Why does a laptop prevent children from working together? I would argue
that an affordable, real laptop with useful features would be an
incredible boon to community technologists. Firstly, because community
networking, via laptop or desktop, is still networking between members
of a community...meaning that it is a collaborative process instead of
an alienating one.
Secondly: In poorer regions all over the world, laptops have potential
as mobile telecommunications equipment, with or without an internet
connection. If a nonprofit in India wishes to go out and teach basic
digital literacy in a village, how do they do it? Villagers are not
going to travel many miles every day for this learning, no matter how
motivated they are (it is simply impossible, for most of them), and yet
to relocate to their village means that your work is suddenly limited in
scope to that one village, and perhaps a few closely neighboring ones.
Your literacy programs are succeeding, because your educators travel to
where the programs are most needed and make it possible for people to
take part, and your travelling theater program and women's empowerment
programs and everything else all report similar success, based on a
similar mobility.
Your digital literacy program, by comparison, is firmly anchored in your
center, inaccessible and unavailable to all but those who live closest
to you. How do you address this problem, if not with affordable,
sustainable portable computing technologies? Even if you did convert and
use television equipment, your grassroots efforts targetting the poorest
of the poor would still be doomed to fail, or at least crippled in
scope, for lack of mobility. If you are attempting to reach a
geographically spread out population, and cannot afford to simply set
up, staff, and maintain a computing center in every physical location,
perhaps there is a gap that is perfectly filled with the concept of a
mobile computing facility. And a mobile computing facility becomes more
readily available as an option to budget-conscious nonprofits as the
cost of mobile telecommunications equipment comes down.
D.
-------------------
Dave A. Chakrabarti
Projects Coordinator
CTCNet Chicago
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(708) 919 1026
-------------------
Cindy Lemcke-Hoong wrote:
Hello Ken,
The bottom line is that people value most the
things that cost them most
I cannot agree more! Recently I VOLUNTERED and
set up an online workshop for a group of
teachers in China. Out of the 7 agreed to
beta test the program, ONLY 2 made any effort to
register, AND not a single one did any postings
as required for the class. I am sure if they had
to pay for the training, they would have been
there.
Actually the price tag is what 'the seller' try
to impress the world. Personally I am not looking
at price-tag, but how useful is giving something
to someone that might be completely useless
because of issues such as infrastructures, training
, tech support etc. etc. etc.
Most of all how many really need a full-features
lap-top? A telecenter such as what you/HP provides
makes a lot more sense. Remember 'the water cooler'?
The real business world try to bring people together
to share knowledge, and here we are giving each
child a lap-top and deprive them the opportunities
to work together.
Cindy
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
=============
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