[DDN] Questions about the Hundred Dollar Laptop / One Laptop Per Child / X0-1 Project

[John Hibbs]

It would seem that ProjectEducate could educate us all with the 
outcome of this (which seems in contradiction to the post below?)

<http://www.project-educate.org/test/?q=blog/1>
>ProjectEducate is the recipient of 400 computers from the Montgomery 
>County Public School District through Teachers Without Borders.


What happened to the 400 computers? What were the benchmarks for goal 
achievement? Were they achieved?
Me? I like what my friend Tom Abeles had to say, though he failed to 
mention a favorite subject of mine -- use of conventional radio in 
the classroom. It seems to me that the combination of low cost 
broadcasting equipment, cybercafe's, telecenters, and community 
involvement by way of community radio -- that resources committed 
there would yield more than $100. laptops.
John Hibbs
http://www.bfranklin.edu/johnhibbs

At 10:00 AM -0400 5/14/07, ProjectEDUCATE wrote:
>Arthur,
>
>I run a tiny non-profit www.project-educate.org and  having been born 
>and raised in Africa, I could not agree with you more Arthur. I find 
>it hard to believe that people are pushing for this. In Zambia where 
>I come from, the average family survives on less than a dollar a day. 
>Now I know we hear this everyday and tend to deal with it in abstract 
>but what this means is on a daily basis families have to make the 
>decision whether to buy food or medication for one, whether to send a 
>child to school or provide basic necessities this is the harsh 
>reality of life not just in Zambia but the entire African continent.
>The idea that families or governments will have the resources to 
>invest in this is beyond me. The one way I see this happening is if 
>African governments are bullied into agreements that will force them 
>to spend resources on this for the benefit of venture capitalists.
>Another thing, even if we were to get this equipment into the hands 
>of our children, I am yet to hear of training for educators. Which is 
>critical to the successful implementation of any project. It is 
>almost as if it is being taken for granted that the technical skill 
>on the continent is as advanced as it is in the Western world. 
>Consider this, not too long ago we sent computers to Zambia and out 
>of 6 schools with about 200 teachers not a single one of them had 
>ever used a computer.(mind you this was in an urban area) Point being 
>made is before we can talk of ICT's in education or whatever, serious 
>thought and resources must be poured into training the educators. (I 
>get a kick out of envisioning African children running around with 
>these things) Then there is the issue of infrastructure, where will 
>these things be housed? Are children taking them home or leaving them 
>at school? If so, are these people willing to invest in building and/
>strengthening infrastructure?(most unlikely from my experience)
>
>Mbao.
>
>On May 11, 2007, at 11:18 PM, arthur richards wrote:
>
>>  On the surface it the so-called OLPC has been dressed as beneficial 
>>  to third world children and families, but have the proponents of 
>>  the initiative spared a thought for the following:
>>
>>    a) that the children being targeted for the initiative are mostly 
>>  going to be unable to pay school fees and hence do not and cannot 
>>  gain education. why would a sensible family spend $100 for a laptop 
>>  instead of using the funds to pay school fees and educate the child?
>>    b) Suppose 200 million african children could be provided with 
>>  these laptops. Who coughs up this $20 billion for the laptops? The 
>>  african continent cannot sustain $20 billion being etracted out of 
>>  the continent since none of the laptops are built in the continent 
>>  to provide employment. Indeed this amount represents hard earned 
>>  foreign currency which is being sucked out of the continent. The 
>>  economic disadvantages of buying the laptops makes them grossly 
>>  unsuitable for a poor continent like africa.
>  >   c) Who is going to be responsible for maintaining the laptops? 
>>  How much will the bill for spare parts or replacements amount to?
>>
>>    In my view from the African perspective, what the african child 
>>  needs first is ability to be educated normally like every other 
>>  child in the West. They need those who can pay their school fees 
>>  and $100 will support this for more than a couple of years.
>>
>>    I think the OLPC is a business strategy and a new front for 
>>  globalisation - aimed at increasing the sale of computers, 
>>  software, network devices and foreign content to third world 
>>  countries and at the same time impoverishing them beyond where they 
>>  are now.
>>
>>    How will the proponents of the OLPC initiative address these issues?
>>
>>    Arthur
>>
>>  Deborah Elizabeth Finn <deborah_elizabeth_finn at post.harvard.edu> 
>>  wrote:
>>    Dear Digital Divide Network Colleagues,
>>
>>  The Ethos Roundtable (of which I am a co-convener) is hosting a
>>  presentation on the One Laptop Per Child project on May 15th.
>>
>>  More details can be found here:
>>
>  > "One Laptop Per Child: How is this going to work?"
>>