[geeks] One (Windows) Laptop Per Child

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Mike Meredith <very at zonky.org>
>Date: 2006/09/29 Fri PM 03:36:26 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] One (Windows) Laptop Per Child

>On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 10:10:35 -0500 (CDT), Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> case) and WiFi (again, USB device inside case). It has a power brick,
>> Fast Ethernet, and no hand-crank or Play Skool colors.
>> 
>> Estimated prices fluctuate between $250-400, based on qty.
>
>There's no hand-crank on the OLPC and "Play Skool" colours would seem to
>be an advantage for the target market. And 2-4 times the cost is too
>much. 

Are you assuming that OLPC is aimed at Pre and First-year students? What about all the other children in school? And regarding price, the price-point of the laptop is most certainly the smallest part of the investment, esp. if there is no curriculum ready to use...

>> Seems like a decent idea - it allows schools to build on existing
>> WinXP software base, not rely on third-party software developers to
>> create software for it, and it has usefulness in so-called first-world
>
>It is both an advantage (existing software) and a disadvantage (o/s
>built with adults in mind, traditional s/w bloat). Of course using WinXP
>does mean much software is licensed at additional cost.

Why - can't Open Software be run on WinXP? A tremendous amount of free (as in beer) software is available for WinXP systems. And bloat is somewhat reduced by using Embedded WinXP (a cut-down version of WinXP).

>> countries with wired and WiFi networking.
>
>Of course the P2P mesh network of the OLPC has advantages even in a
>disconnected island, and connectivity isn't impossible. Mind you I
>suspect teachers might not be so enthusiastic about teaching a classful
>of children playing with their mesh :)

As long as the teacher can over-ride/take control of all laptops in a classroom, the P-2-P or WiFi networking would allow for everyone to see what the teacher sees.

>I don't see a problem with either being successful ... choice is good. 

Agreed.

>> Personally I think folks are way to excited about the OLPC from
>> MIT/Negroponte - 
>
>Quite probably. Still it's the enthusiasm driving this forward.

But I think it aims too low, aiming for what others have decided is "good enough" - I think the REAL problem will be user edcation to know what is right and what is wrong when they see it "on the web" and how not to get taken advantage of...
 
>> it is a PDA, and it embodies what I call "good-enough
>> (for you) engineering", 
>
>I'm not sure I'd call it a PDA ... more a 'work slate'. And what is
>wrong with a PDA anyway ? Key question is, can you do useful stuff with
>it ? I don't see why not ... useful stuff was done on AppleII's, BBC
>micros (in fact some demonstration software written for a 32Kbyte BBC
>was still running on PCs in 1998), etc. 

If they called it One PDA Per Child, it would not have gone over so well - but by calling it a computer, many people think that families in the third world will have something remotely similar to the $500-1,500 dell computer they have in their den hanging on a broadband connection.

>> I can't think of many school districts in
>> America that would consider spending the $100-150 price for one of
>> those laptops... An argument could be made that for $400 you could buy
>
>Some in education are obsessed with teaching tools that are compatible
>with mainstream IT. The problem with this, is that once the child leaves
>school, mainstream IT will have moved on from what he/she was using 5
>years ago. Using Windows to teach IT has *some* advantages, but a
>pure teaching appliance has no real need for compatibility (except for
>the possibility of using existing software of course).

My local school district uses Macs, some that are quite old - my fear is that they overdose on what is "current" and then sit on it until it is worthless (in relative terms, we all know computers don't get slower over time), then they overload on "current" systems. Adding to this problem is that they finance it over a period of time that may exceed the useful life of the computer purchased.


>> There aren't that many schools in the US or elsewhere (public OR
>> private) that deploy laptops widely, and many folks seem to think that
>> the third-world should just roll over and adopt a solution we've never
>> really tried ourselves.
>
>Perhaps we should have. Actually to a limited extent, the UK did. The UK
>school IT market was for many years dominated by the BBC micro, and
>Acorn's replacement for that ... the ARM based machines. This was whilst
>IBM-compatibles were coming to dominate the rest of the IT market.
>Whilst this wasn't laptops, it does demonstrate that a non-mainstream
>computer can be useful in education. And didn't the US education have a
>similar position with the AppleII after the IBM-compatibles dominated
>the mainstream ?

The hard work is the integration, and by the way, the BBC computers (IIRC) were supported by "how to use them" shows on the BBC, and if I'm not mistaken, when the government got in bed with a computer maker, it was bound to be successful...

>> .. I think the Indian Education Minister was
>> right in rejecting the OLPC initiative - he feels there are other
>> priorities in the Indian educational system, and I trust his
>> judgement.[0]
>
>Perhaps he was right, but it is interesting to note that India now has a
>$10-per laptop initiative :-
>
>http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2029816.cms

That fargin' site opened up three or four browser windows on my PC, one of which percolates to the top as the page refreshes... ARGH!

Lionel