One Laptop Per Child

[Primula Baggins]

There are controls that can be built into the browsing software to keep kids going where they're supposed to go. Sites can be blocked, or more efficiently the software can be set to access only particular sites. Young kids don't need free access to Google to benefit from the Internet. I've edited whole books about nothing but the educational Web sites that are out there, some of them extremely clever and engaging.

Granted, anything like this would have to be developed for other languages and cultures, but now there's a reason to do it.

[vison]

I see their lips moving and all I hear is blah, blah, blah.

I am not at all convinced that a PC and the internet are such wonderful additions to any child's life.

Kids not having internet access is not denying them anything. It's like "denying" them a video game system, in my view. Millions of poor kids around the world don't have an X-box.

These kids would be "self-guiding", and while there will certainly be the odd child who does great things with it, I think most of them will just toy about with it like most other kids. Who is going to supervise their use?

But I realize I'm in the minority here.

[Frelga]

I'd like to remind my relativistic friends that developing countries don't necessarily mean mud huts and starvation. OLPC took there projects to schools in India, Thailand, Brasil. Those countries offer many opportunities to educated, ambitious yong people. OLPC can help children in rural regions of those countries get a better chance at those opportunities.

Yes, it can be abused. If everyone refrained from doing everything that can be abused, the good Lord would never have gotten to "Let there be light."

[narya]

Vison,

The Internet has made a difference in several big ways for me. I think it could for teens as well. Not so sure about younger kids.

I cherish the ability to reach out to others who think the way I do, or who think differently than I do, and engage them in deep discussions. It's not something I can do in real life. I had penpals as a kid, but it really wasn't the same.

The Internet has brought the information highway to my doorstep. Now if I have a question I look it up immediately. I don't have to go to the library, or ask an authority figure, or try to find something I can't spell, by its correct spelling, in the dictionary.

I've just discovered podcasts in the past few months, and they are enriching my life by allowing me to "read" while commuting, to be equanimous in long lines, to expand my mind by listening to high level journals on various topics, and to laugh out loud (to the consternation of other bus riders) while listening to comedy. This all comes to me via the Internet.

Now what a kid would do with a laptop is hard to say. I'm afraid the same laptop that can download The New England Journal of Medicine can also be used for chat, first person shooters, Rush Limbaugh, and other bubblegum for the brain.

[Griffon64]

Hmmm, I was going to post something along the lines that Frelga posted. I lived in a developing country for years, after all. It is not all mud huts and malnutrition. It is also things like poor inner-city kids or even just kids living in the shack communities and doing homework by candlelight, often in their second or third languages. A sufficiently robust laptop could be a help in such a case, provided the child has the motivation to learn.

Of course, the spectre of "fire and forget" looms. Just delivering these laptops is barely even the start. Making sure the children use them properly and benefit is the bulk of the deal.

A child who hardly ever worked with a computer before doesn't miss the Internet or indeed even need it. That is way beyond the scope of the education that child needs, in my admittedly uninformed opinion. If these laptops will help with the fundamentals of learning and how to learn, it would be great. That is a more valuable skill than knowing how to look something up on the Internet.

If I look at how I studied just barely a decade ago and compare it with how I acquire knowledge now, I'm kind of appalled, and thankful that I got a chance to learn how to parse information from library books instead of having it delivered in a information bite that's in one ear and out the other.

[River]

I am not at all convinced that a PC and the internet are such wonderful additions to any child's life.

Really? In a society as dominated by technology as ours, you don't see why it's important for kids to learn how to use a PC? You don't see the value in the amount of information a person can access through an internet connection? When I was in HS, I was able, through the internet, to access documents I would otherwise have had to travel across the country to look at (school project). I was also able to find info for my dad (it took him a long time to come to grips with the 'net) that he later used in court cases.

Granted, I think laptops deserve a lower priority than, say, vaccinations, clean water, and mosquito nets, but computers are an incredibly valuable tool in the developed world and it's crippling to not know how to use them.

[vison]

I regard the internet as an adult toy. I wouldn't be without it, myself!!! But my grandchildren are not allowed to play on my computer. They use computers at school, both their schools are pretty well equipped with computers. But beyond doing the AR tests, Oz doesn't do any school related stuff in the computer lab, they play games at lunchtime. And Tay, so far, has only used the computer to type out the odd essay.

