On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 03:05, Jan Visser <[email protected]> wrote: > Wayne and Kirby (others?), > > I agree regarding OLPC and the (limited) practice emerging from it. It’s a > different use of the technology than what’s normally being done. Papert’s > work from a long time ago is, I assume, still an inspiration for those > alternative uses. It’s therefore different also from the underlying > philosophy of WE and most OER initiatives.
Seymour Papert, Alan Kay, Doug Engelbart, Jerome Bruner, and many others, not only from their roots 40 years ago, but from work that they have continued to do ever since. (In Seymour Papert's case, up until the brain damage from being run down by a motorcycle during an education conference in Vietnam.) How do you see the difference in philosophies? > I took a look at the freedom toaster. I’m not sure if I understood the > concept well. How is this different from just building your own computer or > acquiring one built by others and having it at an affordable price, loading > it with whatever you want to load it with? I’m thinking of places where I > worked in remote regions in the DRC. Schools with nothing. Stones for kids > to sit on; a piece of blackened scrap wood to write on as a chalk board; > teachers and students with no access whatsoever to even the most basic > sources of information; no electricity supply, except for the occasional > portable generator if at all. Preloaded OERs would have to be transported > with the device that contains them from wherever there is a possibility to > upload them (the nearest village or small town with (irregular) Internet > access and basic electricity supply to where they are actually needed. That > may involve someone having to walk for half a day, carrying some small > device, like an iPod, with all the stuff on it and requiring no more than a > photovoltaic charger or something of that kind to run it. An iPod-sized > screen may not be ideal for reading, but it may work. Somewhat larger > devices (Archos, electronic book readers) might do a better job. The OLPC XO is currently the best and least expensive book reader for such environments, when you include its revolutionary screen technology, ruggedness, extremely low power requirements, and other such design elements. > Content must be thought of having the available technology in mind. If > reading extensive documents from a small screen is not an option and > printing out documents is also impossible, audio perhaps is a possibility. > Or audio files enhanced with sketchy verbal and graphic information. Sugar Labs is working on multi-language text-to-speech conversion. > Surprisingly or not, cell phones—shared by many—are in those circumstances > often more likely to be found than any other piece of transportable > hardware. If they are of the kind that is capable of uploading and playing > songs, their memory capacity could also be used for uploading learning > resources in audio format. Just an idea. My main point is that circumstances > vary widely and there has been little progress so far in preparing the local > environment to be able to explore creatively the (limited) technological > resources available. From what I have seen of it, OLPC is possibly one of > the global initiatives best placed to foster such development at the local > level. Particularly when coupled with renewable electricity, broadband Internet, and microfinance. > Thoughts? > > > > Jan > > > > -- > > Jan Visser, Ph.D. > > President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute > > E-mail: [email protected] > > Check out: http://www.learndev.org and http://www.facebook.com/learndev > > Blog: http://jvisser-ldi.blogspot.com/ [snip] -- Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. http://www.earthtreasury.org/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
