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Is Early Childhood Education Technology Moving Backwards?

theodp writes "Four decades ago, the NSF-sponsored PLATO Elementary Reading Curriculum Project (pdf) provided Illinois schoolchildren with reading lessons and e-versions of beloved children's books that exploited networked, touch-sensitive 8.5"x8.5" bit-mapped plasma screens, color images, and audio. Last week, the Today Show promoted the TeacherMate — a $100 gadget that's teaching Illinois schoolchildren to read and do math using its 2.5" screen and old-school U-D-L-R cursor keys — as a revolution in education. Has early childhood education managed to defy Moore's Law?"

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  1. Re:Simple Rugged Durable = Better by Alien+Being · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's a great reason to support all local business as much as possible. The more local it is, the better.

    Just look at all the middlemen involved when you buy from national and international sources. Most of those middlemen are people working far from their homes in order to take jobs from people who are trying to work close to home.