I would really like to hear from some elementary school teachers and see what they have to say.

Oz's teacher has been teaching for over 30 years, when I get the chance I'll ask her what she thinks.

[Primula Baggins]

My understanding is that these would be used formally, in classrooms, as a teaching aid, in addition to at home. It seems to me that they would be tremendously useful for that, especially in classrooms that don't have video systems or overhead projectors or such. Or enough books.

I am not saying that mere access to the Internet is going to do any good in itself. But when there is no library within a day's walk, or no library at all, what is wrong with using the Internet to make up the difference?

Sure, kids don't need the Internet, or TV, or X-Boxes, or really much of anything, if they have adequate access to books. How many kids in the Third World have houses full of books and a library on the corner, or even in their schools? Because they can't have the ideal, are they supposed to have nothing at all?

[vison]

The thing is, I doubt that there will be the kinds of systems and supports that would make the PC and the internet useful. It seems like giving them bunch of bicycles with no wheels, IMHO.

I asked Oz how much he uses the computer at school. He's in grade 5 and his school has a good computer lab, this year all new Apples. They are working on one project with the teacher, a Power Point presentation on Eagles, and he does his AR tests on the computer. He does not use it every day for schoolwork, neither do the other grades.

When I look at the work Oz does, or Tay, what they need more than anything is more actual reading and writing, the old fashioned kind. They are reasonably bright boys, but they have not so far been taught to put their thoughts down on paper (or typed on a keyboard) into any kind of order. That skill is so important, and yet literacy as literacy seems to be fading away. It is a terrible imposition on either one of them to have to answer a question with a complete sentence or to have to write a 200 word "essay". They are aghast at the prospect.

I don't doubt for a minute that a PC, in the hands of the right teachers, could be a useful tool. But really, if the same amount of money was put into providing books and chalkboards and paper and pens for these kids, I think it might do more for them.

But those are not what is on offer.

[Primula Baggins]

Well, I am perhaps judging from a biased sample: I have three fiercely literate, Internet-savvy kids who use computers daily (one cannot do his schoolwork in any other way because of a disability in manual dexterity). They use computers for schoolwork, exploration, contact with friends (one talks to his girlfriend in California daily, face to face, by computer), creating art, creative writing, finding and listening to music, editing films, storing and editing photos, applying to colleges, checking their grades and picking up homework assignments, interacting with tutoring students, emailing Mom from college. . . .

No question they could have a rich life without their computers. I did, all of us my age did. But their lives are not impoverished by computers; they're made even richer, just as mine has been.

Books and chalkboards and paper and pens are also needed, definitely, but I don't see how providing computers eliminates that.

And learning to write well is easier on computers. I have a touch of what my son has, I think; my handwriting is jerky and hard to read. The day in ninth grade when I was finally allowed to use a typewriter for homework, instead of grinding it out in painful cursive (we were not allowed to print), was bliss.

But the thought of trying to write a novel on a typewriter fills me with horror.

[vison]

Oh, I'm with you on that, Primula. Imagine, Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope wrote theirs with a quill pen . . .

I don't wish to be misunderstood: my point is that I think this grand notion of providing every kid in the world with a laptop is a poor idea. I think that, nonetheless, many poor kids will be given laptops. Some of them might be lucky enough to have someone around to show them how to get something out of it.

And I'm afraid that the need for the simplest education materials will be forgot, shoved aside, with an assumption by the wealthy nations that they aren't that necessary any more, since the kids can now get all the information they need from the net.

As for kids needing to know how to use the PC, well, you know, we didn't have lessons at school to teach us how to use the telephone and that's about how common computers are, and how easy they are to use or how easy they will be to use. The computers my boys are using now will be long forgotten 5 years from now and the ones they use then will be nothing like the ones they use now.

My youngest son can do nearly everything on his Blackberry or whatever the hell the thing is called. Imagine what those devices will be like 5 years from now!

Myself, I'd be very sad not to have the internet, I do all my banking and billpaying as well as conducting a busy social life (:D) on the internet. But it's a luxury for me, not a necessity.

[Lurker]

I tend to agree with what Vison posted.

