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Ask Slashdot: How Would You Introduce Kids In Rural India To Computers?
asto21 writes: A friend of mine wants to introduce school kids in rural India to computers and could use some advice. Key questions: What learning material to use and how to source? What programming language to start with? What software to introduce them to? What games to introduce them to? Key constraints: The kids don't know much English and speak a local language called Odiya. There aren't any technical publications/resources in Odiya. Poor internet connectivity. No computer experts on the school staff. Any other advice/help would also be appreciated.
FreeBSD, vim and python.
Man pages are full of helpful stuff. You can set up a local ports/pkg jail. Setup a local Usenet and IRC server for Chat.
Is this better than literacy? Sex ed? Things which they can use? Like even English or math?
Or is this the growing trend of "ZOMG ... teh children must use teh computers"?
Coding? Games? Maybe your friend is missing the damned point and doing this as a vanity project?
Everyone is so damned excited to ensure every child on the planet is being taught "teh computers", and nobody seems to be stopping to ask if that's what they need most (or at all).
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Computer gaming. If they take an interest to it, the rest will come naturally.
They'll just end up working for "Microsoft Support" and scamming Grandma again.
They won't have to worry about passwords, they can log in with their smile. Let them grow up on Windows 10. A more human way to do.
Your friend might not grasp this fully, but there are quite a few qualified teachers in India, who actually know how to use computers. A good first step might be to contact them, and see what they think, rather than asking a bunch of people on the Internet who haven't actually been to rural India. It's entirely possible that the teachers think kids should focus on basic subjects rather than learn Excel.
Barring that, ask your friend to get a copy of a book called "The Ugly American" by Burdick and Lederer. I'm about 95% sure that he hasn't read it.
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
This guy has a few clues on what can help, and he has done what your friend wants to do: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugat.... He might already have some project going on in India on which you can latch on to avoid re-inventing the wheel ...
Solar power embedded programming. Start with programming toys. Then on to useful stuff.
What they really need is scientific and strategic thinking on how to take their life ahead, manage the village life, their farms more modern and productive, etc. in a smart way, etc. Simply throwing computers and computer education around without first giving them the fundamentals does not help at all. It just adds to the problem.
That said there are many ideas:
Write or install software where they can create friendly quiz for each other on various topics.
Teach them how to draw graphs and interpret them.
How to use maps.
If there is internet in a far away school, let the children interact with each other over Video Chat once in a month with proper agenda on discussing something important.
Really, there is no limit to how they can use computers to make their life more interesting and better , all limited by imagination.
Start with computer games. Things like Solitaire are notoriously good in teaching mouse control. Keyboarding skills are also important, so I would recommend a typing game such as typing racers etc. Once you have those basic skills and you want to progress to programming, keep the fun going by introducing them to Scratch.
Offer them H1B's.
Thanks, Dad.
I'd teach them UI design. I'd start by beating into their heads that when you click on a story title you expect to open the story so you can post on it, not toggle the description's visibility.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
.
Second, get usable computers to rural India.
Third, step back and let it happen.
.
If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Given that USAID partnered with DigitalGREEN to teach them to wash hands before feeding children (but after handling cow pies) by showing videos on a lappy with small digital projector, you may want to talk to someone at DigitalGREEN.
http://www.digitalgreen.org/di...
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Please, for the love of all that is good in this world, don't do it!
I'm so fucking tired of being connected to India when I call for support... between the language barrier and them just not giving a shit about your problem I'd like to kick their teeth in.
Get them some clean running water, clean sanitation, and basic human rights before you go worrying about computers...
As One Laptop Per child demonstrated, they'll learn on their own if given a chance.
"Earlier this year, OLPC workers dropped off closed boxes containing the tablets, taped shut, with no instruction. “I thought the kids would play with the boxes. Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, found the on-off switch powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child, per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs in the village, and within five months, they had hacked Android,” Negroponte said. “Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera, and they figured out the camera, and had hacked Android.”"
Note these are children who had never seen writing before, working with computers that did not include their local language.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34174796
Investing heavily in school computers and classroom technology does not improve pupils' performance, says a global study from the OECD.
The think tank says frequent use of computers in schools is more likely to be associated with lower results.
Yeah, I heard this on the Ted Radio Hour. Kids were learning how to use the computer even when the computer was in another language the kids weren't familiar with.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
teach them how to dig wells and apply condoms.
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Why teach them to code? If they've mastered copy and paste they are ready to take on coding jobs. Teach them to mine bitcoins instead.
He said they speak Odiya and not Hindu.
A curious person will want to learn; without curiosity, anything is rote memorization and won't go far.
