Its the marketing this time Taran-- the marketing which included the
celebrities and the world stage. How many folks from the South could get
that advantage -- however meritorious the cause?
Errol Hewitt
At 11:37 27/11/2005 -0600, you wrote:
Terry King wrote:
> At 03:54 PM 11/24/2005 -0600, David wrote:
>
>> Why does a laptop prevent children from working together? I would
>> argue that an affordable, real laptop with useful features would be
>> an incredible boon to community technologists. Firstly, because
>> community networking, via laptop or desktop, is still networking
>> between members of a community...meaning that it is a collaborative
>> process instead of an alienating one.
>
>
>
> I've been following these discussions, and I think it's time to try to
> bring ALL the good ideas to bear on the issue of using ICT's in
> appropriate ways to improve the lives of people, and especially to
> support children and their education.
>
> I think that the Mesh Network feature of the MIT/everychild laptop is
> one of it's strengths (and one that can and will be used in other
> efforts). It is a network that will work for community-based
> collaboration for education and other goals. For any program to work,
> and move into many different villages and areas, the "seeds" need to
> be able to be sown without ICT people on the ground going around a
> whole country setting up low-level infrastructure.
OK. I hate to be the myth-slayer here, and I was honestly hoping that
someone else would do it, but laptops with wireless cards - even Windows
XP - can do this. In fact, this was one of the features that Apple
marketers were shouting about a couple of years ago with the confusingly
named 'Airport', and so forth. The mesh network has been done and
continues to be done without Negroponte.
In the end, it's nothing new - it's just wrapped different. It is quite
useful, and people have been successfully using these abilities for
quite some time. Yet, without actual content to transfer or a connection
to the internet, it's all sort of senseless. Arguably, it makes the
copying of homework easier, but that's not an argument - just an
observation. :-)
Snipped a lot of good things.
> The $100Laptop as envisioned by MIT is not the only way to do this,
> but it's definitely in the right direction, in my opinion.
It is. I see it as educational; look what has to be done to get Koffi
Annan to talk about it. A big budget, repackaged and reintegrated
technologies, and...
> Look at http://laptop.media.mit.edu/ Read who the principals are.
The principals never impress me, it's the product.
> Those people DO know what they are doing, and have a track record of
> successfully to pushing Technology to a real product.
They also have a few failures in their past as well. That's not an
argument, just a balancing observation. And then, here's the argument:
If they were really successful at pushing technology as a real product,
would Negroponte's $550 million laptop (5 million minimum order, present
actual cost $110 per unit) be necessary? Perhaps the definition of
successful is different in what these companies have done and what they
are attempting to do through the graces of His Negroponteness. Perhaps
it's that variance in the definition of 'success' that people are
actually discussing here.
The two successes are markedly different, and if the successes are not
different in the eyes of Negroponte and Co., as well as the people who
rise to defend the possibility of 'success' - well, then nothing has
changed. Which is sort of my point, either way.
>
> As another principal of the $100 laptop project, Alan Kay, famously
> said about 20 years ago:
> "The best way to predict the Future is to Invent it"!
Alan Kay also said
"Perspective is worth 80 IQ points"
Nnot that I believe in IQ tests, but so far I've been seeing a very
singular version of success coming from the people who think it's a
brilliant idea.
>
> This Year, Right Now: I think we should all be behind the TeleCentre
> type efforts, and the InfoYouth Centres that UNESCO is helping to
> build. They will work now, and start the OUT reach of technology in an
> appropriate way. They will support the large numbers of computers in
> the hands of children in the future.
My thought on success here is not the number of computers that children
can get, but what they can do with them and what they are legally
permitted to do with them, and that these systems should be self
sustaining.
Some people count laptops. I'm inclined to count smiles. 1 laptop isn't
equal to a smile. Most of the time I grimace at mine because of what I
cannot do on it.
--
Taran Rampersad
Presently in: San Fernando, Trinidad
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.knowprose.com
http://www.easylum.net
http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Taran
Coming on January 1st, 2006: http://www.OpenDepth.com
"Criticize by creating." Michelangelo
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