Everybody just pointed out that it is good for educational purposes and stuff but I think what Vison is trying to say is once you have a computer and access to the internet, people tend to become more "materialistic". What's next one cellphone for every person in the third world? Everybody needs to get in touch you know. I hate this kind of "advertising schemes" wherein you have to buy something first to help another person in the third world. Look at our company, we made money and we helped the third world, too. Wow, we are "soooo" giving back to the community. If you really want to educate the third world send more volunteer teachers. This ties in to what V says, teach a person how to fish and he will never starve. We survived without computers when we were kids and we turned out well. If computers are really tools for learning, how come if I ask a kid in the street about history, science etc? They can't answer me. Yet, if I asked him what the new X-box game is he would even explain to you how the game works. Educational my foot!!!

I couldn't imagine which part of the third world they are sending this out and that it has been very effective. In the cities probably, but not in some remote village where they can't even get clean water. Is there a bus which will round up these kids in these remote villages and have them use these computers. You want motivation to learn, go send "real" teachers not a teacher in a box.

Nope, I'm not sold with this idea, sorry.

[River]

Next they'll want cell phones? "They" already have cell phones. The poorest Third World country I've ever been to was Tanzania. Guess what. There were cell phones all over the place. Granted, most of them were pretty basic, but they were cell phones. Same with Bolivia and Ecuador. Putting in the infrastructure for cell phone service is much easier and cheaper than putting in infrastructure for land lines. All you have to do is slap up a few towers in the right places and bang, there's your network.

[Primula Baggins]

Those micro loans they make to women especially? Very often they're used to buy a cell phone, which is often the only phone in the woman's village. The woman who owns the phone charges for using it. She makes a decent living to help her family; the village has phone service. They may never get regular phone lines. A cell phone is not everywhere, always, a luxury. Neither is a computer.

Lurker, those computers were designed specifically for this purpose. They were supposed to cost $100 but ended up costing $200. The organization can't afford to give them away for $200, so they came up with this idea. It isn't a moneymaking scheme. It lets them give away the computers as they originally planned.

[WampusCat]

Why is there such disdain for education in Third World villages? I once visited a rural part of Uganda that didn't even have electricity at that time, but the students learned at an advanced level. Their biggest challenge was the lack of textbooks, not a lack of teachers, intelligence or motivation to learn (many of the students walked miles to school each day).

Putting an essential tool like the computer into their hands is the equivalent of building a well-stocked, up-to-date library in every village.

Computers are the tools of this century and beyond, as essential as basic literacy has been in the last few centuries. I think it's a brilliant idea to build a low-cost computer that can function in non-urban environments.

And yes, cell phones are common in Third World nations and have made a huge difference in communication. Just because something is new technology for us doesn't mean other areas must wait for it until they've gone through the same steps to reach it. Let them leapfrog.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Oh good. Now I don't have to try to put my thoughts together, because Wampus has already done so for me. I couldn't agree more.

[vison]

As far as the PC being a brilliant tool, yes. But as far as it being used as it ought to be? Sure, there will be kids who do that. But I bet it won't be the majority.

However, we shall soon see the results of this social experiment.

It would be swell if the same amount of thought and money went into providing drugs for AIDS sufferers. Kids need mothers more than they need computers.

Stephen Lewis

[Primula Baggins]

Why is it impossible to see this effort as in addition to other efforts to help, rather than instead of them?

If every new idea is bad because it might hurt more traditional aid efforts, then nobody in need will ever get anything more than basic food and medicine until every human being on earth has all those things. That sounds good in principle, maybe, but the fact is that people also need to have opportunities to get themselves out of poverty; that's the path to some kind of sustainable quality of life that doesn't depend on outside help. And that requires education, including access to information.

[vison]

I'm not disputing that, Primula. I just think this is the wrong approach.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not disputing that, Primula. I just think this is the wrong approach.

But why? I'm not trying to difficult; I'm genuinely trying to understand why you think this is a bad thing. I thought it was because you thought that it was taking away from efforts to provide food and health care, but now you seem to be saying that is not the case. Is it really because you think that providing access to the Internet is more of a bad thing than a good thing? We can (perhaps in another thread) discuss whether it is a good thing that, as Wampus stated so succinctly, "Computers are the tools of this century and beyond, as essential as basic literacy has been in the last few centuries." But I really don't think that the basic truth of that statement can be disputed. I see this effort as helping providing a vehicle for people in third world countries to survive in the modern world.