Don't assume good electricity and don't assume internet connectivity; it may not exist. Don't assume basics like keyboarding skills and mouse movements. In fact, don't assume much. Learn from knowledge gaps observed elsewhere: A friend who tries to bring science to rural communities in Maharashtra starts by teaching kids about the difference between an analog watch & a compass. It may seem silly, but if a person has little experience with either may not know the difference. Back to the curiosity: get the child curious about how the compass always knows to point north. Then show how a nearby DC current (battery / wire / light bulb) can move the needle. To me, these give the grounds for engaging curiosity.
Whenever the teacher then gets around to computers, a curious person will want to know why backspace allows corrections to happen, how a spreadsheet can do math, etc.
And expect all levels within India as is true throughout the world: Each person is unique. Some people are geniuses awaiting discovery; others will be lazy or lack the natural talent to thrive with technology.
They rename streets too. Streets named after British civil service officers ages ago get renamed after Indian dignitaries. These narrow short streets in the middle of town totally overwhelmed by population growth get renamed. At the same time in the suburbs roads named imaginatively 120 feet road, 80 feet road, 18th main road, 14th cross road, HAL Third Stage etc retain their difficult to remember names. A guy named A Brito used to write letters to the editor in Indian Express, Bangalore edition a lot when I was there. He got really fed up when they renamed yet another tiny street. He proposed to rename the Queen Victoria statue as Mayor Butte Gowda statue.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Is this better than literacy? Sex ed? Things which they can use? Like even English or math?
Or is this the growing trend of "ZOMG ... teh children must use teh computers"?
Coding? Games? Maybe your friend is missing the damned point and doing this as a vanity project?
Everyone is so damned excited to ensure every child on the planet is being taught "teh computers", and nobody seems to be stopping to ask if that's what they need most (or at all).
Exactly. Take the money you were going to spend on computers, and invest that into helping to pay off the loans that farmers across India have had to take to keep their farms going. You know, the loans causing thousands of farmers to commit suicide every year leaving their families further in debt. Having a computer isn't worth bearing the brunt of your dead father's insurmountable debt for the rest of your life. And for the love of God, stop skipping over the basic, ugly things like running water, access to real medical care, and reliable electricity for the "cool" things like giving a poor, malnourished school kid a barebones PC kit and teaching them how to program Minecraft in a language based on their local dialect.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Perhaps AC meant "Teach the Odiya speakers English and Hindi first so they can interact with the majority".
Here's how: stop writing over-analytical articles like this and just give kids a computer. They will quickly teach each other how to use it.
*** Don't be dull.***
...who down-modded you is offended by rational humanism, or took your last sentence as bait.
Too bad. It was a good post, and thanks for sharing it.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Where are the Jews that would refuse to serve you a cheeseburger?
Well, I think you'll find them in kosher restaurants. That's not discrimination, that's just the menu. :-P
Seriously though, to FTFY, I would not expect Jews in a kosher restaurant to refuse to serve non-Jews. And analogously for any other specialty establishment that is open to the public.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Especially English.
Clean water, toilets and computers can be picked up later. But foreign languages are best learned early.
And if the trend of outsourcing to India continues, English is a very valuable skill.
That's how it worked for me. I later went on to college and got a degree in electrical engineering.
PEDAL. What're you, from India or something?
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
This appears to be the Odia language Wikipedia. But I know you said there's limited Internet. So I suggest you get Kiwix with the entire Odia Wikipedia (.torrent link to a complete package for Windows), and burn it to CD-ROM. (Odia isn't a popular language, so it all fits easily.) You can also look at other language Wikipedias, both because they are more comprehensive, and because they could help the children learn those languages.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
Read this: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/s... A very interesting read - Sugata Mishra left a computer with internet access in a hole in the wall near a slum. Kids flocked to it, and taught themselves how to use it, even surf the internet.
The kids don't know much English and speak a local language called Odiya. There aren't any technical publications/resources in Odiya. Poor internet connectivity. No computer experts on the school staff.
Before you go anywhere near trying to find a technical solution, it is imperative you write a single sentence to say what direct, measurable, benefit will arise from this venture. Preferably a benefit to the children taking part, rather than imparting a nice warm feeling of having "helped" to the educators.
If that turns out to be a stumper, you really need to stand back and think of a different question - one that you CAN answer, before talking about languages, OS's, games and all that technical gibberish.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
from TFA: "I read somewhere, Technology is tool, and not a learning outcome."
Yes. A Means to an End.
