On Tuesday 17 August 2010 10:45 PM, jtd wrote: > > It's the content and pedagogy that is of vital importance than merely > the cost of some gizmo or the other. The scale on which we need to > train our teachers and provide other basic amenities in schools > dwarfs by several orders of magnitude any technology barriers. >
True. But this will happen even if the computer is given free of cost. Training the people in understanding the use of a computer and the purpose of using the internet will have to be given under any circumstances. Otherwise it will be an extended version of the mobile used to view, create and transmit MMSs. > Kherat a village near Matheran is using the OLPC donated and monitored > by the Digital bridge foundation. The school has one power connection > with several hours of power cuts, to charge 25 odd OLPCs. > The organisation that looked over the supplies of the OLPCs should have foreseen this problem. Since the OLPC is meant to be used in areas that have inadequate power supply, there should be solutions for it. If the Govt. wants to make a peoples' computer, it should take into account what the machine will be actually used for and then design accordingly. Other than internet usage for searching information, email and e-Governance, data entry is an important function that will be carried out on it. Youngsters and housewives are taking up data entry jobs at home and converting paper work into electronic data. Then there are others who do DTP work and other graphics jobs on their pc. The peoples' computer will have to fulfill all these requirements. It will need a reasonably good screen size and a proper keyboard and mouse. I was also looking at the mini-ITX form of motherboards on the net. They look promising. Many of them have TV outs too. However any decent technology will not be possible below 100$. Even without the screen. The Govt. could provide them on soft loans or some rent. The 35$ machine is not a reality. On top of that they are even suggesting that the cost will further reduce. -- As a proper list etiquette... Please trim your replies. Post your replies below the relevant original text, leaving a line space. Do not re-use old messages to write new ones. Regards, Rony. -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
