No OLPCs for Indian Schoolchildren 98
Sensing more sinister goings on, reader bstadil calls the decision the result of an "MS counter move":In India, there are basically two kinds of schools — the high tuition, exclusive schools run by Christian Convents or rich, privately funded educational institutions, and the 'municipal' schools run by the government.
Most children that go to the former category of schools come from middle class/upper class families and already have access to computers at home.
Presumably, the OLPC program is for the second type of schools, which mostly children who live close to or below the poverty line attend. Most of these schools will have teachers who have never used computers, and who are likely to resent any drastic technological change such as computers in the classroom.
So, along with an OLPC program, the government would have to run a massive teacher-education program to teach the use of these computers in the classroom — not to mention overhauling the coursework so that it makes effective use of these machines.
In addition, the government would have to put in place infrastructure to service and repair these laptops at affordable prices throughout India.
All of this to be done in a country of more than a billion people speaking hundreds of known languages and dialects.
When you think of these factors, those laptops are going to cost way more than the $100 MIT claims.
I could go on and on about the fallacies of this scheme, but clearly, it would be crazy for India to adopt it at this point in time.
Reader eln takes the Ministry's objections at closer to face value, writingGates has been courting India for quite a while. This move is a political move nothing to do with the merits of the program.I really don't care about India but would love to see Bangladesh adopt the OLPC program. They have thanks to Yusun and his Microloan program almost eradicated poverty so they seem to be a more innovative people. Remember 10- 15 years ago you almost always heard of about the plight of Bangladesh? Heard anything lately? I rest my case.
While the OLPC program may have suffered a setback in India, reader Gord says it'sAlso, the concern about health effects may seem silly, but there have been plenty of cases where things that were relatively harmless for adults turn out to have adverse effects on still-developing children. Given this, and given that these children would presumably be using these laptops for many hours a day, asking for studies on this does not seem unreasonable.
Nigeria's government isn't the only one who holds out hope for the benefit of a cheap, low-powered but durable computer. Danzigism is one of several readers who thinks that the OLPC hardware has a brighter future if it was made available on a larger scale:Worth pointing out that according to this brief article, Nigeria has ordered 1 million of these laptops at $100 a throw.
Reader theCat defends computer-per-pupil programs, and says that "[s]everal experiments in the U.S." have resulted in "general[ly] positive results," writingI think they just need to market the damn things.. i'd gladly pay $150-200 for one, for my kid — just manufacture them damnit! I think the idea is great to give kids these things and all, but I'd rather buy the kids tons of books and put the money into providing them a good education, with good teachers and a nice working environment.
Reader Bastian responds to that, writingI think anyone who says "feed them first, then give them a computer" misses the point that if all you do is ever feed people and then move on, that's as far as they get. I get the impression that while most people living in poverty will happily accept a meal, they will likewise fight hard and loudly to better their condition even at the risk of someone going without a meal in the process. You don't have to be a rich Western geek to understand that filling your belly today doesn't guarantee a full belly tomorrow, and food aid is notorious for drying up once a current crisis is abated.
Reality Master 101 asks for a link to positive results mentioned by theCat, writingAs a former student of a school with a one-student-one-computer program, I'd like to point out that I'm not convinced by the positive results people are reporting. When you spend God-only-knows-how-much-money and muck around with kids' educations with a program like this, admitting you screwed up is just about the dumbest thing a person could possibly do. I can't speak for anyone else, but my high school really screwed up with that idea. That didn't stop the administrators from bragging and bragging and bragging as if these laptops had turned everyone into a genius child. (Rather than just being one more distraction.)
... If we want to fix up our schools, we should start by reviewing our crufty old educational plan that hasn't been revised for decades and basically ignores all major research on how people learn. Once we have a new plan, we can go about figuring out how to implement it. I'm sure that computers will be the best way to implement some details of the plan, but they should be used only for those things, and if it turns out that there's a better way to do something else (lectures, for example, are almost guaranteed to suck if PowerPoint is involved), then they should be avoided.
