Atanu Dey writes an interesting piece regarding use of laptops/internet in the education and the OLPC.
http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/06/07/laptops-and-learning/ Question: would we have become better educated if we had access to laptops and the internet? Arguably yes. At least some of us would have had a richer educational experience. Strictly speaking for myself, I would have probably flunked. I would have surfed the web for god alone knows what, I would have played computer games (I once spent an entire year playing Solitaire on my laptop), I would have wasted all my time socializing on the web. In short, I am grateful that I got access to the internet only after my basic education was complete. Even now, as a grown up and presumed responsible person, I find that my work suffers when I start surfing the web. I am sure that if my internet privileges are not restricted, I will probably never finish the work I am supposed to do and I fear that I will get fired. He also questions if schemes like OLPC work effectively. I agree with his stuffs that laptops cannot be thought as effective enablers in early education of humans. But OLPC is something I have been interested all these days. Do you think it works in third world/ developing countries ? Is technology necessary in early education of the children ? Pour your insights. -- Bharat Shetty | http://freeshell.in/~codo
