Greetings,
I have been part of this discussion group for a long time but have not written to the group previously. As an educator and researcher (ethnographer) who is exploring ways that new technologies are taken up and used by students and teachers as resources in and out of school contexts, I resonate with Ross Gardler's argument.
The traditional model would have us wait until we can deliver resources to a group (the well-evaluated programs). However, the alternative, which is something that the net itself represents, is to provide a open access resource. The voice part of the simputer and the handwriting part make it possible for those with literate practices that are based in oral language to participate in a written print world. The simputer makes it possible to understand what people who have them and use want to know, need for their daily lives, and what types of resources might be developed to address these needs. This approach begins with the life world of the people and responds to this with resources that can lead to new programs for the simputer.
The development of the simputer makes access to complex information accessible in distant places. It also offers a unique opportunity to explore further community based literacy needs as well as what those using the computer want to know and need for their daily lives. Literacy practices will arise from these needs and from the dynamic system. It will be the responsibility of those of us concerned with access and equity to understand the literate practices, or what Luis Moll calls, funds of knowledge, of the communities. Pre-defined practices may also be needed but may not be used in ways anticipated. With the development of this computer, we have a unique opportunity to explore new ways that literacy can and will be developed. It will also provide new insights into how literacy practices are developed for community needs, and then to examine how these intersect with more traditional schooled literacy practices.
For those interested in how children are using existing games and programs in alternative and innovative ways (ways not supported by the schools), and how they are creating new literacy practices, I recommend a new book by James Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. This is part of a new approach to understanding literacy called New Literacy Studies.
I would be interested in knowing what types of research and documentation of use will be undertaken as these new resources become available in India.
Judith Green
At 5:04 PM +0100 3/29/05, Ross Gardler wrote:
Alfred Bork wrote:
There are half a dozen projects for producing cheap computers, including ones at MIT and Carnegie Mellon, most more interesting than the simputer. But none of them is based on any analysis of educational needs. I propose that we should delay such design until we have a sizable body of well evaluated learning material.
OK, let us forget the value of the Simputer in fields other than education (for example data collection in the Tsunami affected regions).
Let us also forget that the Simputer is here and in use today (unlike other efforts elsewhere).
Even forgetting these issues, should we reject the Simputer simply because there is no "sizable body of well evaluated learning material"? Do we need a "sizable body"?
I, like many others on this list have lived and worked in the developing world. I, like many others on this list, have experienced some of the needs found within the tiny part of the developing world we have personal experience of.
However, I do not believe that our limited experience of life in one part of the developing world gives us the right to claim that we know the answers - in fact we can rarely even claim to know the questions.
Even if we have lived in the developing world all our lives we would not know the answers for the developing world as a whole. The developing world is a very large place, with very different problems in each area. Even within a single country the differences in problems faced by the average person can be massive.
Given this fact I caution members of the Digital Divide Network to not fall prey to the mistaken belief that we will *ever* have a "sizable body of well evaluated learning materials", or any other materials for that matter. The developing world is a big place with many problems.
Please do not halt progress in one area whilst we wait for progress in another. Instead, examine what each tiny step can bring to the table, accept the limitations and work around them.
With this in mind what does the Simputer bring to our efforts?
It is my belief that the digital divide will not be closed by those who believe they "know" the answers. It will be closed by those who ask the right questions of the right people.
Note there are three important parts in that last sentence: "ask", "right questions" and "right people".
Many of us are asking questions.
Those of us asking questions rarely ask the right ones because we start from our developed world position of "knowing" the solutions - we are looking for somewhere to apply our solutions rather than looking to understand the problems.
Those asking the right questions often cannot ask them of the right people due to the Digital Divide itself.
I welcome the Simputer, complete with all its imperfections. It is precisely what we need in our efforts to open communication lines with the very people we should be working *with* in order to develop Alfreds "sizable body of well evaluated learning materials".
Ross
PS. this mail is written with acknowledgment to Earl Mardle (http://kn.com.au/2005/03/shameless_self_.html#more ) who, in a fleeting visit to the UK took the time out to point into words what I had inadvertently been doing all along
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