But stuff like the OLPC program seem to work from the assumption that computers are this magic bullet that will instantly improve education — through some hand-wavy magic computron field, maybe?
Reader loquacious d offers the disclaimer that he is "currently contracting with several Alaskan organizations in the area of education technology," along with a defense of encouraging computers in schools:I've only seen studies that show how overall useless, if not negative, computers are in the classroom, especially when you give them to students. They get broken easily, they're generally used in non-educational ways, and they're a big distraction. I doubt you can find some clear, unambiguous gains for students with laptops.
In a separate thread, reader Angst Badger was broadly skeptical of the educational value of computers in the classroom, but did spot a few exceptions:One neat thing about technology in schools is that it lets you do completely new kinds of schoolwork. A new kind of project that many of my English-teaching acquaintances are starting to like is the fake-novel-movie-adaptation-trailer, or artsy-literature-inspired-music-video. Going outside the bounds of the traditional two-page book report or reading journal really helps students think differently and more deeply about the subject (especially for students not compatible with the text-based U.S. school system). Film also really lends itself to literary tropes like symbolism, foreshadowing, and irony. This kind of thinking is just not possible (or at least very difficult) without prevalent access to technology. I've heard anecdotally that music students love GarageBand for recording state honor band/choir audition tapes, or just for practicing in general (recording yourself is notoriously one of the best ways to figure out all the myriad ways you suck). And the sheer amount of good information and media available on the internet is rapidly rivaling even the best-equipped public school libraries.
Obviously the $100 laptop isn't going to be a great video editing machine (though, if you can do it on an Amiga [wikipedia.org]...), but even the basic functions of word processing and Internet capability (the Wikipedia, for chrissake! how great would the world be if everyone had the Wikipedia?) have the capability to dramatically improve the baseline quality of education for developing populations.
Readers debated at length the difference between the use of laptops in education in poor countries compared to rich ones; one argument, as phrased by reader xzvf, is that Industrial Countries have Textbooks:To be fair, while I was working for a school district, I saw some really creative uses of computers, but these were a) the exception, and b) still not very good uses of money compared to other things that it could have been spent on.)
The other problem that is not often considered at the outset is the maintenance cost. A school district full of computers needs a full-time support staff, which takes away money that could have gone to hiring new teachers and reducing class sizes, and it also requires regular replacement. One-third of the IT budget for the district I worked in was devoted to replacing obsolete machines.
Surprisingly, the best use I saw for computers was reducing the amount of time it took teachers and staff to take attendance and collate grades. That actually did some good because teachers had more time to teach.
To another reader's question about "the pedagogical use for notebooks in class," twofidyKidd jokingly offered "two words": Sex Ed.Industrial countries have and can pay for nearly new textbooks to give to each child. Most parents in industrialized countries have computers their children can use. OLPC replaces books and gives the entire family access to information.
That, according to Capt'n Hector, isn't funny.
To that, Jherek Carnelian saysNot funny. Insightful. Do you know how much ignorance there is in developing nations about STDs, birth control, pregnancy, etc?
Many comments focused on the seeming incongruity of providing high-technology in the form of laptop computers rather than what is conventionally described as "humanitarian aid" to countries plagued by more immediate problems, such as extreme poverty. StefanJ says these are not mutually exclusive:
Reader Senzei also chides as simplistic the argument that computers aren't appropriate until more basic issues are resolved:There is no reason not to simultaneously provide medical aid, food aid, aid to repair infrastructure, and etcetera, and computers. That is a phony dichotomy.One of the big failings of aid and development programs in the past has been a lack of appropriateness; clueless big projects which do little or nothing to help.
