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

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Sat, Nov 18, 2006 at 01:57:39PM -0600, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
> 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 think it's reasonable to assume the people who have $100 laptops
won't have Internet access. 

On the other hand a centrally located file server which provides programs,
music, news, educational material etc would be a big boost.

Imagine what the equivalent of a copy of any of the ROM encyclopedia
and project Gutenberg, especially if they were in the local language
would do, even if it were available for only 4 hours a day.

If you have kids in school, ask them to find out how many books they have
in their school library. How many encyclopedias, how many dictionaries,
how much of it is fiction, how much is biographies and how much is general
non fiction. How much would this be a gziped text or HTML files?

Changing the subject, think of how much better the residents of 
Jericho Kansas would be if they had the microfiche equivalent of
what I am talking about, complete with books on engineering, farming,
etc.

Geoff.


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