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Literacy Before Laptops

There is a lot to criticize about the OLPC project. But this isn't one: "Technology alone cannot lift people out of poverty, as the collapse of a well-meaning computer scheme shows." First of all, it hasn't collapsed (yet). Second, its supposed failure would show no such thing. Because, third, nobody supposes that the OLPC - or any other one-dimensional initiative - will lift people out of poverty. The Guardian's Andrew Brown, as the title suggests, advocates "literacy before Laptops". Fine. Supposing literacy will solve the problems he mentions, I ask this: how does he suppose literacy is to be achieved? With books? With teachers? Has he looked at the cost of books and teachers lately? No, the computer is the right answer here. Negroponte's mismanagement doesn't change that. Andrew Brown, The Guardian, May 19, 2008. [Link] [Tags: ] [Previous][Next]

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Re: Literacy Before Laptops

Emma Duke-Williams, May 20, 2008

I've just read that article; and I think that some of the comments he & some of the commenters made are valid. Having spent time in classrooms in PNG with no books, I can see that it would seem that having a class set of books could be more useful; the drawback of giving all the Grade 3 children a laptop (from the trials I've read, it seems to be selected classes that get them, rather than every single child), means that as they move up through the school, that group has the laptops (accidents/ loss permitting - what does one do about that?), but others don't.

However, I can also see a lot of the potential. If all children have them & there are enough for spares should the need arise; if the school server has appropriate storage for both set texts and other resources to increase the range of material, if they're used collaboratively as designed, then I think the potential is fantastic.
Applying principles like Friere's approach to education, looking at projects like Action Aid's "Reflect" ( http://www.actionaid.org.uk/index.asp?page_id=323 ) then I can see that laptops that easily mesh with each other, that support collaboration could be used to create the sort of material that Action Aid are looking at. (The cameras/ recording features even allow for things like the drama to be saved).

The reports I'm reading at the moment, seem to concentrate on either the desire to get XP on them (whether that's "good" or "bad",) and / or Negroponte's management. There's a lot more, though, that I think this project offers; many of them tying in with the way we're working to get students to take more responsibility for their learning, to use collaborative tools.

It's a fantastic opportunity as far as I'm concerned. [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

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