It is possible that the One-Laptop-Per-Child project is one of these clueless projects. It could, however, end up as a sort of force multiplier, a source of intelligence (in the "information" sense of the word) and a form of feedback that would let aid organizations know what is really needed and where.
pherthyl addresses one of the , writingYep, there are a lot of people with really basic needs. Too bad there are not more educated members of society with the ability to communicate those needs to each other and organize some aid. It would be awesome if someone could help give an education boost to those countries that are above starvation but not yet affluent enough to really provide a lot of help. Oh wait...
Reader Whiney Mac Fanboy distinguishes good aid from bad, writingThe side effect of feeding the hungry is that it effectively destroys their entire local food production business. The farmers who previously supported themselves selling food can't compete with free and are suddenly themselves dependent on handouts to survive.Do some reading on how the flood of donated clothes from the western world destroyed the textile industry in many areas of Africa. Handouts are a terrible long term solution.
Finally, Lemmy Caution offers a note of caution that probably applies to any computers-in-classrooms project, but in particular ones along the lines of the OLPC project, which aim to increase educational opportunities by spreading technology through charitable and other low-cost measures to the developing world:Depends on how its done. Aid agencies such as Oxfam have recognised this for a while — and rather than importing food to troubled areas, try to either give locals money to buy food or buy from local farmers.
Government agencies don't particularly like that however, as they'd rather spend their aid budget within their own country, helping their own farmers (its amazing how much of the average first-world nation's "aid" budget will be spent within that country).
[N]ot all markets work the same: housing is sui generis (particularly when it is land and location that is the cost-driver.)Also, education is not a panacea. You can over-educate a population past its economic opportunities and create a variety of problems, from the wide-scale loss of the best-and-brightest to other countries, to a population of resentful, overeducated people who are only able to find jobs in the lower ranks of the agricultural and industrial sectors (this is much of what happened in parts of Latin America -- the Sendero Luminoso of Peru was largely officered by a generation of well-educated poor youth who found no job opportunities awaiting for them after their much-vaunted education was finished.)
England did not have the most widely educated population back when it was the richest, most powerful nation in the world. I think you might find the correlation between education and prosperity, historically, to have a number of suprises.
Many thanks to all the readers who took part in the discussion, in particular those whose comments are quoted above.
Re:Got a better idea.... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Got a better idea.... (Score:3, Informative)
Sex education in schools seems to be a taboo in USA, unless you count the religious right preaching of "no sex before marriage" as education.
Re:Got a better idea.... (Score:1)
Re:Got a better idea.... (Score:2)
Re:Got a better idea.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh wait, nevermind, 900 other people have already brought it up, and it's already been debated [slashdot.org].
Please note, I took that link directly from the front page of this article. Please read an article before posting your worthless comment, which was clearly as well thought out as putting out a fire with gasoline.
Re:Got a better idea.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Got a better idea.... (Score:1)
Sorry.
How about them eBook savings? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How about them eBook savings? (Score:1)
Yes, please do. (Score:2)
This has nothing to do with novels to read while commuting or lying in a hammock. Thsi has everything to do with k
Re:Got a better idea.... (Score:1)
How about... (Score:1)
Oookayyy... (Score:1, Interesting)
Put aside that they're not going to be making these at the $100 point for the foreseeable ever...
So you idiots think that India isn't ordering these under pressure from Microsoft, but Nigeria, where the son of the president/dictator works for Microsoft, *is* ordering a million of them?
Re:Oookayyy... (Score:1)
Re:Save a billion (Score:2)
Re:Save a billion (Score:1)
I think the benefit depends (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is an existing infrastructure for education, buildings, teachers, books, pencils, paper, etc. then it might make more sense to focus on those traditional things rather than blindly say that computers in the classroom are a good thing and throw money at them.
However, the target for these $100 laptops are places where there is no infrastructure, no books, no classrooms, nothing. Now when starting from scratch like that I think you get more benefit from every child having a laptop right off the bat than from trying to build up the more traditional type of educational system like we have in more developed contries.
