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.

Comments

Start with the basics.

[0100010001010011]

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.

Re:Start with the basics.

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't need anything like that, they just need someone to help them get H1-B visas and they can learn on the job.

Re:Start with the basics.

[oh_my_080980980]

Sad but true.

Hmmm ... why?

[gstoddart]

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).

Re:Hmmm ... why?

[gstoddart]

From reading the OP it is clear there were already plans for a computer learning lab, which exists to some degree.

Oh, really?

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.

This doesn't sound like they have any infrastructure, expertise, technology, or a plan ... just "hey, let's show these kids computers".

At which point, I seriously question if this serves any purpose or will improve these kids lives any.

Re:Hmmm ... why?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

This doesn't sound like they have any infrastructure, expertise, technology, or a plan ... just "hey, let's show these kids computers".

Agree 100%. The submitter might have asked how they'd go about starting a space program.

Teach them sex ed, hygiene, agriculture, and other basic skills that will actually help them survive. Knowing HTML isn't going to be of any bloody value to them at this time.

Re:Hmmm ... why?

[TWX]

Teach them sex ed, hygiene, agriculture, and other basic skills that will actually help them survive. Knowing HTML isn't going to be of any bloody value to them at this time.

I don't know. There are some cases where skipping some otherwise-logical steps actually works. My dad grew up on a farm that didn't even get electricity until the 1950s, has a well for fresh water, and had a friggin' outhouse until the sixties when a proper septic system (far away from that well) was installed. He got a degree in computing science (then still a sciences program rather than engineering or business) and made real gains in employment compared to his siblings that just went into whatever local trades or jobs were available in the area.

When my brother and I were kids he got us a PC (an 8088, already obsolete as the 386 had been out for a couple of years) because we had Apple IIs in school, even though his entire career was big-iron and minicomps and he didn't deal with PCs themselves other than as a user; we used the books that came with the PC to learn how to work with DOS and with BASIC, and while I don't work with DOS or with BASIC anymore, the command line fundamentals I learned have applied to a career working with CLI-based servers and networking equipment, and some of the lessons from BASIC have helped when working with scripting languages like bash.

It's not that they have to teach all of these Indian children how to use computers as experts, that's completely unrealistic. What they need to do is to provide access to computers that those kids that want to experiment with can learn on, things that are fairly simple without necessarily having all of the bells and whistles. The computer-software equivalent of a Heathkit.

Kids that become good with computers will probably become the first adults from the region to become professionals with them. They'll drive demand for new infrastructure for computers in the area and will develop the ability to maintain it. That will open up the area for more use outside of professional interest, which will in-turn help foster interest and will continue to help drive an increase in infrastructure.

I don't know what to do about the language barrier, nor do I know what specific platforms and software would now make a good equivalent to that DOS/BASIC/8088 setup I learned on, but going to tablets with Windows 10 or going to fully-loaded Linux boxes with vi are probably not the right approaches. The TI idea sounds good, but the platform might not be quite significant enough either.

Re:Hmmm ... why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm CTO of a US company who employs 40+ people in India. I'll be taking my 5th trip to India this Fall.

Teaching rural kids programming is NOT going to improve their lives. They are not going to get jobs in IT. I can hire developers who attended IIT for $3k/month. I need quality, not lower labor rates.

If you want to improve the lives of rural kids, work toward skills they need for jobs they could get: waiter, store worker, laborer, farmer, driver, hotel worker, etc. They need basic math and language skills. English is really important.

Basic computer literacy would be helpful, but programming is a waste of effort.

There are actual teachers in India, you know...

[ZeroPly]

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.

First, listen to every talk by Sugata Mitra ...

[stongef]

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 ...

Walk before you can run...

[Anonymous Coward]

Get them some clean running water, clean sanitation, and basic human rights before you go worrying about computers...

Give 'em the computers and stay out of the way

[taustin]

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.

A bigger impact

[Nidi62]

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.