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<DIV>What is significant here is Negroponte is giving, not taking away. Luna is
robbing Peter to pay Paul (who happens to have an educational software business
in Pennsylvania or with Jeb Bush in Fla.) I have no idea what will happen,
but think it might have some surprising results and I can’t really imagine any
negatives, other than how the program might be more effective with teacher
assistance. </DIV>
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<DIV>Sue H. </DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=rforce2003@yahoo.com
href="mailto:rforce2003@yahoo.com">Ron Force</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, December 14, 2011 9:20 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [Vision2020] Luna's not the only one</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
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<H1>I want to give poor children computers and walk away </H1>
<UL class=markerlist>
<LI>14 December 2011 by <A
href="http://www.newscientist.com/search?rbauthors=Vijaysree+Venkatraman"><B>Vijaysree
Venkatraman</B></A>
<LI>New Scientist Magazine issue <A
href="http://www.newscientist.com/issue/2842">2842</A>.</LI></UL>
<DIV id=artImg><IMG title="<i>(Image: William B. Plowman/AP/PA)</i>"
alt="<i>(Image: William B. Plowman/AP/PA)</i>"
src="http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/mg21228425.500/mg21228425.500-1_300.jpg">
<DIV class=lowlight><I>(Image: William B. Plowman/AP/PA)</I></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=infuse>Can tablet computers "parachuted" into remote areas transform
childhood learning, asks <B>Nicholas Negroponte</B>, the man behind One Laptop
per Child</DIV>
<DIV class=infuse><B>You'll helicopter computers into remote areas so the
children there can teach themselves to read and write. Where did the idea come
from?</B><BR>One Laptop per Child (OLPC), even after giving out nearly 3 million
laptops, is still criticised along the following lines: "Negroponte believes
that you can give a child a laptop and walk away." Whether I ever believed that
or not is now secondary. It became such a refrain that I finally asked myself
about a year ago: "What if you could?"</DIV>
<DIV class=infuse><B>When will this happen?</B><BR>A pre-pilot will start on 1
January 2012. Pre-pilot means that it will be small and there will be modest
human intervention just to see children's reactions in order to better design
the real, hands-off, dropping-out-of-the-sky format.</DIV>
<DIV class=infuse><B>How will you pick the sites?</B><BR>English has to be an
official language. So, learning to read and write in English has immediate local
and social value, as well as long-term economic value - in short, it will be a
passport to 21st-century skills. Villages in Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Liberia
are candidates. A pre-pilot will also happen in India. Right now, as
researchers, we know how kids learn English and do not yet want to deal with the
complexity of other languages.</DIV>
<DIV class=infuse><B>How will you know if this works?</B><BR>The experiment has
no human intervention. But that limitation does not exist when verifying and
testing results. At the end of the two-year-long experiment, researchers trained
in educational testing will go to the villages. The kids are not connected to
the internet but we are connected to them, so some data collection and
assessment will also happen remotely during the experiment.</DIV>
<DIV class=infuse><B>What about power and upkeep of the tablets?</B><BR>Power is
solar and by hand crank. With the OLPC laptops the kids could repair about 85
per cent of malfunctions. We designed it to be taken apart easily. In fact, I
had wanted to put a label on that said: "Warranty not valid until laptop is
tampered with." The tablets will be, yet again, more robust.</DIV>
<DIV class=infuse><B>What is your target audience?</B><BR>Five to 8-year-olds.
Since the software is really centred on early childhood and immersive for that
stage of life, they may be too babyish for older kids.</DIV>
<DIV class=infuse><B>What makes you optimistic that children can learn on their
own, with digital tools?</B><BR>There is provocative evidence from research.
Sugata Mitra, who is on our team, is famous for his <A
href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html"
target=nsarticle>hole-in-the-wall experiments</A>. Over the past decade, he
introduced the very first computer in a public space in remote villages across
India. Children, who had never seen a computer before, congregated around this
single machine and self-organised into learning communities to become
computer-literate, with no adult intervention. In fact, their proficiency in
computer literacy rivalled that of children who receive explicit instruction in
schools. My general optimism is that children can do anything and, if you ask
Sugata, collectively they seem to be able to. But I am really going into this
with an open mind. It is an experiment, and one outcome could be "no, they
cannot".</DIV>
<DIV class="artbx bxbg">
<H3 id=bx284255B1>Profile</H3>
<DIV><B>Nicholas Negroponte</B> is founder of the <A
href="http://one.laptop.org/" target=nsarticle>One Laptop per Child</A>
non-profit organisation and co-founded and directed the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology's Media Laboratory</DIV></DIV></DIV>
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