Comments on: $100 laptop is not a pencil

By: David

David — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:09:35 +0000

I’ve just noticed that I never got around to posting here about the OLPC blog I’m posting on. OLPC News. If you want to find out anything more about OLPC, please keep read it. We’re not official or anything, but the OLPC guys appear to read us pretty regularly.

By: Mwenye Nchi

Mwenye Nchi — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 11:49:28 +0000

I must admit I have only vaguely heard about the olpc project before I wondered to this post. I have heard of the Ndiyo initiative though and think its fantastic. OLPC does seem poorly thought out, like bitter medicine forced down one’s throat to fix a slight cough.
About the ketchup, Peptang is probably as good as it gets down there. I know you could get Heinz in a good store in Nairobi. Try the Sarit Centre or Muthaiga Mini Market.

By: Ntwiga

Ntwiga — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 19:27:47 +0000

Just found your blog from a link: my 2 cents if I may weigh in.

I pretty much missed this piece (or pieces) covering the idea that the laptop is as important as a pencil for learning. While I do not doubt for a second that this paradigm will be valid at some point in the future, this does not alter the fact that its all hot air right now. The OLPC is a great idea but the FUD being used to sell it is not.

Keep the posts coming.

You might also want to check out White African’s site, he also keeps tabs on the OLPC project.

- Steve

By: wayan

wayan — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 21:13:55 +0000

David,

Seymour Papert wrote the WashPost article and he is a founding member of OLPC http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Seymour_Papert No small leap then to see his “shared pencil” idea on the OLPC Wiki.

By: David

David — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 18:48:20 +0000

Wayan, to be honest, I’m amazed that no one else has picked apart this tissue thin metaphor Negroponte trots out in order to rationalise OLPC.

If OLPC succeeds, it will represent one of the most profound revolutions in learning practice anywhere on the planet. It really must be thought through thoroughly. The wiki link you list above just compounds the idiocy by taking a metaphor and creating a hypothesis around it.

What’s even wierder is that the pencil=computer metaphor seems to come from a ten year old article about the introduction of computers into US schools. The “foobarian” hypothesis dates back to a 1996 article in the Washington Post Education Review. Clearly it didn’t set the world alight when it was written, so why flog its dead carcass now?

Its utter twaddle.

BTW, your OLPC blog is great. Atanuu Dey’s commentary about the OLPC is wonderful. I was starting to compose a comment on his blog, but I got a bit nervous and chickened out; my concerns seemed banal compared to his sharp insight…