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One Tablet Per Child Program Begins In Thailand
societyofrobots writes "Thailand has now put the first 50,000 of a planned 800,000 tablets into the hands of elementary students. Each tablet costs only $80/unit, runs Android ICS, and was manufactured in China. Opponents claim it to be a very expensive populist policy to 'buy votes', while proponents argue it could bypass the root causes of poor education in the country: outdated books and unskilled teachers."
Even a powerful and flexible tool is useless if teachers don't know how to use it. I had the same experience with Multimedia Interactive Whiteboards at my daughter school: great potential, but teachers ignore the features and have no practice.
for humanity.
Even if 80% of the teachers lack knowledge, with this gear, at least the kids stand a chance of growing up with technology, and can get online somehow, and get access to vast amounts of information, the young minds so heartily crave.
Sure, a bunch of them will be sold off by poor families, and a lot will not know what to do with them, but it's a start. This is VERY forward thinking from the Thai gov. and very promising, never mind the votes, this will be great for their people. This will give the kids a taste of technology, and who knows? Maybe that's exactly what's needed to get just ONE kid off to become that great engineer in the future, if so - it's already a success.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
If the issue is unskilled teachers, I don't think tablets can make miracles.
Rather, invest in long-distance video conferencing gear!
...that's what the children will have, for better or worse.
wikipedia does quite nicely replace either outdated/beat-up textbooks or overcomes a text book shortage.
even if the teachers are not replaced, those who can and want to learn, can do so with the tablets :D
This isn't a magical silver bullet; nothing is. But these tablets cost $80 and are planned to last for three years; that's less than $30 per year, and then the student gets to keep the 3-year-old tablet. The tablet can serve as a textbook, or can run interactive lessons, and the article says the Thai education ministry is developing tutorial content that will run on the tablets.
Like the OLTP XO computers, these tablets will have no moving parts, and no cooling fan. If they are well-made, they should be reliable even in Thailand's climate; and they may be more cost-effective than paper textbooks.
P.S. It's amazing to me how so many people here can speed-read a summary and go straight to the dismissive comments about how this won't solve anything, etc. Presumably the Thai education ministry studied the problem and came to the conclusion that these tablets would be worth buying. Maybe you really are that much smarter than the Thai education ministry... or, maybe you shouldn't be so quick to make a snap judgement.
steveha
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