[geeks] $100 One Laptop Per Child - grist for the mill

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2006, John Francini wrote:

> But they can be taken care of in addition to the educational needs of
> the kids.  Dvorak's missing the point here: these laptops can store
> on them the books and study materials of an entire primary and
> secondary school education on them without breaking a sweat.

Dvorak's idea of "education" is throwing web browsers at kids and
letting them use copy-and-paste to assemble "content" like reports.  He
goes into this viewpoint in great detail in a rant of his regarding
colleges cracking down on services that sell term papers.  You'd think
he'd be completely behind OLPC, unless he were, as usual, writing for
effect.

I've long regarded Dvorak as the print equivalent of a stand-up comedian
trying to break into satire.  He occasionally has a good point, but it's
usually as an aside instead of his main thesis.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke  ) "Some people grow out of the petty theft of
Elgin, TX         (   childhood.  Others grow up to be CEOs and
USA                )  politicians."              --Forrest Black