It is sort of like saying that countries should have to build out traditional analog phone line systems rather than start out with cell phone systems which are so much less physical infrastructure intensive. That doesn't make sense, why force them to build the type of thing we are moving away from just for the sake of making them do it they way we did.
Also, I haven't heard anyone mention what I read was one of the more off beat benefits of the $100 laptops:
The provided light for the whole hut at night. I am not joking, when asking for feed back from the parents of children who were testing the idea, the parents said they thought it was great because it was by far the brightest light they had at night.
Re:I think the benefit depends (Score:2)
Go study kids, I need the light!
Good grief! (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, yeah. India is run by a regressive ideology that restricts access to computers and the Internet in order to suppress feminism. You guys are obsessed with the prospect of losing your jobs to them, but as soon as they're insufficiently besotted with Linux (or insufficiently anti-Microsoft), they're Talibanistic Luddite savages.
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:2)
Sure the educated elite tend to have modern values, although there are still plenty of dark undercurrents that manifest in ugly ways. But the vast majority of the population that is still gripped in poverty is also still gripped with regressive social attitudes.
As I said in a similar rebuttal:
1) How many dowries are paid each year in India?
2) How many bride burnings are there each year in India?
3) Who
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:2)
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:1)
If you actually had a point, you would be justified in your snideness. But clearly you are not wise enough to put 2 and 2 together. So I will spell it out:
The point is that regressive attitudes are pervasive enough that even if the educated elite at the top levels of politics think it is a good idea, they know enough to expect plenty
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:2)
There was no mention about free access to porno in the linked article. And neither is this a measure to provide free broadband, merely to provide laptops to kids.
The thing bothering me is this. In a discussion on, say, women's rig
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:2)
Where the hell did I say that?
Are you reading some sort of alternate universe bizzarodot?
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:1)
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:1)
It's just that you don't HEAR much about the goings on in most third world countries due to repressive governments, suppressed and non-free news media, jingoistic propaganda etc.
We have the immense burden o
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:2)
Looks like the Gini Index has a flaw if the "greater poverty" of Pakistan is only a half-point worse. Not that it matters, since Pakistan's problems regarding repression of women are Pakistan's problems, not India's. The question at hand is simply, is India's society regressive towa
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:1)
The fact is that most people who tout these comparisons are doing so not out of genuine interest or concern for our problems, but in a concerted attack of defamation because they regard our race as inferior to theirs.
Criticizing our problems as a measure to put our many achievement
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:2)
Then ignore each line of stats that says USA - that was for the guy who started with the USA comparisons. Concentrate on the part of each India line that applies to males and then the part that applies to females.
That is the ONLY comparison that matters when answering the question - "Is Indian society regressive towards women?"
When you accept that the answer is "yes," -- not "foo is worse" -- then you have arriv
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:1)
Generally, YES, it is. However, one must qualify that, unlike some other countries, there is widespread criticism and condemnation of this problem in INDIA itself (Google on the internet for women's advocacy groups of Indian women, government sponsored emancipation programmes etc.) that have made noteworthy progress in this regard. Bear in mind that it is in the best interest of all political parties to get the women educated and up-and-running so that they can v
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:1)
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:1)
Re:Good grief!-Logic takes a dirt nap. (Score:2)
Voluntary? Get a grip. People don't "voluntarily" pay dowries, it is purely social pressure. You know, from a regressive society.
2) How many bride burnings are there each year in India?
And orders of magnitude more than in any 1st world country. This discussion is not about Pakistan, Bangladesh or Antarctica. Do NOT even try to excuse such behaviour by saying others are worse.
3) Who killed Ph
Re:Good grief! (Score:2)
Back in the 1970s, I read about an interesting social experiment that was done in India. The experimenters picked a number of villages at random, and made arrangements to supply the local clinic with various kinds of birth-control methods at a reasonable price. Then they started watching the vital statistics.
