Patrice Riemens on Sat, 30 Mar 2013 04:13:59 +0100 (CET)


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<nettime> Aakash/OLPC critics and their discontents


Since I posted Akshat Rathi's op-ed piece in The Hindu on (against) Aakash
tablet and, by extention, the OLPC project, I think it's  fair to post
also the rejoinders that have come on the Bytes4All list (with possibly
more to come up, but interested readers may from now on follow it directly
on the Bytes4All list archive:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/
Cheers, p+4D!


Edward Cherlin:
Arrant nonsense.

I have refuted the absurd claims made about the Peru study many times.
Enemies of OLPC, of Free Software, and of the poor and oppressed
simply ignore the gains made in cognitive and computer skills by
children in Peru.

The remedy for not integrating computers with the curriculum is not
technology bashing, but getting on with integration. I like to ask, Do
you think that it is better to curse the darkness or to teach children
to make candles? I am writing some of the books on candle-making, and
recruiting others to do so, in the Sugar Labs program for Replacing
Textbooks, and at FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) Manuals. We
need schools of education to take on full-scale R&D on how to use
interactive digital textbook technology under Creative Commons
licensing to teach every school subject, and whatever else the
children need to be able to get and create jobs and build civil
society.

Computers now cost less than printed textbooks in all but the poorest
countries, the ones with the most inadequate textbooks. To the shame
of India, Bangladesh is now out ahead both on digitizing its textbooks
and on doing the work to design, build, and integrate into its schools
its national Doel computer.

And furthermore, shame, utter shame on this so-called advocate for
Free Software who does not want poor children to have access to it.

Satish Jha:
A truant chid on the street shouted against Mahatma Gandhi!
Those who have no contribution that is recognized by the people at the
frontiers of knowledge, either in technology or pedagogy, can shout what
they feel a gushed about with limited understanding of connecting the
dots. But what will be that worth?

The journalist who wrote in Hindu is like someone living in the plain old
telephone era commenting on telecommunication in the times of smartphones
and phablets. He will be puzzled, if not baffled.

The Hindu article writer did not showed little capability of connecting
the dots. Using third sources not knowing to read them can get one
published in equally intellectually challenged environments. That does nt
change the fact that the guy has little understand or experience of Olpc
as an approach.

Ask those who benefit from it.


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