1st children get their 'OLPC' laptops
Mikey 1 comment
Many said it wouldn't happen and even I will admit to a slight skepticism when the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project was first announced in January 2005.
It's not that I didn't want it to happen, but Nicholas Negroponte's idea despite being noble also seemed unattainable to many, and his critics were plentiful.
For the uninitiated, the OLPC goal is to provide children in underdeveloped countries with a laptop, offering them "opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves."
Well the moderately specced custom built laptops are now in the hands of some children at last. And seeing them does bring on a case of the warm and fuzzies.
You can see more videos on OLPC.TV, and find out more about the OLPC project at the official web site.
Rob O.
Tuesday 14th August 2007 | 06:07 PMOur society has developed a cavalier & overzealous emphasis on pushing computers on kids. Don't kids need time to learn how to interact with the real world & develop social skills first? And even beyond that, we're certainly not seeing any strong evidence that exposure to computers has magically equated to better learning or life for children in the U.S.
So do Third-World children need $150 notebook PCs or would we be wiser to instead spend that money on medicine, water infrastructure, renewable food crops, or basic book-based educational needs? Just imagine the lives that could be spared if we spent even a portion of that on educating & providing preventative measures for sexually transmitted diseases to impoverished children in these other countries...
I'm not saying we should deny these kids access to technology - I'm suggesting that we shouldn't make it a priority over helping them to develop more basic, life-sustaining infrastructures.