Accidental Blogger

And I’m not talking about my Dell vs. your Mac, either… This is a war to win the maximum number of consumers in the backwoods of the world, the battle of the $100 (at least in name, currently actually costing $175/-) XO laptop from OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) and the $200 dollar Classmate PC priced at $3/- to undercut OLPC from Intel.
Ex- MIT prof.Nicholas Negroponte (yes, he’s related to the former intelligence czar John Negroponte, as in ‘brother’) is accusing Intel of undercutting his non-profit‘s efforts to bring a tough inexpensive laptop to the children of the world, citing Intel’s long rivalry with rival chip-makers AMD, whose chips are used in OLPC’s laptops.

The XO laptop has already taken off in several countries around the world. For instance this slideshow of  a remote shack of a school housing about 150 kids in Nigeria where they all have their own laptops, is a must see!

How do they reduce costs?
Answer: By using free software and charitable donations of time, products and money from over one thousand participants who make this all available to the cause of taking PC literacy and basic education skills like the two Rs (reading and ‘rithmetic, at the very least) to students all over the developing world.

Yet,there are notes of caution sounded by observers,as another blog makes in its analysis of charitable causes like these:

"Research has shown that laptops have no impact on academic performance, while the cost of maintenance of so many machine in the hands of kids is proving to be high.  And (not surprisingly), the kids are using their laptops mostly for entertainment: surfing the Internet and playing video games." (more at link)

To me, the above argument makes sense. It’s not so much the technology, as the ability or inclination to use whatever is available to best effect, that is the crux of the issue.

My first hands-on experience with computers came when I was in the tenth grade,while attending a brief word-processing course. By the end of the first lesson, I had learned the all-important principle of computers and how to use them – "GIGO( Garbage In Garbage Out). Don’t be afraid to go ahead and make your own mistakes, you can always reboot. "

A simple enough lesson and very easily taught to any first time user, whether they are elderly newbies, or shoeless urchins. Just witness the alacrity with which a user-friendly technology like cell-phones have been adopted, and you get a hint of what might be possible with teaching children about computers and how to use them.

That being said,what is important is not what you use, but how you use what you’ve got. If you’ve inculcated that mindset in even the poorest of the poor neighborhoods, the children will have the power to confidently master anything they will need to succeed in a changing world of technology skills. It doesn’t necessarily need a computer for every child to teach that attitude.

As far as US schools go, the question of making these low-cost laptops available to students has been an attractive proposition to US politicians, especially with the ‘Negroponte’ cachet attached.(link ):

"Whether the XO machines might someday land in U.S. schools has been an open question. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced at one point that he wanted to buy the machines for students in his state. Some time later, Negroponte said Thursday, One Laptop Per Child decided not to work with American schools because ”we’ve designed something for a totally different situation” _ meaning kids in poor countries.

Now, he added, that might change, since 19 state governors have shown interest. One of them was then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. When Bush first e-mailed and casually signed ”Jeb,” Negroponte needed to ask his brother, former national intelligence director John Negroponte, whether the query was legitimate."

One wonders whether they will try to establish a nexus between purchase of the XO laptops and the use of ‘educational software’ like Neil Bush’s Ignite learning and Math COW 

Not to be outdone, some ‘head in the clouds’ politico in the Indian HRD ministry  decided that even a 100 dollar computer was too much and pushed for the development of a 10 dollar PC. The comments on this article are quite eye-popping,the 10 dollar PC effort being promptly pooh-poohed by nay-sayers, who were promptly accused of casteism by others, who were promptly branded starry-eyed "Mera Bharat Mahaan"(‘India is the greatest’) lotus-eaters, and so on and so forth…

In the meantime, the battle of the actual low-cost laptops continues, with all sorts of kinks needing to be ironed out .For example, one only has to read the translated Hindi page of the www.laptop.org website to recognize the problems that they would have with attempting to translate or transliterate to the local languages – it truly falls short of being an accurate and readable interface.

Visionary approaches such low-cost tough laptops as these have their place, but the heavy lifting needed to spread the light of learning in distant corners might be better accomplished through simple and more cost effective means such as less crowded schools, better teacher training and curricula, more incentives for children to remain in the schools without dropping out too early.

(Thanks to Ruchira for the original tip that set me off on researching this post.- you never know where the Google will take you!)