Comments on: The $100 Laptop: Manna-vaporware

By: Arnold Tonderai Marunda

Arnold Tonderai Marunda — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 10:20:16 +0000

I feel too, feel that the pedagogical vision on how the US$100 laptop will be used in schools especially in Africa is very weak. I have no doubt that eventually a US$100 laptop will be developed, but how it would be distributed and used effectively is the real doubt. The core principal of one laptop per child to me especially in an African concept may not be the right way. I believe that the best distibution method would be empowering the teachers in Africa to create learning objects relevant to the African child. Read more of my thoughts at http://google4africa.blogspot.com/2005/12/attack-of-little-green-machine.html...

By: Tleinone

Tleinone — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 15:31:05 +0000

Hi Luppe, Teemu, Jere and Tom,

I do not have anything against affordable computers. I also think that in general all personal computers should be laptops, or should I say devices that are easy to carry with you. However, in addition to the personal computers we need also shared devices in schools, villages, community centers etc. A good initiative to this direction is the Indian Hole-in-the-Wall (http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/...) initiative.

I am sure that the technical challenges related to the MIT’s Laptop will be solved. This is great. Still I am not sure if the investment on MIT’s Laptops is a good investment for any Ministry of Education. At least the $ 100 investment per computer / pupil should be done only with another $ 100 investment per laptop / pupil on teacher training.

Jere: The India project you are asking about is Simputer, the one I am writing about in my post.

By: Tom Caswell

Tom Caswell — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 09:28:34 +0000

While I think creating affordable laptops for kids in developing nations is a great idea, I can only hope there is more in the works than just brightly colored hardware. So assume every child in the world gets a laptop? What happens then? If this $100 laptop effort isn't followed by an equally strong effort to help these kids use them productively then we have learned nothing from our mistakes in implementing technology into U.S. public schools over the last ten years. Back then putting computers in every school was seen as the "silver bullet" that would somehow help make all the kids smarter. The only problem was that few people knew how to use them to improve learning, so the machines often ended up collecting dust in the back of the classroom. Hopefully we have learned something about the need for teacher training and support. The bottom line: Don't expect much if all you do is throw hardware at kids.

By: Jere Majava

Jere Majava — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 02:08:09 +0000

I really don't feel the product is a vaporware. Finding other problems that need to be taken care of also don't really diminish the value or goals of this project: it's great to know there will be affordable computers, when there evetually will be wider Internet access and this can also work as an incentive to develope that infrastructure. Mobile phones are nice, but they are not laptops - unless you want to replace the $100 laptop with $500 (or something) PDA/phone device.

To come think of it I vaguely remember there's a affordaple gadget like this produced by the Indian governement, to be shared within a village community. Does anyone know how that's developing?

By: Luppe

Luppe — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 14:05:49 +0000

We mustn't forget that computers can be pretty useful even without or with only sporadic network access. Like through a mobile phone…

By: Teemu Arina

Teemu Arina — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:39:00 +0000

What most people in the western world do not understand is the cost of communication through the Internet in the third world. For example, Linux is wonderful tool for the third world but often inaccessible because most distributions are built around the requirement for network access for updates etc.

ISDN line in Uganda costs 3000$ / month because of monopoly issues, which are typical in African countries. That's too much for a single user. If we compare the price to average income in third world countries, the price is almost impossible for a single person to pay. In comparison to our salaries, ISDN line would cost around 6-8 months of salary.

Mobile phones and access is cheaper and will probably be more common.

If western countries, if we want to help, we should help these countries to build a healthy competetive environment for network access and also build the physical networks as well, before we think about providing cheap computers.

By: Luppe

Luppe — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:10:34 +0000

I won't speculate on MIT:s motives, but I think you are being overly critical. If this Laptop is indeed supposed to replace textbooks in schools, I agree with you, that would be beyond stupid!

But if a few laptops like these, with the power supply question taken care of, could be distributed in third world schools, it would be a very convenient platform for communication. With the exception of TV, it could partly replace phones and radios. With all the added value of computing and communication over the internet on top of that.