In a message dated 7/17/06 7:15:28 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> This is all awesome and you are truly heading in fantastic directions - but > the context of discussion is $100 laptops distributed to school students in > less developed countries. I doubt that most of these kids (or their > teachers) will be diving into nanotechnology or the Lucas Foundation on > first receipt and comprehension of a hand-crank laptop. I also doubt the > proposed Wifi mesh network will eventuate within decades if at all (I live > in rural Australia where we have had WiFi and Mesh technologies for more > than a decade, yet the reality of coverage extending beyond 1 or 2% of the > landmass is still just a pipe-dream - the vast majority of Negroponte's > machines will be offline tools, not online - hence the relevance or > otherwise of online content will be meaningless to these kids and their > teachers for many years to come. > > Cheers, Don > > I am not hedging on just that machine. There are other devices and machines in the works. My friend Dave Hughes knows how to set up wonderful sets of infrastructure. And there is satellite. At this point we don't know the reality of the use of that machine, but we do know that it will create competition. ( the more the merrier...) Don, I ofthen work where there is dialup and I work where there is not much of anything .I know that there are uneven resources and that is the work that I do. I have never worked in rural Australia, but I have worked with Wendy Pye in New Zealand, in the beehive and in Maori schools. I think the point is that we have to help and extend a hand to people at whatever level that they are involved in. I will privately send you or anyone else who wants a copy of it the ICT book from the UN. I am doing a presentation for the AAAS in February a ninety minute symposium on Education in the developing countries and the global science web. I have just returned from Bad Bokelo, in the Netherlands after working with a wonderful group of teachers from Burkina Faso, Nigeria, the Gambia, South Africa, Zambia, Cameroons, Latvia, Lithuania, the Ukraine, Macedonia, Canada, Argentina, Egypt and so on, I have left out some of the countries, but I learned a long time ago that we have to help people at their level of connectivity. I have three people who have helped me to make connections around the globe Claude Almansi, Heba Ramzy, and Shafika Issacs Barden.. I don't often mention Andy, but he knows that I questioned him about the digital divide and what was the difference nationally and or internationally. He makes me think and the contacts here on the listserv help me frame ideas and solutions. I don't know all of the tech that Andy knows, but I realized that we are after the same goals we just have skills in different areas. Teachers love this listserv. There are many similarities in areas of need. Sometimes countries leapfrog using technology. I have a friend who helped to create wireless infrastructure in Mongolia. What we do is build and learn and understand what is possible and that is why I call it a learning landscape. Working in a school on my own with little technology was how I learned about computers. Working with other teachers on the Global Teenager Project, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Global Schoolhouse, or Thinkquest is a way to include global participation using whatever level of technology people have. One of the sites that I recently judged in Africa in the Thinkquest program was that of a student who biked 14 miles both ways when he had to upload information from his site to a school in San Diego. Some of the schools that I work with in Global Teenager Project don't have connectivity at all. The teacher uploads , and downloads the resources acting as mailman or woman. We do what we have to to make it work. I will send you the book separately. I don't make fun of teachers or the level of technology that anyone has. I have been there. Bonnie Bracey Sutton bbracey at aol com _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
