OLPC To Be Distributed To US Students

eldavojohn writes "The One Laptop Per Child Project plans to launch OLPC America in 2008 , to distribute the low-cost laptop computers originally intended for developing nations to needy students here in the United States. Nicholas Negroponte is quoted as saying, 'We are doing something patriotic, if you will, after all we are and there are poor children in America. The second thing we're doing is building a critical mass. The numbers are going to go up, people will make more software, it will steer a larger development community.'"

Comments

The problem with constructivism.

[Anonymous Coward]

the entrenched schooling systems of the first world prevent the kind of encouragement that is needed to make constructivist learning happen. Americans already have widespread access to the Internet and educational software, and they're still dumb as lamp posts. Americans are mostly literate, hardworking, and competent at their jobs. This is the success of the American education system. It's a similar level of success to similar education systems in each first world country. There is really nothing horribly wrong with the fundamental design of these systems. They are weakened more by decadence (reduction in traditional discipline), the growth in power of teachers' unions (fighting the firing of bad teachers), and divergence from proven methods of teaching (such as "whole word reading" and "new math", and their misbegotten descendants) than they are by imperfections in their basic design.

The problem with constructivism is that it's based on looking at how very clever, curious, talented children learn, and then assuming other children can learn in the same way.

The constructivist approach to learning doesn't work well for teaching the fundamental skills: basic literacy, spelling, and arithmetic. These are most of what actually sticks with people into their adult lives from school.

Now, smart kids with educated parents learn these things quickly at home. A lot of academics started out like this. They went to grade school and resented being trained along with all of the dull-minded average kids who actually needed the lessons. They grow up thinking everybody else's time was wasted, they think about how they themselves learned without being taught, and then they become constructivists.

The ideas of constructivism are not all bad. Constructivism describes how children learn easy or interesting things by playing. However, it is a dangerous philosophy of education in that it neglects the need for disciplined classrooms in achieving societal goals like universal literacy.

Re:My own personal OLPC project

[rugger]

Yep, it is a small display, but it does 800x600 fine in colour, more in greyscale.

Main memory is 256meg of ram, not 256kb, which is plenty for most reasonably complex software.

Storage is 1gig, but it is flash ram based and doesn't suffer the same mechanical problems standard drives do.

There are tradeoffs, but the software they run is DESIGNED to handle them, which makes the system perfectly usable.

Re:US loves wasting money

[rbrander]

Many reviewers unconnected with the OLPC project would take issue with the notion that any other product has a better cost/value ratio. The review by WIRED contrasting the XO (OLPC's laptop) with the competitor "Intel Classmate" had the headline "One Looks Like a Toy, the Other Acts Like One":

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/04/intel_olpc_smac.html

A few reviews have found the opposite, but a common criterion is self-fulfilling: that running Windows and Office is a killer feature because it instructs the kids in the "software standards" of business. That's relevant for teaching "computers for business" but not relevant for using the computer to teach reading, arithmetic, history, geometry, etc.

Especially for primary-school levels, the target market.

Bottom line: the XO has half the horsepower and Flash drive, the same RAM, comparable screen, except in sunlight where it has the unique, power-saving, read-by-reflection trick that'll be a killer app in some locations. It has a long list of recharge options, for the Classmate only standard power will do. It has a a wider WiFi range and the network-extending "mesh" trick; the sealed-membrane keyboard makes it less typeable but more rugged. And the XO is at least $75 cheaper. And greener, when you're producing a billion of them. Whoops, forgot to mention the youtube video of an 8 and 10-year-old replacing the motherboard using only a screwdriver:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pus_fA1Tv9w

Particularly for primary grades, the XO has a lot of value-for-money to offer.

And it's the opposition that has the money to hire lobbyists. OLPC is the non-profit, so not much motivation to push them where they don't work or aren't wanted.

Study: U.S. mobility low for a developed country

[Geof]

America has possibly the greatest social mobility

Unfortunately this is not the case. The recent Pew study on income mobility found that:

in America, about half of the advantages of having a parent with a high income are passed on to the next generation. This means that one of the biggest predictors of an American child's future economic success . . . is predetermined and outside that child's control. . . .

There is little available evidence that the United States has more relative mobility than other advanced nations. . . . a number of countries, including Denmark, Norway, Canada, Sweden, Germany, and France have more relative mobility than does the United States. . . . Compared to the same peer group, Germany is 1.5 times more mobile than the United States, Canada nearly 2.5 times more mobile, and Denmark 3 times more mobile.

This in turn implies that the society is not making the best economic use of its citizens, for in many cases their potential is not being fulfilled and their contributions are not being rewarded (or encouraged).

Re:Patriotic???

[Monsuco]

When Halliburton sells to the government they make noise about how "patriotic" it is that they are selling to them.

Just something I would like to mention, there are really only two major companies in the world that are able to do all of the jobs we hire Halliburton for particular field. Schlumberger and Halliburton. Since Schlumberger mostly is based in the Netherlands and France, and since Halliburton is an American company (though it also has a headquarters in the United Arab Emirates) there was little question of who the contract would go to. There are other companies that do some of what these two do, but these are the only ones who do all of what we hire Halliburton to do. Also for several years, Halliburton was losing money in Iraq, only recently did they finally manage to make a profit. Just thought I would mention that.