John Bailo wrote:
>
> This makes me mad:
>
> "The project also met its share of setbacks. India questioned the basic
> premise that providing notebook computers to children would, by default,
> improve their education.
>
> The nation's Ministry of Human Resource Development labelled the $100
> laptop project as "pedagogically suspect" and discontinued its planned
> investment."
>
> Man, I bought my kid a $1500 laptop and he's straight A's plus.
>
> If the petty bureaucrats and road-blocking "in" crowd would finally pull
> up stakes and GTF out of the way maybe we could finally make progress
> for the kids in these places.
No, it is not as simple as that. The cultural issues of education have
to be dealt with as well. Or to put it in techie terms, the "human
factors." I read some article awhile back about the use of shared
computer kiosks in Indian villages. I distinctly remember it
succeeding in some places and failing in others, and it had something
to do with how the use of the computer was integrated with the
community. I cannot remember the details. I'm saying, look deeper
into the subject of computers and education in the developing world,
before assuming it's a categorically good idea to throw a laptop in
front of everybody. You can spend all the money you want on technology
and if you don't address the human factors, you get nothing.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
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