Back in November of 2006, I wrote a piece about the One Laptop Per Child Project. I was afraid that the project's focus on creating a whole new paradigm (the Sugar UI) would ultimately intervene with the actual goal of the project: teaching stuff to kids. Ivan Krstic, former director of security architecture at OLPC, wrote an essay in which he heavily criticises the OLPC project.
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Member since:2005-11-18
Don't forget that only a fraction of children is interested in learning how their computer works. If you want to be a doctor or architect, it is likely that you are not interested in how your webcam software works.
While I do agree that it is a bonus for free software (besides a low price point), the primary goal should be education. In terms of education, having good (electronic?) text books available is much more important, besides that a computer is just an educational tool, and it should be good at that.
An operating system or platform for such devices should be easy to use, use little power, and not add much to the costs. If a modified OS X (what Apple appears to have offered) fulfills those requirements, it seems to be a viable option as well. And I am not sure why they would've let that option pass.
In this case I think it is important to forget our own agendas, and think about the primary goal: education.
Edited 2008-05-14 11:12 UTC
Member since:2005-06-29
Bingo.
The goal of educating children is far more important than the goal of spreading Free software or fighting t3h ev1l Microsoft. Those children will define the future of the world - our software will not.
Member since:2007-04-13
Sorry, let me just highlight the last sentence of yours:
"In this case I think it is important to forget our own agendas, and think about the primary goal: education."
All the other companies involved in creating OLPC competition this have shown only a commitment to their own agendas and had a very negative impact on OLPC as a result, often through lobbying, a tactic the OLPC team obviously can't do as they can't pay off corrupt government officials as it appears classmate sales staff can do.
Stallman maybe wants to further Free Software but this is because he believes it is the best tool and not because it makes him money or massages his ego.
Member since:2005-07-08
As the saying goes, "it's the content, stupid!"
How about we start with a collaborative project to develop a free educational curriculum with textbooks, exercises, lesson plans, etc. under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license. If there were a comprehensive education available for consumption or derivation by anyone with a computer, then there would be a strong case for deploying computers in the developing world.
The Web is a great educational resource for the reasonably educated, but a child cannot learn by exploring Wikipedia. Children need a step-by-step program, and to my knowledge, this kind of resource doesn't exist on the Web in a libre/gratis form. I propose a UN-sponsored organization headed by professional educators from around the world to coordinate the distributed development of free and open primary and secondary curricula.
Member since:2005-12-02
"The Web is a great educational resource for the reasonably educated, but a child cannot learn by exploring Wikipedia. Children need a step-by-step program, and to my knowledge, this kind of resource doesn't exist on the Web in a libre/gratis form."
Actually there *is* lots of material out there. Do a search for home school curriculum. There are some sites that charge, yes. There are also plenty of sites that do not, and provide the material gratis to the parents that are teaching. So what you propose does already exist, though it could stand to be unified better.
Member since:
2005-08-17
"Stallman doesn't appear to actually give an acrobatic shit about learning, and sees OLPC as a vehicle for furthering his political agenda. It's shameful, the lot of it."
Learning can be viewed differently by different people.
Learning your times tables, geography etc. are all well and good but really learning is about learning to be able to learn for yourself, to learn to be interested in how things and other people work.
Using Free software means that the kids are more likely to be able to learn about software and how their computer works. The philosophy behind Free software also fosters a sense of community, learning about community is extremely important for young people, this is something that is sadly largely lacking in modern education.
To some degree programming is something that every computer user should know a little about. I've seen so many users waste so much time because they think that pointing and dragging a thousand times is the only way to get the job done.