Skeptics Question OLPC's Focus With $75 Tablet

With the recent announcement of OLPC's shift in focus, many are criticizing the nonprofit's attempt to design what could be seen as unrealistic hardware at an impossible price point. "The OLPC project has become an unrealistic hardware 'dream' and lost its focus on education, wrote blogger Wayan Vota on OLPC News, which has followed the OLPC since its inception. The project comes up with unrealistic hardware designs and price points that destroy its purpose even more, he wrote. 'Excuse me if I get mad at the XO-3 hype. I'm angry at the energy devoted to fantasy XO hardware instead of OLPC educational reality. I miss the original OLPC Mission, where children, not computers, controlled our dreams,' Vota wrote."

Comments

Needed: DIY education software

[Animats]

Yes. The OLPC needs to be coupled with software that gives children a basic education with little or no teacher assistance. Then it's worth deploying in places where the educational system has broken down.

Like Afghanistan.

Re:Needed: DIY education software

[KermitJunior]

It already has been proven. Three groups of kids. First group traditional education. Second is guided but loose (like a lot of decent homeschoolers - not all, mind you) and Third was kids who just had someone to ask questions of and list topics/projects. Guess which group scored better at the end of the testing? Yep... group three. With little more than the Google equivalent of a "teacher". You ever see how quickly school can suck the imagination, creativity and desire to learn out of a kid?

And before you ask... "Values for a New Millenium"b Dr. Robert Humphrey. Info is in the last part of the book.

Now, when he proved several techniques that took Inner City kids from drug addicts to straight A students... who do you think shut him down? Kids? No. Parents? No. School Board? You betcha. (And that isn't knocking all School Board people...) Read the book.

Re:Needed: DIY education software

[causality]

It already has been proven. Three groups of kids. First group traditional education. Second is guided but loose (like a lot of decent homeschoolers - not all, mind you) and Third was kids who just had someone to ask questions of and list topics/projects. Guess which group scored better at the end of the testing? Yep... group three. With little more than the Google equivalent of a "teacher". You ever see how quickly school can suck the imagination, creativity and desire to learn out of a kid? And before you ask... "Values for a New Millenium"b Dr. Robert Humphrey. Info is in the last part of the book. Now, when he proved several techniques that took Inner City kids from drug addicts to straight A students... who do you think shut him down? Kids? No. Parents? No. School Board? You betcha. (And that isn't knocking all School Board people...) Read the book.

You'd love what John Taylor Gatto has to say on this subject. He also has a shorter essay here. He highlights how many of modern public schooling's techniques are profoundly anti-educational and seem designed to encourage dependency. He also advises that it takes about 50 contact hours to transmit basic literacy and mathematics skills; after that, the person is capable of educating themselves given access to books and other resources. One trivial example of the damage this does can be found in those computer users who get confounded by very simple issues that are found in Page 1 of the manual, the README file, the help file, the FAQ, and the vendor's Web site, yet they still need handholding, not because they are incapable of reading and understanding the information, but because they feel helpless.

I am very grateful that there are people like this who will stand up and say something, who will expose these important ideas. Make no mistake, that takes courage. It's little wonder that you generally don't see folks like that on the prime-time evening news, for what they have to say, however true, is also quite inconvenient to many powerful interests.

Incidentally, you may appreciate my sig; it's quite apropos.

Re:Needed: DIY education software

[sopssa]

There are lots of places that are broken down that the US hasn't even touched.

And has there actually ever been a need to touch any of them? Other than for oil, of course. My country gets along just fine without being in war all the time, as do most other european countries too (apart from UK, but thats where US comes too...)

Re:Needed: DIY education software

[Penguinisto]

I can second Gatto's theories, both as someone who has read and bought his book (The Underground History of American Education), and as a former teacher.

I've discovered many times over that once a student is genuinely passionate about a subject (I taught CompSci), the absolute best thing you can do (besides encouraging them) is to give them a few guidelines, help them when they get stuck somewhere, supply them with all the reference material they can stand, and then watch them go at it... I've seen kids take on Linux with zero previous skills in *nix, and in less than a year gain a better mastery of it than any recent CS grad. The biggest trick is to give them the tools from which to do the research, and from which to better themselves - in or out of a classroom. Then you give them the knowledge, but only when they need and desire it.

/P

Why laptops?

[acidradio]

It is nice that they want to make laptops for these kids but I think they are overdoing it. It seems like the proponents are more enthralled with the sizzle rather than the steak. Why can't we just put in reasonable computer labs with Internet connections?

I studied in Mexico for a while and it is quite common for many people, especially kids, to go to the neighborhood Internet cafe and pay a small fee to use their computers. There were always lots of kids there and they didn't mind that it was a "community" computer. While it would be nice to give everyone laptops, the whole idea of providing computing to masses of schoolchildren in the developing world needs to at least start with computer labs in the schools.

Fundamentally I see problems with giving kids in the developing world laptops:
1.) These are poor countries and the devices may be lost/stolen/sold to pay for essentials of life
2.) Not likely to have Internet access at home, may not even have reliable electricity
3.) Access to teachers in school (and tech support...).

I think they just wanted to make glitz and glamor out of this. The idea of a computer lab is not very sexy when compared to giving kids expensive pieces of hardware which will magically transform their lives.

Re:Why laptops?

[Darkness404]

Why can't we just put in reasonable computer labs with Internet connections?

Location. If someone has to walk 3 miles to go to the nearest place with a computer lab, they aren't going to go that often. If they have a laptop close by, they are more apt to use it.

3.) Access to teachers in school (and tech support...).

Actually, I think that may be more of a negative than a positive for most kids. Most teachers are rather controlling with computers, most kids with their own computer could go more in depth with it. I don't know about anyone else, but generally on school computers I at least tried to do nothing more than what the teacher said, after all no use getting in trouble. But on my home PC I experimented with things, bootloaders, operating systems, drivers, system files, and really, it was because of this that I got interested in computers. If my only experience with computers was at school, I would have probably turned out to be one of those people who know nothing more than Windows, Word and Excel, who thinks to use HTML you must be some 1337 coder and PowerPoint usage makes you some computer wizard.

Really, the OLPC program was a success, not only in transforming the lives of thousands of kids in third world countries, but by making computers more affordable for the first world as well with the advent of the netbook.

typical techie outcome

[timmarhy]

This is what happens when you have techies trying to implement a business plan. they fail to understand the key drivers and get lost in the technical considerations. producing a $100 laptop in itself it's actually a meaningful goal, attempting to educate the poor is the goal, thats what they lost sigh of.

Irony

[CAIMLAS]

The irony is, the hardware more-or-less existed when the OLPC was first conceptualized - and it could've been done inexpensively at that time, too. Five years ago, a $100 linux-based "netbook" would've been entirely feasable.

No, it wouldn't have had color or an x86 processor. And yes, it would've been a crappy monochrome LCD. But it'd have gotten great battery life, been able to do audio and the basic tasks outlined for the project, and (importantly) been able to be sold for under $100.

It was pretty obvious that Intel was making buku bucks off the advertising associated with the original platform. The OLPC guys got taken for a ride by associating with Intel on that one.

This time around, with enough volume there's no reason $100 shouldn't be achievable for a consumer price, and a lot less than that for production.