up all the info about the American Govs. interaction with Turkey, Afghanastan, pakastan, etc. So far, it has been shown that a number of congressman, and white house folks have taken money from Turkey. It supposedly includes, Delay, Rove, Cheney, Bush, Reid, etc. The problem is that W. and the DOJ have tied up Edmunds and prevents her from talking about it, or she will go to jail. She has OFFERED a 1 time deal to any major press of talking live about the issues. Why? Because she knows that she will do time after that, until the next president comes in. Edmunds would disappear (most likely to one of our off shore spots, and not the nice one at gitmo that was built for the press).
So, yes, the press in Peru were willing to report even when it meant their death, while NONE of the current American media is willing to simply broadcast Edmunds. They would not even be killed for it. IOW, our current American press is like you; a total coward. Oh, and Faux news does not even count as news. It is more akin to Pravda, than it is to any of the major news channel.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I completely agree with the sentiment of your post. If I had to make up a short list of things Peru might need to better their educational system, it might include such novelties as:
* More teachers.
* Better educated teachers.
* Better teaching facilities (nice laptop, too bad you don't have a desk).
* Improved teaching materials (textbooks from 1843 don't really cut it, although good books don't have to be this year's edition, either).
I could always be wrong, but I don't think I am. Sadly, the short list above describes what's also needed in many inner-city school systems in the United States. Ever visited a public high school in south Atlanta? They probably need as much help as some third-world nations.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
You want more, there are hundreds, and those are just some of the more fluffier low-rent surface level inconsistencies. In other words, you are being played for a fool, wake up man, you're a *tool*.
BTW, you just lost your civilian gun ownership rights, welcome to the wonderful world of being a war veteran. Oh, you didn't hear about it? One single negative anything and they classify you as "mentally incompetent" and it is now illegal for you to purchase or possess, you and hundreds of thousands (probably millions, along with kids today who got prescribed meds for ADD and ADHD-whoops, mentally unstable for life flag) more going all the way back to the remaining WW2 vets.
Have a nice day
My kid wants a OLPC. But you can't just buy one. My kid isn't a good, African kid, she's a bad, American kid.
Your 'American kid' has far more resources to draw on that the target audience of these laptops. You, the dad, has the resources and ability to basically build her a laptop for cheap. You already have a 24/7 internet connection, ready for this laptop to connect to. She has PC's in school...all her friends (and their parent) have PC's at home. She can very easily go to the local library to use the computers there. If you work in any medium size company, you can probably scam an older laptop for free (I have 3 such laying around).
You popping for a brand new, dual core, multi gigbyte HD laptop for under $600 is far less of a financial impact than an OLPC would be for any of the target audience.
Or...you popping for a $399 OLPC (and a tax deduction of $200) is far less of a financial hit as well.
Should we also be bitching because the 'good African kids' also get free rice and 'bad American kids' don't? Or that 'good African kids' get a well dug in their town by the Peace Corps, and YOU, the downtrodden, poor American, has to actually pay taxes for clean, filtered, unlimited, water delivered to the multiple taps in your house at any temperature you desire.
Oh...and if you happen to come across a cheap/free laptop, you (Mr. computer wizard) can install the OLPC image on it and your daughter can have almost exactly the same thing. (unfortunately, that image is outdated. I hope they publish a current one soon)
Quit yer bitching.
0. Roll out universal Internet connections to remote Andean villages.
Or did you think that internet connectivity was just a given. A bit of a "let them eat cake" moment there. Though yes you should be able to get a fair amount of information on the 800Mb of internal storage. I assume they come with a load of books pre installed.
Deleted
Looking back on grade school, having a desk and no laptop, no Internet...
...man that sucked.
But these kids aren't starving or dying off due to some easily treatable disease. Really, giving them $188 in food and medicine wouldn't help them that much, and would be pretty limited in the length of time it did help.
Providing the OLPC is something like providing a basic infrastructure like roads or water, except in this case it is information. Money for these things could always be spent in other ways to meet short term needs, but they are far better off investing in infrastructure that will have long term positive impacts for many years to come.