Define the End and then consider whether the computer is the best way to achieve it. If the End is a better crop yield, computer programming or Excel or Powerpoint would come later than the need for English language and Wikipedia (internet access). English language learning software will get the process started and doesn't require internet access.
If the End is a lower birth rate or a lower infant mortality rate ... again English language and Wikipedia. If the End is a broad, classical education, of course English, Latin, Sanskrit and Wikipedia; but such an education would put these students far ahead of the rest of us who only do job training. If the End is to have programmers hired by Microsoft; yes, teach programming (but is this realistic?).
Games? How can anyone suggest that vast incredible waste of time? For the mildly intelligent and creative mind every new experience in computing or in life is more rewarding than the artificial and commercial reward of killing another imaginary alien.
...omphaloskepsis often...
On the assembly line, of course. Like China and Apple products.
Have gnu, will travel.
I first read the headline as "How Would You Introduce Kids in Rural Indiana to Computers" and my first thought was, "Don't bother. Introduce them to a toothbrush first".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Computer: Raspberry Pi
OS: Inferno
Programming Language: LISP
Editor: Emacs
Game: Leather Godesses of Phobos
For the more artsy kids Tex can replace LISP.
I remember that they tried it that already in India with little Logo turtle programming decades ago, didn't it work?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
As the ever accurate Wikipedia points out: "English is the lingua franca of India and is the language of their cultural and political elites, offering significant economic and social advantage to fluent speakers" Then tech them how to use a web browser....
in my wife's day care, before babies are out of diapers and into complete sentences, they are already cognizant about the basics... swipe, point, scroll, point, point, point... and OMFG it's Amazon or eBay and they are buying a used BMW!
you are perhaps saying citizens of India are behind babies that can barely walk?
really, all you have to do is put a tablet on the projector, run one app, and hand the things out. like all of us in 1983/4, we'll learn the rest.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
otherwise everything is the equivalent of NOPs in function.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Per area, One internet connection in a public place, one learning video website, and instructions in their language how to record videos in their language. Do not confine them by topics. Like the developed world, one of them will be appointed "helpdesk" to make it work for everyone else.
Clearly, the OLPC model is a very successful idea, with impressive results. Maybe invest in a language translation, so that they can understand what the programs do? Or a language learning software, so that they can learn a language that the computer uses?
Suppose the project was successful, how would the kids make any practical use of their skills or improve them further on their own? Learning English or another common language opens a huge window into outside world and access to knowledge in all subjects, including computers. Personally I grew up in Soviet Union and studying English rather than any less common foreign language in school opened up tremendous options later in life.
Food growing, animal husbandry, water management and construction.
For fuck's sake, they're kids in a third world country, not the Lost Tribe of Silicon Valley.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
People have an amazing ability to teach themselves. Let them do it:
http://www.npr.org/2013/06/21/...
worked for me!
Teach them http://www.w3schools.com/html/...
Casteism
Wikipedia is available in Odia.
It's much smaller than the one in English, but it's there. The best part: you and your friends can improve it. It's a wiki, which means that you can improve it yourself - add as many articles as you want, as long as they are relevant to the encyclopedia, and edit the existing articles. You can even teach the children themselves to edit, thus making sure that they know that it's possible to type in Odia on computers.
I'm super-passionate about making the editions of Wikipedia in various languages better, so please contact me if you have more questions.
This guy has a few clues on what can help, and he has done what your friend wants to do: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugat.... He might already have some project going on in India on which you can latch on to avoid re-inventing the wheel ...
I do not wish to participate in the larger debate of the boon and bane of introducing computers, but rather than attempting to put yourselves in the village kids shoes, it would serve the commenters better to step out and test out their theories. I just wanted to say more specifically that I spent my last two months in a village called Guptapada near Bhubaneswar in Odisha as part of the Ammachi labs initiative to train and assist women in building their own toilets in their village and teaching skills such as masonry, cement block making, plumbing and plastering skills using a trained professional and tablet based video courses. You can find more about what Ammachi labs does here: http://ammachilabs.org/womenem... What I noticed computers/tablets brought to the scene is the increased interest and self esteem that is associated with technology. This itself was an enabler to reduce dropouts and instill confidence. Above that tablets allowed us to introduce standardised courses which otherwise would require the villagers to travel to the city and stay away from home for extended periods which those who live hand-to-mouth cannot afford to do.
The British Empire learned this long long long ago. Read your Kipling and quit wasting our time.
Wonder if you have heard the TED Talk by Sugata Mitra who did something similar with urban poor kids in India. He set up a system where kids would be engaged to fool around with the computer and basically teach themselves. http://www.ted.com/talks/sugat...