A year or so later, they reported that 9 months after the experiment s
Re:Good grief! (Score:2)
I admit this is hearsay, but at least I've heard it a couple of times. In the Philippines, probably the strongest bastion of catholicism left in the world, there are no condom factories. This is also a country where families regular
Re:Good grief! (Score:1)
Re:Good grief! (Score:1)
Re:Good grief! (Score:1)
Obviously no one taught you manners ya squirt!
priorities (Score:1)
OLPC work is worthwhile (Score:3, Interesting)
Nigeria's purchase of 1 million of these: (Score:3, Funny)
Firstly I must solicit your confidence in this matter. Let me introduce my self I am Tijani Yusufo credit officer for the Union Bank of Nigeria
CRANK CRANK CRANK CRANK
I need to transfer a large sum of money out of my country to a foreign account requiring maximum confidence
CRANK CRANK CRANK CRANK
Here is my proposition....
Re:Nigeria's purchase of 1 million of these: (Score:2)
My Mom Was A Public School Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, the problems afflicting the education system, in the U.S. at least, are social not technological. Presumably, elsewhere in the world, this is the case, as well.
Re:My Mom Was A Public School Teacher (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:My Mom Was A Public School Teacher (Score:4, Insightful)
What the hell? I mean, sure there are bloated unions, but the idea that removing unions entirely and cutting money to schools would somehow improve the educational system is so obviously ludicrous it shouldn't need to be said.
Unions need to be kept in line, sure. But so does management.
Re:My Mom Was A Public School Teacher (Score:2)
I'm in favor of publically funded, but privately owned and operated schools. Let parents choose what schools their kids go to and let the public funds follow them. We'll see how fast underperforming schools shape up when there is profit motive.
Re:My Mom Was A Public School Teacher (Score:2)
Re:My Mom Was A Public School Teacher (Score:2)
It's a shame that people automatically shun any idea that doesn't involve throwing more money at failing schools. If a restaurant continues to serve food that tastes terrible, people will stop going and it will eventually go out of business. However, schools that continually fail to perform just get more and more public funding and little or no change in management (for lack of better term).
I believe schools should be publically funde
increasing money to schools... (Score:1)
As to unions and management, etc, union workers only do what management tells them to do.
Re:My Mom Was A Public School Teacher (Score:2)
Re:My Mom Was A Public School Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends... As one person said:
"Never memorize anything that you can look up." -Albert Einstin
Depends on how basic that math is and if you will always have access to do that calculator. If I need to find out if my $20 dollars is enough to by eggs, milk, and a six pack of beer I should be able to do that in my head.
However, if I need to calculate the velocity and trajectory of a swallow travling at two knots after being hit the 747 traveling at 258 mphs... I should get better tools.
Truth is... Its not memorization that makes man great, but the ability to utilize his tools. Without Google and Wikipedia, most of us would be nothing... But the same could be said if tomorrow we woke up with electricty, running water, and gasoline and were forced to live in caves.
The people that will be successful in the future will be those who can utilize those tools better than others. Sure today we don't have a TI calculator on us at all times (well most of us anyways) but someday kids will have computers implanted directly into their neural nets and the need to manually do calcuation of how much my $20 will buy in the year 2045 (well not much) will become a moot point... Because not only are they able to do it without memorization, but they can do it faster than a fellow with just a non-enchanced brain.
Same goes with a kid with a laptop and a kid without....
Re:My Mom Was A Public School Teacher (Score:2)
You got the quote wrong. I find that very amusing.
Memory & intelligence (Score:1)
Truth is... Its not memorization that makes man great, but the ability to utilize his tools.
I think the role played by memory in intelligence tends to be underestimated. After all, what good are tools if you don't remember how to use them? How else do we know how to speak without memorizing words & their meanings? Or read?
Rote memorization is not sufficient, but it is necessary to a large degree. Most intelligent people I know include a good memory among their attributes (not to mention creat
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I think it's a good thing they rejected this (Score:2)
Umm... No.
If you haven't been paying attention most of those 3rd world nations are getting better because they are sending their kids here to get taught in math and science.
Sorry to say... A PHD in Philosophy, Political Science, or Liberal Arts isn't going to feed your family. Sure it might do wonders for culture, but I know so many friends who are art majors who actually do other things for a living than what they wen
Re:I hate backslash (Score:1)
Can I please be modded up for this as well?
Ta.
How to think (Score:1)
One problem with selling it to the developed world (Score:2)
I think they just need to market the damn things.. i'd gladly pay $150-200 for one, for my kid -- just manufacture them damnit! I think the idea is great to give kids these things and all, but I'd rather buy the kids tons of books and put the money into providing them a good education, with good teachers and a nice working environment.
The only problem with that is you'd get
Re:One problem with selling it to the developed wo (Score:2)
If:
A) Every children got one for free at school
B) It's almost useless unless you're a children, or a geek
Take a look at the machine specs... Sure, if it was an average laptop, able to run Windows, MSOffice and all sort pirated applications and games some people would buy it from the children, but given the laptop specs and software it seems very unlikely.
Costs too high + info (Score:1)
India actually has a giangantic problem with basic literacy. Even though the country produces so many engineers and doctors, many of its people cannot read. If India could get the money to buy the laptops it would be better spent on making 1st-5th grade education universal. And at least by estimates from the 1990s, the price would be quite similar, with the five years paper and pencil education being cheaper.
(fr
Tools != Education quality (Score:1)
The basic reality is that quality of tools does not have a tight correlation with quality of education.
Higer quality tools can enable higer quality education, but only if you have quality educators. A great teacher with Paper/Pencil/Chalkboard/Books will outperform a mediocre teacher with a $30,000 multimedia classroom.
Without a quality digital textbook, the OLPC is just an over-priced paper-weight. Now, if a quality piece of educational material is created for the OLPC, then we can help teachers with
Excellent points but . . . (Score:2)
They should provide guidance, SDKs, maybe even funding, but the software and materials should be home grown.
For one thing, local educators will best know what their students need.
For another, this is a chance to employ the local talent.
Imagine if Nigeria and/or some NGOs started employing all those computer-literate kids who are sending out 409 letters to instead do some useful coding!
tradeoffs and cultural appropriateness (Score:2)
Even if it were clearer than it is that providing laptops has educational advantages over not providing laptops, it still would not be clear that this would be the most effective investment of India's money. It's one thing to ask whether a well-off community in the US should provide laptops and quite another to ask the same question in India. Given limited resources, I don't find it at all difficult to believe that the rational decision in India is to invest in teachers and teacher training, textbooks, and
Wired article on Yves Béhar (Score:1)
The New Math (Score:2)
The academic in the university produces a theory and a textbook, a new way of teaching math, but engagement with parents and teachers is superficial at best.
"help! help! I'm being repressed!" (Score:2)
Indian Govt rejects OLPCs (Score:3, Insightful)
Adult Usage (Score:2)
They will sell them as fast as they get them. (Score:1)
Incorrect. (Score:3, Informative)
As a proud "old boy" of a government-run, "public" school, I have to strongly disagree. There are very good schools in the governmental sphere as well, just that they don't advertise that heavily in the local papers.
Re:Incorrect. (Score:1)
Bravo. I'd pit a decent C.B.S.E (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Board_of_Sec ondary_Education) Kendriya Vidyalaya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendriya_Vidyalaya) against some punk-arse private school any day. KV schools have produced some of the brightest students in India. Many of the JEE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IIT-JEE) - high rankers ave been KV kids, and KV students with decent-to-high marks have done well in many of the best colleges. CBSE is a government syllabus and has th
Everybody gets one. (Score:1)
Gates Foundation $$$ (Score:2)